My fiance and I just bought a house in a city in Northeast Ohio. We have an old sign on the front which has a carriage between the letters “U” and “F”. My cousin, in the same city, has the same sign on his house. As it turns out, there used to be signs like this on houses all over our neighborhood and they were symbols that the homeowner had house, or at least, fire insurance. Therefore, when firefighters were private companies, if they showed up to a house with a sign they would put out the fire because they knew they would get compensated, whereas if the house didn’t have a sign and, therefore, didn’t have insurance, it was at their discretion whether they would put the fire out or not. Quite frankly, it’s not that hard to imagine police protection and firefighters privatized.