Roman Firefighters were slaves by your own reference. Which side are you on?
Note that curesntly Knox County Tennessee is all private firefighting and many people in West Coast Forest Fire territory hire private companies to get extra protection for their homes.
Someone said there were firefighters before there were taxes. They offered no evidence of this, but if it's because it was slave based fire service, I'd be on the side where they get paid for their work.
You've given a modern example of how it not only could, but does work with exclusively private funds. So that's interesting enough that I'll give it a look.
