In 2008, Tu and his comrades rescued a trapped woman from debris in Qingchuan County in Guangyuan City of southwest China's Sichuan Province, one of the worst-hit areas when an 8.0-magnitude earthquake struck Sichuan's Wenchuan County on May 12. The whole process took them about 68 hours.

In 2016, Tu rescued numerous trapped civilians in Xiongtai county and Mingqing county in the wake of the fatal Typhoon Nepartak that had slammed onto Fujian.

Statistics from Fujian Firehouse Corps show that Tu has engaged in more than 3,000 recuse missions to date.

Now a veteran, Tu has to shoulder more responsibilities as he has been promoted to be the chief superintendent of the second squadron of Fuzhou Firehouse Branch.

As a delegate from the grassroots department, Tu Yanmiao expressed two special good wishes in a recent media interview.

The first one is for his comrades. "I believe the more we sweat during routine training, the less we shall bleed," he said,"I hope in the future every comrade will come back safely after finishing tasks."

The second one is for the civilians. "As a firefighter, I wish all the civilians could suffer from less harm caused by inevitable disasters," Tu added.

In order to achieve the second one, Tu also called on all the firefighters across the country to publicize the basic knowledge and skills of firefighting and emergency relief in addition to accomplishing routine assignments.

Tu (first, right) carries out a fire extermination drill with his comrades [Photo/Xinhua]