Grafton ... top story

[Mike Barskey]

Also, Merle can issue fire permits. He's on full time, so if you want to get a permit, there is no reason not to be able to get a hold of him. I believe he issues the majority of the fire permits in Grafton since he's almost always available.

When Merle was harassing me the 2nd time about this issue, he asked if I wanted him to send Babiarz around to issue me a permit (I told him no; Babiarz came anyway, and I told him to get off my property). Why didn't Merle just issue me one then? Or make an appointment to come back himself? Or tell me that he has the authority to issue permits? Or tell me that he issues the majority of the fire permits in Grafton?

Practically speaking the only thing the permit does is prevent the folks up in the watch tower (on Cardigan in our case) from calling the fire department to your house if they see smoke. If you have a permit they assume you're having your permitted burn if you do not have a permit then they assume your house is on fire and send a fire department.
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I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits because then we don't get called out to false alarms, especially when cooking your hot dog over a giant fire pit and the watch tower thinks your house is on fire.

I don't understand how this works. Can you explain to me how the watchtower on Cardigan can tell which address to send the cops to - ahem, i mean the fire department to - when they see smoke? They can see the general area, and perhaps can even see a fairly specific area, but they can't see which property has a campfire. There are no dotted lines on the hills to let them know which property it is. And if they send the fire department/cops to that general area and they look around and hopefully see a fire and ask if the burner has a permit, then how does getting a permit prevent false alarms (e.g., the tower doesn't know if Property A or Property B has a permit and the fire is indeterminably between those properties)?

I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits...

Is my freedom of lesser importance than your benefit or convenience?

[Mike Barskey]

I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits...

I can't speak for every person, but in general it would benefit me to not have people come onto my property and spray foam in an entirely harmless cooking fire pit and then spray more foam around my property, and then threaten me with citations and fines and bills.

It would benefit me more to have the things I'm threatened with (citations, fire permits, etc.) cease to exist, so this problem doesn't occur in the future. I'm fairly certain that people living together peacefully can find ways to have fires safely, and when something goes wrong I'm certain they can find ways to work together (or alone!) to put out the fires. They can even plan ahead and practice and call themselves volunteer fire departments. But there's no need to force people to get a piece of paper for their convenience.

[MaineShark]

Practically speaking the only thing the permit does is prevent the folks up in the watch tower (on Cardigan in our case) from calling the fire department to your house if they see smoke. If you have a permit they assume you're having your permitted burn if you do not have a permit then they assume your house is on fire and send a fire department.

Barskey already pointed out how ridiculous that notion is, but I'll add another detail:

NH issues seasonal permits.  So they don't know that you're supposed to have a burn on a particular day.  With a seasonal permit, you can have a burn at any time.

The sole reason for the fire permits is to have you come in and bow down before the State.  Not one thing else.

Joe

[Mike Barskey]

Ah yes, one more ridiculous aspect: the tower stops functioning at 5:00p. At 5:15p is it suddenly safe to burn without a permit? Does dispatch stop receiving "false alarms" after 5:00p, or do you ignore them?

[AntonLee]

everyone knows fire can't light except in a firepit after 5pm.  It's magic!

[John]

I suppose it's possible that if you have a permit for brush fire and your house catches on fire the folks up in the tower may delay calling the fire department thinking that you're just burning brush...

Ding! Ding! Ding!
WE HAVE A WINNER!

[Dan Steward]

So go and print out your own "permit" if for nothing else than to jam up the works a bit and hasten the downfall of the state.

You are welcome to use the one I just drew up if you like and make any changes to it to suit your needs. If nothing else, it will get them thinking. Best case scenario, they will cut bait and leave you alone, possibly for good.

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Non-Governmental Issue Permit For Open Fire 



Permit Number __________


This document shall serve as a permit issued by a non-governmental entity to allow an open flame in the area of ______________ in the lands known to the people as New Hampshire. There is no fee to be collected and there is no expiration date on this permit.

It is vital to the perpetuity of a free land and to the human inhabitants that live therein in securing and keeping that same freedom, that they be unhindered in their actions if the acts of their daily living harms none. The act of starting a well controlled and maintained fire in a pit, grill, fireplace or other venue designed to contain an open flame and/or combustible materials is one that requires no overseer to grant exclusive license.

Humankind has proven throughout history that permits are not required to make a fire "safe". Permits issued by government decree would not be combustible otherwise. What has also been proven is that issuance of fire permits is merely a poorly veiled attempt at revenue enhancement for the sole benefit of the state. 

It is also vital that permit holder not leave unattended firearms or other weaponry within the camp site area to prevent their unlawful removal (theft) by law enforcement that may be sorely lacking as to the nature of freedom or the laws of New Hampshire, that encourage ownership of such by the people.

With this in mind, we have issued a permit to the following individual who has shown themselves to be responsible both in deed and knowledge of basic fire safety.
   


_________________                         __________

Signed                                               Date



Disclaimer:

This permit was obviously not issued by any governmental entity. It is not expected to be recognized or even partially understood by any agent nor agency that currently enjoys an exclusive ability to choose to enable or instead stifle the liberty to freely contract for any presumed "service" provided to the public at large.

What it does represent is a viable and lasting alternative to the ineffective, violence backed, wasteful, and obviously stupid monopoly permit/licensing system currently in place and sadly controlled solely by government at this period in time.

Once government has (and it will) dissolve into non-existence by it's own sheer weight, any notice such as this one referring to the person or group named above, should in effect, replace that outdated and coercive miasma of issuance. We have proposed a better way.   

[thinkliberty]

I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits because then we don't get called out to false alarms, especially when cooking your hot dog over a giant fire pit and the watch tower thinks your house is on fire.

Maybe the firefighters that want people to get permits can offer people some kind of incentive to get a permit. (threats of violence are not an incentive)

If you want someone to do something you could pay them to fill out your forms or ask for a permit. You could enter them in a drawing where they have a chance of winning something, which might make them go out of their way to do something you want.

You might work on making it easy for an individual to tell the fire towers that they are going to have a weenie roast.  Maybe you could have an internet page where you ask people to fill out a web form and then you can give them some kind of reward for doing something that you want.

If you decide to keep trying to using coercion to get what you want from people, you'll eventually accept the fact that people aren't going to comply with that.

[Lex]

Also, Merle can issue fire permits. He's on full time, so if you want to get a permit, there is no reason not to be able to get a hold of him. I believe he issues the majority of the fire permits in Grafton since he's almost always available.

When Merle was harassing me the 2nd time about this issue, he asked if I wanted him to send Babiarz around to issue me a permit (I told him no; Babiarz came anyway, and I told him to get off my property). Why didn't Merle just issue me one then? Or make an appointment to come back himself? Or tell me that he has the authority to issue permits? Or tell me that he issues the majority of the fire permits in Grafton?

There must've been some miscommunication there, I will check on this for you next time I see John or Merle.

Practically speaking the only thing the permit does is prevent the folks up in the watch tower (on Cardigan in our case) from calling the fire department to your house if they see smoke. If you have a permit they assume you're having your permitted burn if you do not have a permit then they assume your house is on fire and send a fire department.
...
I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits because then we don't get called out to false alarms, especially when cooking your hot dog over a giant fire pit and the watch tower thinks your house is on fire.

I don't understand how this works. Can you explain to me how the watchtower on Cardigan can tell which address to send the cops to - ahem, i mean the fire department to - when they see smoke? They can see the general area, and perhaps can even see a fairly specific area, but they can't see which property has a campfire. There are no dotted lines on the hills to let them know which property it is. And if they send the fire department/cops to that general area and they look around and hopefully see a fire and ask if the burner has a permit, then how does getting a permit prevent false alarms (e.g., the tower doesn't know if Property A or Property B has a permit and the fire is indeterminably between those properties)?

If you go with Kat and the others on that hike to Mt Cardigan next week, you could just go up to the tower and ask the guy sitting up there. My understanding is that they are surprisingly accurate. They may have some fancy equipment to be able to pinpoint a GPS location through the binoculars maybe? I don't know. Maybe they are just really good with trigonometry and maps.

I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits...

Is my freedom of lesser importance than your benefit or convenience?

Just saying that some of us don't like being there unnecessarily. I didn't respond to the call to your place but I saw Bob in the video and he didn't look too happy to be there. I don't want you to think that all fire fighters like going to peoples houses and putting out their cooking coals 

And of course your freedom is more important than someone's convenience. To suggest otherwise would be ludicrous.

[41mag]

If you go with Kat and the others on that hike to Mt Cardigan next week, you could just go up to the tower and ask the guy sitting up there. My understanding is that they are surprisingly accurate. They may have some fancy equipment to be able to pinpoint a GPS location through the binoculars maybe? I don't know. Maybe they are just really good with trigonometry and maps.

I've been up to the fire tower on Mt Kearsarge before.  There is a topo map up there under glass.  Over that is a sight mounted on a ring with bearings marked around the edge.  If a fire is sighted, they will find the bearing to the fire, and then radio it over to the other towers in the area.  The towers are set up so that any area can be seen by more than one tower.  With two or more bearings from a known location you can get a fairly accurate position.  This is similar to finding your own position with a compass.

I was just up to the one in Pawtuckaway yesterday, and found it wasn't even manned though.

[Lex]

I can't speak for every fire fighter but in general it benefits us if people get fire permits because then we don't get called out to false alarms, especially when cooking your hot dog over a giant fire pit and the watch tower thinks your house is on fire.

Maybe the firefighters that want people to get permits can offer people some kind of incentive to get a permit. (threats of violence are not an incentive)

If you want someone to do something you could pay them to fill out your forms or ask for a permit. You could enter them in a drawing where they have a chance of winning something, which might make them go out of their way to do something you want.

You might work on making it easy for an individual to tell the fire towers that they are going to have a weenie roast.  Maybe you could have an internet page where you ask people to fill out a web form and then you can give them some kind of reward for doing something that you want.

If you decide to keep trying to using coercion to get what you want from people, you'll eventually accept the fact that people aren't going to comply with that.

The tone that goes out usually says "Unpermitted Burn", I'm not really sure how they can claim that that's what they see, but it is what it is. For example, just a few weeks ago I got toned to my neighbors house, they have a permit, so I stopped at their place on the way to the station and told them that we had just gotten toned to their house. They called Hanover dispatch and told them that they have a permit and Hanover re-checked their database and canceled the tone before anyone even got to the fire station.

So, one could chose not to respond to such calls, the problem is that what if it is a house on fire... it's not uncommon for the message in the tone that goes off to be misleading or incorrect such as the location and/or nature of the call.

Generally speaking, Hanover dispatch and the fire department operate on the philosophy that it's always better to respond and then go home when there is nothing going on than to ignore something and find out that there really was a problem. For a structure fire every minute counts and the longer you delay not only is the fire going to destroy more of the structure but it becomes a larger hazard for fire fighters due to flashovers and backdrafts and spread of fire or collapse of building.

To answer your original question. I don't think there is that much of a problem of people not getting fire permits to require fire fighters to provide incentives. I suppose if we got a "Unpermitted Burn" tone every other day we'd be more likely to try and do something. We've probably had 5 or so unpermitted tones this whole year and in half of those cases the residents did have a permits, so it was a false alarm.

I'm sorry to say, but the only incentive I can think of is to avoid initiation of force. Not having the police and/or fire department drop in on your party is the main incentive.

[Lex]

So go and print out your own "permit" if for nothing else than to jam up the works a bit and hasten the downfall of the state.

You are welcome to use the one I just drew up if you like and make any changes to it to suit your needs. If nothing else, it will get them thinking. Best case scenario, they will cut bait and leave you alone, possibly for good.

Part of the permit process is that the person issuing you the permit must submit a copy of it to Hanover dispatch so that they can enter it into their system. The piece of paper on its own is useless in preventing the police and/or fire from showing up at your place.

A few of the calls that we've gotten for unpermitted burns where the person did have a permit is because the person issuing the permit didn't have a chance to submit the permit to Hanover dispatch yet. What often happens is that someone would get a permit and then that same evening decide to do a burn, because Hanover hasn't gotten a copy of the permit yet they think you're doing an unpermitted burn and tones the fire department.

Trying to clog up the system in Grafton isn't very practical because the town just isn't big enough. Like I said earlier, we've only had about 5 unpermitted burn tones this whole year. If a couple (or even all) of those have their own personal burn permits it's not going to clog up anything.

If you aren't going to get a permit from the town on principle than I'd encourage you to spend your free time doing other things than inventing personal ones and if someone shows up demanding one tell them the truth. Unless you expect that your like minded neighbors will want to see your personal one before they come over to your house for a fire.

[BJ]

I'm sorry to say, but the only incentive I can think of is to avoid initiation of force. Not having the police and/or fire department drop in on your party is the main incentive.

Whatever makes you feel better about yourself, I guess.

[thinkliberty]

I'm sorry to say, but the only incentive I can think of is to avoid initiation of force. Not having the police and/or fire department drop in on your party is the main incentive.
....
A few of the calls that we've gotten for unpermitted burns where the person did have a permit is because the person issuing the permit didn't have a chance to submit the permit to Hanover dispatch yet.

It sounds like there is a good chance that the police and/or fire department will drop in on your party, even when you have a permit, so what's the point?

[Lex]

Ah yes, one more ridiculous aspect: the tower stops functioning at 5:00p. At 5:15p is it suddenly safe to burn without a permit? Does dispatch stop receiving "false alarms" after 5:00p, or do you ignore them?

I don't know for a fact their reason.

But my hunch is that the main reason is because at 5pm is when most people get off from work and are on their way home so there are plenty of eyes out in the field, assuming that someone driving down the road seeing a house up in flames would call 911 or dispatch or the fire department. And if you're at home and your house catches on fire you'll likely know it before the guy in the tower anyways ;-) And if your neighbors house is on fire you may also see it and/or smell it before the guy in the tower depending on wind conditions and atmospheric pressures. So, to some extent the guy in the tower becomes redundant after 5pm.

It may also be as simple as them not having enough money to pay someone to sit there past 5pm.

There probably have been cases where having a guy up there past 5pm may have prevented a house from burning down but do you want the government to tax you even more so that they can afford to have someone sit up there after 5pm?