The English fire-engine is a small affair, much smaller than our steam fire-engines, having about one half the pumping capacity of the American engines; and nearly every one in London is a combined engine and hose-wagon,—the hose being carried in a box-like compartment on each side of the machine, just back of the driver's seat. This "hose-box" serves as a convenient place for the firemen to sit while riding to the fire. Quite a number of automobile fire-engines are in service in the London brigade, big, businesslike-looking machines, about as large as some of our motor-engines, and capable of great speed while answering an alarm. As a contrast to this up-to-date equipment, a number of "manuals," or hand-engines, are in use, which ought to have been sent to the scrap-heap years ago.
In the way of ladder-trucks they are very well supplied in London, for, in addition to several "horse ladder-escapes," as they are called (a fairly long extension ladder carried on a horse-drawn truck, and which can be detached from this truck and pushed close to a building), they have a great many hand-pushed "ladder-escapes" (a shorter extension ladder of the same type and pushed by hand) scattered throughout the city, housed in substations in the principal squares and more important thoroughfares, and intended for emergency use only until the regular apparatus arrives. They have also a few "aërial" ladder-trucks carrying a very long extension ladder which can be raised, by means of an ingenious little engine using carbonic-acid gas for its motive power, to a height of eighty feet or more. But aside from use as a kind of water-tower at large fires, these aërial ladders are rarely extended to their full length, for the houses are nearly all of a uniform height, not over five or six floors, and the ordinary extension ladder is sufficiently long to reach the upper parts of these buildings.
The fire-alarm boxes, or "alarm-points," as they are known, are found at convenient corners throughout London, and consist of an iron post about as high as an ordinary hitching-post, with a little round metal box at the top containing a glass door. You break the glass in this door, pull the little handle or knob inside, and thus send in a "fire-call" to four or five of the nearest fire stations. In all American cities when a fire-alarm box is "pulled" the alarm is transmitted direct to a central-bureau, usually at fire headquarters, and is then retransmitted, either automatically or by hand, to the engine-houses; but in London—and in every other European city—each fire station has its own alarm-bureau, in charge of an officer and several operators, these stations receiving only the alarms from the boxes in the immediate neighborhood. All the stations, however, are connected with each other, and with a central-bureau or headquarters, by both telegraph and telephone.
London has something like 4000 fires annually, and spends about $1,250,000 every year to support her fire-brigade. It is estimated that the city of New York (comprising the Boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and Richmond, and with about the same population as London proper) has 12,500 fires annually, and spends something over $7,500,000 to support her fire-department.
In Paris, the fire-brigade comes under the jurisdiction of the Department of War, and it is part of the French army that attends to the fire-fighting in this famous city. Two battalions of infantry, known as the "Regiment des Sapeurs Pompiers," look after this important work, and although this brigade is recruited, drilled, and commanded by various regimental officers, from a colonel down to a lieutenant, and belongs to the war department, it comes under the direct control of the Prefect of Police (Chief of Police), who is the actual head of the Paris fire-brigade.
These stations, or, as they are well named, casernes (barracks), are big structures filled with many firemen, on an average about 140 men in every building; and each station is equipped with numerous pieces of fire apparatus, and all are provided with a large inner court, or drill-yard, in which the men go through military evolutions twice daily, and where the new men, who are coming into the brigade continually, are taught how to handle all the various appliances used in fire-fighting. Here also the men are put through a series of calisthenic exercises two or three times a week, which, if introduced into the American fire-departments, would drive every man out of the service, so vigorous are these "stunts." In acrobatic fashion the Paris firemen are compelled to climb ropes, jump hurdles, balance themselves in mid-air on frail wooden supports, perform on horizontal bars, execute a kind of "setting-up" drill en masse, and last, but not least, climb up one of the walls of the courtyard, holding on by their finger-tips and the edges of their boots to little crevices in the wall, and falling, if they should slip, into a pile of sand at the bottom. In addition to all this they have the regulation hose, ladder, and life-saving drills of all other fire-departments.
The Paris fire stations are thoroughly up to date in equipment, for we find them fitted with sliding-poles, swinging-harness, horses kept in box-stalls within a pole's-length of the harness, automatic door-openers, and virtually every quick-hitching device for which American fire-departments are noted. And in addition to steam fire-engines, aërial ladder-trucks, and hose-wagons—the latter very much of the same type as those used in this country—there are a great many automobile fire-engines in service, and quite a few of the casernes, or stations, are equipped entirely with motor-driven apparatus. There are also several electric fire-engines in use, practical-looking affairs, carrying a large square tank containing four hundred gallons of water, which is given the necessary pressure to reach the top of any of the buildings by means of an ingenious set of electric pumps placed at the back of the tank. As it only requires a few men to handle this engine, and the mere throwing over of a lever to get it under way, it is used at many small fires, and is sometimes the first and only piece of apparatus to leave a station in answer to an alarm, for there is no regular "assignment" of engines and ladder-trucks sent to the alarm-boxes in Paris, as is the case in our cities, and the operation of their fire-alarm system differs from that of any other city in the world.
The fire-alarm boxes are large, ornate-looking affairs, placed on the corners of the principal boulevards and streets and in the public squares, and directions on the outside of these boxes inform you that, in addition to breaking the glass door (which automatically transmits the number of the box to the nearest fire station), you must also use the telephone inside and give a description of the fire, its character, size, and location (street number if possible); and it is necessary to go through all this proceeding before the sending of an alarm is considered complete. This alarm is received in the alarm- or "watch-room," of the nearest fire station. There an operator picks up a telephone receiver and listens for your description of the fire, and he decides, according to the message received, the number of pieces and character of the apparatus which is to answer the alarm. For example, if it is only a small fire—a window-curtain or a chimney—he simply orders out one piece of apparatus, an electric engine, such as was described above, or, perhaps, a fourgon—a sort of hose-wagon carrying a squad of men, short ladders, hose, and tools and appliances of all kinds. If, on the other hand, the call comes from a factory or a tenement district, where rescue work may be expected, he then sends two wagon-loads of men and the grande-echelle (aërial ladder-truck), and if the fire appears dangerous, from the telephoned description, another ladder-truck and a steam fire-engine, or a motor-engine; but the engines are rarely used in Paris, as the water-pressure throughout the city is very fine, sufficient to reach the top of the average building; and the steamers are only sent out as a precaution, and are seldom put to work.
The fire-hydrants in Paris, as in every other city in Europe, are of the "flush" or sunken character, instead of the post-hydrants used in our cities, and are found in depressed basins in the sidewalk, near the curb, protected with iron covers; and the location of these hydrants is carefully indicated by metal signs on the walls of the buildings near by, which not only point out the exact position of each hydrant, but tell the amount of water pressure to be found at that outlet—a feature that our firemen would welcome.
All gas or electricity entering any building in Paris comes partially under the control of the fire-brigade, and the firemen carry keys on every piece of apparatus which enables them to open a small metal plate, always found at a certain spot in the sidewalks, and thus cut off either the gas or electric service from the building immediately on their arrival at a fire.