Chinese Fire Trucks through the ages

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The Culture section on China Car Times is still rather bare, so in a bid to bring more Chinese auto culture to the English speaking sphere of influence we thought it would be a great time to have a look at Chinese fire engines through the ages. In recent years the Chinese fire service have changed their engines quite a bit, during the 80′s they rolled around on FAW produced Jie Fang fire trucks which were essentially regular trucks with lots of water inside a giant tank. As time moved on and more funds were spent on the services Chinese fire brigades moved onto more modern trucks that resembled their Western counterparts offerings from MAN, Dennis etc, now in some richer areas they are moving into the sort of trucks seen on the left – and these bad boys cost 2.5 million RMB per unit.

Since the Shanghai apartment fire which killed 50+ people in a high rise inferno, the fire service has come under intense scrutiny and has started its own media campaign to enforce fire safety across China, especially in high rise buildings. The Chinese fire service acts in the same way as Western units, it is responsible not only for fire rescue but also rescue in the case of accidents and natural disaster. Interestingly the Chinese fire service is considered part of the Army.