What's the French Word for "Preconnect"?

THE VIGILANT AND PERSISTENT VIDEO RESEARCHERS at Firefighter Nation found this interesting video the other day. Since then, it’s been posted all over the blogosphere. So I thought that I’d better make sure that you’re in the know too, and decided to run it so you won’t be the last to see it.

This video was taken in a French town or small city, it doesn’t say where, by an American who obviously knows a bit about fire/rescue. I can tell by the way he speaks, using words like “response time.” He happened to be in this narrow lane when the pompiers arrived on a “smoke showing” call and he provides some interesting narrative to the incident.

I was intrigued by the non-chalant attitude of the people casually walking down the street while somebody’s house is burning. Are they used to that sort of thing?

Fortunately, he has necessarily edited the tape down so that we don’t have to wait for the full 20 minutes before they get the wet stuff on the red stuff. I thought for sure that when they assembled the “portable standpipe” at the 6:30 mark it would be over soon. But, nooooo.

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Legeros

Pretty cool video. Perhaps other readers can provide some cultural context, on the time to get wet stuff on red stuff. Are we watching an exception to the rule, or pretty standard stuff?

B. Morgan

The French can be a bit laid back about things at times. Considering the very solid rock and cement construction along with slate roofs, spread to other building would be slow. The forced entry was very direct, why fool around with silly tools when a kick will do...

Fire Critic

or three kicks by two guys maybe. It is an excellent case for tools! Less injuries for sure. Work smarter not harder!

FireBoss

Interesting video, certainly not the way we fight fire here.
But I noticed that the apparatus was fully enclosed including the compartments,rear mounted pump, reflective striping on the apparatus including the rear chevrons on both the engine and hose reels and other features ( including apparatus size ) that we have only adopted in the last few years.
One can look at several web pages on the fire blogs to see that we certainly aren't without our faults.

Joseph Schmoe

I'm not going to bash these guys, I don't know how they operate or what the interior team saw. I am glad, however, that my apparatus will fit down all of the streets in my district!