China does not have nearly enough firehouses, 50 percent less than international requirements, China's police authorities said on Thursday.

While China has more than 2,800 firehouses, more than 700 counties have no firehouse at all.

International practice requires the deployment of firehouses every four to seven square kilometers and fire fighters must reach the scene within fifteen minutes upon receiving orders, Li Shixiong, vice director of the fire fighting department under the Ministry of Public Security, said at a press conference.

"If China's firehouses are counted by international standards, China needs to build another 2,800 firehouses, the lack of which reflects dereliction of duty by some local governments," Li said.

According to the ministry, some 2,496 people were killed in 235,941 fires in China last year. The figures were down 2.6 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively, over the previous year.

The ministry is currently drafting the Fire Control Law, which is also listed by the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, in this year's lawmaking plan.

The law will strengthen fire security surveillance in crowded places in China and set up strict fire safety rules regulating fire prevention in places like schools and night clubs.

The ministry is also cracking down on blocking fire evacuation passages by imposing more severe punishment, Li said.

Previously, managers of night clubs where deaths from fire were partly due to insufficient fire security facilities, only served a term of imprisonment of three to seven years. This made many club-owners, who trusted to luck, unwilling to spend a dollar on fire safety.

More than half of the year's fire incidents took place in China's rural areas, Li said, where fire control work is inadequate. Rural fire prevention is now top priority on the ministry's agenda.

Li said that more funds should be allocated to help build fire fighting facilities in China's countryside.

Statistics from the National Statistics Bureau show that 48.6 percent of 18-year-olds in China do not know how to save themselves when encountering fires and 52 percent of them cannot recognize signs of fire fighting.

Li calls for more public education on fire control and more lectures by people in charge of fire fighting in each work unit.

(Xinhua News Agency January 20, 2006)