Honour firefighters for bravely serving duties with reluctant efforts

Fire is one of the natural dangers which can harm society. Such a kind of natural disaster can sweep all lives and property in a few seconds. Hence, humans have been carefully controlling fire since time immemorial. But, fire cannot be fully controlled till today.
The outbreak of fire is based on various reasons. Although humans can control outbreaks of negligent fire, ember, short circuits and so on to some extent they cannot comprehensively control forest fire till today. It is because forest fire sweeps millions of hectares of forest areas all over the world yearly.
In Myanmar, firefighters were grouped in the reigns of Myanmar kings to extinguish outbreaks of fire in royal residences as well as public areas. In the reign of King Anawrahta (1044-1077 AD), a total of 663 firefighters were formed to take preventive measures against fire in Bagan royal palace. It can be said that those firefighters were forefathers of today’s firefighters due to the historical records.
The All Burma Fire Brigade Conference was convened in Kandawgale of Yangon on 5 May 1946 with 197 representatives from 19 districts of the nation. National Leader General Aung San on the occasion gave work guidelines for firefighting. From then on, the day of 5 May has been marked as the Fire Brigade Day across Myanmar. Fire brigades are formed in three categories as government fire brigade members, local auxiliary fire brigade members and separate fire brigade members, especially for factories, industries and businesses.
Currently, the Department of Fire Services formed with 753 officers and 23,864 service personnel, totalling 24,599 in the organizational setup is under the Ministry of Home Affairs in discharging the assigned duties of taking fire prevention, making preparedness for natural disasters, performing rescue and relief works for victims of natural disasters, and serving the public welfare tasks.
The missions of the Department of Fire Services are aimed to protect the life and property of the people and production capital of the State against the outbreak of fire and to take responsibility for emergency rescue and relief works whenever natural disasters fall.
As firefighters serve their duties at risk of sacrifice for life and limbs, it is necessary to honour those fighters with physical and mental facilities so as to keenly discharge their assignments with reluctant efforts for protecting the people against the danger of fire and unexpected natural disasters in all seasons. If so, those personnel will take pride in bravely serving their duties by bringing honour to the department as well as prestige to society.