->Deployment of autonomous Taiwan’s Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs) in the private sector National Fire Agency (NFA): Strengthening the populace’s self-rescue and mutual-assistance capabilities in response to disasters

On 2024/02/20, regarding a media report on the "Executive Yuan’s deployment of the Mid-Term Program for Autonomous Taiwan’s Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs) which might lead to the organization of T-CERTs consisting of high school students, where parents questioned whether their children are going to the battlefield", the National Fire Agency (NFA) clarified that the concern was greatly inconsistent with the facts. Those school T-CERTs mainly target the faculty of educational institutions, but not students. In addition, as emphasized by the NFA, in view of international experience in disaster prevention and protection, strengthening the populace’s autonomous self-rescue capabilities immediately upon the occurrence of a disaster could significantly reduce casualties. Hence, the deployment of the autonomous Taiwan’s Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs) could strength the populace’s "self-rescue" and "mutual-assistance" capabilities, while allowing the T-CERTs to provide preliminary assistance to their neighboring populace, wasting no time during the golden rescue hours, before the arrival of the governments’ rescue, thus saving more lives and lessening property losses.

As explained by the NFA, composite disasters including earthquakes, strong typhoons, etc. have been the prevalent trend around the globe day by day. Once a large-scale disaster strikes, due to the limited disaster relief manpower from the governments and the possible blocked, it may not be possible for the governments to immediately rush to various disaster sites to rescue the injured. Therefore, it is necessary for the governments to actively provide trainings to build up the communities’ abilities in assistance with emergency disaster relief. In 2022, the concept of community emergency response terms was introduced from the US. It was hoped that through systematic training, the "self-rescue" and "mutual-assistance" capabilities of enterprises, organizations, or the populace could be further strengthened. In 2024, the training program has been improved. Through training of Taiwan’s Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs), these T-CERTs are to play a supporting role for government agencies in disaster relief.

According to the NFA, the Executive Yuan planned to organize and train the Taiwan’s Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs) within six years from 2024 to 2029. The deployment of T-CERTs is to assist various groups in establishing their disaster prevention and protection capabilities through the government’s support, so that such T-CERTs could exert their response capabilities of self-rescue and mutual-assistance prior to the arrival of the governments’ rescue personnel, Currently, the deployment of T-CERTs aimed at protecting the nation’s critical infrastructures, targeting at private enterprises, medical institutions, schools, civil defense groups, villages and communities for them to form T-CERTs.

Reiterated by the NFA, in 2024, the deployment of T-CERTs aimed at the protection of critical infrastructures and the formation and training of T-CERTs based on enterprises, where the training was designed based on the employees’ self-defense firefighting organization for fire prevention management and security supervision system under the Fire Services Act. The training content mainly focused on fundamental disaster prevention and protection capabilities, including: fire safety, basic medical care practice, light-duty rescue, psychological comfort for disasters and trauma, etc. In the future, deployment of T-CERT is to be extended to schools at all levels in the future, where the training will mainly target at the faculty, but not students, of educational institutions.

Finally, emphasized by the NFA, since the 921 Earthquake in 1999, the governments have continuously made references to the operating models of emergency response organizations in various countries, while actively pooling the civilian force for organizing various rescue teams. The autonomous Taiwan's Community Emergency Response Teams (T-CERTs) are to enhance the community's immediate response ability in face of disasters, while playing an important supporting role to the governments’ efforts in disaster relief.