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IAFF Condemns Tennessee House Fire Policy
TODD FAULKNER
WPSD
Reprinted with Permission
PADUCAH - A local fire department's decision to let a home burn is attracting national attention and sparking national debate.
A firefighters group is lashing out against members of their own. The International Association of Fire Fighters is condemning the South Fulton Fire Department for their actions last week.
Fire crews refused to put out a house fire in Obion County, Tennessee, because the owner did not pay the $75 coverage fee. The Association's general president released a statement Tuesday on the city's policy of subscription fire service.
The IAFF statement reads, in part, "We condemn South Fulton's ill-advised, unsafe policy. Professional, career fire fighters shouldn't be forced to check a list before running out the door to see which homeowners have paid up. They get in their trucks and go."
The statement also reads, "Because of South Fulton's pay-to-play policy, fire fighters were ordered to stand and watch a family lose its home."
Todd Cranick, son of Gene Cranick, tells Local 6 that his parents have received several thousand dollars from the insurance company to cover immediate costs. Cranick went on to say that the insurance plans on covering all damage and property losses. Right now, there is no fund set up to help the Cranick family.
The IAFF is headquartered in Washington, D.C., representing nearly 300,000 full-time professional firefighters and paramedics.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on
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Absolutely. It's a shame that more people don't grasp that reality.
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It is not. Many EMS sytems operate on subscriptions.
Your cable TV service has subscrption Fees.
Your newspaper has subscription fee.
Those are all examples of subscription services.
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Eric, Except for the cranicks, no one cried about it. The people of Obion County got exactly what they wanted.
If Mr. Cranick hadn't cried about it, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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Obion County doesn't have a "public fire dept THAT YOU PAY TAXES FOR". They don't have a fire department at all.
The fire department in question is from a neighboring city.
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Permalink Reply by Art "ChiefReason" Goodrich on
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Paul:
All of the answers to your questions are in the discussion thread and others related to this incident.
Bottom line is that the residents of Obion County DON'T WANT TAXES to provide fire protection.
They WANT SUBSCRIPTION SYSTEM of fees, which is to say that they only want it if they have PAID for it.
So; the "oh whoa is me" defense as used by Cranick doesn't fly in the face of his SIX-count them, 6-notifications that he pay his fee.
He didn't, so he got exactly what he paid for.
Period. End of story or it would have been were it not for damning video that gives the public the impression that the fire department "watched" Cranick's house burn.
It's amazing what can be done when you slice and dice video.
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Permalink Reply by Joseph Tongue on
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well rambo if your logic is correct then answer me this, if he didn't pay his fire/homeowners insurance after SIX notifications, much like the county sent to this homeowner, do you think they should have to pay to have his house rebuilt? not sure what kind of fire service your in, as much as we are all in it to help those in need, you can't do it for free, the man knew very well that the policy was in place, he even stated in an interview that his son had a fire and then chief allowed him to pay the fee the next day, so its not like he was ignorant of the policy he knew it existed and still didn't pay, six notifications and he still "forgot" to pay it, well sorry but you have to draw the line somewhere. not sure your argument holds much water. if he had been paying all along and forgot to pay it one time and this happened it would be a whole new discussion. he pays taxes that pay for such things like police protection but it doesn't include fire so if you want the service you gotta pay, sorry it sounds like dictatorship but its that simple. our county doesn't provide EMS, we have a private ambulance RURAL metro, and everyone knows that when you call you gotta pay for it.
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Permalink Reply by Herb Genelly III on
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Actually, in a Dictatorship, he would have been forced to pay....LOL In a Democracy, you can flake on your bill, burn your home down, and have insurance buy you a new one. It's the American way!
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As posted elsewhere in this thread - over and over - in Tennessee, the only local services that are guaranteed by state law are law enforcement and garbage pickup.
EMS - optional. Fire - optional.
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Permalink Reply by Danny Lambert on
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I know every one has an opinon. I have commented on this before. I am retired from the U.S. Army. I have been all over the world seen just about everything. Let me say this. Yes He could have the $75.00. Look at it this way. How much of your tax money goes to rebuild the countrys we blow apart. And Yes some of the money comes from local taxes. Some say it doesn't but it does. We can spend billions to feed,cloth,and house people in country's we have blown up. Pay for women on welfare to keep having babies,give them a place to live,give them a food stamp card. Take care of who crosses our borders. And you tell me they couldn't spend a little money to put out someone's house. If we can spend billions to take care of other people, then I think we can spend some of the money the goverment likes to give away and build these people a fire department,furnish it,train personnel. Help them get on their feet then let them keep it going. Come on people aren't we Brothers and Sisters in the same business to protect lives and property.
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Permalink Reply by Bill Brierton on
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Actually if it hadn't been for the media we wouldn't be having this conversation.
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I said earlier in this post that if it wasn't for the media, we wouldn't even hear about this. There is plenty of "blame" to go around and I won't go into a long winded discussion about who has what amount of blame. As for the fire department, they are in between a rock and a hard place. Either way they are damned.
That's all I have to say on this subject.
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Permalink Reply by Vic Silverfish on
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Local decision, mate! From your post I would guess you don't like big government, funny you would like to force more government on this county when you don't even live there.
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