More than three dozen Mexican firefighters have been tackling California’s wildfires in what officials say is the first time firemen from south of the border have battled blazes on US soil.

“Firefighters are firefighters; it doesn’t matter if they’re Mexican or American,” said Marco Antonio Sanchez Navarro, Director of Tijuana Fire and Civil Protection.

“The fires are taking a lot of homes of not only Americans but Mexicans who live in the US,” added Sanchez Navarro.

The Spanish word for firefighters is “bomberos” and it is used with praise and respect at the sprawling base camp of the Harris Fire in eastern San Diego county near the US-Mexico border.

The Tijuana fire department sent four fire trucks carrying a battalion chief, a supervisor, a liaison and 35 firefighters to help the Mexican border city’s US neighbors.

At the Harris Fire base camp, the very long line for dinner includes the Tijuana bomberos, US federal fire teams, firefighters from across the Western US and also California’s unique corps of prison inmate firefighters.

“It’s a new experience,” said Luis Jimenez, 29, who 15 years ago began fighting fires in Tijuana as a 14-year-old trainee.

“They (the US firefighters) have a lot of equipment they can use — water tanks and helicopters — so they don’t put their people on the hot spots.

Mexican firefighters must do more with less equipment and often must do it faster than their US colleagues.

Since virtually all US homes and buildings must have insurance coverage and also fire sprinklers, US firefighters can let structures burn completely to keep a fire from spreading.

But it is less common in Mexico to have insured homes with fire sprinklers, especially wooden houses in poor city districts.

“We have to risk more because if a house in Mexico is burning, that may be the only thing the family has,” said Jimenez, explaining that Mexican firefighters must attack a blaze quickly to protect a building.

With no extra pay for their California firefighting work this past week, Tijuana’s bomberos earn an annual salary of 13,200 dollars, less than one-third of many US firefighters’ entry-level pay.

The difference is seen in their lodging here: American firefighters arriving from outside San Diego County have been staying in hotels while the Mexicans have been in tents near the inmate firefighter area.

The bomberos rest in sleeping bags, not on cots but tent floors. One of the Mexican fire trucks now in San Diego actually was bought used from a US fire department — a warning at the truck’s rear still states, in English, “Keep Back 300 Feet.”

Firefighter Adolfo Ibaceta came to Tijuana many years ago from his native Chile, hoping to enter the US. But that dream did not happen so he joined the Tijuana department. Now on American soil, Ibaceta said he volunteered, “for the experience and the technology.”

Although the issue of immigration and border controls has strained US-Mexico relations recently, the Mexican firecrews say they were greeted by their American counterparts as brother firefighters.

“The bomberos rock!” said Fire Engineer Wendi Miller of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire).

“They’re hard workers and they’re part of our family,” said Cal Fire captain Lori Windsor. “You can count on them.”