Is that from Fahrenheit 451 by chance?
This looks like Fahrenheit 451
They did at one point set houses on fire though. I listened to a podcast on the history of firemen in the US. Mad stuff. Can’t remember the name of the podcast though.
There’s a nice scene in Gangs of New York, where rival Fire teams would fight it out whilst robbing the houses they were “saving”
Firefighting shenanigans go all the way back to ancient Rome: Marcus Licinius Crassus formed Rome’s first fire brigade, which would basically extort the owners of burning buildings to buy them on the cheap. Per Wikipedia:
The first ever Roman fire brigade was created by Crassus. Fires were almost a daily occurrence in Rome, and Crassus took advantage of the fact that Rome had no fire department, by creating his own brigade—500 men strong—which rushed to burning buildings at the first cry of alarm. Upon arriving at the scene, however, the firefighters did nothing while Crassus offered to buy the burning building from the distressed property owner, at a miserable price. If the owner agreed to sell the property, his men would put out the fire; if the owner refused, then they would simply let the structure burn to the ground. After buying many properties this way, he rebuilt them, and often leased the properties to their original owners or new tenants.
