Fire prevention a top priority for city campaign

Shanghai's latest fire prevention efforts have shut down some 532 public places and held more than 1,175 people responsible for fire hazards over the past several weeks, Shanghai Fire Control Bureau said Wednesday, on the 21st National Fire Prevention Day and days ahead of the first anniversary of the Jiaozhou Road fire. The bureau said that the cases were discovered in a targeted campaign run by a special team of 19,000 officers from some 300 police stations citywide who inspected some 550,000 public places around town since the end of September. By the end of last month, the city had seen 5,260 fire accidents since the start of the year, incidents that claimed the lives of 37 people and injured 43 others, resulting in an economic loss of 55.23 million yuan ($8.71 million), the bureau reported. About half of the fires occurred at residential apartments, with 54.1 percent of them attributed to unsafe fire practices by residents or faulty home appliances. Eighty percent of the city's total fires happened in suburban areas, but fires at construction sites rose by 6.5 percent from the same period last year. The figures are not starkly different from last year, but the bureau admitted to facing challenges in reducing the numbers Wednesday, saying that more public education on fire safety is needed to help this end. Since the Jiaozhou Road fire last year on November 15 - a tragedy that killed 58 people - local authorities have placed more importance on fire safety, earlier this year vowing to increase public knowledge on the issue in the interests of local residents. Seniors, children and people with a disability account for 72.2 percent of fire victims, said the bureau. The largest comprehensive firefighting training base, meanwhile, officially opened Wednesday in Qingpu district. Part of the 666-square-meter base will also be used for fire safety drills for both firefighters and local residents.