I was under the impression that the fire departments were funded by state and local taxes. Its ludicrous to have to pay a $20K bill for firefighting services if their services are funded by by taxes. If there were no fire protection services in his particlar part of the woods and a private company provided these “services” I could maybe see how this happened but that fee is ridiculous. Its really blackmail of the worst sort. It would be like a physician turning to you and saying my fee for the heart transplant just went from 50K to 200K while asking you what you want to do in the middle of a heart attack. It just ain’t right. And why does EVERTHING have to be about money these day? I don’t think common
I know that you may find this hard to believe but in life you get what you pay for. The homeowner didn’t want to pay for fire protection. One of hard lessons of life. But on the bright side, most likely the fire company will accept whatever payment his homeowners insurance company will pay.
By the way, Question: what is stopping that particular homeowner from forming his own fire company to protect his neck of the woods?
Answer: nothing.
“I was under the impression that the fire departments were funded by state and local taxes.”
Unfortunately, no. Many backwards liberal areas are pay-for-services. Homeowners are sent mailing for this private firefighting as local government do not provide services. Any normal person would see a fire station down the street and assume firefighting is a community paid service. Some localities even grant exclusive rights to these private fire companies.