Burn, Baby, Burn!

2/16/05

Traditionally in these little correspondences, dear readers, I tend to stick to banal cataloguing of my life or news of a political nature that affects the whole of the country and thusly, the world. Today I break with that tradition in order to bring you a local story that caught my attention.

Fires ravaged Bilbaldo Rueda's Monett, Missouri home on Monday afternoon, destroying a shed, his garage and vehicle. Rueda suffered burns in a desperate effort to battle the flames with the fire-quenching power of a water hose and a bucket. Not a very interesting story, granted, until you realize that there were firefighters on hand who just stood there while Rueda's property and belongings rapidly incinerated into black ashes. They weren't there for his house, you see.

In rural Monett the firefighting association has this membership policy wherein if you don't pay dues to become a member, they show up and watch your house become smoldering embers. Afterwards they'll happily beat your puppies to death with a shovel, free of charge.

The Rural Fire Association's bravest were on hand to make sure the flames didn't spread to nearby paying member's houses, apparently missing the irony that the best way to ensure this would be to put out the goddamn fire.

Rueda has lived on the property for some 18 months now, blissfully unaware that he was supposed to be paying dues to prevent his property from being leveled by an inferno. Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the actions of his "firefighters," saying that if residents thought they would just show up and put out fires pro-bono nobody would pay their dues. Kinda sounds like the mob to me. Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that if a non-paying member had his home/car/shed/cat/plasma screen saved by firefighters, that person might be more than willing to pay dues from that point forward, yes? So they wouldn't really be out anything except the money that would have been paid before the firefighters actually did anything.

Chief Ronnie does admit, however, that it was particularly crass for the men to use the blaze to make S'mores (okay that didn't happen) but they would have intervened "without question" if they believed a life had been in danger. No questions asked, huh? Wow. I think we have a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize on our hands. Here's a tip, Ronnie; if you have to say "without question" that kind of implies you're such a prick that people might believe you'd just stand idly by, dripping hose in hand, while entire families roasted alive.

Ronnie admitted that the Association has effectively done diddly-squat in the vein of actually letting people know they have to pay these dues, especially if they are of the Hispanic persuasion. He might be racist, but at least he's right there in your face about it! Ronnie promised to work with "Hispanic leaders," whoever they are, to rectify the situation.

In between vain attempts to save his home, Rueda apparently even offered the firefighters…I'm sorry, fire-bystanders, dues right then and there if they would, say, turn their goddamn hoses on and point them in the general vicinity of the fire, but it's not their policy to take on-the-spot billing. What a bunch of assholes. Is it ironic for firemen to go to hell?


Sources:

Missouri firefighters watch man's garage go up in flames because he didn't pay