This looks like Fahrenheit 451
Yes
god I hate how few cars are properly firefighter proof
They did at one point set houses on fire though. I listened to a podcast on the history of firemen in the US. Mad stuff. Can't remember the name of the podcast though.
There's a nice scene in Gangs of New York, where rival Fire teams would fight it out whilst robbing the houses they were "saving"
Firefighting shenanigans go all the way back to ancient Rome: Marcus Licinius Crassus formed Rome's first fire brigade, which would basically extort the owners of burning buildings to buy them on the cheap. Per Wikipedia:
The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.
When you get paid to stop something bad that is happening, prevention is not in your best interest.
I know in like ancient Rome they'd haggle for payment while the house was burning.
Like I know firefighter put out fires, but in the US at least departments are often instrumental in making sure city streets are as unsafe as possible so they can drive their enormous trucks down them.
They will even do shit like narc out renters who have too many roommates in single family neighborhoods to city authorities, like they're not cops but some of them try really hard.
Like an order of magnitude more people die in car crashes than house fires, and more often than not fire departments are just responding to some dumbass crashing their car.
That's the Fire Marshall. They are the enforcement arm of fire services. Do you think there is a reason so few people die in fires and maybe its tied to a strong regulatory regime? Like make sure occupancy limits are respected and fire exits aren't blocked?
TBF, occasionally sending in a murderous idiot armed with a gun is actually the correct solution to a problem.
Terrorists and school shooters. Frankly, if cops were as gun happy towards Nazis as they are everyone else, we wouldn't have quite the fascist problem.
Now, I'm not saying an idiot with a gun is the best solution to those issues, but it would be a solution.
It was a pleasure to burn.
There is a grain of truth buried in there
I mean forest fire fighters do this sometimes.
