Eighteen volunteer fire-fighters and a wilderness guide die in a forest in the mountains of Xichang in Sichuan Province in a repeat of last year’s catastrophe.
Photos of all 81 fire-fighters of the "Ningnan professional fire-fighters." (All photo by ZHAO Meng)
By ZHAO Meng
The fire was noticed around 3pm on Monday, March 30, and a team of part-time local fire-fighters were quickly on the scene, accompanied by a guide. At 1am Tuesday, the wind changed direction and the blaze changed course, sweeping over the team and killing 18 of them, along with the guide.
Back at the firehouse on Tuesday, Liu Shuwei, one of the squad leaders broke down in tears. The team had been formed just three months ago and it was only their fourth attempt to put out a fire. These were not fire-fighters in any meaningful way, just local volunteers, with other formal jobs to do: barbers, restaurant owners and chicken farmers.
The fire took away almost a quarter of the brigade. Having been there at the formation of the team, Lui now witnessed his friends’ cruel deaths.
Around 7pm on Monday, Liu was on his way to Xichang on other business when he received a call from his friend and captain, He Guiyin, asking if he had seen the messages in the brigade’s WeChat group. Liu was driving and had not checked his phone.
Captain He told Liu that a fire had broken out and the team were checking their equipment and getting ready to go. Liu volunteered but He said squads 1 and 5 would be first, with Liu’s squad scheduled as a shift change on the second day, if there was one. The captain had sounded excited. It was their first mission outside their home county.
“I’ll meet you on the mountain top,” He said, his last words to Liu.
Obsessed with TikTok, the team of healthy young men uploaded videos as they packed up their kit. One was reposted on the county’s Weibo account later that night. Resplendent in their hi-viz vests, the caption read “Professional Ningnan fire-fighters are ready to go!”
Liu has watched the video again and again. There are many familiar faces, but he could not recall all of their names. Chen Kejin, 24, was the youngest. In one video, Chen was in a car on his way to the forest, when he gave an off-gauge salute to the camera. Already expecting their first child, Chen’s new wife waited at home. He was one of only three who survived.
The fire-fighters arrived at the foot of the burning hill at around 10:40pm and proceeded into the woods led by Feng Yongcai. At that point, Liu made a short video call to his teammates. It would turn out to be the last time he would see many of them alive.
“We never even took a picture of all 81 of us together,” Liu said.
Forest fires are exceptionally dangerous and unpredictable, so the men kept chatting together in the WeChat group so that the others would know they were safe and sound. That night, the fire-fighters kept talking excitedly; Liu and others cheered them on.
Around 1am on Tuesday, Liu noticed that the men on the scene had fallen silent. He called Captain He. No reply. He called the others, and got through to none of them. At 4am, Liu was delivered the dreadful news. Of the 21 men who set out to tame the inferno that night, 18 had perished in the woods.
Liu collapsed in his chair and the WeChat group grew silent. Everybody knew.
According to local officials, the three survivors were found at 7am. Jiemian News learned that Chen Kejin was found at the foot of a steep cliff, perhaps having jumped to escape the flames.
This is the forest fire season in Sichuan, when Liu and his team are always on standby while going about their business, and thickly wooded Liangshan is no stranger to tragedy. Of the prefecture’s 17 counties, 12 have the state forestry administration’s highest level of fire risk and the other five, the second highest.
Liu Shuwei, like many part-time fire-fighters the world over, has a day-to-day job as a forest ranger. He has been through some a certain amount professional firefighting training and is paid a monthly stipend.
The forestry administration’s Wang Yongkun wants more resources and better organization for them. During the high-risk season. Brigades should be brought together more frequently, he said. They should be able to assemble within 30 minutes and at least 80 percent of them should take part in training.
Liu said that the reality of the situation was very different. His fellows had experience, but their equipment was a shambles.
“Our main tools are sickles and rakes,” said Liu. “We wear shorts and shirts.”
On the same day in 2019, a fire in the same forest claimed 31 lives. At that time, some of the remaining fire-fighters went off to find work in other cities and didn’t come back.
These ad-hoc bands of stipendiary firemen and local farmers have been the main force to contain a blaze until professional fire-fighters arrived since before there even were any professional fire-fighters. They fight the flames with crude equipment and squabbles often break out between rival brigades. “Fire-fighters from different villages fought to call the shots,” said Liu.
Several counties in Liangshan rely on semi-professionals, and last year’s deadly events forced the prefecture to form more fire fighting teams. Liu’s brigade was formed on December 30, 2019. All members were from the same small town, Ningnan.
He Yingui, the captain of the brigade, was a fire-fighter in the military for eight years. Most of them had fought fires before. Many had been semi-professional for over five years, but there were also young people who knew much less.
Chen Kejin and Liu Yong had never faced a fire before they signed up. Liu was 25 when he died in the forest. Still suffering from severe burns, Chen had a narrow escape. Liu Shuwei checks on Chen every day as he would his own son.
Liu knows that the remainder of his brigade have a long way to go. Now, apart from rakes and hooks, they have been equipped with 20 extinguishers weighing weigh over 25 kilograms each and requiring at least two men to operate them. For those who previously dealt with fire using old farming equipment, a machine blowing moist air is almost surreal.
Though the Ningnan official called them “professional fire-fighters,” they are not. They do not get a salary or social security and are based in the barrack from January to June every year. For the rest of the year, they go back to their villages and carry on with their lives
Such “professionals” can be found in rural areas all around China, and indeed, in many other parts of the world. Compared with the elite forest fire brigade, they lack almost everything - equipment, training and experience.
Liu Futang, a former fire chief of Hainan Province, said in many other countries, both fires and fire-fighters are strictly categorized. “Appropriate levels of fire-fighters are dispatched to each fire,” he said. “But we don’t have such a system in China.”
Tian Longbin, deputy head of Ningnan forestry bureau said that once the squad had been dispatched to the scene, orders were given directly by the Xichang government. Sources told Jiemian News that the head of the county forestry bureau Zhang Minghua had been in contact with Liu Guangyu, member of Standing Committee of Xichang and head of the office in charge of putting out the fire. Zhang also went to Xichang that night.
On the walls of the barracks in Ningnan is the training schedule. They were ordered to get up at 7 am every day for about three kilometers. They have some training on how to use the equipment, and the schedule orders them to bed at 10 pm. Presumably someone somewhere thinks fire-fighters need nine hours of sleep each night.
Liu Shuwei remembered their first fire. His squad took about five hours to put it out. After the Lunar New Year, fire again broke twice more. All the fire-fighters in the brigade worked together. Morale was high. On March 22, training continued after quarantine was lifted. Eight days later, and the desire to do some good for the community had robbed Ningnan of 18 husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. They never stood a chance.
Xichang County’s Liu Guangyu fought forest fires himself when he was much younger. He told Jiemian News that sending the Ningnan fire-fighters to the woods was a decision “made by all members of headquarters on the advice from professionals.”
And, as for the tragic loss of 19 lives, authorities at national and provincial level have conducted investigations. “The public will have a clear explanation,” he said.
