kong dap phleung (กองดับเพลิง)

Thai. ‘Fire brigade’. Protective work and fire control in Thailand are in existence since the Ayutthaya Period. Somewhere in the early 16th century AD a team was set up whose duty it was to watch over dangerous threats. This included placing guards on 40 meter high watchtowers that were set up at key locations with a good view within the city walls and were used to detect possible assailants who for example might try to set the city ablaze in an act of sabotage. These watchtowers were in fact ho klong, i.e. ‘drum towers’, as they had drums that were beaten on moments of calamity as well as on other occasions. The drums were explicitly used to tell the time, especially to announce dawn and nightfall over the city; during enemy attacks or riots and revolts within the city; and in case of fire. When a fire occurred within the city walls the drum was hit with three beats after one another and for fires outside the city walls it was beaten with an invariable pattern of sounds, until after the fire was extinguished. In the Rattanakosin period these three types of drums and drumbeats were replaced by new ones, until the use of this kind of drums was abolished completely during the reign of Rama V. When on 4 August 1913 Marshal Phra Chao Worawongse, a Krom Luang (see Krom Phra Nakhon) took office as commander of the Department of Military Operations he informed King Chulalongkorn that he wanted to establish a new army and defense system, emphasizing the importance of a new department, independently trained to prepare for and actively and solely deal with fire fighting. This newly founded Fire Brigade was separated from the other troops, stationed locally in the different tambon and became a division of the local police, and many fire engines up to today can still be seen with the same brown-white license plate as that of police vehicle, complete with the official seal of the Royal Thai Police, known as trah lohkhen tamruat (fig.). However, in 1937, due to several occurrences, the Police Department placed the personnel of the Fire Department under the authority of the various city municipalities and all its officers became government employees, with all benefits and duties of Thai officials and as stipulated by royal decree. Today, the Fire and Rescue Department (map - fig.) manages the Radio Hotline Center 199 and is responsible for the dispatch of emergency staff and equipment to locations in the field where they are required. Besides this, there is also the airport fire brigade, officially known as the AOT Rescue and Fire Fighting Department (map - fig.), which is run by the Airports of Thailand, a Government-owned Public Company. Its emergency-response personnel is trained in a special category of firefighting that deals with airport ground emergencies, but also conducts water salutes, i.e. the ceremonial spraying of an airplane as a tribute, e.g. prior to or after its maiden flight or after its retirement flight, i.e. the last flight before a plane retires from the skies. Fire engines in the large cities, especially in Bangkok, frequently face problems reaching the scene of a fire, due to the often narrow streets and traffic congestion. The Bangkok metropolitan fire brigade (fig.) therefore makes use of a fleet of smaller pick-up trucks, as well as of boats that can operate on and from the many canals (fig.), which also provide an abundant source of water. Due to lack of adequate town planning, overcrowding and sometimes insufficient water supply, many cities have at times had large infernos in which dozens of houses were consumed by fire in one single incident, especially in neighbourhoods with slums, where the houses are usually made from wood and densely built next to one another (fig.). See also Rattanakosin Drum Tower. See also TRAVEL PICTURE. 回