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Public Order

Fire Services Department

The Fire Services Department fights fires, protects life and property in the event of fires and other calamities, provides emergency ambulance services, and formulates and enforces fire safety policies and measures. The department employs 9,515 uniformed and 725 civilian members and has well-trained personnel, advanced communications systems and modern equipment.

Firefighting and Rescue

Of the 34,320 fire calls received in 2015, eight were classified as major fires of No 3 alarm or above. Careless handling of lighted items or accidents in the process of cooking were the major causes of fires, accounting for 1,563 cases. Careless handling or disposal of lighted materials, such as cigarette ends, matches and candles, caused 947 fires, while disposal of joss sticks. caused 192 fires. Unwanted alarms, triggered mainly by faulty automatic alarm systems, contributed about 72 per cent of the total number of fire calls.

The department also provides a wide range of rescue services for incidents such as traffic accidents, shipwrecks, people trapped in lifts or locked in rooms, gas leakages, house collapses, floods, landslides, industrial accidents and attempts to jump from a height. The department handled 33,683 such special service calls in 2015.

Ambulance Services

The department's Ambulance Command handled 757,901 calls in 2015, an average of 2,076 calls per day.

Its ambulance fleet is manned by paramedics. All emergency ambulances and emergency medical assistant motorcycles are fully equipped with life-support equipment such as automated external defibrillators and selected drugs for conditions including diabetes, shock, heart attack, shortness of breath and drug overdose. To enhance the emergency ambulance service, the department provides simple Post-dispatch Advice by phone on some easily identified sicknesses and injuries, such as general bleeding, bone fractures/limb dislocations, burns, convulsion, heat exposure and hypothermia, after dispatching an ambulance to the scene. Such information includes simple first-aid and time-saving advice to help patients receive prompt medical assistance.

The department continues to train front-line firefighters to become first responders to provide basic life-saving support to casualties and patients while ambulance crews are on their way to the scene. In 2015, first responders attended to 40,022 calls.

Communications

The Fire Services Communications Centre, manned round the clock and equipped with a Third Generation Mobilising System, is responsible for mobilising all firefighting and ambulance resources to provide timely fire and ambulance services to the community. The centre also receives complaints about fire hazards and dangerous goods, and acts as an emergency co- ordinator for other government departments and public utilities during major emergencies.

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