Nearly 100 firefighters and their supporters rallied outside the Ministry of the Interior in Taipei yesterday, demanding reforms in the wake of a recent blaze that claimed the lives of six firefighters in Taoyuan.
Members of the National Association for Firefighters’ Rights (NAFR) said that firefighting squads around the nation are perpetually understaffed, underfunded and lack sufficient equipment, adding that working conditions should be improved to prevent more deaths from occurring.
“If we do not change the system, more firefighters will continue to be sacrificed on duty,” NAFR president Yang Shih-wei (楊適瑋) said, urging authorities to stop shifting blame to individual decisions made by firefighters on the scene.
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
He added that firefighters are typically exhausted from overwork as a result of packed schedules and unclear responsibilities, as their presence is often required to assist in activities unrelated to their firefighting duties.
“If [firefighters] can be called upon for ‘administrative assistance’ in all kinds of tasks, why do we not stop holding civil service exams for different government posts, and just recruit firefighters instead?” Yang said.
NAFR vice president Yu Tzung-han (余宗翰) said that two of the firefighters who died in the recent blaze were his classmates, adding that it was “still really difficult to believe that casualties like these happen over and over again.”
Draped in white shrouds splattered in red paint to symbolize the blood of firefighters, the protesters laid flat on the pavement outside the ministry to form the characters for “man-made disaster” (人禍), to symbolize their rejection of government reports that often linked the deaths to sudden explosions or flashovers.
They also lined 19 firefighter’s helmets on the ground, paying tribute to the 19 firefighters who lost their lives in the past two years.
The association demanded that the National Fire Agency formulate plans to increase personnel, upgrade equipment and streamline evaluation measures for firefighters.
Although the firefighters have asked 22 mayors and county commissioners to pledge support to their demands, just six have replied, NAFR secretary-general Cheng Ya-lin (鄭雅菱) said.
“Even with a decreasing amount of fires, casualties among our firefighters have increased,” Cheng said. “The need to overwork has led to firefighters becoming injured, ill or even losing their lives.”
NAFR members announced plans to stage a larger protest in front of the ministry on Tuesday night next week, in anticipation of a memorial service for the six firefighters scheduled for the following morning.
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