[turtledragonfly]

With private fire brigades, there was sometimes a monetary reward for being first to the scene. Sounds like a good incentive, right? But it resulted in competition between companies, to the point that they would sabotage each other. The article itself has some examples, and there are similar ones from United States' history.

I imagine some similar issues have happened at sea, but it seems harder to take advantage of and make profit on, since it probably wasn't too common for ships with expensive cargo to sink. And even if they did, it would be hard to guarantee getting there in time. Whereas in a city, fires are a pretty regular occurrence.