Tonight’s European adventure was fighting brush fire in the French coastal town of Menton.

As I was returning to my hostel after dinner downtown, I saw a plume of black smoke rising from the hill in front of me. Typically smoke from an intentional fire burns white, but this was a dense column of black.

I was suprised as I got closer to the source that I didn’t yet hear the nee naw nee naw of the European rescue vehicles. I struggled through the maze of narrow streets, and about a block away, I noticed a couple people on cellphones, looking towards the same smoke I saw so I figured the call had gotten out, but still I heard no sirens.

Up the last set of steps to the fire I could see the sides of the buildings nearby pulsing red with the reflection of the flames, and as I turned the final corner, I could see the flames directly through a ten foot tall cyclone fence.

I had to run along the fence a bit until I found a wall I could use to help me clear it. I jumped over and looked for something I could use to clear the brush as I headed towards the flames. I quickly found a long piece of wood with which I began to clear the unburned brush from the path of the flames. A woman was trying to speak to me in French, but I couldn’t understand her. Something about the firemen coming, but still I heard no sirens, and I wanted to at least keep the fire from spreading while we waited.

Occasionally I would get too close and could feel the heat warning me away, but I was able to create enough of a firebreak that the spread of the flames slowed. My main concern now was that the flames would ignite the trees above and there’d be nothing I could do.

Finally a helmeted fireman appeared to assess the situation. He and three others dragged hoses from the closest street and connected them. The sound of surging water came and the hose went taut. In a few minutes they were able to extinguish the remaining flames, and I headed on my way again to my hostel.

As I was leaving, though, I was thanked by a fireman and some of the residents of the nearby houses. When it became clear I was a foreigner, they asked where I was from. Perhaps a few French people will wake tomorrow with a better opinion of Americans who can’t speak French but can fight fires.