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Public Order

The department also provides rescue services for traffic accidents, shipwrecks, people trapped in lifts or locked in rooms, leakages of gas or other hazardous materials, building collapses, floods, landslides, industrial accidents, people stranded on hillsides and attempts to jump from a height. It handled 35,284 such calls in 2019.

Ambulance Services

The department's Ambulance Command operates a fleet of emergency ambulances, rapid response vehicles and emergency medical assistant motorcycles manned by paramedics. All the vehicles 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, convulsion, cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis and drug overdose. The Ambulance Command handled a daily average of 2,252 calls in 2019.

The department trains front-line firefighters to become first responders who can provide basic life support to casualties and patients before the arrival of an ambulance crew. In 2019, first responders responded to 69,835 cases.

Communications

The 24-hour Fire Services Communications Centre mobilises all firefighting and ambulance resources to provide timely services. It also receives complaints about fire hazards and dangerous goods, and acts as an emergency coordinator for other government departments and public utilities during major emergencies. The centre provides post-dispatch advice to callers over the phone on more than 30 types of injuries and sicknesses, including burns, cardiac arrest, haemorrhage and childbirth, after dispatching ambulances. Callers receive immediate, comprehensive and appropriate advice to help stabilise patients based on their conditions before the ambulance crew arrives.

At the scene of an incident, a digital trunked radio system is used to ensure effective and efficient radio communication.

Fire Safety

The Fire Safety Command draws up fire safety policies and formulates fire safety measures for buildings and mass transit systems. It devotes much effort to upgrading fire safety in old buildings, initiating fire safety inspections and raising public awareness of emergency preparedness.

In 2019, the command vetted 23,383 building plans, including those for tunnels and bridges, handled 848 submissions such as building plans and fire engineering reports, and offered fire safety advisory services on 1,016 occasions concerning Hong Kong International Airport's Three-runway System.

On railway infrastructure projects, the command formulates fire safety requirements and recommendations, and scrutinises the associated consultancy study reports, building plans and technical drawings of fire service installations (FSIs). In 2019, the command handled 2,485 submissions and also carried out 2,186 acceptance inspections of FSIs at new railway projects,

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