I grew up in a place with pretty much only volunteer fire departments and they definitely had a lot of very passionate irish americans in them.
The fire departments were the emergency responders I trusted there, not the police (HELL no), not the ambulance that might bankrupt a friend in a medical emergency and I wouldn't even realize I was dooming my friend to a life of medical debt as an EMT smiled at me and said everything was ok....
No it was the Volunteer Fire Department that showed up to help move my dying father to an ambulance who couldn't move easily. Yeah the ambulance showed up to but the ambulance people basically stood to the side as a bunch of young volunteer kids who were bored and looking for something to give them identity helped save my dads life.
So yeah, I think this is a good dig, but damn if your volunteer fire departments are like the ones where I grew up, well I am not complaining lol.
Volunteer firefighters show up to an emergency and help, police and ambulances show up with paperwork, rules and stipulations for whether they will or won't help. Further, the consequences for asking for Police or Emergency Medical Services may not be become clear until it is toooo late for you to avoid them, which is NOT how Volunteer Fire Departments work. I briefly did volunteer fire fighter training (I didn't end up fitting in) and it was fascinating talking to the various people in it about their philosophy for emergency calls, yes they are trained specifically in firefighting and rescuing people from fires... but they are volunteer helpers who are physically fit so they would get called for all kinds of random emergencies and they would never say "wellllll this doesn't fall under the categories of what our job is, so tough luck!", they would get in the fucking firetruck, turn the lights on and go in a way an ambulance crew or police officer never would in a million years.
I am fairly positive any one of those irish american volunteer fire department "bros" would cast off whatever rule they were supposed to follow to save someones life, no questions asked, it was how they stoked their ego being like that and yeah it could be annoying but it was legitimate, unquestionably.