BSPP.

This is coolbert:

"Sauver ou périr".

By order of Napoleon!

Paris Fire Brigade.

Do it ze French way! Fire fighting Paris and Marseille. 

Came across this quite by accident.

"The Paris Fire Brigade (French: Brigade des sapeurs-pompiers de Paris, BSPP) is a French Army unit which serves as the primary fire and rescue service for Paris, the city's inner suburbs and certain sites of national strategic importance."

"The brigade's main area of responsibility is the City of Paris and the surrounding départements of Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, and Hauts-de-Seine . . . It also serves the Centre Spatial Guyanais in Kourou, the DGA Military Rocket Test Centre in Biscarosse, and the Lacq gas field. As with the other fire services of France, the brigade provides technical rescue, search and rescue and fire prevention services and is one of the providers of emergency medical services."

"The brigade is one of two fire services in France that is part of the armed forces, with the other being the Marseille Naval Fire Battalion (BMPM). It is a unit of the French Army's Engineering Arm (l'arme du génie) and the firefighters are therefore sappers (sapeurs . . . sapeurs-pompiers). With 8,550 firefighters, it is the largest fire service in Europe and the third largest urban fire service in the world, after the Tokyo Fire Department and New York City Fire Department. Its motto is 'Save or Perish'."

Firefighting I have often thought about as close as you can get to mortal combat on the battlefield without having an adversary shooting at you. Especially when fighting a forest fire. Teamwork required, a plan followed, each firefighter comporting himself in a disciplined manner. AND that element of danger present of course.

coolbert.