This story reminds me of a similar scenario that took place in Rome around 2000 years ago. A very wealthy man ran the private fire-fighting squads. If you didn't pay him "protection", the fire-fighters would come out and just watch your house burn. As your house was burning, the man would offer to buy the property from the home-owner...at fire sale prices, of course. In fact, that may be where the phrase "fire sale" came from.
ANYWAY, I have a number of thoughts about this incident. Having lived in rural, unincorporated areas throughout my entire childhood, I know that the laws of civilization do not always apply in the wild. For example, we had no trash pick-up. To get rid of our trash, we could burn it (which we did not) or we could load it into the bed of our pickup and drive it into the town dump.
The fire department and sheriff would come, but they were slow. You had to live *very* carefully because even a small fire could burn down your home due to the slow response times (they were slow because they were twenty minutes away on a good day). I assume that the township passed a levy or that property taxes in some way covered those services.
IF I lived in an area where there was a $75 fire protection fee, you'd be damned sure I'd pay it. I don't know how Tennessee has structured their civil services and payment for such that the people who live in rural areas are reduced to paying a fee, but if that's what they've done, the policy is in place. There are places around the country that will charge you after the fact for using their services, if you're not a resident of that area. For example, if you get into a car accident in some podunk villages around here and you don't live in the village, the police will charge you for coming out to the scene. It's a "nominal" fee, maybe $150 or so. People, who use emergency ambulance services, also get charged for the bus ride to the ER.
In this case, I would have had the fire-fighters put out the blaze, but I would have charged the home-owners $75 plus a penalty for late payment. This way the fire department gets their precious service fee, but the home-owner doesn't have to risk going into a burning building (or trailer, as the case may be) to rescue items. It's not necessarily a "win-win", but it's more decent than watching someone's home burn.
Marked as great 1 time 
