[linuxdude314]

There shouldn’t need to be any external incentive aside from it being the firefighters job.

There seems to be a lot of people on this site that think life is fair.

Is it fair that you paid for firefighting and your neighbor didn’t but still had their house saved during a fire?

Arguably no, but that is completely irrelevant as it is still in the greater public interest for the fire to be put out.

There’s a certain childish aspect about caring about fairness in these types of situations as opposed to what is right and moral.

[horsawlarway]

Except in this case - it very literally isn't the firefighters damn job. They have not been hired to put out this fire. Full fucking stop. And just so we're fully clear here - this is a job that is extremely risky to personal health and safety.

Honestly - I think your attitude here is actually far more childish than mine. You're preaching about what's right and moral - I'm discussing practical details and incentives that might make people actually go do a thing.

My attitude is hardly making an assumption that life is fair - it's about making sure that service (fire fighting) has a space in which to exist at all.

Because what we're really talking about here is a social contract...

When it becomes clear that violating the social contract has no downside - many more folks start to do it, and we rapidly end up in a spot where the company that wrote the contract (Us - we the freaking people wrote the contract) are bankrupt. And now not only do the people not paying not have a fire service... NO ONE has a fire service. Because few people were willing to chip in the money when they got the benefit for free.

So back to your silly, silly question:

"Is it fair that you paid for firefighting and your neighbor didn’t but still had their house saved during a fire?"

That's absolutely relevant outside of a single isolated case. It might not matter for one instance - it matters a whole freaking lot in aggregate.