Shanghai's fire and rescue department shows strong achievements with recent reforms

Shanghai's fire and rescue department highlighted their achievements over the past five years at a conference on Thursday.

About 406,000 cases were handled, rescuing and evacuating 58,000 people, and protecting 12.26 billion yuan (US$1.69 billion) of property from being destroyed, it reported.

Five years ago, the reform of China's fire and rescue went into effect. It enhanced the professionalism and work efficiency of the firefighters, as well as improve equipment and infrastructure for rescue.

With the help of the online command platform and mechanism reform, response time has been shortened by 1 minute, from receiving the alarm to arriving on scene, the local department reported.

More than 3,200 firefighters were recruited during the five years. Hundreds of new experts, commanding officers and instructors have also been brought into the talent pool, with over 560,000 volunteers for fire and rescue registered.

After investigation, more than 436,000 potential risks were cleared in living, entertainment and working areas.

To remove fire hazards during e-bike charging, related equipment for fire and rescue have been established in the charging areas of nearly 5,000 residential complexes in the city.

There were also 45 new fire and rescue stations built during the five years, an increase of 30 percent.

The improvement can also be seen in the advanced equipment such as relevant vehicles, robots and emergency supply warehouses.