Two firefighters died yesterday at a fire at an allegedly illegal factory in Taichung’s Daya District (大雅), prompting groups to call for legislative amendments to address firefighter safety.
Hsieh Chih-hsiung (謝志雄), 33, and Chang Che-chia (張哲嘉), 32, lost contact with the rest of their squad at 3:22am after entering the factory to search for the source of the blaze, the Taichung Fire Bureau said.
Three rapid response teams were sent into the factory to search for the two, whose bodies were found crushed beneath fallen debris.
Photo: Ou Su-mei, Taipei Times
They were among 87 firefighters dispatched to the factory, where a fire was reported at about 1:45am.
The National Association for Firefighters’ Rights, the Environmental Rights Foundation, Citizen of the Earth, Taiwan, and other groups urged legislative action to improve work safety standards for firefighters.
Their demands were: inclusion in the Fire Services Act (消防法) of provisions on investigations of line-of-duty deaths; the participation of grassroots groups in such investigations; the right to refuse to work; the use of “defensive” firefighting operations at factories that are in breach of regulations for agricultural land when no civilians are in danger; a reassessment of the Taichung City Government’s firefighting strategy; a reassessment of a 20-year extension in the Factory Management Act (工廠管理輔導法) for factories that are in breach of regulations; and the association’s participation at meetings of the National Fire Agency’s (NFA) advisory group on fire command and rescue safety.
Photo: CNA
Proposed amendments to the Fire Services Act are a step away from being passed, but because the NFA opposes the participation of grassroots groups in investigations of line-of-duty deaths, progress has stalled, association secretary-general Chu Chih-yu (朱智宇) told a news conference outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
If the legislative caucuses and the speaker do not promise, within five days, that the proposals will be passed this legislative session, the association would launch protests, it said.
The factory involved in the fire was not registered — either as a factory or a temporary factory, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said.
Local governments are responsible for reporting factories that are in breach of regulations, Hsu said.
Asked whether the Taichung City Government had reported the factory, Hsu said he did not have information as to whether it did.
The NFA expressed its condolences for the deaths and said it would help the Taichung City Government investigate the cause of the fire and convene a meeting of the advisory groups to analyze the cause of the deaths, propose improvements to safety measures and minimize the risks that firefighters face.
Thirteen firefighters were killed battling factory fires from 2015 to last year, NFA statistics showed.
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