This time, though, more trucks came rumbling by so about three minutes later I looked back and saw a column of smoke, mainly black with a little white. I decided to give my curiousity full reign and turned around to spectate. I rode onto a street with a knot of spectators looking at the back of a three story house with smoke and flames shooting out of the windows of the top floor.
I watched for about fifteen minutes, and thought I might record a few of those "little things" (I'm thinking of the conversation about Europe in Pulp Fiction when I put that in quotes. Travolta says "Its the little things that you notice") that struck me as different, just images, really:
1) We're a third of the way down a pretty, tree-lined residential street; around the corner and most of the way down the next block is the driveway that leads to the house that is on fire. Trucks keep arriving, and they would stop at our little knot of spectators with a view of the smoke and flames, and people from the crowd would yell to driver "to the right, to the right." The driver would wave in appreciation and drive off.
2) A few minutes after I arrived, two guys, on foot in full firefighting suits, come hoofing it around the corner pulling a two-wheeled cart with a pretty big reel of canvas hose on it. As they get closer, one of them lets go and jogs ahead with a wrench to the hydrant near me, across the street from the fire, and the other yells "m'aidez" to the spectators. A middle-aged guy runs over and helps pull the little cart up to the hydrant. I try to imagine an American firefighter yelling to a civilian for help. I took a picture with my cell phone.
3) Soon, there is a hose across the street, down a nearby driveway, and over a short wall to the back of the house. The firefighters who set it up have disappeared. A good five minutes have passed since I arrive, probably ten since the first truck passed me. The whole time I've been watching, the only active fire suppression I've seen is a fairly small stream of water directed up at the eves from the ground. An old lady near me says something about the firefighters being concerned about a tank of gas in the house. Cars and motorcyles keep bumping over the hose, most slowing, some not. There are no policemen or firemen in sight.4) Yet another firetruck arrives, and the spectators again shout "a droite" (to the right) but the driver waves them off. He stops before the hose and a couple of guys get out and put some plastic ramps under the hose and get back in. The truck bumps up over them and disappears around the corner. Some cars go over the ramps. Others avoid the ramps and go over the hose.
5) Another pair of fully outfitted firefighters with another, identical hose cart come trundling around the corner, down the street, see that there already is a hose attached to "our" hydrant, and turn around.
6) A "gas emergency" vehicle that appears to be part of the gas company arrives and goes down a nearby driveway, confirming the old lady's observation.
7) A platform arises near the house with a fireman on top who appears to be spraying the roof. It has been at least ten minutes since I arrived, and flames keep shooting out of the windows.
8) A caravan of three identical very small Renaults, painted red with a blue light on the dash, arrive and park in front of us. They look to my American-conditioned eyes as the vehicles that would clearly be assigned to the newest, most junior people, probably office workers. So it startled me when tough-looking firemen, clearly senior, stepped out of each car and started discussing the fire.
9) Now the color of the smoke becomes whiter, and no flames are coming out of the windows. Whatever they are doing is working. Another couple of minutes, and the volume of smoke is clearly less. It has been about fifteen minutes since I arrived, and perhaps twenty since I saw the first fire truck.
I got back on my bike and rode on.
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