Editorial
Thoughts on the Significance and Role of the Volunteer Fire
Corps as the Core of Community Disaster Prevention– From the History of the Volunteer Fire Corps –Tadanori Takizawa, Specially Appointed Professor, Graduate School of Political
Science and Economics, Meiji University

Three years ago, the Japan
Firefighters Association compiled
and issued “The 120-year History of
the Volunteer Fire Corps” prior to the“Convention
for
the
120th
anniversary of the volunteer fire
corps and the 65th anniversary ofmunicipal fire services.” Fortunately,
I happened to have the opportunity
to be involved in this book, when I
rediscovered the fact that thevolunteer fire corps will always From “Struggle of the Volunteer Fire Corps – The 3.11
remain invaluable and important, Great East Japan Earthquake –” (edited by the Japan
Firefighters Association)even as time goes on and societychanges, supported by members who carry out dedicated activities with love for theirown local community and the noble spirit of “giyu” or loyalty and courage. I hope mywriting can be of some help in creating more opportunities for people to learn about
this.

1. The Great East Japan Earthquake and volunteer fire corps activities
Although five years have passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake, which
resulted in the greatest, widespread and most complex of disasters, a major tsunami
and the Fukushima nuclear accident, people will never be able to forget theunprecedented, immense damage it brought.
We have to hand down the valuable experience and lessons learned from the
Earthquake to subsequent generations, improve and enhance our fire and disasterprevention systems, and create and hand down to subsequent generations a resilient
society and community.
In the Great East Japan Earthquake, the fire service, the police, the Japan Coast
Guard, the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) and others carried out dedicatedactivities. Among them, the firefighters and the many volunteer fire corps members
above all continued their activities such as closing the floodgates of seawalls andguiding residents to evacuation areas in the face of the arriving tsunami and theimpending danger of losing their precious lives. This is so regrettable andheartbreaking. It is also said that a large number of volunteer fire corps members
devoted themselves to firefighting, searching for missing persons, responding toevacuation centers, etc. without sleep or rest for days and days, under serious
situations where they had lost persons close to them including family members andcolleagues, or had persons close to them who were missing, and their homes were
washed out or they were victims themselves.
Even if disaster response is the duty of the volunteer fire corps and its members are
part-time special government service workers, why should those members withanother job for their livelihood risk their lives and take on this self-sacrificing behavior?
Most of the general public living in these modern times, when overly selfish
individualism can be seen in such tendencies as leaving everything to the government
or depending on the government, may find their behavior really unbelievable.
The volunteer fire corps greatly contribute to the safety, security and stability of local
communities through their wide variety of activities, not only their response todisasters, including fires and floods, but also emergency preparedness training drills
during ordinary times, educational activities to raise the awareness of firefighting or
disaster prevention in cooperation with women’s firefighting clubs, voluntary disasterprevention organizations, etc., the search and rescue of missing persons in
non-negligible alpine accidents or water accidents, snow removal after heavy snow
and clearing the snow off the roofs of elderly people, and carrying on local traditional
events.

2. Love for one’s own local community and the spirit of “giyu” or loyalty
and courage
Presumably volunteer fire corps have inherited their vocation and spirit of mutual help
to protect their local communities, or the love for one’s own local community and thenoble spirit of “giyu” or loyalty and courage though this might seem a little
old-fashioned in modern times. The spirit of giyu means: 1) courage with a strong
sense of justice and 2) a spirit of dedication to public welfare, according to Kojien(Japanese dictionary).
Basically, communities should decide their own affairs, defend their own security andcreate their own necessary organizations while government should support or cover
their insufficiencies and inabilities, expanding among municipal, regional and nationalin order. No other organization or entity than the volunteer fire corps iscommunity-based, helps each other or can exercise disciplined power.
An organization like the volunteer fire corps is indispensable in forming a community,
and their love for their own local communities and the spirit of giyu, having been
continually inherited in the “machi-bikeshi (town firemen) of Edo,” the “shobo-gumi(fire-companies)” since the Meiji era and the “shobo-dan (volunteer fire corps)” fromthe postwar era up to the present as described in the next section 3, are permanent,
not to be lost, even if times change.

Note. The writer Matsuguchi Getsujo (real name: Matsuguchi Eita) wrote and recited
Chinese poems.
He was born in Nakagawa Town, Fukuoka, in 1887 and died at the age of 94 in
1981.
He contributed to community healthcare as a practitioner while exercising his
versatile talents for Chinese poems, calligraphy, and paintings in the Nanga style.
He was famous from early on in the world of shigin, the recitation of Chinese poems,
as a writer of many inspirational poems.
In 1994, the Matsuguchi Getsujo Memorial Museum was built in Nakagawa Town.

Incidentally, the meaning of the spirit of volunteerism and the spirit of giyu are notclearly differentiated, and the term shobo-dan tends to be translated as volunteer fire
corps. Of course, the role of volunteers is important, and their increasing activity andubiquity in recent years are most welcome. However, shobo-dan or volunteer fire
corps members are not mere volunteers even if they do have an aspect ofvolunteerism.
Even though they carry out activities for society and people without seeking any
reward or return, mere volunteers can just carry out their activities at their own
convenience and are able to freely quit these activities. However, volunteer fire corps
members are not allowed to do this as long as they are in the role. In someemergencies, they must put off or sacrifice themselves and their family, and take on
the behavior of the corps under command even if they are in danger. Their
responsibilities and critical role, their various burdens and persistent feelings oftension are far different from those of mere volunteers and are incomparable.
Local people’s trust or confidence and sense of security in the volunteer fire corps isstill a great thing both now and in the past. Although circumstances were different in
the past, it used to be said that “A youth cannot arrive at manhood until heexperiences the volunteer fire corps or a youth organization” and “Parents would give
their consent to their daughter’s marriage to a volunteer fire corps member.” These
were not “legends” associated with the volunteer fire corps but known facts.

3. Machi-bikeshi of Edo, shobo-gumi, and shobo-dan
In our country, organizational fire fighting started with the samurai firemen(daimyo-hikeshi or daimyo’s firemen and jo-bikeshi or firemen under the command of
Taishin Hatamoto) and machi-bikeshi or town firemen set up in the Edo period.
Jo-bikeshi are regarded as the origin of today’s regular fire prevention services andfire stations, and machi-bikeshi are regarded as the origin of today’s volunteer fire
corps.

In 1718, the eighth Shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune ordered Ooka Echizen, South
Magistrate of Edo, to organize machi-bikeshi to cope with fires in the towns. Those
who had jobs for a livelihood such as steeplejacks and carpenters came running in theevent of a fire, prevented the fire from spreading to uphold their own town’s orbrigade’s honor. They were a familiar entity protecting the towns from fires. Theirabilities and their positive customs involving the chivalrous spirit of sacrificing
themselves for justice, as well as giyu, were representative of one side of “iki (cool)”
Edo. Therefore, machi-bikeshi frequently appeared in color prints, plays and Kabuki,
they gained people’s trust and became popular. Also in other regions, following Edo,machi-bikeshi were located in castle towns, and kaketsuke-shobo or a joint
community run fire service, though not a fire organization, could be found in thesettlements and villages.
After the Meiji Restoration, the machi-bikeshi of Edo were reorganized into
shobo-gumi or fire-companies. Also in other regions, public or private shobo-gumi(whose names also included hikeshi-gumi, kabo-gumi and suikabo-gumi as well asshobo-gumi) were gradually set up. In order to create a national standard for the
shobo-gumi systems and ensure social stability, the Imperial ordinance “Shobo-gumi
Kisoku (Fire Company Rules)” was enacted in 1894, and new shobo-gumi, thepredecessor of today’s shobo-dan or volunteer fire corps, were set up at the municipal
level. Later, as of 1926, there were 10,640 shobo-gumi with 1,803,255 members(accounting for approx. 3.4% of the total population; for comparison, volunteer fire
corps members currently account for approx. 0.7% of the total population) in 11,573
municipalities of Japan.
Although machi-bikeshi turned into shobo-gumi up to shobo-dan, allowances paid tothe members were utterly nominal, and the members needed another job for theirlivelihood. In addition, all expenses for the operation of machi-bikeshi andkaketsuke-shobo were covered by the towns or local communities. The costs of new
shobo-gumi were supposed to be covered as municipal expense (Article 13 of the
Shobo-gumi Kisoku). In fact, they were often paid by the local communities. Towns orsettlements dealt with the high cost of a fire pump or a fire lookout tower throughdonations from influential persons and the sales of mountain forests, or by using pay
allocated for the members’ labor and services as funds.
This way both machi-bikeshi and shobo-gumi were owned and set up by thecommunities that independently operated them to become the pride of the local
residents by guarding the communities. Therefore, their activities were naturally
based on their love for their own local community and the spirit of giyu.
In addition, shobo-gumi were integrated with bogo-dan (defense units) out of the needfor air defense during the war and became active as keibo-dan (civil defense units) forover 8 years. With the end of the war, in accordance with the Imperial ordinance“Shobo-dan Rei (Volunteer Fire Corps Order),” the keibo-dan were broken up andtransformed into shobo-dan or volunteer fire corps (under the jurisdiction of the police).
Less than a year later, the Fire and Disaster Management Organization Act wasenacted, and the volunteer fire corps were spilt off from the police to become thepresent volunteer fire corps under the municipal fire service system. Volunteer fire
corps have a long history and tradition of 300 years dating back to the time of themachi-bikeshi of Edo and 120 years since the shobo-gumi were set up in accordancewith the Imperial ordinance.

4. Realities of the volunteer fire corps and expectations of the Act on
Enhancing and Strengthening Regional Disaster Prevention
Capabilities Centered around Volunteer Fire Corps
Now that we have almost achieved the nationwide standardization of fire prevention
services, even though the functions and activities of volunteer fire corps vary
according to how they cooperate with regular fire prevention services (firedepartments and fire stations) and the local circumstances, volunteer fire corps stillretain their importance, and are rather of even more importance in today’s social
circumstances. Their properties of 1) community-based, 2) great mobilization and 3)
immediate responsiveness, along with their members carrying out dedicated activities
with love for their own local communities and the spirit of giyu are all indispensable
when it comes to extensively ensuring the safety and security of communities.
Meanwhile, with the changes in society and the economy, volunteer fire corps are
faced with a decline in members, an increase in the proportion of employee members,
a rise in average age, etc. With the low birthrate and the transition to a depopulating
society, it is also a concern that the volunteer fire corps may be unable to fully performtheir activities. Therefore, appropriate measures need to be taken before it is too late,but most of these measures should be taken by the municipalities, residents andcommunities rather than the volunteer fire corps themselves.
Needless to say, while the times and society have been changing and people’s values
have become more diversified, it is unreasonable to expect community safety andsecurity against fires and floods by exclusively relying on the government and the fireservices. It is important to keep one’s own powder dry and contribute to one’s local
community as a member from the perspective of self-help, mutual help and public
help. Without this, even if we unilaterally expect loyal and courageous volunteer fire
corps members to perform their noble duties, these volunteer fire corps would reach
their limit at some point. Therefore, it is significant for local residents and thecommunity as a whole to first understand the nature and realities of volunteer fire
corps better in order to cooperate with them, and to create together with thegovernment an environment in which volunteer fire corps can easily carry out theiractivities.
The so-called “Act on Enhancing and Strengthening Volunteer Fire Corps, etc.,” which
was established by lawmaker-initiated legislation in 2013, is innovative and its
purpose seems to be precisely this, but the establishment of a law is the Imperial
standard as well as just the beginning. It is essential to utilize the law, promote
enrollment in volunteer fire corps, and take every possible measure to enhance andstrengthen volunteer fire corps activities to put these measures into action.

Editorial

Thoughts on the significance and role of the volunteer fire corps as the core ofcommunity disaster prevention – From the history of the volunteer fire corps –Particularly if it remains impossible to avoid the situation where only few members are
self-employed and have work flexibility while most members are employees and anincreasing number of members work outside the jurisdiction, it is crucial for thosecompanies which employ volunteer fire corps members to understand and cooperate
in allowing these members to carry out their volunteer fire corps activities comfortably
without being affected by their work.

Postscript

For this purpose, while we should appeal further for corporate social responsibility andcommunity contribution, with the proliferation of the Volunteer Fire Corps OfficeSymbol System and the expansion of municipalities’ support measures for suchcompanies, from a future perspective although a lot of trouble and not at all easy, if
required in light of the role of the volunteer fire corps, some consideration orcompensation for employee members’ main activities, especially for dispatch to thescene of a fire or another disaster during working hours, to both the company and themember should be taken into consideration while considering the examples ofready-reserve self-defense forces.
In the 2016 Kumamoto Earthquakes in Kumamoto, an area which had generally been believed free ofmajor earthquakes, both the foreshock and the main shock registered a maximum seismic intensity of 7, a
chain of large aftershocks occurred, and active seismic activity continued, which were unprecedented andwreaked immense damage. I would like to express my sympathy to all the victims of the Earthquake, andmy deep respect for the efforts of all persons dedicated to disaster response including firefighters andvolunteer fire corps members. I also pray for speedy recovery and reconstruction.