The mystery of the British fire system reform

How a country's fire protection system depends on three factors: geography, climate and population. Geographic conditions determine the local building materials and fuel loads. For example, the cities with the most fires in China, such as Chongqing, Wuhan, and Hangzhou, are located on the water's edge. Water brings two effects to the city . First, water can extinguish the fire, so the buildings are densely distributed and lack fire-proof spacing. Second, the construction materials are cheap because of the low transportation costs, so the waterside cities recover quickly after the disaster, relying on low water transportation costs and low building materials prices. The climate determines the spread conditions at that time. If the climate is warm, the strong winds are strong, the fire spreads quickly, there is no time to rescue, and it causes a major disaster. This is most obvious in Hangzhou, followed by Wuhan (there is historically speaking that “the Han town is more like a storm”). . Therefore, all fires in China are in Hangzhou. Each of the five major fires in history occurred in Zhejiang. Once every ten major fires occurred in Hangzhou, which was a contribution to the climate. The third is the population. In a city with many immigrants, because of poor management, and because immigrants are unfamiliar with climate and geography, they are prone to major disasters. For example , the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries lacked a culture of fire and the culture of rule of law. (System). The United States had to introduce a voluntary fire protection system from Britain and developed its own professional fire protection system .

From these three points of view, London, England, was not originally a high-risk area. London's climate was rainy and rainy. The building had relied on bamboo and wood construction since the fire of 1666 , and the population was relatively stable. However, the British fire-fighting tradition is also the most abundant place in Europe because Britain used to be the “Emperor of the Day” and London, as the capital of the British Empire, had the world’s highest import and export trade, so the fuel load was once far ahead of European countries. Coupled with the British tradition of conservatism (the Conservative Party only reforms and does not revolutionize, so it has good policy coherence), so the British fire culture is the most abundant (of course, I can only watch English and German, can not deal with the languages ​​of other countries, this It is also one of the reasons).

Speaking of the London fire, before 1666 , it meant the London fire that occurred in 1212 . After 1666 , they all refer to the London fire that occurred in 1666 . The impact of the fire on the United Kingdom was that a real estate developer (Nicholas Babbon) set up an insurance company to protect his property. In order to reduce the losses of insurance companies, fire teams were set up. So the private fire protection team protected London for 150 years (from 1680 to 1833 ), which is a history that few people pay attention to. The efficiency of the private fire brigade has also been reflected in the private fire brigade of the Shanghai Bureau of Industry and Labor (from 1860 to 1950 , about 90 years).

It is worth mentioning that 1680 is a warm climate and it is prone to major disasters. In this case, it is necessary to shrink the team and concentrate on building the team. This is the background for the introduction of private fire teams. In 1680 , the great Kangxi discovered a rice plant on its own farm. After a long period of cultivation, it developed a kind of “rice rice”. This is a wonder, but it is the result of climate change. In the 18th century, it was the golden age of the insurance private firefighting team. I would not say more.

In 1806 , the climate began to turn cold (Suzhou's double crop rice could not be completed after 90 years of prevalence ). It was proposed that the fire brigades of major insurance companies should be united and no response was received. By 1830 , as the cold wave headed south to Guangzhou, the fire brigade far away in London could not do it, strongly demanding coalition. Under the leadership of the government and under the joint sponsorship of insurance companies, the City of London took the fire protection of various insurance companies. The team accepted it and led the father of the British fire, James Braidewood , a very well-known young man ( age 33 ), to lead the fire brigade. He transplanted the experience of the Scottish Fire Brigade and successfully carried out professional firefighting work. However, he is an old-school firefighter and he does not like the steam pumping technology that appeared at the time. Therefore, after he died in the London fire of 1861 , London, England, could introduce steam pumps, and under the leadership of the gorgeous Mayor Xiao Meixi, the era of mechanization of fire fighting was started.

In the 1930s, with Hitler's German triumph in Europe, the holiday was smooth, the British couldn't stand it, united all the fire brigades, organized all volunteer firefighting teams, and set up a national chess game to cope with the war. The challenge. At that time, it was a warm climate and it was prone to catastrophes, so this trend is also in line with the requirements of the climate. After the war, the British fire-fighting team strongly demanded that they return to the place and reject the unified leadership of the central government. At that time, the climatic conditions were cold and the cold phase required local timely intervention. Therefore, the cold-phased climate led to decentralization and the warm-phased climate caused concentration. This is the Chinese Song Dynasty. The method is also a British response.

January 9, 2014, London will become an important day in the history of the fire - from the 9:30 start, 10 fire stations were permanently closed, 552 firefighters were laid off, so that the fire station in London reduced to 102 Firefighters were reduced to 5,800 . How do you see this? First of all, this is a fire-fighting reform with a cold-phased climate. The purpose is to reduce the size and save money to spread protection coverage. Cold weather has a high incidence of fires and it is necessary to expand coverage. This is the climate background in which China engages in miniature firefighting, volunteer firefighting, and local firefighting. The United Kingdom is no exception. A country’s spending on public security is not unlimited, either to a professional professional team or to a popular volunteer team. The fire-fighting reform in the United Kingdom has weakened professional teams and is an important promoter of the disaster. However, this is their conservative culture and an inevitable choice for dealing with the climate challenge. This is an inevitable result. Without disaster, how can there be technological progress and institutional reforms? Fire is one of the important promoters of human civilization.

So why is there a major disaster in London? Most people think that this is the result of historical hidden dangers. I think this is the disaster caused by immigration. Firefighters believe that no fire is the norm, when fires are abnormal, and metamorphosis requires variables. This variable is climate and population. The weather causes the fuel to dry, so the sprawl accelerates. Many people have not noticed that the population of the population of Glenfitta is mainly Muslims. The construction of poor people will inevitably attract foreign populations. Therefore, this is the main variable that causes major disasters. Obviously, the downsizing of the London fire brigade has no power to manage the foreign population, and the disaster has occurred in the weakest areas. The sole propaganda fire is the contribution of the foreign population (Shanghai people).

Is it not high temperature everywhere recently, is flooding everywhere? This is the contribution of the cold-phase climate (cold phase from the 2008 snow disaster in southern China for a period of 30 years). The temperature of the cold-phased ocean current is low, and it will interfere with the distribution of the atmosphere. The result is river flooding (Yellow River flood) and lake flooding (Taihu flood). White Disaster (Snowstorm in the grasslands, which happened in Mongolia last year). The last time the disaster was concentrated, "just happened" 30 years ago. The Daxing'anling fire was the contribution of warm climate. The climate of 30 years (or 60 years of periodicity) is related to the solar eclipse cycle. It is an important promoter of "30 years of Hedong and 30 years of Hexi." This is too long. It is not an article that can be made clear.

Author of this article Ma Tingguang.