Photo courtesy to People's Daily

“Farewell, heroes.”

At 1:00 am on April 2, 2019, thousands of locals gathered in front of the gate of a funeral parlor and along the road, waiting for vehicles carrying the remains of 30 firefighters who died in wildfire in Muli, southwest China’s Sichuan province, to pay tribute to their noble sacrifice.

The youngest firefighter never turned 19.

Amid the nationwide mourning, the issue of “firefighters die young” resurfaced on Chinese social media. On Sina Weibo, the hashtag “salute to firefighters” has received 640 million views as of Wednesday, with many netizens pressing for a change to stop similar tragedies from happening in the future.

“Firefighters die young” is a recurring public concern as China is still in the process of transforming its current firefighter training and management system.

Most young firefighters who died doing their jobs have been enlisted in the army for less than five years. Lacking experience and knowledge is the main reason firefighters die young, the Ministry of Emergency Management said in 2015, China Daily reported.

For the past five decades, China has been recruiting firefighters from the Armed Police Force who decommissioned from military service to form the firefighter brigade system, but this practice has elicited an array of questions after a number of inexperienced firefighters died fighting fires.

But things are beginning to improve. By de-militarizing the team of firefighters and establishing a more professionalized training and management system, firefighters will become not only be a service, but an honorable profession.

Beijing started recruiting firefighters from the society in August 2017. In addition, China’s first fire rescue college was opened in December 2018, unfolding the beginning of the professionalization in firefighting service.