Volunteers roam Tokyo streets to help fire prevention

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 20

Volunteers roam Tokyo streets to help fire prevention

By

SALLY SOLO,

Associated- Press, through NZPA Tokyo

Come winter, as Tokyo residents huddle round their space heaters at dusk, dedicated volunteers are out roaming the streets to make sure their neighbours aren’t playing with fire.

Banging wood batons and crying “Hi no yoji,” or “Take precaution with fire,” the groups of four or five are a familiar sound in the chilly night.’ Across Japan, 1.03 million members of local citizens’ groups outnumber a force of 128,914 professional fire-fighters by eight to one. The neighbourhood volunteers, paid per each fire prevention, fire drill or firefighting activity, are united by one of this nation’s oldest fears.

According to a Japanese saying, there are four things in life to be afraid of: earthquake, lightning, fire and father.

While some say fear of mother has replaced fear of father in modem Japan, concern about fire has remained unchanged over many generations. The fear of earthquakes and lightning are closely related, as those have al-

ways posed a fire threat in Japan’s densely packed, largely wooden neighbourhoods. "We fight fire with the same heart as in the Edo period (1600-1868) but we are using different equipment,” said Toshihiko Nakajima, a 15-year veteran of the Tokyo Fire Department. Hundreds of red fire trucks, boats, helicopters, ambulances, ropes, ladders and hoses were on display at the annual parade of the capital’s fire squad earlier this month. Even more conspicuous was the number of citizens’ groups who took turns with the aluminumcoated professionals in extinguishing the flames of eight wooden store fronts built and then torched for the show.

Volunteer fire-fighting dates back to 1718 in Tokyo, then called Edo, when a squad of commoners was formed to help deal with the widespread destruction that was inevitable whenever the wooden and paper houses began to bum. The "machi hikeshi” — literally “town fire extinguishers” — were to supplement the work of lower-ranked military men who had been organ-

ised decades before to stand watch round Edo castle, where the Shogun, Japan’s military ruler, and other officials resided.

The groups were reorganised and placed under the Metropolitan Police in the early 20th century. By 1947, independent fire departments were formed but the volunteers, now called "shobodan,” or “fire prevention groups,” continued to hold their own.

Concrete has replaced wood as a primary building material in Japanese cities, but many neighbourhoods are still congested and open heaters, fired by gas, kerosene or electricity, are far more common than central heating. The firewatch has been extended to many large apartment complexes built in the postwar years. In 1984, according to the Home Affairs Ministry, fire broke out somewhere in Japan every eight minutes and on each day of that year six people were killed and 390 million yen ($741 million) lost in fires. “We could operate without the shobodan,” said Morimasa Isoya, a fireman in a northern ward

of Tokyo, “but in such a crowded place, the faster the fire is stopped the better and it’s necessary to have a lot of people”. The shobodan themselves form part of the backbone of the neighbourhood structure, tighter in the Tokyo metropolis of 11.8 million than in most big cities of the world.

Izo Hoshikawa, leader of a group of 64 fourth to eighth-grade volunteers in central Tokyo’s Itabashi ward, said that his students, who meet every 10 days or so, learn to be responsible about more than fire.

“They’re learning to work together and to protect the group. They learn to talk together,” said Mr Hoshikawa, who says he gives more time to the neighbourhood activities than to his job at Tokyo Gas.

All the students carry notebooks inscribed with seven pledges: “I will work for fire prevention, have good manners, keep promises, help others, do things for myself, not be a trouble to others and never forget gratitude." Kotaru Kidoguchi, another enthusiast from north Tokyo, remembers last October when an

earthquake jolted the capital.

“We were drilling by the train station,” he said. “We stopped, checked to see that everything was okay, and then went back to our drill.” A housewife, Mikiko Matsumiya, may not be as dedicated as Mr Hoshikawa or Mr Kidoguchi but resigned herself to being drafted three years ago for the women’s group of the Fukagawa Fire Prevention Association. “It is an honorary post and you can’t really refuse. After all, most people are involved in something like helping the police or the fire department,” said Mrs Matsumiya, who joins the 50member group once every two months to practise rescue techniques and plan fire prevention.

While fire drills draw people together, fires themselves may have the opposite effect, Mr Nakajima said.

“When a person is robbed, they at least get the sympathy of their neighbours but when they lose their possessions in a fire, they lose the trust of their neighbours, too.”