‘NEVER BEEN INSPECTED’:National Association for Firefighters’ Rights secretary-general Cheng Ya-ling said that the majority of protective clothing has not been tested

Taipei Times
Date: Apr 11, 2015
By: Abraham Gerber  /  Staff reporter

Seventy percent of the fire suits worn by Taipei firefighters are “expired” and potentially worn out, putting their lives at risk, city councilors said yesterday.

Taipei City councilors Wang Wei-chung (王威中) and Kao Chia-yu (高嘉瑜) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that an inventory list provided by the Taipei Fire Department showed only 349 suits for the department’s 1,243 firefighters. While the department claimed that any additional suits had been “scrapped,” interviews with firefighters revealed that close to 1,000 expired suits with more than three years of usage continued to be worn by city firefighters, the councilors said.     [FULL  STORY]