The government is pushing a plan to integrate local firefighting headquarters so that each headquarters will have about 300,000 or more people under its jurisdiction. The government should consider whether this plan is appropriate in enhancing the ability to fight fires and improve disaster management in local areas. The plan should be pursued flexibly by taking into account the conditions of each area.
Under the 2006 government plan, 45 prefectural governments except for Niigata and Tottori worked out their own integration plans. On the basis of these plans, the central government set the goal of integrating 807 firefighting headquarters that existed in 2007 into 298 headquarters by the end of fiscal 2012. But it is expected that there will be 745 headquarters at the end of April 2013.
Behind the slowness in the integration is fears that if one headquarters covers a large area, its firefighting ability and disaster management will deteriorate and that communications between fire brigades and municipal disaster management sections that constitute each firefighting headquarters will become difficult. The central government may have adhered to the unrealistic idea that if one headquarters covers a large area, its efficiency will increase. There is also a possibility that prefectural governments did not give careful thought to the central government's plan. They may have failed to carefully consider the particular geographical conditions of each area and the conditions of roads connecting various areas.