To further enhance the staff’s awareness of fire safety as well as their capacity for managing fire emergencies, Sanpower Group invited the Fire Brigade officers of Yuhuatai District to deliver an emergency evacuation drill for all the staff on November 7, two days before the “National Fire Safety Day”. Yue Lei, Vice President of the Group, was fully involved as drill commander.

Around nine o’clock a.m., the fire emergency evacuation drill was launched on time as per the predetermined plan. As the siren sounded in the Group headquarters, Yue issued the evacuation instruction in the monitoring centre. Each team leader immediately acted in accordance with the pre-established emergency response plan, evacuating the employees and promptly calling the “fire” phone on one hand, and mobilising the experienced staff to orderly guide the evacuation on the other. Within a few minutes, all the staff had escaped from the “fire” safe and sound. Meanwhile, the “fire” was “extinguished” successfully with the aid of the firefighters.

Upon the close of the evacuation, Pang, Staff Officer of Yuhuatai Fire Brigade, commented on the fire drill, carefully remedied the problems concerning personnel evacuation during the drill, and elaborated again on fire escape and the use of fire equipment. Thereafter, Commander Yue summed up the drill, accentuating that “the fire is more ferocious than the tiger, and safety weighs more than the mountain”. He noted that the drill was intended to strengthen the employees’ awareness that “prevention and safety come first”, improve their capacity of self-rescue, and cultivate their sense of mutual help in case of an emergency. In so doing, he hoped that the staff can really master the essentials of operating a fire extinguisher and enhance fire safety awareness.

Finally, the fire brigade officers guided the employees to put out the fire on the spot with extinguishers, enabling all of them to quickly learn the recipe. During the course, the unruffled staff orderly and rapidly pulled out the safety pin, left hand pressing the lever, and sprayed the carbon dust towards the bottom of the flares. Their tacit collaboration ensured the successful completion of the drill.