Director Zhao of the Armed Police College Fire Command told the reporter that at present, China's fire brigade is mainly composed of three systems. "First, the public security fire brigade implements the system of active duty soldiers, which is the main force of fire fighting, accounting for about 60% of the national fire brigade. The second part is full-time firefighters in some enterprises. " Director Zhao explained in detail, "For some special enterprises, such as power plants with a power generation of more than tens of millions, and large petrochemical enterprises such as Yanshan Petrochemical, chemical fiber, paper making and textile in Beijing, the state requires that special firefighters must be set up." "The third is the volunteer fire fighting organization, which is a supernumerary mass fire fighting organization." At present, there are about 230,000 people in the country as the fire brigade of active servicemen.

Fang Lingchun, a staff member of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security, said that China's fire forces, like the gold forces, hydropower forces, forest police and border police, belong to the armed police sequence, enjoy the same treatment as the PLA, and are led by public security organs at all levels. The fire brigade is organized from provincial (fire brigade), prefecture-level (fire detachment) to district-level (fire squadron) in turn. Housing management personnel said, for example, Hengyang detachment, which participated in the fire fighting this time, "belongs to the Municipal Public Security Bureau, and the political commissar is at the regiment level, which is appointed and removed by the Hunan Provincial Public Security Bureau."

Firefighters are also recruited by the conscription system and serve for two years. The service in these two years is compulsory, and the monthly allowance for firefighters is about 100 yuan. "After two years, a considerable number of technicians turned into non-commissioned officers, and the non-commissioned officers were three years at each level." The allowance after being transferred to a non-commissioned officer is only four or five hundred yuan.

What training does a new soldier have to go through from joining the army to becoming a fireman? Director Niu of the Training Department of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security replied that it is customary for recruits to train for three months after joining the army. In addition to political education, they "also have professional training in basic fire fighting skills and physical fitness." After being assigned to each fire brigade, "training and duty are integrated into one".

Servicemen are on a two-year system, which means that an ordinary firefighter has only two years from entering the army to getting familiar with equipment, training, mastering and accumulating experience. "The short turnover period and frequent turnover have some disadvantages for long-term experience accumulation and human stability." Teacher Li from the Fire Command Department of the Armed Police College said that in their teaching, they often analyze past fires. "This Hengyang fire will definitely be studied as a case in the future."

Director Niu of the Training Department of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security said that firefighters should also learn to identify different combustible materials, the harm of fire to buildings and the fire resistance limit of buildings during training. Director Niu told reporters that in the training of firefighters, "there is training in collapse subjects, including understanding the building structure and saving people after collapse." But "the problem now is that we don't know the quality of many commercial and residential buildings."

Secret service and routine

"After 1995, in order to deal with urban hazardous chemicals and sudden disasters, the urban fire brigade is required to have the ability to deal with various disasters quickly, especially the leakage or explosion accidents of hazardous chemicals, and the fire brigade should bear the responsibilities and obligations in this regard." Director Zhao of the Fire Command Department of the Armed Police Academy told the reporter that in this context, in addition to the conventional fire forces in the past, "special service brigades have been established in provincial capital cities and relatively large cities. Usually, each special service brigade has two special service squadrons, and all fire squadrons have at least special service classes or special service groups. "

The room staff said that the secret service team was well equipped, including life detectors and police dogs. "Conventional and secret service are parallel. Secret service refers to firefighters who are better equipped and perform more challenging tasks. " Of course, when disasters such as fires occur, the first thing to follow is the principle of "proximity". Teacher Li Li Ben further explained: "If there is a fire in the building, if evacuation is involved, special police must be dispatched."

It should be pointed out that "there is no division of labor between secret service and routine in the fire, and they use it flexibly according to the situation." Among the 20 fire officers and soldiers killed in Hengyang fire, 20-year-old Zeng Hui and 19-year-old Guo Tieniu belonged to the special squadron. Among the injured 1 1 officers and men, 6 were from the special squadron.

In daily life, many practical problems solved by "secret service" are not directly related to "fire fighting", and their roles have changed unconsciously. Director Zhao of the Fire Command listed a lot of things that "the police must go out" in one breath: water pipes burst, gas pipes leaked, and dangerous chemicals leaked in the city, all of which were secret services. Director Zhao told reporters that in recent years, the fire brigade went out to the police, "50 times out of 100 were non-fire rescue"-"For example, a child fell into the sewer, a high-rise resident left his keys at home, and a pregnant woman suddenly went into labor. For example, if someone climbs to a tall building or a hanging tower to commit suicide, or even a hornet's nest on the balcony of a resident's house, they must be dispatched by secret service. " Behind these multiple roles is the broadening of the responsibilities of "firefighters" in society. "The secret service is dispatched more and more frequently, the tasks are correspondingly heavy, and the personnel and materials are consumed quite a lot, but the equipment conditions and due material conditions are far behind."

Under China's current fire fighting system, local governments pay for fire fighting, while the central government is only responsible for administrative expenses, and local finance is responsible for vehicles, equipment and barracks. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand that the fire-fighting equipment in various places is not unrelated to the attention of leaders. Li, from the Fire Command Department of Armed Police College, said that the firefighter system in China is "very different between the east and the west, and also between the north and the south". In his observation, "the types and quantities of fire fighting equipment in good areas are almost the same as those in developed countries."

The road of professional firefighters

Different from the current military system in China, some foreign countries adopt the professional system. The staff of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security said frankly: "This is mainly due to economic considerations." "Professional investment is relatively large, because fire protection is a high-risk industry and requires great material security. It cannot be solved without corresponding financial resources." "Like in the United States, Germany and Japan, they can still be professional combatants in their 40 s and 50 s, and they rely on equipment to operate. Under the active service system in China, it is impossible to have such an old firefighter with a' fire age' of decades. " Li of the Fire Command Department of the Armed Police Academy said. However, in many areas of our country, the level of fire fighting equipment and equipment is limited. "In this case, recruiting active servicemen and keeping their fighting capacity young can make up for the lack of equipment quality."

Director Zhao of the Fire Command Department of the Armed Police Academy said: "The active service system is mainly implemented in economically underdeveloped countries." Japan, the United States and other economically developed countries implement the vocational system, and so does Hong Kong. It's a little special in France, which is mainly professional, but it retains two fire brigades. "This is because in the Napoleonic period, the troops at that time fought and put out fires, and it is more symbolic to save them now." Director Zhao said that the vocational system is conducive to retaining professional backbones, accumulating experience and improving efficiency. The biggest advantage of professional firefighters is "rich experience" and the disadvantage is "slow replacement".

"Fire fighting is also a sign of social civilization." Fang Lingchun, a staff member of the Fire Department of the Ministry of Public Security, said. The housing management staff provided a figure: at present, the proportion of active firefighters in China is 0.9 1% of the population. "In other words, only 9 out of every 65,438+10,000 people are firefighters." In America, there is one fireman for every 1000 people. There are two reasons for the serious shortage of police force: "On the one hand, cities and towns are expanding their industries and the task of fire fighting is heavy. On the other hand, the fire protection function has been continuously broadened, further highlighting the lack of police force. "

"From a global perspective, the professional system of firefighters is the mainstream and the future development direction." ■

Professional firefighters in the United States

America is a country with many fires. According to statistics, among all kinds of disasters and accidents, the number of people killed by fire ranks third (the first is a car accident, the second is various criminal activities), and the loss of people and property caused by fire is huge every year.

Firefighters in the United States practice a professional system. They take fire fighting as their lifelong career and enjoy a government pension after retirement. Firefighters newly recruited every year must have a high school education or above and must go through a training period of 1 year. The first is four months of basic training, including physical fitness, basic skills, basic knowledge and so on. After that, it was a half-year full-time internship and concentrated training. You can't become a full-time firefighter until you pass the exam.

According to American law, the number of firefighters in large and medium-sized cities depends on the number of permanent residents in the city. The usual standard is: one fireman per thousand people. Every state in the United States has a fire headquarters, and every city in the state has a fire corps. According to regional characteristics, there are detachments, brigades and squadrons.

American fire department thinks that fire science and technology is an applied science and technology, so it attaches great importance to transplanting scientific research achievements from other departments for use by fire departments. For example, they used computer technology to set up urban fire communication dispatching control centers with computer systems in some large and medium-sized cities. The computer system stores information such as the distribution of streets and fire-fighting facilities in the city, the deployment of fire-fighting forces, and the scheduling scheme of fire-fighting forces during fire fighting. Once a fire breaks out, the center can turn on the emergency lighting equipment of the fire brigade, open the garage door and send out fire fighting instructions through remote control. The application of these technologies has greatly improved the efficiency of dispatching command and fire fighting.

The casualty rate of American fire brigades is relatively high. With the development of industrial technology, putting out modern fires is more dangerous than before. Take the chemical mobile fire brigade in the United States as an example, their personal protective equipment is generally: air respirator with poison filtration equipment, protective clothing against chemical corrosion and high temperature, harmful gas alarm, gas detector, harmful liquid and solid detector, non-contact hot spot detector, explosion-proof flashlight, dike rope for containment, rapid expansion leak-proof belt, low-pressure container hole treatment box, dangerous goods barrier belt, decontamination and washing equipment and goggles.

The American people have great respect for firefighters, and heroic firefighters are often their heroes. The treatment of firefighters is also very high, and the fire station is a work unit that many people yearn for. According to the results of a folk test conducted by an American institution, among the most respected occupations, firefighters rank first, while the president ranks 26th.