U.S. firemen fight fires in Mexico

By Tim Gaynor

NACO, Ariz (Reuters) - The two towns are both called Naco: one lies in Mexico, the other in the United States. But when it comes to fighting fires, it is all one community.

When a blaze breaks out south of the international line, fire chief Jesse Morales and his crew of volunteer fire fighters pull on their gear, pile into a Ford fire truck and head to border point.

Weaving through the gate with their lights flashing, they are met by a Mexican police escort and set off to fight fires in the neighboring town in what may be a unique instance of cross-border cooperation between Mexico and the United States.

Many towns and cities the length of the U.S.-Mexico border have strong civic ties across the line, although no other fire brigade is believed to regularly cross the border to tackle fires.

The towns, which lie in a remote high desert valley some 100 miles southeast of Tucson, Arizona, have a combined population of fewer 9,000 people.

Almost all of the dozen members of the Arizona fire crew have family in the dirt-poor ranching town in Sonora, Mexico, where some residents live in homes knocked up from wooden pallets and plastic sheeting.

"If someone's house catches fire it might be the only thing they have in this world, so we try and get there as fast as we can," said Morales, 32, who has battled dozens of blazes over the line since becoming a fireman 15 years ago.

"Naco is one big community and we do not hesitate to cross and help them."

GARDEN HOSE TO FIGHT A BLAZE

The two towns weathered the Mexican revolution together in 1914, when Pancho Villa and his pistoleros battled federal troops yards from the border line in Mexico.

Cooperation over fire-fighting began in 1959, the year that the volunteer fire department in the tiny Arizona town was formed, and has continued ever since.

The Arizona firefighters are on call around the clock. When they are summoned to fight fires in Mexico, they call the small port of entry to let U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials know they are heading south.

Later, the fire crew often come back to the old adobe U.S. Customs House to refill their water tanks at a fire hydrant beside the international line.

Recent blazes fought by the brigade have included a fire at the Mexican town's garbage dump that smoldered for a week, belching toxic smoke over both sides of the rusted border fence.

Another was a roaring inferno fanned by hot desert winds that engulfed three adjacent homes in the Mexican town, where many of the roads are unpaved.