Originally Posted by
The Madcap
Most "volunteer" fire fighters live in small towns where there is no budget to pay them. But the thing about small towns is that accountability is easier to come by. If you volunteer you're expected to take it seriously and get trained. And if you don't, word will get around. You will be scrutinized by your neighbor in a personal way. This is a motivator to do your job.
In bigger cities where it's completely different. There is no such proximal accountability. How many people know their local firemen in a big city?
There are also a shit load more fires and emergencies. The volume of calls encountered by a paid big city fire fighter compared to a volunteer is massive. You're not going to have people risking their lives every day in a big city to put out fires if they aren't getting paid. It just doesn't work that way. The stress and the media scrutiny are infinitely higher. Small town inter-personal scorn will result in a harsh word or two, and a temporarily marred reputation, (which you want to avoid if you want to get laid,) but it won't result in a lawsuit or potential criminal negligence charges that you might find from big city prosecutors.
Do you really think you're going to be able to find enough suitable volunteers to patrol places like Chicago or New York, where there are thousands of firetraps all over the damned city if they aren't getting paid? Where would they find the time to work their real job?
If you decrease pay in these areas, then dumber less motivated people take the jobs instead of intelligent people. Less pay means less respect for the job. You can pay people too much that they take a job for granted, but you can also pay them so little that they don't take the job seriously. You want them to feel they are earning their pay and keeping their skills honed and sharp. In a big city, where a fire can jump from an apartment complex to a strip mall to a hospital, you want the best people available to limit potential death and destruction. If farmer Joe's barn catches fire because a lantern spilled over, 7-8 volunteers aren't going to make much more of a difference coming in than 7-8 professionals. But if slumlord Joe's rat-traps start going up in flames, you're going to need those professionals to save lives and contain the damage.