Fire protection is a perfect example why at least SOME aspects of our modern society should be run by the Dabgum Gubmint Can't Do Nuttin' Right Nohow.
In times past, fire protection was a private affair. If you bought fire insurance, your insurance company kept firefighters on their payroll to put out fires as they occurred. Then, as is nearly inevitable under the brutal logic of capitalism, insurance companies outsourced the fire fighting function, because after all they are in the insurance business, not the fire fighting business (and outsourcing it cuts costs/increases profits).
So fire fighting crews were private companies, who were paid only when there was a fire to fight. Naturally, since fire fighting is NOT something one can monopolize through intellectual property protections, competing fire fighting companies emerged in most urban areas. These crews competed for the opportunity to fight fires, since only the crews who actually put out fires got paid.
The convention was whichever crew got the fire first was allowed to put it out and collect the fee for doing so. However, there was no independent arbitrator to determine which crew arrived "first." Instead, more than one crew would often claim they were first on the scene, and fist fights would break out over the question. Because of this reality, fire fighting companies started to hire "goons," who were better at fist fighting than fire fighting, to help them win their claims of first arrival.
Now, if your house or business building is on fire, would you rather see the firefighters fight the fire, or watch them brawl to determine which set of goons gets to pour water on the embers of the destroyed building?
That's why fire fighting was made a public utility and there are almost no calls to privatize it.
