The United States did not have government-run fire departments until around the time of the American Civil War. Prior to this time, private fire brigades competed with one another to be the first to respond to a fire because insurance companies paid brigades to save buildings.[5]
No insurance? No firefighters.
I’ll go leave it to the reader to extrapolate how the rest of that hellscape worked.
A race to get there first was one style and even led to departments sending out runners to obstruct the other departments.
The other main style was for only the department corresponding to the fire insurance mark on the building to fight the fire. So even with insurance, departments would often let buildings burn for having the wrong insurance.
No insurance? No firefighters.
I’ll go leave it to the reader to extrapolate how the rest of that hellscape worked.
A race to get there first was one style and even led to departments sending out runners to obstruct the other departments.
The other main style was for only the department corresponding to the fire insurance mark on the building to fight the fire. So even with insurance, departments would often let buildings burn for having the wrong insurance.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_insurance_mark