I think I actually side with the firefighters on this one. I don't care about the "Be a decent human being nonsense" -- that isn't how this works. So what, they pay the 75 bucks and then everyone goes "Oh hey no need to pay the fire fee, we'll just pay if we get our house set on fire! :D" and then hey wow fire department hits a massive budget deficit. Perhaps if this was the first time this happened in a long time, they could accept the fee and make a big deal out of it and say "NEVER AGAIN" but even then, people probably wouldn't find out because not as big of a deal would be made out of it. Even if you charged something crazy to put out the fire, but even that can fuck things up. It's a tough decision.
As a human being, the urge is to help. I'm betting all the firefighters on the scene WANTED to put out the fire. But this is why adminstration exists -- to kill people's dogs keep policy in line because thats important to the survival of the fire department. Now anyways that said, while I think the decision was rational (I'd be more happy if they helped and tried to be clearer about this to everyone but who knows how difficult that would be). As for the cop example, it's not the same. Cops all work directly for the government and local powers and have a civic duty. Sometimes this is true for firefighters, sometimes the fire department is completely privatized. It's Apples and Oranges. In this case the fire department was contracted out of their town. If anything it's the town of origin's town for not just raising taxes a bit. Some would argue that it could be a person's right not to pay -- and if so, this is a result. Still, if there is any issue, in my opinion, is that the system is set up in a way where things like this can occur. You can't just give out free services. You can play the humanity card all you want, but shit does not work that way. So the only recourse is to either have the town pay for everyone and make it up in taxes or just deal with stuff like this.
Alternatively you could have the fire department harass the crap out of you about how dumb it is not to pay if you haven't paid. That'd be good too. But still, while stuff like this tugs at the heartstrings, that masks the reality of the situation.