From a fire department perspective...

Someone upthread mentioned the fire department charging for the service. Knowing the US fire service as well as I do, there are very few departments that charge for any type of service, and those that do are in states where insurance companies will pay for a response to an actual fire call, car wreck where one needs to be extricated by mechanical means, etc. (This is different than being charged for an ambulance transport by a fire department.)

That said, the fire department can inadvertently do damage to an elevator when forcing a door open. While a 'stuck elevator' is a common incident, my jurisdiction does not routinely force an elevator door open unless someone inside the elevator car is having a medical emergency. On the other hand, we don't take an on-site person's word that 'someone is on their way'; we talk directly to the on-call elevator tech, determine his/her ETA, and if it is a reasonable amount of time, we'll wait for the tech and then ensure the tech doesn't have any issue with opening the door. If the ETA is not reasonable, say greater than 60-90 minutes, then we may just tell the on-site person that we'll proceed with forcing the door. But if we cause ANY damage, the elevator will need to be inspected by an independent firm, likely not until the next business day at the earliest, before the elevator can be placed back into service. A place like a SHS may only have one elevator to begin with.

So being stuck in a elevator is not fun (I've been there also), but the fire department has to look at the big picture.