5.
6.
7.
education of the public (including 3, 400 lectures, talks and other
educational activities in 1972 and training of industrial personnnel in
fire protection, 460 in the first half of 1973);
publicity promotion on the hazards of fire and precautionary measures
ranging from television campaigns to the distribution of leaflets;
investigation in the major fires or fires with doubtful causes (about
600 in 1972; false alarms in 1972/73 over 27,000; false alarms
projects in 1978, 39, 000); and
performance of non fire-fighting services on various emergencies
(in 1972/73, 11, 882 special service calls).
If the Urban Council of Hong Kong takes over the fire services, there
both political and financial. According to the
are at least two considerations
G.L.C.'s Budget for 1974/75 published, it was mentioned that the measurement of
the effectiveness of the fire services work is in some respects a very difficult if
not impossible task. Therefore the inclusion of the fire services within the Urban
Council may not be very "glamorous". On the practical side, it can be clearly
A
observed that all fires to which the fire services are bound by duty to attend and
to extinguish must be extinguished, it is very difficult to assess the quality of the
fire-fighting and rescue operations both in the fire services and in the special
services. The statistics of the number of people saved by the fire services and the
number of deaths cannot provide a reasonable assessment and far from it. The
precautions advised or enforced by the fire services play a very important part
in safeguarding life when fire occurs. Sometimes the efficiency of the fire services
can only be measured by the disasters occuring in nearby towns or countries. With
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