The fire departments in my state always send a fire truck with the ambulance. They say that they do not know when responding to an emergency if the paramedics will need help extracting someone, etc. I think that this is BS. My wife called for an ambulance when a child in the neighborhood was bitten by a dog. She told 911 that the dog was taken inside by the owner. Nevertheless, they sent the fire truck with the ambulance which clogged up the cul de sac so the ambulance couldn’t get through to the child. Personally, I just think they do it to be able to charge insurers the additional expense.
Sounds like what fire departments used to do in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. They kept lists of who paid their fees in advance, and if you didn’t pay, they didn’t respond. We take 1 step forward and 6 backwards.
The notion of responder fees is crap. I pay my sales tax, my local tax, my state tax, and my property tax. How is it that these services are not covered? The fact municipalities have to charge a fee because they cannot manage their budgets is an outrage.
We had a fire on our property that was burning in a strong wind, but was about 3 feet square. The fire department truck arrived soon after but did not immediately direct the water to the fire. The fire spread quickly and the water was then directed to the fire, but they ran out of water. A second fire truck was called in, but they couldn’t get it working. They ran water hoses for 350 feet down the hill rather than going up closer to the fire, but they had a problem with that, too. The fire chief finally got the second hose working, but again did not direct the water to the fire which was not really spreading quickly and burning very hot. The fire chief got his own bulldozer to move the logs, but had trouble doing it. So they called in a second bulldozer that also had trouble in moving the logs. I asked the fire chief if I could use my tractor with a front end loader to move the logs so that the fire could go not further, but he refused. After a few more hours they began to calm the fire down and eventually put it out.
The fire chief charged me $100/hour for his labor in using his bulldozer plus another $100 for moving the bulldozer to my property which is across the street from his property. the total bill ended up at $7,500 with most of it going to the fire chief.
If the fire chief had been competent, the fire could have been extinguished within 30 minutes. As it was, it took 5 hours. They said they would dig a hole and bury the remaining logs. They dug the hold but left the logs in several large piles. Since we live below the poverty level, this is a big bite out of my savings. The fire chief, however, is a multi-millionaire. You can see why.
The fire departments in my state always send a fire truck with the ambulance. They say that they do not know when responding to an emergency if the paramedics will need help extracting someone, etc. I think that this is BS. My wife called for an ambulance when a child in the neighborhood was bitten by a dog. She told 911 that the dog was taken inside by the owner. Nevertheless, they sent the fire truck with the ambulance which clogged up the cul de sac so the ambulance couldn’t get through to the child. Personally, I just think they do it to be able to charge insurers the additional expense.
Sounds like what fire departments used to do in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. They kept lists of who paid their fees in advance, and if you didn’t pay, they didn’t respond. We take 1 step forward and 6 backwards.
The notion of responder fees is crap. I pay my sales tax, my local tax, my state tax, and my property tax. How is it that these services are not covered? The fact municipalities have to charge a fee because they cannot manage their budgets is an outrage.
We had a fire on our property that was burning in a strong wind, but was about 3 feet square. The fire department truck arrived soon after but did not immediately direct the water to the fire. The fire spread quickly and the water was then directed to the fire, but they ran out of water. A second fire truck was called in, but they couldn’t get it working. They ran water hoses for 350 feet down the hill rather than going up closer to the fire, but they had a problem with that, too. The fire chief finally got the second hose working, but again did not direct the water to the fire which was not really spreading quickly and burning very hot. The fire chief got his own bulldozer to move the logs, but had trouble doing it. So they called in a second bulldozer that also had trouble in moving the logs. I asked the fire chief if I could use my tractor with a front end loader to move the logs so that the fire could go not further, but he refused. After a few more hours they began to calm the fire down and eventually put it out.
The fire chief charged me $100/hour for his labor in using his bulldozer plus another $100 for moving the bulldozer to my property which is across the street from his property. the total bill ended up at $7,500 with most of it going to the fire chief.
If the fire chief had been competent, the fire could have been extinguished within 30 minutes. As it was, it took 5 hours. They said they would dig a hole and bury the remaining logs. They dug the hold but left the logs in several large piles. Since we live below the poverty level, this is a big bite out of my savings. The fire chief, however, is a multi-millionaire. You can see why.