#irrigation or fire management amenities. also the way that the majority of the patrolmen are Kin (per haruspex's dialogue).

[rathologic]

hey, i’m doing Whumptober with Clara, and some of the fics i’m working on require information on the Town, and you seem to know a lot about it!

for now, my first question is just: what do you think the Town does for fires? because it doesn’t seem like they have a firefighting team. do you think they just have to let it burn and hope it doesn’t spread?

(also idk how many questions i may have to ask, but if you don’t want to hear this nonsense, just lmk!)

neat, best of luck with your writing! I'll add to this if I come across any more lines that are relevant (it turns out they say "fire" and "burn" a LOT during this game, so this is mostly off the top of my head...)

IMO, we get lots of firefighting implications from the fact that post-infected districts are burned during the plague! it's mentioned early on that "only patrolmen and couriers are in the streets" (before other parties, such as the arsonists who want to burn the entire town, and the sanitary corps who want to burn the entire town, show up) -- I think it can be inferred if it's not explicitly stated somewhere that the patrolmen are managing controlled district burns. that practice is likely to have continued since at least the first outbreak, after which the Crude Sprawl was burned to the ground and rebuilt.

the demarcations vary by district, but much of the town has cobblestone or gravel ground cover; buildings aren't packed together, and they're generally made of stone, brick, and tile. there are also lots of grassy areas and yards, but scythes exist in the town and I imagine it'd be doable to create firebreaks with the tools at hand. patrolmen also accept Combustible Fluid in trade, which could mean anything but I like to think they use it :-) some wall textures pictured

in terms of firefighting during non-plague times, we have this from Rubin's portrait quote about Saburov:

Alexander is a hero. When fire broke out in the Skinners, he took a pike pole into his own hands to break into burning houses, save people, and put out fire.

we're told that saburov is in charge of organizing the patrolmen during the game, but we're also told that the size of the standing patrol force is very small; it's a volunteer force, and saburov in the above quote is acting as a volunteer (and role model). this suggests that there's at least a sense of community responsibility about fire response...

the (destruction of the) water supply is a big thing in 1, but for firefighting purposes river water would be fine, and we know the Town is not lacking in buckets -- still, we know there's a newly installed town-wide irrigation system in 2, and an expansive sewer system in 1 which extends everywhere except the Earth district. the middle town in particular has these taps/hydrants all over the place:

bonfires are also maintained on the outskirts of town - they seem like permanent constructions, but during the game they're used as signal fires to warn anyone approaching not to enter the town. implies to me some level of attending the fires as they're in the grassiest part... we can also see community relevance of fire in the fact that meat and fish are smoked for preservation, the burning of biological waste (applying to human remains in both games), the use of torches for lighting in Kin cultural areas and kerosene/oil lamps and candles elsewhere, and the fact that the town was constructed after the previous settlement burned down 80 years ago. so I think it's pretty reasonable to assume they're prepared to deal with wildfire :-)

TL:DR firefighting: probably managed by the volunteer patrol, probably by extension under saburov's responsibilities as governor