When Charles Man-Chun Chu, was 22 years old he completed a job application for the Hong Kong Fire Service on a dare from a friend. After 34 years with the department, he retired this spring — as its chief. Yet, Chu remains active on the global fire stage. He is president of the International Fire Engineers, the first Chinese person to serve in that capacity.

Hong Kong includes about 235 islands off China's southeastern coast in the South China Sea. The total land area is only 422 square miles, while the territorial waters covers 707 square miles. The nation sports one of the highest urban population densities in the world, and has a total population just a tick under 7 million. This gives the country an overall population density of 17,000 individuals per square mile. However, in the urban areas, that figure jumps to 100,000 persons per square mile.

Hong Kong fell under British control in 1842. A treaty between Britain and China returned control to the Chinese in 1997. That treaty also established Hong Kong as a Special Administrative Region of China, which gives Hong Kong a high level of economic and judicial autonomy.

While attending the International Association of Fire Chief's Fire-Rescue International show in Atlanta, Chu shared his views on the fire service with FIRE CHIEF.

How long have you been involved with the international fire community?

The Hong Kong Fire Department has a policy to give international exposure to officers as much as possible. I have been in my career for 34 years and I've been a member of IFE for almost 34 years. In 1989 I went to England to attend a training course. I think that was the first time I had first-hand engagement with officers from abroad.

What are you doing now?

I retired this March. I'm not doing anything for money. But I am now president of the IFE and a council member for the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers. It is different from engineers for fire, because it has 18 disciplines besides fire. So I am engaged in working with engineers from disciplines like civil, structural, community services. That way we know a lot about what people think about engineering, about how to improve mechanical knowledge and mechanical expertise in many areas.

How did you start in the fire service?

I didn't really aspire to be a firefighter. A friend challenged me to go to the fire department for an interview. I was 22 when I joined the fire service. It was an exciting job. It was not something that I really wanted to do. But, once you are in, you realize that this is a very different job because you have an opportunity to serve people. You are not confined to an office. You are technically trained. So something happens, especially for young men.

I had the opportunity to study fire engineering, so I completed a course in fire engineering. The Hong Kong Fire Service places an emphasis on in-house training. In-house training is very important because you are placing your resources on the things you need for your staff. They put us on a broad range of management training for fire services, mechanical training, communications, command and control. All of these are geared to your job. I have earned diplomas from many places. I have one from the University of Hong Kong. I've been to America, where I spent a year at University of California — Berkeley; it was a program for fire service students from Hong Kong. I've also been to China, in the days when Hong Kong was still a British colony. I went to Beijing universities and studied their way of doing things. That way I was exposed to different kinds of public policy and how governments decide what is the best thing to do for that particular culture.

Did the change from British rule to Chinese rule change the fire service in Hong Kong?

We have been handed back to the Chinese government for 10 years now. For the early parts of that transition, Beijing tried very hard to let us remain autonomous. There were no changes to the policies. They did not even make us change the files from English to Chinese. Of course, you have to look at what is changing. Sometimes an official would visit from Beijing, and we knew that we needed to integrate with them. But we have seen change in them, too. They are changing to meet the world and changing so we can integrate with them.

I think this is a very good thing. If you look at Chinese history, they have been through a lot of dynasties. Every time there was a change in dynasty or political control there was bloodshed, but not this time. People had a lot of apprehension because they didn't know what was going to happen. There was a lot of emigration to Canada, the United States and other parts of the world, but we've seen a lot of them coming back to Hong Kong. Like our fire department, a lot of officers went to Canada, but most of them have come back to Hong Kong.

Is there a best practice that you've seen other countries use?

There is no one best practice in countries. We have different strengths and we do things differently because of the environment and the people that we are working for. In Europe, to be an officer, you have to be an engineer. So there is great emphasis on mechanical training. In Sweden the chief is not a fireman; he can progress through the ranks, but he must be a person trained in fire science. America and England have a single-tier entry. There you have to be a fireman and work your way through the ranks so the chiefs will understand the staffs that they are leading.

In Hong Kong it is a two-tiered entry because of the education requirements. You can come in as an officer with secondary or pre-university education. Those who have lower education come in as a firefighter.

From what I've seen in all the countries I've traveled, they all place the immediate response as the most important. No matter what you do, you can put a lot of resources in fire prevention, training, administrating and organizing, it is all to make sure the people in the front line can make an immediate response to the call. No matter where I go, they always say, “I must be there as soon as possible.”

Why do some countries have almost no firefighter deaths and others have a high number of deaths?

This is a very complex question. There are a lot of issues behind it. Maybe I should just compare Hong Kong with the United States. Most buildings in Hong Kong are concrete. I see a lot of deaths because of structural collapses. That doesn't happen often in Hong Kong because a concrete structure can withstand days of combustion. We had a fire going on for two days and the building stood. And we have a very stringent entry control procedure. We try to limit the number of people entering into a fire scene. Yesterday there were some pictures shown where there were eight or nine [U.S.] firefighters standing on a roof. This shouldn't be happening. But we don't know why, they might have requested assistance. So I can't say this is wrong; that is not a fair way of saying it. But the philosophy of putting just enough people on the front lines is something that is very common in Hong Kong.

And then there is the point of heart attack. In Hong Kong we have a physical fitness assessment program. All officers and men rank of station officer and below have to pass the PFA annually. If they fail, they will be put into retraining. When a vacancy opens, firefighters can apply for a promotion. If you fail a PFA, you would not be eligible. In the PFA you have to do a three-mile run within a prescribed time based on your age. There are six other strength tests like doing curls, dips, etc. It was introduced in 1973 when I first joined. The staff was very against it. The unions were fighting very hard against it. A few years later we decided it should be used as one of the criteria for promotion. Again, we fought the unions bitterly to do that. I look back 30 years later and this is one of the best policies we have introduced into the department. When I first joined there were obese and unfit firemen. Now, 30 years later, all the officers and the men are very fit; they are lean. There are one or two exceptions, but if you come to Hong Kong you will see that at least 95% are fit and strong. The best thing is after they retired, some for 10 or 20 years, and they are still walking the hills and leading a very healthy life, and are apparently grateful.

Does Hong Kong have any volunteer firefighters?

No. We used to have an auxiliary fire service, but it was disbanded. At that time there were a lot of fires and we felt we needed professional firefighters. It is easier (yet, costs more). Managing full-time firefighters is one task. If there are volunteer brigades, you have to bring them to Hong Kong for training … and look after them. They cannot deliver kind of expertise and efficiency that we expected of them.

What practices have you seen that you wish you could make the fire service stop doing immediately?

You have to excuse me to speak on behalf of IFE now. I would not stop them from doing anything. I would introduce professional training. The one thing I really want to introduce to the fire service is fire engineering. Many people, even many professionals, view fire engineering as one of the engineers. In many countries they call them fire safety engineers. A lot of officers have spent whole careers practicing fire engineering without knowing it. They don't see themselves as a fire engineer. With a little training, especially in mechanical and scientific principals, we can regard them as fire engineer. They may not qualify as a fire engineer, but definitely as a professional in the fire-engineering world. We talked about injuries. If the firefighter had known more about these scientific and technical principals, I'm sure the culture would change. It would be wrong to say “you are using the wrong practice and that is why you are killed.” No. I think when they go to a fire, the passion and the energy overtakes the human reason. The thing to do is to increase their awareness of mechanical training. They understand some principals and that way you change the activity of the individual. I think in that way they will be safer.

What are the barriers to this level of training?

The chief officers need to provide more avenues and expose the staff to organizations like IAFC, IFE, and the [professional] journals, and encourage them to attend seminars. The Near-Miss Program is one of the best things that people can do for firefighters. We can put all of the best practices in a publication, like FIRE CHIEF magazine, and circulate that to all the people that needs them. But we need them to do more. They should sign up for programs and go to courses. The reward is you get a diploma or a certificate and you are recognized as an engineer or technician. We have about 600 to 700 officers in Hong Kong, and I would say one-fifth of them have finished their degree in engineering. If we could do that for all the firefighters across the world, it will be a positive way of improving the efficiency and the safety, rather than to stop them from doing something. I have a lot of respect for the firefighters in America who give up their lives for people. But they should remember that if they themselves become a casualty, they change the operations. The operation should be geared to rescue and fighting fire. If there is a firefighter casualty, then the operation will become one of rescuing a firefighter who is down.

The other is, that you ought to raise your standard. You are a firefighter, you can rescue people, you put out fires, and you can get killed. That is not the best firefighter in the world. The best firefighter in the world does his job and comes home safely. You have to elevate the standard one more level. Become a more safe and proficient firefighter rather than the macho guy who gets himself injured.

Is money a barrier?

It's always a barrier. I go around the world and chief officers always have a job to convince local counties and local governments to allocate the resources for them. If you are a government and resources are limited you can only act where there's a crisis. So if there's a crisis in education or in the medical field, you will divert the resources to giving better education or giving more hospital care to people. But come a time when there is a bad fire where people are killed, the community will cry “why don't you give money to the fire service?” History repeats itself again and again.

Is there anything about the Hong Kong Fire Service that would surprise Westerners?

Hong Kong is a very small area. If you were to put it in the United States, it would disappear. But there are a lot of people; we have 6.8 million people, because of the transient population we have more than 7 million. And they are all condensed in an area just over 1,000 kilometers. We have only one fire service. We have no mutual aid with Singapore or the mainland, so self-improvement is very important. We do land firefighting, marine firefighting, ambulances and we cover the airports. We have to train our people to be proficient in all areas. I know in many countries, structural firefighters just fight fires in buildings. If you are a wildland or urban firefighter, you just do urban or wildland. Some firefighters only do airports. We have everything and they are inter-transferable. You can find yourself as a normal firefighter one day and then manning a fireboat the next day. Of course not everybody can change, but we try to expose them to everything. Except for ambulance. Ambulance is a different department, but we still manage them.

We try to go around the world and look at what the best practices and equipment and we buy the best equipment. We look at the best command system and introduce it in Hong Kong. We go over all the practices and procedures in literature and if it is best, we use it, of course, they are modified to local conditions.

How do you handle all of the high-rise buildings in Hong Kong?

Our tallest one is 88 stories. The most vulnerable time for a high-rise building is when it is still under construction. When it is completed, all the fire service installation is there; the sprinklers are working. We had a fire maybe 20 stories up during the construction of a building and had to bring water up to that level without elevators. We had to run hose manually up the staircase to fight just a small fire. It is very difficult. We have an agreement with the construction companies that we have a pump in the building during construction. If there is a fire, we can connect up to the pump. But we found that is not practical anymore because the high-rises are going too high. Now we require pumps placed at different levels. Construction sites are very dynamic; they change by the day. We have to inspect those pumps every month or sometimes every week. We have been invited to go to many places [educational seminars around the world] to talk about high-rise firefighting and firefighting on a construction site.

Anything else?

I want to talk to IAFC and about partnerships with IFE. It is one thing I hope to achieve over the years, maybe not immediately. IAFC has 12,000 members and calls the shots, an American term, in America. IFE has 11,000 members around the world. If these two organizations can come together and spread the message about how to train our firefighters and officers, I don't know of any other voice that could weigh in like this. I don't think a formal merger is workable. [But there's the] possibility of a partnership on areas where we obviously share common goals and objectives. We need not do anything else. The strength in IAFC is fire and rescue. They have a lot of programs in place that teach about operations, terrorist, hazmat, fireground operations, and incident command. I think this is phenomenal. For IFE, we are well into fire engineering — the science and clinical part of fire engineering. If we can merge the two strengths together, I think this is the strongest in the world. I see a lot of areas where we can cooperate.