Al:

You make some good points. Just to clarify how our dept handled this. Our area served around 300 rural homes and within those homes at least 10% of them were associated with the fire dept member in one way or another.

This could be as an active member, retired member or a relative/friend of the aforementioned. In short, almost every person in our AO knew someone who was involved with the dept.

Having these kinds of relationships goes a long ways in building trust each way. This also serves the purpose that no one wanted to see a fire dept member get hurt or killed because no one knew that old Bob down the road has 3 mean dogs that will not just allow anyone in the house and Bob is in there dying of a heart attack...

When we asked people if there was anything we should know about their property, we never pressed them if they were reluctant to say anything. What was interesting though was that many would come up to us the next time we seen them and they would tell us for example, "Oh yeah I guess I should tell that I got 12 tonnes of various fertilizers out in the barn, you might want to be careful if it catches on fire."

As for secret locations, strange items etc in houses, we seen many strange and weird things and would never bat an eye or take any action unless it was highly illegal such as a drug op.