All About Shobodan
I want to tell you all about Shobodan. I hope someone will read this and decide to join 消防団 / Shōbōdan / the "volunteer" fire corps in Japan.
My philosophy: In Japan, making a contribution is how to become a true part of and enjoy being in society. The most basic form is to pay your taxes and not do crimes. But going above that is the secret to happiness. It is the license to bitch. It is how you get people to listen to you. It is the way to escape outsiderhood. Shobodan is a particularly great way to contribute.
Shobodan is one of the institutions that make up the fabric of my community and many others in Japan. Above, I am participating in a neighborhood festival ceremony as the representative of my squad. I will not lie to you—the snappy uniform is a fun element of being a member.
To be clear, I’m one of the least accomplished people I know in Shobodan; I can do basic first aid, drive the truck, run the pump, spray water, roll up hoses, and order a succulent Chinese meal to be delivered to the firehouse, but there’s a lot more I need to learn. Also, I drill and march poorly. But I make myself useful, and so can anyone. To that end, I would like lots of people to know about it and consider joining.
Tokyo firefighting has a cool history that I can’t cover here. Basically, local groups in the Edo Period were assigned as 火消し / hikeshi / “fire extinguishers,” to put out fires and demolish the buildings around a fire to prevent its spread. They were mostly unpaid.
https://fdma.go.jp/relocation/syobodan/data/historry/index.html
Professional fire departments were also established, but Shobodan units have always existed in parallel. During wartime, fire departments were merged under police, and so were volunteer groups. This was all part of the famously oppressive and unhappy society of those militaristic days, so now they’re fiercely separate, with occasional low-key turf battles.
I’m a big fan of the 鳶職 / tobi / construction tradespeople who were Edo firefighters due to their climbing and demolition skills. In Hachioji, a group called 八王子消防記念会 is devoted to preserving those skills. It is still made up of the coolest tradespeople. Here is some footage of what they do: https://youtu.be/Nddqhf8Y1xg?si=BiCZwyBsyOlvFCCP&t=229
Here are some Japan firefighting stats I once found (possibly a bit outdated):
-2200 fire corps in Japan
-830,000 Shobodan members
-160,000 professional firefighters
-26,600 women firefighters
I am sure it all costs a lot of money, but I think a million sets of hands also pays enormous dividends, especially in disasters. We are a standing army of people to do hard things in a reasonably organized way at anytime. That's pretty amazing.
About the problematic term "volunteer": We get paid 80,000 to 120,000 yen a year, depending on rank, so it isn't exactly volunteer work. We also get a 1,000-yen remuneration for transportation expense anytime we respond to a false alarm, which is what about 95% of calls turn out to be (thankfully.) If the call turns out to be a real fire, we get 4,000 yen, I think. (Be aware that all these amounts vary by municipality.) When added up, the time spent on the various monthly, seasonal, annual, and unplanned activities makes it far more lucrative on an hourly-wage basis to work at, say, Family Mart, than to be in Shobodan. In that sense, it certainly requires a volunteer spirit.
Regarding women in Shobodan: Every municipality is different, from what I hear. In Hachioji, we have a 女性隊 / Joseitai / Women’s Squad that is attached directly to the City Corps leadership, as opposed to having women in individual geographically delineated squads. I imagine this will change at some future point.
Our Hachioji Joseitai is very skilled. They train us in things like advanced first aid and sometimes assist us with skills competition practice. There are prefectural and national skills competitions just for the women’s squads, in which they perform similar firefighting skills in an intense competition. The only difference is the size of the hoses they use, which are slightly narrower, and their pumps’ water pressures are lower. The Hachioji Joseitai advanced to the national skills competition a few years ago. They are so cool.
This year, Joseitai members came to our company and participated in the year-end patrols with all-male local squads. The person who was going to join us got sick and couldn’t come, unfortunately. So if someone is unhappy to hear that male-only squads are the norm at least where I am, I sympathize. The women who are my friends and belong to our City Corps are pretty happy to have their own squad, for what it’s worth. Also, I hear that places including some of the 23 wards of Tokyo are integrated for all. We’ll see how integration goes in the future in more rural places where there is surely more resistance / less preparation yet done to that end.
I for one would love to have any person who is able and willing in my squad.
Virtually every Shobodan is run by its municipality, so my experience undoubtedly differs from what happens in other parts of Japan. (Side rant: Assuming that the circumstances of the place you happen to inhabit in the vastness of Japan in fact represent the absolute State of Affairs of the entire nation is a disease I would love to see eradicated, and try to assiduously avoid.) Each region, city, town, village, and specific neighborhood has its own culture. My experience is in the west part of Hachioji City (the west part of Tokyo Prefecture). I am pleased to tell you that my neighborhood and its fire squad have a service-focused and generous culture of camaraderie.
You may have heard that Shobodan is a glorified drinking club. This may still be the case in some places—my squad certainly used to have drinking sessions and I enjoyed them at the time—but then Covid hit, and we couldn’t do anything together for many months at a time. Following that, in a trend common to many settings, the nomikai culture virtually disappeared. We eat meals together sometimes, but organized events with drinking are mostly only at the company or city level now. And no one is pressured to drink. All of this is to say that the drinking aspect has really faded in recent years.
Here are the basic things we do:
-respond to fire calls (average of 2-or-so a month)
-respond to typhoons, flooding, earthquakes, and other natural events
-maintain equipment (truck, pump, hoses, chainsaw, generators, lights, sandbags, firehouse, etc)
-assist our 町会 neighborhood association with disaster preparation events
-provide festival and other event safety
-maintain all the fire hydrants of our area
-practice/compete in the 操法大会 / sōhō taikai / skills competition
-participate in disaster planning for our area with government and neighborhood entities
-drill (formation, marching, etc)
-annual 出初式 / Dezomeshiki / New Year's Review
-seasonal and year-end fire and public awareness patrols
-team building activities such as short trips together
-receive training from the professional fire department
...and other things
About the Hachioji Fire Corps organization:
City: 本団 / Corps; 1,140 people
Area: 分団 / Company; 50-150 people
Neighborhood: 部 / Squad; 10-15 people
So when I refer to my squad, that’s our local group of 13 with our own firehouse and truck and pump. Also, Hachioji City has a population of 560,000.
We get called to fires by email from the city disaster section. When someone joins the corps, they register an email address to receive these calls. An email is put out to us anytime there is a report of a fire in progress in the assigned area of our company, which has 12 squads. The email is very brief, containing a statement of what kind of situation has been reported (e.g. "Single house fire") and a link to a (fairly unreliable) map program that pinpoints the location of the address, which is thankfully also listed. It is usually wisest to search the address on Google Maps, etc., before traveling there. We then announce on our squad LINE group if we can respond or not. We get to the firehouse, into gear, into the truck, and head toward the scene.
On the way to the scene, one person focuses on driving quickly but safely there. We can run red lights but our rule is to stop completely, confirm that the coast is clear, and only then proceed. It is forbidden to operate the vehicle alone, or to move backward without someone getting out to confirm safety and guide the driver. The person in the passenger seat steps on the motor siren at intersections or other dangerous places and confirms safety, while using the external loudspeaker to request and express gratitude for motorists' and pedestrians' cooperation in letting us have the right of way. If another person is onboard, they check the Zenrin maps in the truck to find where fire hydrants will be located near the fire.
Above is footage of a fire that happened locally, but not in my assigned firefighting area. (I am emphasizing that I did not take this video while on duty.) You can see firefighters spraying the burning house in the foreground. They are Shobodan, and did amazing work that day. This sort of situation is rare, but It’s always on our minds.
We feel a little bit bad having to run sirens even late at night and without traffic around, but we are required to make the noise. Sorry about that. It is safer, though, so please do not complain. We live in a society. A pedestrian or vehicle might emerge suddenly from a side street and not know we are coming if we’re quiet and not lit up.
Happily, when we arrive, most calls turn out to be false alarms. The alarm systems of a hospital have malfunctioned; someone was cooking and put out too much smoke, which made someone think the place was burning; an hot bath issuing forth steam from a window fooled a passerby into thinking it was a blaze; etc. etc..
We love false alarms. That means everyone’s safe. There are real fires too. If the pros are on all sides of the fire, we usually help direct traffic or evacuate people. If there is a fire, we try to find the side of the scene that has not yet been addressed by water spraying, to prevent the fire from spreading. This just happened, on December 1, in our area. We arrived to find the professional firefighters spraying, but we saw that more coverage was needed. We located an unused hydrant a few hundred meters away from the fire, and ran 11 hoses from it up to near the burning house, and connected our pump and sprayed the fire. The fire department praised our initiative and actions. It was good to be useful. But nothing beats a false alarm.
Hachioji has a lot of hills and forests, so some fires are in tough spots. We have run uphill through thick growth. We have pumped water from rivers to fires through hundreds of meters of hose. A fire scene is one of high-pressure problem-solving. Sometimes we know the local terrain better than the pro firefighters.
Lots of fires are cooking or heating mishaps—a big factor is people using old equipment for too many years. Fires also happen due to people smoking in bed. Bad wiring is another cause. Thankfully we rarely see people lose their home. Facilities with lots of people like rest homes and hospitals are scary, because so many people need to evacuate but can’t necessarily move on their own.
Some fires are suspicious. A pile of garbage bags will burn one day, and then some wood the next day, in the same neighborhood. It doesn’t change what we do, but the police who always show up in their unmarked Suzuki Kizashi sedan start moving more urgently when this happens.
Non-emergency things are as frequent as fires. We meet monthly as a squad for pump inspection (we pump water out of, and spray it back into, the local river) to maintain the engine and our skills. We review news and orders from our company or the City Corps. We run all three of our power generators, and our chainsaw, to keep each engine in good repair. We fuel the truck and fill up our few small gasoline tanks if needed. We hang hoses to dry on the large metal frame attached to the firehouse. We take down hoses that were hung recently and are now dry.
Rolling up hoses is the most basic of tasks. There is a purpose-built metal winder for doing this. Two people can stretch out a hose, with both the female and male metal ends near one another and the hose lying flat, folded once over itself vertically, with the folded "end" middle portion hooked up to the winder apparatus; and place the two ends just right (with the male end set two-and-one-half boot lengths toward the winder on top of the hose), to roll up and become ready to be deployed quickly with a vigorous throw along the ground in a fire situation.
We also have to run the fire truck at least 20 kilometers a month. There are several sub-groups of two in our squad and each takes a month at a time on a rotating basis. The two will schedule to do the drive and vehicle inspection, which consists of things like making sure the brake lights work and the motor oil is there. Every six months, the fire truck is taken by a contractor to a garage and inspected and oil changed, etc., if necessary.
All our necessary skills can be viewed and reviewed on Tokyo Metropolitan Government's e-learning system, for which we are given a login name and password. The videos and content are very helpful. But mostly, Shobodan skills are learned on the job, by watching people do them, and then trying. This is a common thing in many settings in Japan, from sushi-making to factory production line work: More than having formal training programs, watch-and-learn is the philosophy. If you join Shobodan, be aware of this and try to be proactive about learning and trying things. That's my advice, anyway.
In spring we also gather weekly or so to help the squad from our company that is practicing for that year’s 操法大会 skills competition, which measures the speed and accuracy of drilling and operating pump equipment to fight a fire. The movements of the competition are formalized (imagine a karate kata, composed of set moves as opposed to extemporaneous reactions to a situation) in a way that some find silly. I think it is designed well to drill into one's body the basic techniques that are needed in firefighting without having to think in each pressurized situation. When I participated in the skills competition, it was a lot of arduous practice, but I learned a ton and gained a lot of confidence.
For these practice sessions, we gather in a big parking lot (often the city incineration plant) as the comptitors run through their routine several times. We assist by collecting and rolling up the many hoses they’ve deployed, while experienced Shobodan and pro firefighters give variously encouraging and critical instruction. Rolling the hoses nice and tight, but also uniformly, is the important thing here. In the competition, you deploy a hose, and no matter how skilled your throw, the winding of the hose will affect how straight and far the roll travels. The straighter, the better, for when the next hose is linked with the one thrown, and the water is pumped through it to hit the simulated fire target.
We also do quarterly “patrols” for community awareness. The company might gather in larger groups of squads to drive in a convoy of fire trucks around all several neighborhoods, giving messages through the loudspeakers about fire safety, smoke detectors, disaster preparedness, and other things. Or we might do the same for our own neighborhood only.
Another thing where we assist is 町会 neighborhood association events. We watch during summer festivals when grills and open flames are used to cook the festival food. Since that’s light duty, we also let the kids of families attending the festival sit in the fire truck. They enjoy that, and we recruit them as future members.
We also assist with neighborhood disaster preparation. Annually, neighborhoods practice evacuating to local evacuation places. We give simple first aid or other instruction as requested by the association. As the current squad leader, I instructed the group on running generators and operating chainsaws this year. And you should know that I studied our equipment and YouTube videos in advance so as not to look like a clown, as I was also “instructing” some of my Shobodan sempai.
Another disaster-related activity that we developed on our own as a squad was to fashion thick plastic panels that fit into the guardrails along the most flood-prone spot of our river and can be fixed in place with only plastic ties. We can slide them into place and eliminate the need for a ton of strenuous sandbagging, which we experienced in the 2019 typhoon that flooded our neighborhood (and washed away the arduously constructed sandbag wall). We used them this year to excellent effect, and no one in government or otherwise has said boo about us doing this.
At the end of the year, we patrol our area several nights in a row. People often leave town around New Year's, and their homes could pose a risk if they have a fire that grows too big before anyone notices. There’s a bit of crime-prevention element, too. On the last night, we have a huge meal as a squad in the firehouse. It’s fun.
On December 31, some Shobodan firefighters help ensure safety on Mt. Takao, when thousands of people come to watch the sunrise and do their 初詣 first prayers of the year. Standing there all night is cold duty. Luckily, someone usually wants to do it, for whatever reason.
After New Years is 出初式 / Dezomeshiki / annual review. The city fire corps gathers to drill and show skills to citizens and officials. The aforementioned 消防記念会 does a demonstration of its white-knuckle ladder-climbing skills. The city fire corps band plays. We spray water into the river simultaneously from a dozen or so pumps, with each stream a different (nontoxic) color of water, to make a cool rainbow effect.
After Dezomeshiki, we go back to our neighborhood and drive around flushing out each fire hydrant in our area. Most hydrants aren’t used at all, so they get rusty and dirty. We flush each one, brush it, and salt around the lid to prevent ice. Ah, an important note here is that most Tokyo fire hydrants are under specially-marked manholes embedded in the street, with a yellow edge around them for visibility. While we maintain the fire hydrants, residents emerge to give us envelopes with 2,000 or 3,000 or 5,000 yen, thanking us for our service. We give back tissue boxes (the nice ones) in return. Some residents—often our retired sempai—gift to us huge bottles of sake. We dispose of these appropriately.
Every fall, there is an inspection of our company by the city corps leadership. We drill and march for them, usually on a wide elementary schoolyard, but this year in a city waste facility parking lot.
We also get individual requests from neighbors. Some people, especially those who are elderly or can’t move well, become worried when a typhoon approaches and reach out to request that we place sandbags to protect their property for them before the rain. This is entirely uncompensated, and there is no order from above. We just do it. Sandbags are available free to anyone in the city, including us. We go pick up a load now and then using my keitora.
When there’s a funeral of someone who was in the corps, the squad leaders and others attend the funeral in full dress uniforms and offer condolences.
I love our squad. Here are the jobs held by the members:
-HVAC tech
-Gardener
-Real estate company employee
-Driving instructor
-Head of HR at a bank
-Confectionery shop manager
-Truck driver
-City hall employee
-Programmer
-Life science regulatory consultant
-Elder care worker
-Delivery driver
A thing I love most about Shobodan in Japan is that it’s a self-selecting group of community-minded people who want to contribute and enjoy the camaraderie. Most are humble, capable people. So joining is also a good way to make quality friends while contributing. Each member of our squad is a good person with a different personality and approach to life, but with that common thread of contributing to the community.
The seldom-used summer dress uniform (hence the wrinkles 😅)
During activities, there is little-to-no awareness of me as an “outsider,” etc—we’re all just local people who help out. In emergencies, no one has asked or mentioned where I was born or that my face is different from other people. Uniforms mean a lot in Japan. The uniform tends to outweigh everything else about its wearer, and when I have knocked on residents' homes at night to warn them of flooding, they have not even noticed, much less quibbled, with the face of the person doing the knocking.
Since the 3/11 disasters in 2011, the role of Shobodan has evolved to be more disaster-focused. Fighting and prevention of fires used to be the biggest thing, but now we’re gradually being trained more in rope rescue, sandbagging, first aid, and other skills and equipment.
A few years ago some of us participated a special program to learn rope rescue, first aid. and other skills. The program included training from pro firefighters and paramedics. With climate change, floods are getting worse, less predictable, and happening in new places, like my neighborhood.
The last two years, our neighborhood has seen unprecedented (per a 90-yr-old neighbor) flooding during typhoons. Each time, we’ve fought the river at its overflow spot, sandbagging to keep it in its banks and out of people’s homes. Both times we’ve asked people to evacuate late at night. Damage has been somewhat limited, but it’s concerning. And each time we feel the need for more sets of hands to sandbag, knock doors, and direct people to safety.
If you feel able to help in situations like flooding, earthquakes, fires, and other situations, I highly recommend joining your local Shobodan. You are needed and can really make a difference, rather than feeling helpless watching the news. Many non-citizen residents don’t feel recognized in Japan as members of society. I understand that feeling. One long-term and not easy solution to this is visibly contributing over the long haul. People appreciate it. It changes people’s views little by little. When you are a contributor, those who know about your contributions see you as a member of the community, rather than something else based on appearance or origin.
I’m not claiming that joining your local fire squad is a magic road to acceptance, but I do declare that it is one great way to contribute, make friends, amass social capital, and feel very fulfilled, for me at least. With society aging, people are needed in every squad.
The cardinal rule of each member’s commitment to Shobodan is that we prioritize family and work. When any call, mobilization, event happens, it is always fine to sit it out due to other things going on. You can join Shobodan without worrying about conflicts. And the number one rule when performing activities is that you do not place your own life in danger. This would destroy the sustainability of Shobodan, and we are not professionally trained or equipped to confidently rush into a burning house, for example. It is not a place for maverick, balls-to-the-wall movie action. Functioning in the group is vital, like it is in many settings in Japan. I don't recommend Shobodan for people who are too cool for school or can't at least somewhat go along with the group vibe.
In Hachioji, we also have a fire corps brass band. They do concerts at various events, including Dezomeshiki. I can play the baritone horn and kind of want to join it. Maybe I will sometime.
Whether a non-citizen can join Shobodan depends on each municipality’s policy. There is definitely no actual law against it. I was turned down initially circa 2007, when someone in the chain of command thought it was prohibited for me to join. Then I tried again through a friend in my current (different from before) neighborhood, and there was zero resistance.
The logic I have heard most for not allowing non-citizens is that Shobodan members are technically part-time civil servants. The thinking goes that civil servants, having certain special duties (such as evacuating people), cannot be non-citizens due to [fill in here what boil down to nebulous and insulting implications of criminal opportunities or something like that]. But there are plenty of non-citizen civil servants working in city halls, and as educators, and doing other things. Basically, some municipalities have for whatever bad reason not yet opened membership to non-citizens. I think this is foolish. The 総務省 / Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which oversees both professional firefighting and Shobodan, has no such prohibitions. If you are rejected and feel so inclined, go ahead and raise a stink and shame the municipality that will not allow useful helping hands to contribute.
To join your local squad, here’s my advice:
-get your Japanese as close to fluent as possible, if it’s not already; the possiblity of misunderstanding in dangerous situations will be considered an unacceptable safety risk
-make friends with member(s) of your neighborhood squad (you can start by saying hello when you see them out doing things)
-next, get their support for you, to head off any resistance when it comes time to apply to join
If it’s hard to get to know current members, go to your municipal hall 防災課 / bosaika / disaster section or equivalent department and request information on how to join. Be friendly and show eagerness to contribute. I think most local governments will be open to helping you join. Again, they need people.
In conclusion, let me say this: I’ve joined all kinds of organizations and filled many roles as a 23-year Japan resident. Nothing’s come close to the fun, fulfillment, and relationships I’ve gotten from being in Shobodan.
Disasters are getting more severe in Japan. Shobodan is a vital resource for fighting them. We need more people. Joining is one of many ways we can help Japanese society at large to recognize non-citizens and foreign-born people as contributors. Join up if you can! And even if you can’t join your Shobodan for whatever reason, being active in your neighborhood association (even w/the potential annoyances and drama) is a way to get positioned to contribute enormously.
I shall repeat my philosophy: In Japan, making a contribution is how to become a true part of and enjoy being in society. The most basic form is to pay your taxes and not do crimes. But going above that is the secret to happiness. It is the license to bitch. It is how you get people to listen to you. It is the way to escape outsiderhood. Shobodan is a particularly great way to contribute.
[Note: A long time ago, I wrote a thread online about being in Shobodan. This is based on that, but updated and expanded. That's why you might recognize some of the content.]
[Another note: We do not share photos or videos of emergency situations, so anything in this post was from a non-emergency or a situation where I was only a bystander. I am trying to give a feel for what things are like but also follow our rules.]
[Yet another note: Feel free to ask any question in the comments, and I will fold the answer into the post if I think it’s important.]
[Last note: I expect to edit this with more info and photos going forward, so it becomes a kind of compendium of info about Shobodan as I have experienced it. But I also want to get it out there, so here’s the first draft as of January 2025.]