Increase of 8 percent in fire cases reported

The Fire Services Bureau (CB) was called less often to respond to several types of incidents over 2018. The 1.3 percent drop was reported yesterday to the media by Commissioner Leong Iok Sam during the CB annual activities report.

Although the number of cases decreased (by 609 cases) when compared to the previous year, Leong noted that fire-related cases rose by 8 percent during 2018. According to the CB head, the increase in these cases was attributed to “a significant number of reported cases of fire and smoke in electrical boxes,” particularly during typhoons and other weather- related situations.

Leong also explained the registered decline in the total number of cases addressed by the CB in 2018, contrasting the “extremely high number reported back in 2017, with the hit of typhoon Hato. […] Last year’s Mangkhut did not generate so many cases,” he said.

2018 closed with a total of 47,327 incidents lodged. The number of dispatched ambulance cases grew by 270.
The Commissioner noted that “although we had more cases [of ambulance dispatching], the growth is by just over 200 cases, which in fact represents a slowdown, since in previous years we were seeing an average growth of over 2,000 cases per year,” Leong noted, highlighting also that this slight increase did not result in an increase in the total number of ambulance services. That figure decreased by over 2,500 ambulances.

Responsibility for this decrease, according to Leong, lies with the successful campaigns run by the CB, encouraging people to refrain from using ambulance services except in a real emergency.

Leong foresees some areas in which the services would focus on this year, citing the “learning achieved with the experience from the last few years concerning disaster response.” He noted that the CB has acquired and updated equipment and vehicles in order to effectively face any upcoming situation, as well as provided training for its frontline staff in order to “elevate their capacity during rescue operations.”

Leong said that this year the CB plans to acquire “two to three drones that would be used in fire detection and fast information relay on site in an incident.” He further explained that “[the drones] would be used mostly for the detection of fire outbreaks and for image collection on site so we can have fast relay of information on the situation and can deploy the best equipment to the location.”

Questioned by the media, the Commissioner said that the Services personnel currently include 1,362 operatives. He expects that during 2019, those operatives will be joined by another 100 currently in training.

According to Leong, the figure is sufficient but does not fill the Service’s established 1,600 operative quota completely.