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From: jdb@qubix.UUCP (Jeff Bulf)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Walter Wego speaks out
Message-ID: <1499@qubix.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Nov-84 00:32:29 EST
Article-I.D.: qubix.1499
Posted: Fri Nov  2 00:32:29 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Nov-84 20:34:22 EST
References: <1774@inmet.UUCP>
Organization: Qubix Graphic Systems, San Jose, CA
Lines: 29

> >but lots of houses went up in smoke
> >because they bore the shield of a company competing with the one the
> >person who saw the smoke called.  
> 
> Care to back this up?  I'd particularly enjoy something
> like a comparison between the average uncompensated loss due
> to fire in the privately-run fire departments with that of 
> publicly-owned fire departments.  

    Wish I could offer it! As it is, I can add one data point to this picture.
One of my fellow inspectors at the insurance rating bureau that handled much
of Arizona told me of an incident he had witnessed before I started working
there.

    A small corner-shopping center had caught fire. The building was at about
the jurisdictional boundary of three fire departments: Tempe (public), Phoenix
(public) and Scottsdale (corporate). As I understand it, the building burned to
the ground while the three fire departments tried to work out whose juridiction
the fire was in.

    There does not seem to have been a behavioral difference here
between the two public departments and their corporate counterpart.


"Since it costs a lot to win, and even more to lose,
you and me might have spent some time wondering what to choose."
-- 
	Dr Memory
	...{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!qubix!jdb