Rural Metro Fire was conceived by a 22-year-old journalist, Lou Witzeman, working for the Arizona Times. The seed was planted when he watched his neighbor’s home rendered to ash by a fire one night and the fire department never responded. For insurance reasons, city fire departments could not leave the city and, you guessed it, the home was outside the city limits. Rural Metro Fire is the national leader in private fire protection services to communities around the nation, including several in Arizona, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Oregon, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. We offer different solutions for your community’s needs. Rural Metro Fire provides fire protection services under a subscription-based model to individual homeowners and commercial property owners in unincorporated suburbs. These areas are not included within municipal fire department boundaries; therefore, property taxes do not include fire protection and Rural Metro fills that niche. These communities’ law enforcement is usually provided by a Sheriffs’ department, rather than a municipal police department. This is the business model which our company was founded upon in 1948, by Louis Witzeman.