Hard for me to believe

A friend told me about this story.

A man in Tennessee recently lost his house and his pets in a house fire. The fire started out in the yard and slowly spread to his house. Apparently he tried to put the fire out with a hose but couldn't. He repeatedly called 911 for assistance. The fire department refused to come out. In the county where the man lives, if you want fire protection from the fire department, you have to pay a yearly $75 fee. The man had not paid the fee for this year.

The fire department did respond, but only after the fire had spread to a neighbor's house. The neighbor had paid the fee. So the firemen stood and watched this man home burn to the ground over a $75 fee. When the fire department finally did respond, the man and neighbors both offered to pay the fee right there. But that was not acceptable. The news video I watched, showed the house still burning as the firemen drove off.

A couple of questions that came up for me. The man's pets were in the house, and died in the fire. If the fire took two hours to get from the barrels to the house, why didn't the man move them to safety? If I thought there was a chance that my Pip would be trapped, you better believe I'd do whatever I could to get her to someplace safe. The other question is about the firemen. Had I been in their place, could I stand by and do nothing while a man's home went up in flames? I would like to think that no job would be worth that. Also, what if there had been kids, or people that culdn't get themselves out? Bedridden, in a wheelchair, whatever. Would the firemen still have stood by and done nothing? When did a $75 fee or a job become more important than doing what's right?