Chief John  Burgoyne and Chaplain Nancy Burgoyne were in Beijing China recently and while there they visited some firefighting brethren from China.  In China, the firefighting service is national, similar to how our military is organized.  Firefighters there are dedicated to firefighting and do not perform Emergency Medical Services as most fire departments in the United States do. The Burgoynes had a great time with their counterparts in Longfang and came away from the experience talking about the firefighting “Brotherhood” because of the warm reception they received.

     The Burgoynes were in China with a delegation from Fort Worth Sister Cities which visited the two finalist city candidates, Zhaoqing and Guiyang.  After the delegation ended, the Burgoynes traveled to Beijing where they lived for 4 years in the early 1990s when John worked for IBM.

     The Burgoynes make a habit of visiting other fire departments whenever they travel. They say they always learn from the experience as do their hosts.  Longfang is a suburb of Beijing.  They were very impressed by the professionalism of their counterparts in China and enjoyed discussing tactics and war-stories with their hosts.