There have been some serious fire accidents in China recently, resulting in huge architecture and property losses in a number of places of cultural or historical significance, including the historic village Dukezong in Shangri-La County, Yunnan Province; and the historic village Baojing Dong in Zhenyuan County, Guizhou Province. While prompting people to feel a sharp twinge of regret about the immense losses, the frequent occurrence of fire accidents to ancient architecture has served as a strong reminder that Lhasa as an ancient city needs to protect itself more vigilantly.

Located 3,700 meters above sea level, Lhasa has developed from an old zone that is now at its current center, which Lhasa's historical, cultural, and tourism resources gather in large numbers. With Barkhor Street at its center, that old zone occupies 1.33 square kilometers and is home to 27 temples, including Jokhang Monastery, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The zone also contains 56 ancient yards, each of which houses a great number of cultural relics cherished because of value and significance in respects such as history, art, religion, and folk customs.

The zone and its ancient architecture attract people's attention because they represent a dynamic process. In addition to the charm emanated from its architecture and culture and to its unique humanistic elements, the zone derives its timelessness from its contributions to the fusion of the past and the present and to the course history has taken as it unfolded. In fact, as its industry changes slowly but surely, a new tourism development model has gradually formed in the zone around the popular concept of integrating catering, lodging, sightseeing, shopping and recreation into a single whole, while a large number of people have come to live there.

Consumption exists in every aspect of an economy. Consumption of electricity poses as one of the most basic needs to any ancient city or architectural complex. Electricity extends the life of an ancient city and makes it colorful. But electricity is indeed a double-edged sword as improper management results in hidden safety hazards, which may cause burning precious architectural civilization treasures.

The Barkhor Street-centric old zone indeed has gone through one of those difficult dilemmas. Dawa, a resident of Danjielin Community of Barkhor Street, says, shaking his head repeatedly, when the electricity environment a mere half a year ago comes up as a topic, "In the past there were a huge number of wires stretched crisscross outside every house in an extremely disorderly, extremely ugly cobweb, which each generally carries a heavy load and supplies an unstable voltage. This made people worry a great deal about the safety when using a heavy-duty appliance."

To make life easier, the people here had formed the habit of wiring appliances to the power lines as they pleased. According to local residents, electrical safety had been a concern for a long time. In some cases a local got an electric shock on a rainy day, and when winter came outages frequently occurred, which brought a lot of inconvenience to the locals.

And what made things worse was the fact that the practice of one meter for each house had not been implemented in the Tibet Autonomous Region yet, which made it a common practice for a number of houses to share one meter. Moreover, it had already become a rather prominent problem for business users to consume electricity as residential users, and poor electricity consumption management areas where such practice prevailed. Not only did all these problems give rise to hidden safety hazards, but they resulted in other problems, like high levels of shared loss, that affected the consumption of electricity by the local residents.

Gangzu, a representative of Lhasa's Municipal People's Congress and a resident of the old zone, had for a long time been a strong advocate for various programs designed to protect the old zone. High on the long list of concerns expressed to him by the locals were issues like improper wiring and fire hazards.

To better protect the old zone, it had become imperative to extend standardized management to its consumption of electricity. A small lapse was likely to cause a serious accident.

On December 20, 2012, Lhasa set a program aimed at protecting the old zone in motion. Transforming the power network and associated wires and ducts and improving fire safety became the top priority in the program.