At least in my experience; I haven't lived everywhere. By and large though, county government doesn't do much more than pave county roads and run the sheriffs department. That's probably BECAUSE we have so many municipal governments and it's so easy to incorporate as a city. I doubt there are many county fire departments that aren't volunteer. Mine STILL is, even though the <2000 people who live here incorporated as a city ten years ago. So if the problem is with the government who has jurisdiction the problem is that county government in general doesn't do a whole hell of a lot. And you may well have a point there, but if so it's one that applies to most of the country, not just TN. At that, there have been several reports in recent years of fire fighters coming to fight conflagrations that threatened whole neighborhoods--and stopping right at the edge of their writ, extinguishing fires right up to the limits of their authority, then watching other homes burn because there was no one there to save them. IIRC there have two instances of this during Californias annual "fire season" but I don't think it got much coverage because they tended to be luxury homes and, sad to say, I think a lot of people took the attitude that the homeowners had both money and insurance and so could easily replace what they lost (which wouldn't be right even if it were true. )

My take on county government here is that they fill the gap between the states and municipalities, but in a nominal way. There are few Americans who don't live in SOME kind of municipality, and most of them live outside the city limits for a reason. That restricts the tax base a great deal; most of the people within a countys limits will be paying municipal taxes, too (and most people don't realize it, but that's a big chunk of their annual taxes) and scream bloody murder if county rates increase; the remainder aren't going to be enough to finance most services (and assessing higher county taxes for non-municipal residents would raise a few legal questions as well. ) For the most part, residents of a county who don't live in a city are on their own, but, for the most part, that's the way they want it. I mean, did you READ that article? It was a textbook example of exactly what I've been talking about with the whole lower taxes, we don't need kind of crap that's killing the whole country and goes a lot farther than some farmers croft in Appalachia. The county commissioners didn't want to "be in the business" of fighting fires, so they weren't; the fee for service proposal never had a chance so they went with contracting out to the cities.

That puts us right back to the same old thing: The cities either ignore calls from homes not contracted to pay the city a fee, or they put them out and then bill them retroactively for the full cost of stopping that one fire, which, given cost of man power, fuel, water and equipment, is going to be a LOT higher than $75. They can go that route, and probably should, but it would still most likely result in lawsuits and liens. And the best part? When it comes to court the guy they're suing is going to say, "But your honor, I didn't ASK them to put out the fire; I didn't even pay the small annual fee they charge, so I actually REFUSED their service. If they insisted on providing it over my protest, why should do I owe them anything? If anything they owe me for water damage. "

You have to understand: Some people are dumbasses.