The fact that a fire must be caught as soon as possable or it will get out of control and could burn down the house of a 'paying' person even though the fire fighters do all they can to save the property says it is not an option to let one house burn for non-payment. In our own history review the facts of the Chicago fire in the early 20th century.

This goes back to before we made fire services public because of this very reason. I was shocked to hear that people in TN have allowed this to happen without fighting back. They should be calling for this ugly law to be repealed.

Start a Volunteer Fire Department! Shame them into doing the right thing. I can assure that not one fire department's "Latin Motto" says, " ...unless you pay." at the end of it! The people that are responsible for this legislation should be held personally accountable! How far are they going to go...? Thank God nobody was hurt ...physically

The Great Chicago Fire was in 1871, but your point is well taken. The Republicans and Libertarians (who, as Thom says, are Republicans who want to smoke pot and get laid) want to return us to those "glorious" days of the early-to-mid 19th century when the fire departments were run by the insurance companies (many large cities had competing fire companies); if you did not have insurance with a company that owned one of the fire companies, you were SOL and JWF if your house caught fire. By the way, this is the second such incident in Tennessee in the last couple of years.