Free Web NovelChapter 270: Chapter 211: Which is the strongest firefighting team in the world?
Training ended, and Fang Huai, who completed everyone’s hour-long training session in just over half an hour, followed the others downstairs, gasping for breath.
If it weren’t for his amazing recovery ability, he would have probably had to train in the gym until after mealtime today.
"Oh my god, Fang Huai, with the way you train, how long would our 300,000-dollar gym last you?" Liu Jianfeng teased.
Fang Huai grimaced and turned to look at Liu Jianfeng, "Squad Leader Liu, if you could work out like I do, I’d personally sponsor a set for you!"
"Hahaha... I’ll also sponsor... 200!"
Laughing wildly, Hao Chengbin, perhaps too hungry, headed straight for the canteen after going downstairs.
Just as they entered the front yard.
"Hey, Fang Huai, didn’t you say you were going to tell us about foreign firefighters?"
Chen Zhenghai, the senior "awesome party" member, had already taken a bench by the Squadron’s greenery, lit up a cigarette, and sat waiting for Teacher Fang to start his lesson.
This bench, in the perfect spot to wait for the canteen to serve food, faced the main building’s exit where one could catch the scent of food from the Squadron. Turning your head also allowed one to catch glimpses of beauties passing by across the street, and with a tree behind as cover, there was no need to worry about being spotted.
Everyone was used to coming down about 20 minutes before meals, gathering around the bench, chatting, and waiting for food to be served.
At that moment, upon hearing Chen Zhenghai’s words, everyone leaned in eagerly.
Ye Jiahong, another "awesome party" member and the Captain, walked over and pressed down on the bench’s armrest, nudging Chen Zhenghai:
"Move over, move over, damn, with your big butt, you take up two seats."
After pushing Chen Zhenghai aside, he stared at a short-skirted woman across the street until she was out of sight, then turned back.
With a look of anticipation, he said gleefully:
"Director Fang, hurry up and tell us poor folks about life in the developed countries!"
Fang Huai curled his lip.
Damn, Ye Jiahong’s personality really didn’t suit being a leader; it was a mystery how he managed to be both fervent and lethargic.
Cao Yi’s personality was the complete opposite: both cold-blooded and diligent. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Probably at this moment, Cao Yi was upstairs with training manuals, scratching his head, thinking about how to perform in front of the Head of the Corps, while he was down here enjoying the breeze leisurely.
If he were to become a secretary in the future and I had to work in his team, life would probably be tough.
But cadres like him were probably a soldier’s favorite: good to his brothers and not too controlling; the leadership placed him here perhaps to relieve the pressure from Cao Yi’s tight management style.
And if they brought in a Captain as strong-willed as Cao Yi, the two would probably go to war.
The art of balance.
"What you guys probably want to hear about is mainly the United States, right?" Fang Huai said unhurriedly.
"First, tell us, which country do you think has the strongest firefighting?" someone in the crowd asked.
"It’s incomparable," Fang Huai shook his head:
"First off, the focus of training is different. Every country has different building distributions, the equipment is not the same, and so the training emphasis is different.
But if we’re talking about firefighting equipment, currently the strongest would still be the United States and the United Kingdom.
Their firefighting services cover very large rural areas, with wide roads, so they tend to use vehicle-mounted guns for firefighting more.
As for countries like ours, Japan, India, and South Korea, with relatively dense populations and narrower streets, they use more hoses.
Regarding firefighting operations, from our perspective, the hardest to understand is the United States.
The United States is a federation, and first of all, their state structure is different from ours. The economies and laws of the 50 states are relatively independent, with only the military and politics under unified command. Even taxation is divided among the county, state, and federal governments, each collecting a portion.
Their private enterprise is highly developed, and since the 1980s, they’ve extended private enterprise to cover public services, using private sector competition to reduce government management costs. Universities, sanitation, prisons, etc., have been largely privatized.
Firefighting is no exception.
Their firefighters are divided into government firefighters and private firefighters, with private firefighters accounting for almost two-thirds. freёweɓnovel.com
The public ones are called the Government Fire Department.
The private ones are called the Volunteer Fire Department.
Government firefighting is free, while private firefighting charges a fee.
Why can private companies survive?
Because, the United States has vast land and sparse population, and its economy is independent. Many places with few people simply can’t afford a public fire department. There’s a small town in California where just the expenditures for police and firefighting account for 80% of the government’s spending. They couldn’t make ends meet, so they ended up cutting half of them.
Therefore, in small towns, many people’s houses may collapse from a fire and they might not even wait for the public firefighters to arrive. Sometimes when people call in, the police won’t even dispatch, they just transfer the call directly to a private fire brigade.
The private firefighting industry has a variety of charging methods. Some collect fire insurance, and if a family hasn’t paid, the private firefighters won’t extinguish the fire, even if they’re on the scene. And what’s most infuriating is that they will water down the neighboring houses to cool them off, watching yours burn to the ground.
Because the next door neighbors are their paying customers – they can’t let the fire from your house affect them.
There are also one-time payments where a single fire response can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Even if the fire is put out before they arrive, they still charge a certain fee.
Plus, there could be several private fire brigades arriving one after another at the scene, and after putting out the fire, the cost might be even higher.
Poor families simply can’t afford to hire a fire brigade.
In the United States, only residents of big cities can enjoy completely free services from public fire departments.
"Damn, isn’t this screwing over the common people?" Everyone clenched their fists as they listened.
Only then did Fang Huai smile and say, "Western economics is fundamentally based on the assumption that ’people are selfish’, which is also one of its theoretical bases. If you’re wealthy, you’re the boss. The West that the rich go to is completely different from the West that the poor go to.
But the treatment of their firefighters isn’t that exaggerated. A firefighter with more than five years of experience has an annual salary of sixty to seventy thousand dollars, about five to six thousand bucks a month – although there’s also overtime pay, which could potentially exceed their salary.
In America, firefighters are among the high-income groups.
Of course, the pay in some private fire brigades still depends on performance."
"Is the whole West like this?"
"Most are still public, and Russian firefighting, like ours, belongs to active duty. France also has fire brigades in Paris and Marseille, belonging to the army and the navy, respectively.
The highest firefighter salaries should be in Spain, about 20% higher than in the United States."
"Man, that’s extreme. But our country’s firefighters still dare to fight fires with low salaries."
Fang Huai heard a hint of complaint in these words and smiled:
"Our firefighters are just in a generally dangerous profession, but I don’t think it’s the most dangerous.
In this country, there are too many people who silently sacrifice themselves with meager wages: drug enforcement, police officers, coal miners, steelworkers, fishermen, truck drivers, construction workers... how many high-risk industries are there?
If everyone wanted a top-tier salary or refused to work the slightest bit dangerous, society would grind to a halt.
Actually, the actual income our firefighters get isn’t much less than that of the soldiers guarding the snowy borders. Plus, they get to enjoy city life. Be content.
If we also did what the United States does, how many of you would be able to afford a fire brigade if your house caught fire?
You think it’s dangerous now, but when you are discharged, if you face danger, there will be a new generation of firefighters who will charge forward without a second thought for your sake."
Ye Jiahong laughed and said, "Oh? Young man, your sense of social consciousness is quite high, isn’t it?"
Fang Huai laughed and said, "Not really – since I’ve come this far, having chosen this path, I should simply do it well.
In an ordinary person’s life, there aren’t many opportunities to be respected, especially for young men.
I once witnessed a firefighter carry an old man out of a fire scene, and the old man’s whole family knelt down to that young firefighter. It had a big impact on me.
A firefighter who understood nothing of high society could receive such high honors, if not for this noble profession.
The sense of honor that this profession brings is unparalleled."
Ye Jiahong raised his hand and gave Fang Huai a smack on the head, saying:
"Man, Fang Huai, since it was something you witnessed in the past, you should at least call him ’squad leader.’ That person is an old soldier after all. How can you say he understood nothing of high society? Respect the squad leader, you know?"
Fang Huai laughed.
He hadn’t been his own squad leader.
Back then, indeed, he understood nothing at all.
(This Chapter is short of the word count, not counted as an extra Chapter.)
