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Tennessee Man Gets $19,000 Bill for Firefighting Operations
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - A Knox County man whose house caught fire in January has received a $19,000 firefighting bill.
WVLT-TV reported Chris Curl was flabberghasted at the charge, but Rural/Metro Fire Chief Jerry Harnish says such charges are common.
The station reported Curl lives outside Knoxville city limits. The company contracts for emergency services within the city. People who live outside of it can subscribe for fire protection, but Curl said he had no idea he had to pay for it.
Rural/Metro says it responds to calls from non-subscribers as a matter of public safety.
Insurance covers fire damage to Curl's home, but not the bill for firefighting.
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Information from: WVLT-TV, http://www.volunteertv.com/
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
WVLT-TV reported Chris Curl was flabberghasted at the charge, but Rural/Metro Fire Chief Jerry Harnish says such charges are common.
The station reported Curl lives outside Knoxville city limits. The company contracts for emergency services within the city. People who live outside of it can subscribe for fire protection, but Curl said he had no idea he had to pay for it.
Rural/Metro says it responds to calls from non-subscribers as a matter of public safety.
Insurance covers fire damage to Curl's home, but not the bill for firefighting.
___
Information from: WVLT-TV, http://www.volunteertv.com/
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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As the county fire contractor, Rural/Metro has the full authority given to the local AHJ in state law, just as any municipal, county, volunteer, or other lawfully-authorized fire department has in Tennessee.
There is no evidence that any private fire department has ever participated in arson for profit.
That speculation has no basis in fact.
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You are exactly correct, Oldman - it isn't any different than the way Rural/Metro provides EMS. In Knox County, they are the county provider for fire and EMS, and they're also the Knoxville city contractor for EMS.
Knoxville has a career municipal FD.
Knox County also has an excellent volunteer rescue squad.
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Permalink Reply by zack on
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Gary,
A f/d can be legally responsible for poor performance. it is called OSHA in Michigan. Also the homeowner could file a lawsuit if the fire proceeded when it could have been prevented.
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Permalink Reply by Jack/dt on
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Other than the "business model" type of operation, how is this any different from tax payer supported fire departments? One pays their tax bills which supports their local government including their fire department. Failure to pay one's taxes means that a lien is placed on the property. If the property is sold the lien must first be payed off, thus that taxpayer's tax liability is paid off. (Or, the property is taken and sold off with proceeds going to the taxes owed.)
Since this is not a 'donations supported' volunteer fire department and the fire was outside the jurisdiction of the department, someone has to pay for the expenses. Should it be just an additional cost to those that are either required or choose to support that department?
I'm willing to bet that this home owner very well knew of his option to subscribe and choose not to, either under the illusion that his insurance would cover it or that he would naturally be covered regardless. As an example, where I live garbage pickup is mandatory and is part of the association fees. Failure to pay it means your garbage is still picked up (health issues) but a lien will be placed on your house for the taxes. Betting that your house won't ever burn down is a suckers bet and this homeowner found that out the hard way.
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To cite an attorney/EMS chief from an unrelated topic on JEMS.Connect, in order to prove negligence, there are four components to the suit..."duty, breach, injury, causation".
If there is no duty for the fire department to act, then there is no possibility that they breached a duty that did not exist, any injury that resulted can't possibly be the fire department's legal responsibility, and ergo, there is no causation.
In this case, Rural/Metro had no duty to act, so the rest of any potential lawsuit is moot.
It is unlikely that this would make it into court at all.
Further, the fire could have been prevented...by the homeowner, but not by the fire department.
Even if Michigan OSHA somehow has the right to regulate firefighting practices, they certainly don't have the right to determine a Tennessee FD's business model or billing rates.
Lastly, OSHA enforces industrial safety rules and regulations. They have no legal authority to force a fire department to even respond to a non-subscriber's fire, let alone fight it. If the fire department does that, as R/M did in the Knox County case, they not only fought the fire, they extinguished it. No allegation of poor performance was made. The only issue is billing for the cost of the firefighting after the fact. No OSHA agency in the country has the authority to set private, subscription FD billing rates for non-subscribers.
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Permalink Reply by GARY HANSON on
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But you are comparing apples and oranges. Most EMS charges are covered by either personal medical insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.
Just compare the F/D cost you listed and then with that statistical base estimate how much better a city like Shreveport, pop. 300000, does with their tax based monies compared to Knox Co with 600000 population trying to run a multi million dollar operation on subscriptions. Shreveport's funding comes out of the city budget with a millage allocated to the F/D. This department fields 620 employees with a $45 million dollar budget.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Dudan on
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Shreveport's funding comes out of the city budget...
Gary you answered your own question. If I understand correctly, Knox Co. fire protection services are provided by a Private, for profit, organization. No funding for these services comes from local taxes, opposite of the case you described in Shreveport. Therefore, taxes are (most likely) lower in Knox County than in Shreveport because the government will not have to worry about collecting taxes to give to fire and EMS agencies.
It is an unfortunate situation for the homeowner and additional burdon now in his life, but that is how things fall sometimes.
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Richmond on
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After checking Rural/Metros website I find this to be a pretty interesting company. I feel that most of us are not aware as to the fact that they have been in business for over 50 yrs or as to how big Rural/Metro is and how many communities, both large and small they serve. It looks to me as if the billing situation is a result of the contract that is in place with the local government and therefore I would assume that it is in fact legitimate. It also looks like Rural/Metro responded as a matter of public safety.
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Rural/Metro runs a combination career/volunteer fire operation in Knox County, with a lot of their manpower being volunteers. Knox County has a large suburban area and quite a bit of rural area with low population density, farms, etc. Rural/Metro doesn't post their annual operating budget for Knox County fire operations, but they advertise providing services at "less cost", which translates to "lower taxes".
Shreveport FD is a fully-career department in a municipality that has no rural areas and chooses to fund the level of manpower it takes to maintain their ISO Class 1 rating.
Apples and oranges, but it's logical to assume that the fire tax millage in Knox County is much lower than the equivalent in Shreveport. Shreveport FD's annual operating budget is 47 million dollars
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There's no doubt that Rural/Metro's business model and Knox County EMS and Fire contracts are completely legit.
I'm not a fan of Rural/Metro's business model, because it is advertised as being able to provide the same level of services as a fully-career equivalent, which it can't do anywhere that has either a high call volume and/or concentration of calls.
You do indeed get what you pay for. In Knox County's case, you can't either pay the subscription fee, you can roll the dice and hope that you don't have a fire, or you can move somewhere that has a department where everyone subsidizes the people whose houses and business burn.
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