Volunteer fire/rescue departments vs professional fire/rescue departments

What is your opinion on the issue?

Here on Long Island where I live the vast majority of fire departments and ambulance companies (most fire departments do both fire and EMS but some communities have separate ambulance and fire) are volunteer. I think its time we go professional fire departments because they response time is getting slower and slower and the volunteer system is more expensive due to no oversight/lack of will by politicians and residents to challenge their spending practices, etc. For example, we have 179 fire departments here on Long Island and between them we have more trucks then NYC, Los Angeles City and Los Angeles County COMBINED. We have something like 30 heavy rescue trucks where as the FDNY (NYC Fire Dept) only has 7 (1 for each borough + 2 spares). The amount of money this system costs is amazing. Between the trucks, the gigantic fire houses and their arrogance and using 9/11 as an excuse to get whatever they want is really being to piss off alot of people. Supposedly their is a rumor that if a household does not respond to their requests for donations (on top of the fire district taxes) then they will "accidentally take a few wrong turns" on the way their if they should ever get a call from that house.

The positive part is that when they do show up (a half hour after the 911 call - especially on ambulance related calls) they come with like 10 chiefs vehicles, 30 trucks and 5 ambulances for a minor fender bender or a kitchen stove fire. Dont even get me started on the blue lights or the chiefs trucks from community A all the way in community B on the other side of the island.