Mountain Heroes
Through reform, a more professional Chinese fire and rescue team with greater capabilities to save victims from fires and many other disasters as well as provide incident stabilization in forest fires, floods and hazardous material releases will emerge.
On the first day of 2019, 31-year- old Tang Tianjun and his teammates from the No. 1 squadron of the Chengdu forest fire services division buttoned up their uniforms and headed to Qingcheng Mountain to perform rounds. About 70 kilometers from Chengdu, capital of Sichuan Province, lies Qingcheng Mountain, a UNESCO World Heritage site known as one of the birthplaces of Taoism and a key area for fire prevention.
This year marks the 14th year that Tang’s squadron has carried out fire prevention duties in the forested areas of Qingcheng Mountain. The team is also responsible for protecting nearby areas including the Dujiangyan scenic spot, known for its time-honored irrigation and flood control project constructed around 256 B.C. that is still in use today.
A typical day for firefighters on Qingcheng Mountain starts quite early. A morning briefing on the overall fire strategy for the region is held before firefighters head off to different areas to patrol. After the briefing, personnel are dispatched to their respective areas, fully outfitted with firefighting equipment. Qingcheng Mountain is home to more than 30 peaks, with the tallest, Laojunge, being nearly 1,300 meters high. It makes patrolling no easy task. During holidays, especially major Chinese festivals when tons of people stream into the Taoist temples on the mountainside to burn incenses and pray for good luck, work becomes even heavier.
Another part of fire prevention work on Qingcheng Mountain involves the popularization of fire prevention knowledge among both employees of the scenic spot and Taoist priests. “You wouldn’t believe that many Taoist priests are actually quick learners on how to use fire