Fire, fire! - How, historically, did the ancient & medieval ages fight fire?

Actually, fun fact! The ancient world did have a firefighting service: the vigiles of Augustan Rome.

It all started when a fire broke out in the notoriously flammable City. Rome didn't have building codes at this time (Although they were instituted by some of the later Emperors), and, as a result, the entire city was essentially a massive fire hazard. There were no built in firebreaks at this time (5 CE), and buildings were generally built as cheaply as could be gotten away with. If you'd like to read about these buildings, and why they were a hazard, feel free to read this tidbit I wrote up! If not, well, think of them as 8-10 story apartments made of plywood. Someone accidentally trips and knocks over a candle? Well, looks like the whole block is gone, if not a quarter of the city. Even Augustus' house had to be rebuilt at least once because it burned down.

One of these fires happened in 5 CE, which only made the existing famine even worse. Huge swathes of the City were devastated by fire, and Augustus needed a way to reassure the people that everything was gonna be okay. So he set up Rome's first companies of firefighters. They were recruited from freed slaves, who were seen as lesser men than citizens, and organized into seven cohorts (military-style groups: ~480 men per cohort, 10 cohorts per legion). The man in charge was an equestrian known as the Praefectus Vigilum (Prefect of the Vigiles). Cassius Dio (~155 CE-~235 CE) describes the situation pretty clearly here:

When many parts of the city were at this time destroyed by fire, he organized a company of freedmen, in seven divisions, to render assistance on such occasions, and appointed a knight in command over them, expecting to disband them in a short time. He did not do so, however; for he found by experience that the aid they gave was most valuable and necessary, and so retained them. These night-watchmen exist to the present day, as a special corps, one might say, recruited no longer from the freedmen only, but from the other classes as well. They have barracks in the city and draw pay from the public treasury.

Again, pretty clear on that. They were paid by the State, had a barracks in the city, and were very active for at least 230ish years (probably more).

Finally: How did they do it? Luckily, I have a book handy which gives a quick description of the vigiles and their equipment (Lindsay Powell's Germanicus):

Wearing military issue helmets, they were equipped with axes, buckets, grappling hooks, ropes, and water siphons.

Again, pretty clear there.

Before Augustus, Crassus was also known to have employed a force of fire-fighting slaves, which I don't really count because they probably set the fires in the first place >.> Crassus was....a bit of an aggressive businessman, shall we say. He would "notice a fire" that "coincidentally" sprung up at a property in which he was interested. Plutarch describes Crassus' dickery quite well, actually:

And besides this, observing how natural and familiar at Rome were such fatalities as the conflagration and collapse of buildings, owing to their being too massive and close together, he proceeded to buy slaves who were architects and builders. Then, when he had over five hundred of these, he would buy houses that were afire, and houses which adjoined those that were afire, and these their owners would let go at a trifling price owing to their fear and uncertainty. In this way the largest part of Rome came into his possession. But though he owned so many artisans, he built no house for himself other than the one in which he lived; indeed, he used to say that men who were fond of building were their own undoers, and needed no other foes.

So, in a way, he did fight fires. But only after he forced their owners to let go of the properties he wanted at a rock-bottom price first, so that he could rebuild it and become the landlord.

Hope that helped you out a bit :) If you have more questions, feel free to let me know!