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[Cthulhu-chan]

They respond anyway to ensure that the fire doesn't get out of control and burn other people's property, who have presumably paid for the service.  Basically, they have to show up in case a house fire turns into a uncontrollable inferno.

[Shinra]

Yeah, but at the end of the day they still spent all the money they would have spent fighting a fire to come out and watch someone's house burn down.

The phrase "cutting off your nose to spite your face" comes to mind.

It's been said, but they should have just helped the lady and billed her for the full amount. If that's what they had done, we'd have a delightful slice of life comeuppance story about a person getting a six thousand dollar bill because they were too cheap to pay the 75 dollar insurance rather than an outrage piece about the fire department that extorts money out of the local citizenry and shows up to mock people whose homes are burning to the ground.

Through all this, the mayor just sounds like a bully, as does the fire chief. This is not the kind of image that public servants should be seeking out.

[Mongrel]

You know, I was reminded the other day that you guys have legislation in place (I'm sure we have something similar) that says doctors have to provided acute medical care in emergencies without regard to a person's ability to pay.

Now maybe that leads to some abuse, but there's two important facts that come to light there:

1) Society as a whole has pretty strongly agreed that a doctor standing around while a man bleeds to death fumbling for his empty wallet is a bad thing.

2) We still had to legislate this.

[Royal☭]

In the Colorado mountains, you can spend $70 a year on a subscription to a helicopter rescue service, or $10k after you get rescued because you didn't pay. There is never a scenario of "person is left to die on a mountaintop".

This is the same scenario that should play when someone's house is burning down. Whether they got paid or not, the fire department has an obligation to the well being of the community to put out the fire. It's an extra burden on the family and the surrounding families to just ignore a fire. And really, any fire chief who stands there and says "Do not put out the fire" to teach the family whose house is burning down a lesson is a colossal asshole and doesn't deserve to work in a field that involves saving lives.

[Dooly]

I wonder how many more instances of this it'll take before an enraged homeowner grabs one of the firefighters' axes and takes a chunk out of the nearest guy in uniform.

[Büge]

They could just pull a gun and demand that the firefighters save their house.

[Rico]

Or pay their fee, or start their own volunteer service ... maybe with help from federal subsidies. but no, they voted that down in '87 and why change a good system?

[Zaratustra]

If only we had a centralized institution to handle basic human necessities.