Fire at the BN

I have this bad habit of showing up to libraries and finding them closed, or entering a library and learning I'm not allowed to do any research. (Remember my first day?) Such was the case when I tried to go back to work after returning from our cruise, when I arrived at the BnF Richelieu to find a single fire truck with its ladder on the building's roof and dozens of people congregated outside the building's entrance.

First I thought it was just an exercise, but when I asked a security guard when they'd be opening up again, he didn't know. That bode poorly for my "exercise" hypothesis. Worse, while walking around the building on my way to the Département de la Musique, I kept noticing more and more fire vehicles, most of which I hadn't seen the last time I witnessed Paris' fire department in (in)action.


Whatever was going on in there, they really called out the cavalry. Including a number of the cute, small-parking-space-friendly, hatchback-ish vehicles you see above. Whatever gets the job done, I guess.

Paris Fire Department historical trivia, courtesy of a plaque on an H&M just across the street from Galeries Lafayette:

Here, on July 1, 1810, the Prince of Schwartzenberg, Austrian Ambassador, gave a ball in the honor of the marriage of Napoléon 1er and Marie-Louise de Habsbourg-Lourraine. During the course of the evening, a violent fire broke out, after which the Emperor (Napoléon) ordered, by the decree of September 18, 1811, the reorganization of the present-day firefighters into a military unit. The origins of today's Parisian firefighting brigade can be traced to that decree.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.