Tainan City Fire Bureau

Tainan, Taiwan

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I visited Taiwan on family business in March 2010. Family members arranged for a tour of the Tainan City Fire Bureau headquarters, which was hosted by the fire chief himself, Director-General Wu Ming Fang. Director-General Fang spent over an hour with us, explaining the history and current operation of the fire department and demonstrating their extensive public education facilities on-site. For more information on the Tainan City Fire Department please visit their web site.

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Front entrance to the Tainan City fire bureau headquarters	Our tour started in the Director-General's office	Director-General Wu Ming Fang has quite the decorated career
Director-General's desk	We exchanged patches, and the Director-General also gave us a book with a photographic history of the Tainan City fire service. Unfortunately for me, the writing is all in Chinese - however the photographs tell the story of a department steeped in pride and tradition.	The Director-General (2d from left) is explaining their daily call log
His office had all kinds of interesting displays	This seems to be their mascot
A beautiful model of an early fire truck	The Director-General even opened up this showcase for us so that we could see all the memorabilia	The old and the new!
Some things are universal!!!	Next we toured the Emergency Response Center
This is the communications center where dispatchers handle a crush of calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week	Director-General Wu Ming Fang, myself, and an agent from the National Immigration Agency who helped arrange this tour for us	The head table at the ERC
Sitting in the Mayor's seat :)	One of the training classrooms	Demonstrating their gurney which can fold into a chair for maneuvering in narrow spaces...
...or be extended like a standard stretcher	Training tower	The Director-General shows us through their museum
This plaque honors the volunteers in service	There was showcase after showcase of old documents and photographs	A must-see for any fire buff!
Life-sized models of earlier fire gear and equipment	Family photo with the Director-General	The Tainan City fire bureau has numerous public education displays for children and adults
This is a model complete with video narration and moving parts that teaches children what to do in the event of a fire	As the video gives the explanation, the little fire trucks pull out of the station and head to the scene. If you look closely, you can see the little firemen on the right side of the screen actually flowing water into the "burning" warehouse!	These are the REAL fire apparatus
Here citizens can get some hands-on training on fire extinguisher usage	This is an earthquake simulator. This room will shake with the force of a magnitude 6 earthquake, to give citizens some real-life experience	After donning rain slickers, citizens enter this typhoon simulator and get the full effect with torrential rains and winds
	The mule!	Photo op with Tainan City's #1
Then all the family and employees joined in the fun	Water rescue craft	Turnout gear, not much different from ours
Ambulance	An interesting vehicle to have in downtown Tainan :)