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Tennessee Firefighters Let Home Burn Over Subscription Issue
JASON HIBBS
WPSD
Reprinted with Permission
OBION COUNTY, Tenn. - Imagine your home catches fire but the local fire department won't respond, then watches it burn. That's exactly what happened to a local family tonight.
Related
- WPSD: Firefighters Watch as Home Burns to the Ground
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- USAToday: Firefighters watch house burn because owner hadn't paid $...
- MSNBC: No pay, no spray: Firefighters let home burn
FireEMSBlogs.com Updates
A local neighborhood is furious after firefighters watched as an Obion County, Tennessee, home burned to the ground.
The homeowner, Gene Cranick, said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn't do anything to stop his house from burning.
Each year, Obion County residents must pay $75 if they want fire protection from the city of South Fulton. But the Cranicks did not pay.
The mayor said if homeowners don't pay, they're out of luck.
This fire went on for hours because garden hoses just wouldn't put it out. It wasn't until that fire spread to a neighbor's property, that anyone would respond.
Turns out, the neighbor had paid the fee.
"I thought they'd come out and put it out, even if you hadn't paid your $75, but I was wrong," said Gene Cranick.
Because of that, not much is left of Cranick's house.
They called 911 several times, and initially the South Fulton Fire Department would not come.
The Cranicks told 9-1-1 they would pay firefighters, whatever the cost, to stop the fire before it spread to their house.
"When I called I told them that. My grandson had already called there and he thought that when I got here I could get something done, I couldn't," Paulette Cranick.
It was only when a neighbor's field caught fire, a neighbor who had paid the county fire service fee, that the department responded. Gene Cranick asked the fire chief to make an exception and save his home, the chief wouldn't.
We asked him why.
He wouldn't talk to us and called police to have us escorted off the property. Police never came but firefighters quickly left the scene. Meanwhile, the Cranick home continued to burn.
We asked the mayor of South Fulton if the chief could have made an exception.
"Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer, either they accept it or they don't," Mayor David Crocker said.
Friends and neighbors said it's a cruel and dangerous city policy but the Cranicks don't blame the firefighters themselves. They blame the people in charge.
"They're doing their job," Paulette Cranick said of the firefighters. "They're doing what they are told to do. It's not their fault."
To give you an idea of just how intense the feelings got in this situation, soon after the fire department returned to the station, the Obion County Sheriff's Department said someone went there and assaulted one of the firefighters.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Herb, come on dude, stick to the facts.
It's been pointed out to you over and over by Jack, myself, and others that your speculation is not factual and that it has no place in the discussion.
The fire department DID the moral/ethical thing here. They provided the service to the neighbor with whom they had a legal contract and did not unfairly provide that service for free to the one whom intentionally did not subscribe.
What you advocate is rewarding cheating and unfairness and punishing the ones that play by the rules. That's bass-ackwards, and I'm shocked that you'd continue to be so advocate for rule-breaking and unfairness.
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...and the homeowner and his insurance company would laugh in your face and refuse to pay the fee.
The homeowner was too cheap to pay for a $75 subscription fee - he's not going to pay the suppression fee ex post facto.
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Not really. It isn't safe to assume that one can take a system from one place and make it work somewhere else.
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Permalink Reply by Karr Quintero on
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its hatfield and mccoys aint it?
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Permalink Reply by Herb Genelly III on
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The fact that you couldn't DO anything, versus being ordered to DO NOTHING, are two very different things. Does that even have to be pointed out?
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Permalink Reply by Kevin P. Milligan Jr. on
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So if I dont pay my car insurance and I total my car, it still the responsibility of the insurance company to pay my claim?? or tell them now ill pay after I wrecked the car?? Yea I dont think so. i dont see that one going anywhere. They did what they were told to do, bottom line. Moraly wrong? Sure. However the ones that are above us black helmets are the ones that make the decisions, chain of command is how it works. You decide to go and freelance you get thrown out of the dept. Pretty simple, then your out of what you love to do because some guy didnt pay his tax that he knew he had to pay to have his house protected. Ill agree that it sucks, but how long have they been doing it in this town??
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Really Ben?............What you advocate is rewarding cheating and unfairness and punishing the ones that play by the rules. I advocate that?
You are very confused. I advocate putting out a fire out of a Moral Obligation, instead of being filmed doing nothing resulting so the whole world can crucify me. I'm sure there's a FF or two on the Fulton FD that doesn't appreciate all the attention, threats, and treatment.........sorry...that's actually a FACT Ben. They are on record saying as much.
Here's an example to help you understand my POV:
The law says Abortion is OK........but is it Morally just, if you believe that a fetus is viable at 24 weeks (Late term abortion cut-off), and the abortion is only being used as birth control?
A wedge issue, just like the fire. The law protects the FD...YES. He didn't pay his money, so in your world he deserved to lose his home over $75.
In my world, that's not Morally right. That's my opinion Ben. You don't have to like it, and I'm not saying it follows the rules set down in TN.
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I never said to FREELANCE. I have continued to state that it was Morally wrong...that's it. The FF's got screwed here; Filmed for the nation to see them just standing there. Some said they got physically ill. some called the homeowner privately. I get that.
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Herb, since you so bravely closed replies to your own post, I'll reply to something you said there over here...
When you complain about the insurance company paying thousands because the homeowner didn't pay $75 you're ignoring the fact that it is the HOMEOWNER that is costing his insurance pool all of that money.
The HOMEOWNER'S irresponsibility is to blame for the fire, the destruction of his home, the threat to the neighbor's home, and this entire debate.
San Ramon's Class 2 isn't pertinent to this debate. Obion County doesn't even have a fire department, as you well know. That equals an ISO Class 10 rating - NO FIRE PROTECTION - unless, of course, the homeowner does the right thing and pays for the right to lower fire insurance by purchasing a subscription contract with the neighboring jurisdiction's fire department. South Fulton's ISO rating is a 5...in the city. Their county rating - if they have one - isn't online anywhere I can find.
BTW, Herb, how many times did San Ramon operate out-of-jurisdiction in places that had no fire protection while ignoring contractual obligations elsewhere? I'm guessing that number would be "zero".
And Herb, San Ramone is in California - a state that has bankrupted itself through unsustainable social spending. Your demand that South Fulton change a policy that would lead to disproportional financial harm to ALL of their citizens based upon your comfort zone in the good old days in San Ramon is neither fair nor rational.
All of Obion County's residents seem to understand the choice between affordable and unaffordable; sustainable and unsustainable, individual responsibility and irresponsibility, except for one homeowner who expects to be rewarded for not following the rules.
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One other thing, Herb,
When you state that an ad hominem is not always fallacious, you're just doing the cut and paste job without any corresponding understanding...again.
I was not personally involved in the Obion County/South Fulton fire, so any attack you make on my motives simply because I expressed an opinion is indeed a fallacious use of an ad hominem attack.
The fact that you took your ball and went home when you couldn't get anyone to agree with you based on the facts speaks volumes.
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Herb,
That's a non sequitur - still another of your litany of logical fallacies in this debate.
Doing the right thing doesn't always make one feel good. The lack of good feelings does not infer that the decision was bad or morally wrong.
At least you're consistent - consistently illogical.
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Herb,
Something else I noticed from your thread when you fired a parting shot then closed replies...
You stated that my "reliance on Wikipedia is pathetic."
That's untrue. For one, I'm not reliant on Wikipedia. I sometimes use it as a source, but that doesn't equal reliance.
For another, most of the sources I've used in this debate haven't been from Wikipedia.
You, on the other hand, haven't provided a single source to back up your opinion in this debate. Not one. Zip, Zilch, Zero, Nothing, Nada, Bupkis.
Your continued claim that it was Morally wrong for South Fulton FD to not extinguish the fire is unsupportable. You don't have the right to demand that everyone else does it just like you would or that everyone else bankrupt themselves with programs that they can't afford the way the lovely state of California has done so completely.
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