> He said that he specifically worked on the other side of town because he didn't want to respond to fires or health emergencies that involved his neighbors.

It's totally normal for smaller towns and villages across Germany (and Austria and (?) Switzerland) to have mostly volunteer fire services.

"the predominant number of Germany's 1,383,730 firefighters are members of voluntary fire brigades" [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_fire_services