My goodness! Aren’t we all glad we don’t live in South Fulton! Saw this on the Yahoo page and wondered what the heck happened until I read the story. Seems that if you live outside of South Fulton and don’t pay the $75 yearly fire protection fee to the South Fulton fire dept. they won’t put a drop of water on your burning property or do anything unless a life is in danger. The Mayor of South Fulton defended his city’s position by pointing out that if they did go ahead and put out the fires of those who hadn’t paid the fee then there would be no incentive for folks to pay the fee that helps with the up keep and maintenance of the city’s fire equipment. I’m guessing it also goes a way’s toward paying the firefighters, their health insurance and other such as well.
Believe it or not that’s the way a lot of fire departments were set up back when they were first being organized. Later the insurance companies got in on the deal to. In fact those insurance companies actually funded some of the fire brigades and those brigades were not allowed to fight fires on property NOT insured by their ‘boss’. Back then a lot of commercial buildings especially, had big emblems painted or bolted on them to indicate which insurance company covered them and thus, which fire brigade could save them.
Later someone got the idea of paying fire brigades for fighting fires. Then you’d have the sight of two or even three different and competing fire brigades showing up at a fire and fighting each other rather than the fire! But that was then and South Fulton is, thankfully, THERE!
Here in Hunt County we have several all volunteer fire Departments as well as two different paid departments. One of which is in Greenville and the other in Commerce. The department in Commerce is aided by the Commerce Emergency Corp which is also an all volunteer group. There are even volunteer fire departments in neighboring counties that will respond into Hunt County if one of the Hunt County Departments needs help or, for some reason can’t respond themselves.
Some of you may ask: “And just what would keep an all volunteer department from responding to a fire or medical emergency call!” Not, thankfully, that you didn’t pay your fire fees! Not here! Here the problem is often simple man (or woman!) power. Here, depending on the time of the incident, there just might not be any one in town who can respond! The members of the various fire departments, being volunteers, must also work for a living as well as do other things like mow the lawn, do the dishes, cook supper, take the kids to school, go to school functions, go shopping or even, just kick back and enjoy a well earned beer. Now, if they’ve just taken one sip of that beer and a call comes in, they can’t respond! That is for their and your safety! Then there is the problem caused by the fact that most folks work on first shift. That means there are few folks handy for anything during those hours. Just those who are off work for some reason, work for themselves, don’t have a job, or work on second or third shift.
“Say!” you may think about now. “What’s the alternative opinion in this article?” Well, It’s not really alternative at all, I suppose.My opinion is that it would really be nice if we had some second or third shift workers on the Lone Oak Fire Department. Heck, retirees who are still active enough to get out there and beat down a grass fire would be good to!
Of course if finding out about the South Fulton fire department makes you feel like maybe you should send some cash to your local volunteer fire department. I’m sure they’d appreciate the donation. It’d sure help pay for gas to get to any emergency's.
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