The "April 17th" catastrophic fire first broke out at No.34 Courtyard, Hetu Street, Daoli District. Located between Hetu Street and Heqing Street, this compound is surrounded by two two-story buildings, a four-story building and an L-shaped six-story building. The area of the hospital is 1 952 square meters, and there are 4 residential bungalows with an area of 420 square meters and 232 households. There are 283 wooden sheds in 6 rows (each row is 2 meters wide and 57 meters long) with an area of 684 square meters. The board shed is 3 meters high, and the average height of piled wood is 6 meters. * * * Stacked wood and wood burning meter 1 380 cubic meters, and there are a lot of combustible materials such as sawdust and shavings in the board shed.
The compound is surrounded by shanty towns with dense residents and simple buildings, which have low fire resistance and are adjacent to each other. Most houses are covered with linoleum paper, with mud walls or simple brick-wood structures and adobe houses, and many houses are simple Russian-style buildings of Belarus in Harbin, which have been in disrepair for a long time. They are relatively large shanty towns in Harbin, with 7,280 households and more than 28,900 residents. At the same time, this compound is also connected with many industrial and enterprise units.
1April, 983 17 was Sunday, and the temperature in Harbin reached 20 degrees Celsius, with a southwest gale of magnitude 8 or above. Many units hung yellow "No Fire" flags. The commanders and fighters of the city's fire brigade have entered the first-level combat readiness.
/kloc-at 0/5: 05, the wooden shed adjacent to the east side of Zong Wanxi's home in the southwest corner of No.34 Courtyard, Hetu Street, Daoli District suddenly caught fire. Here is the upwind of the day's wind direction, and the downwind opposite is an "L"-shaped 6-story ten thousand-meter building, which makes the compound form a whirlwind zone, so as soon as the flame jumps out of the top of the board shed, it rotates and spreads upward with the wind. After discovering the fire, most residents panicked, and they all opened doors and windows to carry their own things, which led to the ventilation of the fire and formed a strong air convection, which helped to make the fire burn more violently. The burning linoleum paper and charcoal fire rolled up by the wind caused a fire every time it rose and fell. The fire spread rapidly and swept the whole hospital, forming a sea of fire in an instant. The swirling and upward burning fire burned the wood and wooden stilts on the balconies of the 6-storey 10,000-meter building, instantly forming a raging fire. The fire spread rapidly to the northeast of the corridor with the strong wind, and all kinds of burning substances rose with the wind and went down with the wind, and large pieces of "fire rain" were splashed everywhere and burned everywhere. By 15 16, the wood processing factory of the Urban Construction Bureau and the nearby residential buildings, which were more than 220 meters away from the fire, had also formed a sea of fire. The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks that could not be snatched out of the fire exploded from time to time in the fire (according to post-disaster statistics, there were 189 LPG tanks in this fire, and only 3 1 in No.34 Courtyard of Hetu Street. ), which aggravated the fire.
After the fire broke out, the fire brigade of Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory and Harbin Wood Factory, which were adjacent to the fire site, rushed to the fire site at 15 10. At this time, the whole compound had been burned by fire, and it was only 5 minutes before it was put into battle, so it was forced to withdraw because of its weak strength and fierce fire. During the evacuation, a fire hose and a two-section ladder of the fire brigade of Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory were swallowed up by the fire.
15 10, the command center of Harbin Public Security Fire Brigade "1 19" immediately ordered Guxiang fire squadron and Daoli fire squadron in this district to go to the fire scene after receiving the alarm. On the way to the fire scene, the Guxiang fire squadron found that the fire was fierce, that is, it called the headquarters through the radio to ask for support. 15 15, the headquarters ordered all fire squadrons and detachments in the city to be dispatched immediately and rushed to the fire. And ordered two squadrons, Gu Xiang and Dao Li, to "occupy the downwind and block the fire". 15 17: 00, Guxiang Squadron arrived at the fire and immediately took the limelight. Two water guns were used to draw water to stop the fire, and a fierce fire came on our faces. All the officers and men of Guxiang Squadron endured the severe pain of the fire and insisted on fighting. Squadron quartermaster Shao Qing found a woman with a child in her arms trapped in the third floor by fire. He rushed through the crater and picked up the child and returned downstairs. At this moment, the liquefied petroleum gas tank on the third floor exploded. He put down the child and rushed in for the second time, and rescued the woman. Shao Qing's face was burned by 40% and his hands by 30%, and he still insisted on fighting. At this time, the position of Guxiang squadron has been surrounded by fire, the hose has been burned, the windshield of the locomotive has been cracked, and the pump wheel has been turned off. 15: 22, Daoli fire squadron arrived at the fire, saw that Guxiang squadron was surrounded by fire, and quickly drew water to cover Guxiang squadron's withdrawal from the fire. With strong thermal radiation and flames spouting from the gate hole, they finally snatched the fire-fighting locomotive of Guxiang squadron from the crater and put it into battle again.
/kloc-at 0: 05: 25, the headquarters of Harbin Public Security Fire Brigade arrived at the fire. Power Squadron, Haxi Squadron, Taiping Squadron, Xiangfang Squadron, Daowai Squadron, Nangang Squadron and some full-time fire brigades of enterprises also arrived at the fire. At this point, the area around Hetu Street is already a sea of fire. The fire surface expanded rapidly, and there were many fires in the residential areas of simple houses in Heluo Street, Hezhou Street and Herun Street. The burning Fei Huo quickly splashed down in the downwind direction, and the timber yard of the Urban Construction Bureau and Harbin Vehicle Factory were seriously threatened by the fire. After reconnaissance, the headquarters immediately decided to seize the downwind direction and block the fire.
/kloc-at 5: 40, leaders of the municipal public security bureau, the provincial fire brigade, the provincial public security department, and provincial and municipal leaders Li'an Li, Chen Lei, Mark Wang, Wang Huacheng, and Wei Jianxing successively arrived at the fire scene, and quickly formed a fire scene headquarters attended by provincial and municipal leaders. At this time, the wind reached 1 1 level, Fei Huo was full of sky and splashed everywhere, and the fire had spread to Heqing Street, Hetu Street, Heluo Street, Hezhou Street and Herun Street, reaching more than 80,000 square meters. All the wood piles of the wood processing factory of the Municipal Urban Construction Bureau, which stored 6,000 cubic meters of wood, caught fire, and the fire spread rapidly to the downwind area by the wind. A very critical situation has emerged: the large oil tank, oxygen station, liquefied petroleum gas station and 66 000 volt high-voltage substation, which store 3 600 tons of crude oil in Harbin Vehicle Factory, separated from the wood processing factory of Urban Construction Bureau by a wall, are all exposed to the fire, and the wall temperature of the oil tank has risen to 64 degrees Celsius; 300 meters downwind of the plant is the municipal gas company with a large amount of gas and liquefied petroleum gas. If the vehicle factory can't keep it, it will inevitably cause a series of huge explosions, endangering the safety of Daoli District and even Harbin, and causing unimaginable consequences. Close to the southern end of the wood processing factory of the Urban Construction Bureau is the particleboard workshop of Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory, which is worth 5 million yuan, as well as the chemical warehouse and oil depot of the factory. * * * stores 300 tons of formaldehyde, various paints 1 740 kg, gasoline and other oil 10 tons. If it cannot be maintained here, the whole Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory will surely catch fire, resulting in a wider fire. The fire has spread to the central water source of Harbin Railway Sub-bureau at the corner of Heqing Street and Heluo Street. If it can't be saved, it will affect the water supply of trains and locomotives, resulting in the paralysis of the whole line of Harbin Railway Sub-bureau.
Facing the severe fire, wind and the existing fire-fighting power, the fire headquarters decided decisively: save the small and protect the big, save the light and take care of it, and determined the fire-fighting principle of "intercepting from the downwind, attacking from both sides, and keeping the key points at a timely interval", focusing on defending the central water source of Harbin Vehicle Factory, Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory and Harbin Railway Branch, as well as the residential area north of Hegan Street and the provincial second light with a value of more than10 million yuan. According to this guiding ideology and tactical principle, at 15: 50, an encirclement was formed on the fire site and a fire fighting was launched. At this time, there were public security fire squadrons in Harbin 10, 39 full-time fire brigades in enterprises, ***97 fire engines, and 685 fire officers and soldiers took part in the battle. The headquarters also mobilized 4,000 officers and men of the troops stationed in Kazakhstan and the Armed Police Force in time, and organized more than 3,000 employees to participate in the fighting. 9 sprinklers of the Municipal Environmental Sanitation Bureau and 8 locomotives of the railway system were mobilized to supply water to the fire site. And mobilized Daqing, Zhaodong, Hulan, Binxian, Acheng, Lanxi and other five counties of the fire brigade 12 combat vehicles and 52 commanders to support the fight.
In order to prevent the expansion of combustion and ensure the safety of key units and surrounding residents, the fire headquarters determined the combat deployment of "blocking by sections, encircling and destroying all", and divided the fire scene into four combat sections. In the first battle stage, three public security fire squadrons and eight enterprise fire brigades were mobilized to hold on to the 5,000-ton oil tank, oil depot, chemical depot, oxygen station and high-voltage substation of Harbin Vehicle Factory in the downwind direction to resist the fire and prevent it from spreading. In the second battle stage, three public security fire squadrons and four enterprise fire brigades were mobilized to intercept the raging fire on the south side of Zhengyanghe Wood Processing Factory in the downwind direction, including the particleboard workshop, chemical warehouse and oil depot. In the third battle stage, two public security fire squadrons and three enterprise fire brigades were mobilized to stop the fire spreading in the direction of Herun Street and protect the downwind residential buildings and the warehouse of the supply and marketing company of the Second Light Industry Bureau of the province. In the fourth battle stage, two public security fire squadrons and 12 enterprise fire brigades were mobilized to defend the central water source and nearby residential buildings of Harbin Railway Branch.
At 16: 50, the fire was completely surrounded, and the fire was controlled at 17. /kloc-at 7: 40, fire brigades from Hulan, Zhaodong, Acheng and other five counties rushed to the fire site one after another, which strengthened the fighting power of the fire site. The headquarters seized the fighter plane and immediately adopted the tactical measures of "interspersed and divided, attacked in close combat and destroyed one by one", and issued the battle order of "carrying forward the style of heroic and tenacious continuous fighting, attacking in an all-round way and destroying the fire". Under the unified command of the headquarters, the four combat sections gradually deepened. After 1 1 hour of hard work, the fire was completely extinguished at 1 30 the next morning.
After the fire broke out, under the guidance of the working group of the Ministry of Public Security and the provincial public security department, the cause of the fire was seriously investigated. It is believed that the fire was caused by the illegal construction of the house of Zong Wanxi, a resident, and the erection of a kang did not meet the fire prevention regulations.
During the occurrence and fighting of the "April 17th" catastrophic fire, serious problems in the fire control work in Harbin were exposed.
First, residents' awareness of fire prevention is weak and there is no effective fire supervision. A set of long-standing and effective safety and fire prevention measures, such as the residents' fire prevention convention, the fire prevention duty system by turns, the mass voluntary fire prevention organizations, and the prohibition of burning stoves in windy days, were destroyed in the "Cultural Revolution" and were not fully recovered, and the people's paralyzed thoughts and lucky psychology became more and more serious. In recent years, this fire area has not only been littered with shacks and private houses, but also inhabited by workers of wood processing plants, and each family has accumulated several meters or even more than ten meters of wood and wooden rafts. 43 Hetu Street 1 952 square meters, 293 wooden sheds were built in the courtyard, occupying more than two-thirds of the area of the courtyard, and the average height of wood piled on the wooden sheds was 6 meters, which was very prone to fire and once a fire broke out, it would cause "burning the camp".
Second, the tendency of neglecting safety and fire prevention in urban management is very serious. Lack of management of the phenomenon of "building shacks and houses indiscriminately" among residents; Slab sheds are erected around the newly-built buildings, forming the phenomenon of "high-rise buildings wearing skirts", and residents randomly accumulate a large number of wooden rafts and other flammable items in the courtyard; Some units arbitrarily occupy and dig roads, and fire exits are seriously blocked; Residents use liquefied petroleum gas tanks without inspection and without restrictions; New residential buildings are not supervised by the fire department; New tall buildings are not equipped with fire control facilities as required.
Third, there is a serious shortage of fire water sources. Urban construction is developing day by day, while the fire water source is decreasing, and the proportion is seriously out of balance. There is basically no fire water source in the newly-built urban buildings. There was only one fire hydrant at the scene of this catastrophic fire and around it, and dozens of water trucks had to go to several water towers in the urban area to transport water, of which the nearest one was 2.5 kilometers and the farthest one was 15 kilometers.
Fourth, the fire fighting force is insufficient and the fire fighting equipment is backward. The urban area of Harbin is nearly 170 square kilometers, and there are 10 fire squadrons. The average area of responsibility of each squadron is17.4 square kilometers, which is more than double the national standard. Moreover, there are no fire brigades in important industrial areas and tourist areas such as Chemical Industry Zone, Xinxiangfang, Pingfang South Factory, Wanggang and Jiangbei. In some large and medium-sized cities, the fire-fighting forces are all equipped according to five ten thousandths to seven ten thousandths of the urban population, and the firefighters in Harbin only account for 2.8 thousandths of the city's population. Fire fighting equipment is also insufficient. There are 86 fire fighting vehicles in the city, of which only 23 can directly shoot water to put out the fire, and only two are advanced fire engines.
On April 18, the municipal party committee and the municipal government held a city-wide fire emergency mobilization meeting. Mayor Wei Jianxing, on behalf of the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Government, called on the people of the whole city to take urgent action, draw lessons from the "April 17th" fire, take practical measures, and go all out to do a good job in fire prevention and disaster relief.
Hospitals and medical staff living with the wounded carried forward the spirit of saving lives and healing the wounded, and timely rescued and treated 14 wounded people. For the affected residents, according to the requirements of the municipal party committee and the municipal government to "ensure that they have food, clothing and temporary accommodation, and strive to ensure that the students in the school will not interrupt their schooling", all employees with units will be in charge of the affected employees in principle, and all units will take the initiative to send people to contact and take the initiative to resettle them. Where there is no work unit for the victims, the Daoli District People's Government and the relevant sub-district offices are responsible for the resettlement. In view of the fact that some people took the wrong things from each other in the fire and a few lawless elements took advantage of the fire to rob and fish in troubled waters, which seriously disturbed social order, the Daoli Public Security Bureau issued an urgent notice on April 19, demanding that "anyone who took other people's things by mistake in the fire should take the initiative to hand them over and not be investigated. Ordered the looters to surrender themselves while taking advantage of the fire, and called on the masses to actively report and expose and fight against the bad guys. " After the announcement, people who took things by mistake handed in things by mistake. On April 24, according to the report of the masses and careful tracing, six criminals who took advantage of the fire were publicly dealt with.
In the "April 17th" fire, all the household registration books and files of Zhengyanghe police station were burned. From April 22nd to 24th, 23 policemen from Daoli Public Security Bureau visited grain shops, checked household cards, and compared census data, etc., and rebuilt the household registration books of 5,778 burned households, thus restoring the household registration management in this area.
After the city's fire emergency mobilization meeting, the leaders of the municipal party committee, the municipal government and the municipal people's congress took the lead and formed 10 safety and fire inspection teams, which went deep into key units for inspection. The Municipal Public Security Bureau consists of three deputy directors who specialize in fire prevention work, and organized seven working groups to go deep into the branches to supervise and inspect. ① Do a good job in the ideological construction of safety and fire prevention, and strengthen the education of fire prevention knowledge and safety and fire prevention laws and regulations; (2) do a good job in the organization and construction of safety and fire prevention, and rectify and improve fire prevention organizations at all levels; (3) do a good job in the construction of safety and fire prevention system, and further establish and improve various safety and fire prevention responsibility systems. Carefully clean up all kinds of fire hazards. ① Further clean fire exits, stairs, corridors and doorways; (2) clean up the wooden shed, ceiling, basement and workshop dressing room, etc., to remove inflammable and explosive articles; (3) clean up the chimney, fire wall, fire resistance and stove, and set up a file one by one, check and accept one by one; (4) clean up liquefied gas tanks, which do not meet the requirements of fire safety, and resolutely prohibit their use; ⑤ Clean up the power supply and electrical equipment, and deal with bare wires, overloaded wires and wires without permission in time; ⑥ Clean up other fire hazards. It is called "three constructions and six cleanups".
During this period, the leaders of the municipal government focused on "three constructions and six clean-ups". All the strength of district governments, sub-district offices, public security police stations and tens of thousands of street cadres have been involved in mobilizing and organizing the "three constructions and six clean-ups". In the three months from April to June, the municipal government held more than a dozen meetings on fire prevention, and fire prevention became the center of the city's work for a period of time. In these three months, the city cleared 7,226 streets and lanes, 25,60 residential compounds, 5 doors, 42,537 staircases and corridors, and 4 sheds 162 104, thus eliminating insecurity. At the same time, fire prevention organizations at all levels have been established and fire prevention rules and regulations have been established.
In order to remember the lessons of the "April 17th" fire, the municipal government held a fire prevention meeting on1April 1984 17, calling on the people of the whole city to remember the lessons of the "April 17th" fire, and decided to take the week of April 17 every year as the fire prevention publicity week to carry out city-wide fire prevention publicity activities.