Unincorporated areas

[kprsn1]

I thought the State of Illinois was trying to get rid of unincorporated fire areas?

A vacant home in Jefferson County burned to ground.
1/8/07
A vacant home on Gothic Road outside of Belle Rive in Jefferson County was allowed to burn to the ground Sunday night. Jefferson County Fire Protection District officials say no fire department would respond because residents in the 12 square mile area have elected not to be part of a fire district that would result in higher property taxes. There's no word on who owned the home. WJBDRadio.com

The report says the home was vacant so it's possible the owner wanted it to burn down but any other persons living in that 12 mile area is taking a chance of the same thing happening.

[ChiefReason]

I thought the State of Illinois was trying to get rid of unincorporated fire areas?

A vacant home in Jefferson County burned to ground.
1/8/07
A vacant home on Gothic Road outside of Belle Rive in Jefferson County was allowed to burn to the ground Sunday night. Jefferson County Fire Protection District officials say no fire department would respond because residents in the 12 square mile area have elected not to be part of a fire district that would result in higher property taxes. There's no word on who owned the home. WJBDRadio.com

The report says the home was vacant so it's possible the owner wanted it to burn down but any other persons living in that 12 mile area is taking a chance of the same thing happening.

Better check into this. They are paying taxes to someone. Illinois got rid of the "no man's lands". If they are paying property taxes, a portion is going for schools and fire protection. I don't think they have a choice.
Someone may have erred in letting this burn.
Co-conspirators, perhaps?
CR

[jboczek]

CR, I beg to differ. There aren't any "no man lands" as far as 911 boundries are concerned. They get assigned to a fire department by E911 systems but they are not necessarily part of a fire district, hence they do not pay taxes. We have some area in our county that doesn't pay FD taxes but they do get a FD paged if a fire is reported to 911.
So, there are still some "no man's land" in the state. I don't know if the FD legally has to respond if they are paged. I'd say, yes, because we respond if we get paged by 911 regardless of whether it is in our district, a neighbor's district or nobody's district.

[80FIRE]

I agree with Jack on this one. We have a few square miles of "no mans land" in the next county that joins our district. We go if we are requested but we bill for our services when we do. State law allows us to bill up to $135/ hour for apparatus and $35 / hour for firefighters.

[trainer]

Every house or homestead has a 911 address with an assigned fire dept. If you get a call, not only do you have to respond but you have to put the fire out, at least that's what I've always been told. Now if I had a house more than 5 miles from a dept, I'm not sure I would pay the taxes, since it's an automatic 10 anyways. I'd pay for suppression but not for protection since ISO says I don't have any. Everyone's homeowners insurance has a dollar amount to be paid to a fire dept, it just can't be one that you pay taxes to. Now if the county say's I have to pay the taxes for protection and the insurance company say's I don't have any, sounds like a court case to me. I just hope that people don't figure this out, it might hurt some dept's budget's.

[kprsn1]

We also have a "no man's land" up by the north eastern part of our district that is bordered by Salem, Patoka, and I think maybe Kinmundy-Alma. I'm not sure if anyone has absorbed this or not but I think usually Salem gets the calls there mostly because the dispatching comes out of the Salem center and they're biased toward Salem anyway. We would respond if paged regardless if they are in our district or not. Guess I ought to ask some questions about it. I'll probably be in Salem this weekend for ICS 300 class so it will be a good chance to bring it up with some of the other departments that will be there.

Chad

[kprsn1]

Sorry, double post. Stupid computer.

[jboczek]

Sorry, double post. Stupid computer.

Computers don't make mistakes, Chad. Only the operators.
Sorry---I had to say that.

Chad's got CRUST!

[kprsn1]

Computers don't make mistakes, Chad. Only the operators.

You're right Jack but I didn't want to publicly embarrass my secretary by placing the blame on her. You may know her, Morgan Fairchild. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Chad