More professional firefighting service needed

Firefighters have a discussion on extinguishing a fire broke out on a warehouse in Harbin, capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang province, Jan 3, 2015. (Xinhua/Wang Kai)

Five young firefighters, aged between 18 and 22, were killed and another 14 injured in a warehouse blaze in Harbin, capital city of the Northeast China's Heilongjiang province. The cause of the fire on Jan 2, which resulted in the collapse of the building, is still being investigated.

This tragedy has once again highlighted the country's outdated firefighting system, along with the inefficient recruitment of firefighters. In the past five years, official statistics show that more than 140 firefighters have died on duty and more than 300 have been injured.

For starters, the lack of professional firefighting forces is so bad that about 290 counties reportedly have no trained firemen and most towns and villages do not have fire control supervisors.

To be specific, China has over 160,000 firemen on active duty, accounting for around 0.012 percent of its total population of more than 1.3 billion. Such a percentage is even lower than 0.16 to 0.19 percent of many other developing countries such as India, and far outnumbered by developed ones, such as the United States, Germany, and France, where 0.2 to 0.4 percent of their populations are firefighters.

In other words, only 1 out of every 10,000 Chinese people is a fireman, yet in the US, there are approximately 1 firemen for every 1,000 people. Meanwhile, most local fire departments in China have only two to five officials, who are assigned to supervise all the firefighting in a county. Given the increasing difficulties resulting from the growing population, the country requires more highly professionalized and experienced firefighters with up-to-date equipment.

China, unlike many other countries, still resorts to military-style compulsory service to recruit its firefighters due to the historical and economic restrictions decades ago. Such a mechanism worked well for quite a long time, because it succeeded in enrolling a slew of young soldiers at relatively low expense.

However, the limited term of service has led to the too-frequent turnover of most Chinese firemen. According to statistics, in 70 fires that involved firefighter casualties between 2005 and 2013, more than 64 percent of all the firefighters who were killed had served less than four years. In some cases, there was hardly even a qualified and experienced officer leading a group of "boy scouts" to quench a terrible fire - surely a contributing factor in the number of deaths.

Simply assigning more firefighters to local fire departments may not be a feasible solution, given the various limitations in local manning quotas and the lack of proper management. Under the current circumstances, it is better to start promoting higher education of a firefighting major in military academies so as to produce more qualified commanders. Second, advanced fire equipment should be assigned to junior firefighters in their training. More importantly, the personnel makeup in the fire services needs to be optimized to accommodate more firemen on the front line.

Moreover, a higher level of professionalism needs to be achieved by the firefighting departments at all levels, as this would enhance efficiency and reduce the turnover rate to allow more time for the firemen to receive proper training.

Last but not least, improvement of firefighter's occupational health will also be a boost to their competence as a whole. Firefighting is a risky profession and the normal health examination, which is still adopted by many fire departments, only focuses on firemen's physical health. Hence, perceptually invisible illnesses such as the mental and chemical damages that firefighters suffer during an action, should be cared about as well.

The author Fan Xinhai is the director of Qinghai Public Security Fire Corps Hospital in Xining of Qinghai province.