With curiosity and excitement, over 40 freshmen from School of Life Sciences in USTC volunteered to take part in the fire safety skill training at Shushan fire safety division of Heifei PAP force on the morning of March 19, 2016, and students did learn a lot about fire safety and emergency evacuation during this unforgettable tour of visiting and learning.

Students gathered at the library entrance in west campus by 8:40 am with apparent joy and yearning on everyone’s face. It only took the bus a few minutes to the destination. Upon arrival students caught sight of several huge iron gates, behind which a student with some fire safety knowledge soon figured out that fire engines were parking. Minutes later a young fire fighter—also our narrator opened one of those gates, and several fire trucks were parked inside. Among them the cool one heading for the training field was going to be our major study object for the day.

Besides the awesome fire truck, there were also many tools of all kinds for fire control lying in line on the field. These unfamiliar cool things caught students’ eye right away, making lots of them wondering what these “strange” tools are used for.

The fireman narrator didn’t start explanation at once, but put on an amazing performance for the students first—some firemen managed to climb to the window of 3th floor with the assistance of merely a rope hanging from top of the building. The audience burst into applauses and cheers immediately for their fast and steady movement. After that the narrator began to show the students how to use each of the tools, and his meticulous yet precise demonstration kept all the students in full attention. Many even tried the tools with their own hands, experiencing truly both the excitement of being a fire fighter and how hard and stressful the work is. Then students got the chance to get on the fire truck as if they were fire fighters ready to extinguish fire somewhere for real.

At a quarter past 10 when the tour came to an end, everyone went back to the bus, longing for more yet fulfilled with new knowledge. In the past meaningful one single hour the students not only got a taste of daily training of the firemen, greatly enriching their knowledge of fire safety, but also strengthened their sense of responsibility for protecting themselves, others as well as the whole society.

The fire safety skills training is mainly organized and supported by Department of Student Affairs in USTC and led by following teachers—Houyong Xiao, Miao Fu and Yugang Guo.

　　　 (Originally written by  XIAO Tong, Translated by  GUO Jianjian, Grade 2015, School of Life Sciences)