[appreciatorBus]

I agree with your broader political point re: voting preference. I also don't understand why this is a thing.

Re: farmers - are farms themselves a big farm risk? I can imagine farm workers living in nearby towns requiring fire service, but not the farms themselves or farm owners. I can see the case for public funding of fire service for such towns, but density still matters - if 1000 farm workers each live on their own acre (~42,000 sqft), it's going to cost more to provide fire service than they live on a 1,000 sqft lot, or in a 1,000 sqft apartment in a 4 storey building. Most of North American land use will require them to live much less densely than they might have otherwise, driving up the cost of infra & fire service.

[iamnothere]

Farms usually have large quantities of dry and flammable goods, whether it’s fertilizer, fuel, hay, straw litter, or dried harvested crops. Fields of dry corn or wheat could be flammable as well. Rural forests can also have wildfires which quickly get out of control and require massive intervention, so it’s better to put them out early.

These places use volunteers because fire is rare, but they still need some kind of fire service just in case. They often get their expensive equipment from grants, it’s the labor that’s provided by the community.