The ideal firefighter fights disasters even if it means his or her life. Fires and floods are merciless. The firefighters at the Hubei General Fire Brigade of the Public Security Bureau and the Armed Police Force are prepared to fight fires and floods at any time. They appear wherever there are disasters and difficulties. Thanks to their efforts, Hubei Province has not been stricken by severe fire accidents for more than eight years.

Fighting Fire With Knowledge

Before the threat of fire, courage is important, but knowledge is even more so. The fire brigade has spared no efforts to arm its firefighters with knowledge. To improve its firefighters' quality and ability, the Hubei General Fire Brigade has joined hands with the Huazhong University of Science and Technology and the Chinese People's Armed Police Force Academy to train talented personnel. In addition, it employs more than 100 people with bachelor's degrees or above every year. At present, it has more than 300 officers with intermediate or senior technical positions, accounting for 20 percent of all its officers. Li Jinwen, the head of the fire brigade, has been appointed as a national firefighting and rescuing expert.

Sergeants in the fire brigade are the largest force and make up 36 percent of all its officers and soldiers. In recent years, they have set a good example and become the backbone of the fire brigade.

A flexible command-and-communication system plays an indispensable role in fighting disasters. All detachments of the fire brigade have established an agile, efficient "119" firefighting system, and the provincial system has almost reached world-class status. Both the Wuhan and Xiangfan detachments are ranked top among those fire brigades at the same level across the country in the command system. The firefighting command-and-communication system and the HFM-I New-Type Fire-Extinguishing Agent invented by the Hubei General Fire Brigade have won the Provincial Prize for Progress in Science and Technology.

Advanced equipment can double a firefighter's might. Under the support of the central and local governments, the fire brigade has invested much to improve its firefighting equipment, quickly achieving modernization. It now has nearly 500 fire trucks, of which 32 are equipped with lifters. Its various firefighting tools and exposure suits number several to 20 times greater than a few years ago. The fire-extinguishing chemicals that it preserves have now increased from 800 tons in 1998 to 1,600 tons.

Stopping Disasters Before They Start

In order to eliminate disasters before they happen, the brigade pays much attention to disaster prevention and has not wasted any opportunity to reduce the loss from disasters.

Owing to the efforts of its fire departments at all levels, Hubei has formed a perfect social firefighting system, in which local governments should take responsibility for fire prevention work. At present, there are 19,000 fire hydrants across the province. Furthermore, fire-prevention planning is carried out in the province's 13 prefecture-level cities and middle-sized and small cities and towns. Public firefighting infrastructures have been greatly improved.

Since 2000, the fire brigade has made efforts to popularize knowledge about fire prevention. So far, it has held more than 800 competitions on firefighting knowledge and 420 theatrical performances and sent 1,470 vehicles to distribute more than 1.5 billion volumes of publicity material. In addition, it has trained 300,000 people who are in charge of firefighting work in institutions that need to pay special attention to fire prevention.

Great Returns
Thanks to the efforts of the Hubei fire brigade, both the number of fires and the loss from fires have greatly decreased in the province. Since October 1997, there have been no severe fire accidents in Hubei. The average loss from each of 35,000 fires extinguished by the fire brigade decreased from 9,100 yuan in 1997 to 3,279 yuan in 2003, much lower than the average level across the country.

The fire brigade has been awarded many prizes by the state and the local governments at all levels in Hubei for its outstanding achievements. It is the only Advanced Unit to Spread Popular Sciences titled by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology. Seventeen detachments and over 30 individuals in the fire brigade have won various prizes. One has been honored with the first-grade merit by the State Council and the Central Military Committee.

Background Information:

Unlike most of other countries in the world, fire brigades in China are composed of soldiers from the Chinese Armed Police Force, and are thus under the jurisdiction of both the armed police force and the public security system.

In China, "119" is the fire hotline, and has become the alternative name of fire brigades and firefighters.
November 9 is China's national fire fighting day in China. On that day, many activities are held to popularize knowledge about fire precaution, and many fire stations are open to the public. At present, some 1,500 fire stations are open to the public, accounting for 58.6 percent of all fire stations around China. Furthermore, more than 80 percent of fire stations in cities are open to the public.

Since 1997, the Chinese central government has invested 1.4 billion yuan for fire fighting and has established 30 fire brigades and 159 fire detachments. There are currently more than 20,000 fire trucks in China.

(China Pictorial  February 23, 2004)