> Thanks for the considered response. My pleasure! It's an interesting topic of discussion, and I think there's a lot of value in trying to understand where ot

> Thanks for the considered response. My pleasure! It's an interesting topic of discussion, and I think there's a lot of value in trying to understand where other people are coming from and what their motivations are. > Could you point me to those records? The well known documentary "Gangs of New York"[1]. More seriously, in early Rome fire brigades were often used as a tool to extort the compromised property from it's owner. Forgive me for quoting Wikipedia, but the article and quote is fairly well sourced[2]: > The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Marcus Licinius Crassus. He took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire, if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground There are also reports of firefighting gangs in the new york times before the advent of professional fire services in the U.S.[3]: > Our reporters give an account of another incipient riot got up by firemen and runners last evening. For a time the brawl went on with great violence, and the rival factions or companies enjoyed the pleasure of trying to kill each other without let or hindrance, because—and here is the fact of main importance—"the Chief Engineer and his assistants had completely lost control of the men," The first professional fire brigades in the UK would leave your building to burn if you didn't have their particular company's mark on your building[4]: > If a building was on fire, several brigades would attend as quickly as possible. The different brigades would use the fire marks to work out if a building was insured by their parent company. If they didn't see their specific fire mark attached to the building, they would leave the property to burn. > As far as I can tell, Denmark does fairly well with privatized fire fighters. (And if memory serves right, the US, for mysterious reasons, has about twice as many firefighter per capita as other developed countries.) Privatised fire fighters in Denmark are still beholden to the local municipality, which in my opinion is different enough from a privatised "user pays" fire service that they aren't hugely comparable. The US is much less densely populated than Denmark and dealing with fires is a fairly time sensitive operation, I'd imagine that might explain part of the difference. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-vBJ8cS08U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-vBJ8cS08U [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_firefighting [3] https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/new-york-times-coverage-of-the-transition-to https://lostmuseum.cuny.edu/archive/new-york-times-coverage-... [4] https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/museum/history-and-stories/early-fire-brigades/ https://www.london-fire.gov.uk/museum/history-and-stories/ea...