Ignored Tenn. fire fuels debate nationwide

His grandfather Gene lost dozens of Zane Grey westerns. The scorched bones of the family’s dead dogs are curled in the rubble.

“It’s all because of me,’’ Cranick, 21 and unemployed, kept repeating. He had left the trash burning unattended in barrels in front of the house while he took a shower. Now his family’s house in this patch of rural Tennessee was ash. “I take full responsibility.’’

But the debate over who is responsible for the destruction at the Cranick place is no simple one. When Cranick called 911, the dispatcher told him she would send help right away. Ten minutes later, she said firefighters were not coming after all — because the family had not paid the city its annual $75 fire protection fee.

Fire engines did arrive at the Cranick property, but only because the flames from the barrels were spreading to their neighbor’s cornfield. And that family was paid up.

The firefighters protected the neighbor’s field and let the Cranicks’ home burn.

That act has resonated across the country as either an extreme example of how personal responsibility should be the basis of American democracy or a nightmarish incident that proves how far the country has strayed from its purpose as a place where people care for one another.

Next month, Montgomery County, Md., voters will decide whether ambulance service should be included in taxes or paid for by health insurance. The proposal, approved by the County Council this year, would not deny service to the uninsured, but opponents say the plan nonetheless violates the compact that has defined the American system at least since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal: the idea of a safety net that supports all.

The Sept. 29 incident in Tennessee is “what happens when you lose sight of what you’re really there for and money becomes the omnipotent god, rather than going in and saving people,’’ said Marcine D. Goodloe, president of the Montgomery County Volunteer Fire-Rescue Association. Although the fee would be borne by insurance companies rather than county residents directly, Goodloe said it could discourage some from calling for help.

Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett said any link between the ambulance fee and the Tennessee case is “reaching for straws and a desperate argument to try to confuse the public.’’ Leggett said that there’s a limit to how much taxes can be raised and that charging insurers for ambulance runs will help expand fire service.

Fire protection for all is an idea that stretches to Benjamin Franklin, an early advocate for volunteer fire corps. “The concept of not doing anything for a house that’s burning down, that’s something I don’t think Franklin would have agreed to,’’ said Edmund Morgan, a Yale historian who wrote a book on Franklin. “If you can help put it out, I think it’s your duty.’’

Just south of the Tennessee-Kentucky line, on country roads that wind past a golf course, grain elevators and a campaign sign that reads “Plow Congress,’’ the Cranick fire remains a topic of fierce debate.

Obion County’s mayor, Benny McGuire, worked with Gene Cranick at a nearby Goodyear plant for years and said the elder Cranick is a good man. But McGuire said that the county has no budget for fire protection and that people who live outside city limits must pay for fire service.

Fire coverage is like car insurance, he said: “You don’t pay it when you have a wreck; you pay it beforehand. The responsibility lies with the landowner. That’s the problem today. You don’t want to be responsible for nothing anymore. Nobody does.’’

Now for the first time, Gene Cranick, 67, must contend with those who think he’s some sort of freeloader. “Some people think maybe I’m not human because I didn’t pay my $75,’’ he said. He remembers paying up every other year except one. “But humans forget. It seems like I do more than I used to. I just don’t think they done right.’’

A couple of years ago, when there was a chimney fire at his son Timothy’s house, the family hadn’t paid their fee but firefighters came anyway. The family paid up the next morning.

This time, Gene Cranick watched as flames melted his belongings. “I don’t have hard feelings toward the firemen, because they done what they was told to do,’’ he said.

That sentiment is not universal in the Cranick family. After the fire, Timothy Cranick went over to the South Fulton firehouse and struck the fire chief “in the face with his fist,’’ according to court documents. He was charged with aggravated assault.

Neighbors are torn. Retired teacher Laura Davis rushed to see whether the Cranicks needed help but wants a world in which people “suffer the consequences’’ of their actions. A friend challenged Davis to think about what Jesus would do. “I don’t know that he’d put it out,’’ Davis said.

DeAnna Reams, the neighbor whose field drew firefighters into action, begged them to save the Cranick house. Her husband offered to pay if they would put out the flames.

“It’s heartbreaking not to be able to help a neighbor,’’ Reams said. “That’s what we’re supposed to be able to do in this country.’’