"Firefighters let home burn because fees weren't paid"

" MINNEAPOLIS – Carl Berg failed to pay a $25 annual fee for rural fire protection and, as a result, firefighters let his house burn to the ground last month near International Falls, Minn.
Along with his daughter and a grandson, Berg escaped the fire.
"I lost everything else," he said. "Stand and watch it burn was all I could do. . . . They should have put the thing out, but they didn't."
Some area residents are expressing outrage about a system that can let that happen – and about a dispute involving the International Falls Fire Department, Koochiching County and the Rural Fire Protection Association, which collects annual fees and pays the city for each fire it fights outside city limits.
"You either buy it or you don't have it," said Don Billig, the association's secretary. "

It is outrageous that firemen allowed a building to be burned to the ground. I thought that the tax could have been collected after the fire. But the thing was just happened!

I’ve found out the information that this kind of fire protection association used to be fairly common in rural areas on the internet. I’ve no idea why the fire department didn't offer to put it out for an "emergency fee." So in that way, you could either pay $25 annual fee or you could sell the fire department while it still worth something to pay. But I don’t think that this would hold up in court.