Southeast Asia Information Port News (www.dnyxxg.com) November 9th is China's National Fire Prevention Day. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China established 6,692 new government-run full-time fire brigades and recruited 114,000 new government-run full-time firefighters, bringing the total force size to 255,000.
Meanwhile, China has established 3,260 enterprise-run full-time fire brigades with over 81,000 members. This ever-growing full-time firefighting force, working closely with the nearly 220,000-strong national comprehensive fire and rescue team, together forms a fire protection network covering both urban and rural areas.
Why is China vigorously promoting the construction of government and enterprise-run full-time fire brigades in addition to the national comprehensive fire and rescue team?
Zong Junrong, head of the full-time fire brigade management team of the Jiangsu Provincial Fire and Rescue Corps, explained the underlying considerations in an interview with China News Service: With the acceleration of urbanization, various disaster and accident risks are intertwined and overlapping, and the pressure of prevention and control continues to increase. Relying solely on the "national team" is no longer sufficient to meet the rescue needs of "all types of disasters and large-scale emergencies."
In recent years, the rescue functions of the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams have expanded from traditional firefighting to "all-hazard" rescue, including floods, earthquakes, and mudslides. The number of emergency calls handled annually increased from 1.18 million in 2018 to 2.358 million in 2024.
Compared to the ever-increasing rescue demands, the national comprehensive fire and rescue teams, numbering nearly 220,000, represent less than two ten-thousandths of the national population, far below the average level of developed countries.
Some remote areas often face the dilemma of "distant water cannot quench nearby fires," making township-level government-run fire brigades a crucial force in filling the gaps in grassroots rescue efforts. Meanwhile, large hazardous chemical enterprises require specialized emergency response forces to handle special disasters and accidents. These needs collectively drive the development of diversified fire-fighting capabilities.
Wang Chi, Director of the Safety Supervision Department of the Quality, Health, Safety and Environmental Protection Department of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), analyzed from the enterprise's perspective that hazardous chemical enterprises have complex production processes, numerous risk points, and serious consequences from accidents. Relying solely on external fire and rescue forces is insufficient to effectively control the situation within the "golden rescue time." There is a need to establish professional, dedicated fire brigades for enterprises to achieve rapid response and precise handling, thus promoting a shift from "passive emergency response" to "proactive prevention and control" within enterprises.
Faced with numerous practical needs, promoting the diversification of fire-fighting capabilities has become an inevitable choice. In January 2023, the State Council Safety Committee Office, the Ministry of Emergency Management, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council jointly issued an opinion outlining arrangements for the construction of dedicated fire brigades for large hazardous chemical enterprises. In October of the same year, 13 departments, including the Ministry of Emergency Management, jointly issued an opinion to comprehensively promote the development of local government dedicated fire brigades.
The national comprehensive fire and rescue team and government and enterprise dedicated teams do not operate independently. Instead, they are unified in command and dispatch through a joint operations, training, and exercise mechanism, leveraging the advantages of the widespread distribution and flexibility of dedicated teams to form a "national team" and "one main force with multiple auxiliary forces" operational system.
Taking Beijing's practice as an example, the city implemented a joint initial response model: after a fire breaks out, the government's dedicated team first rescues people and controls the fire, while the "national team" arrives to jointly tackle the fire, achieving a 98.2% success rate in extinguishing the fire within half an hour.
Real-world data confirms the role of dedicated fire brigades: In 2024, government-run dedicated fire brigades participated in handling 730,000 incidents, accounting for 30% of all incidents. In provinces like Jiangsu and Zhejiang, government-run dedicated fire brigades accounted for 60% of fire and rescue incidents.
Corporate dedicated fire brigades also demonstrate their professional value in fire and rescue operations. In the 2023 major explosion and fire accident at Liaoning Panjin Haoye Chemical Plant on January 15th, the Liaoning Oilfield Fire Brigade of China National Petroleum Corporation, relying on a joint prevention mechanism, dispatched 4 vehicles and 28 personnel within 5 minutes, coordinating with the national comprehensive fire and rescue team to quickly implement process isolation and cooling to suppress the explosion, effectively controlling the spread of the fire and preventing secondary disasters.
According to statistics, since the implementation of the above-mentioned guidelines, corporate dedicated fire brigades have participated in handling 17,000 incidents and evacuated and rescued more than 1,100 trapped personnel.
Since the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China has continuously built a diversified emergency rescue force system with each force performing its own duties, complementing each other, and coordinating operations. The combat effectiveness of various emergency rescue teams has been rapidly improved.
The 15th Five-Year Plan proposed to "improve the capacity for disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief, and the handling of major public emergencies." Zong Junrong stated that the further improvement of the diversified fire-fighting force system not only effectively fills force gaps but also comprehensively enhances overall fire-fighting and rescue combat effectiveness and comprehensive emergency rescue efficiency, providing a solid guarantee for disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief, and the handling of major public emergencies. (End)
