In Tokyo and the southern part of the Kanto area, concern has been voiced over the occurrence of chokka-gata earthquakes with their focuses directly below cities. With earthquake preparedness as the most important issue,the Tokyo Fire Department comprehensively promoters the followinng eight issues: Prevention of Fire Outbreaks Initial Firefighting Improvement of Regional Disaster Preparedness Reinforcement of Initial Response Action Information Management Prevention of Fire Spread Rescue and EMS Evacuation and Post-quake Safety Measures With the lessons learned from the effective initial fire fighting immediately after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, the TFD emphasizes these eight items in fire drills and makes efforts at the appropriate use of the Earthquake Damage Prediction System in line with a seismograph network, the further development of the Fire Rescue Task Forces and the Long-Distance Water Supply Pumper along with the Long-Distance Hose Laying Wagon, the education of the TFD Volunteers, etc.

Fire Rescue Task Forces

Disaster drill with residents

The TFD Volunteers at drill

Firefighting Water Sources
With cooperation from citizens, the Tokyo Fire Department promotes the construction of earthquake resistive fire cisterns, underground water tanks below buildings,etc. to prepare for earthquake fires. For firefighting, the Department delivers water from the sea, rivers, large reservoirs, etc. to deal with large urban fires like those in the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake. Additionally, there is the Fire Hydrant Information System for effective firefighting operations. With a lot of waterworks being earthquake-resistive, fire hydrants' dependability increased. This led to the introduction of the system which assesses the availability of fire hydrants to cope with earthquake fires.
Fire cistern construction	Huge underground water resources system

Volunteer Fire Corps
Volunteer firee corps are made up of community residents. In line with fire station personnnel, they conduct firefighting, rescue and first-aid activities in case of fires and earthquakes. Besides, they instruct residents on fire prevention, basic firefighting, rescue, first aid, etc.	Number of Corps Number of Members 23-ku area of Tokyo 58 16,000 Tama area TFD service area 28 8,694 Outside TFD service area 2 391 Islands (outside TFD area) 10 1,712 （As of April 1,2003）
Firefighting	First-aid drill

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