Sany Heavy fire truck tech heats up expo

Fire trucks that can extinguish blazes as high as 159 meters and smart rescue robots that detect and fight conflagrations automatically are just some examples of China-made firefighting and protection equipment that demonstrate the prowess of domestic manufacturing.

During the ongoing 2025 China International Fire Protection Equipment Technology Conference and Exposition in Beijing, a Guinness World Record-breaking five-axle 100-meter water tower fire truck JP100 attracts attention. Previously, fire protection equipment worldwide could only extinguish fires lower than heights of 120 meters. The JP100, launched by Chinese equipment manufacturer Sany Heavy Industry, has now raised the threshold height to 159 meters.

A smart rescue robot is also attracting eyeballs. With an investment of 138 million yuan ($19.3 million), the robot can automatically detect flames, make decisions and carry out firefighting tasks. It is able to walk, cross obstacles over 30 centimeters tall and climb gradients of over 40 degrees.

Moreover, the smart rescue robot can operate for more than two hours straight in environments with oxygen deficiency, high temperatures, and the presence of heavy smoke and toxic fumes. The remote command center adopts multimodal fusion communication, which can penetrate walls more than 3 meters thick and cover a range of over 1,000 meters. It is embedded with various intelligent algorithms such as resource scheduling, task grouping and multi-machine collaboration, raising rescue efficiency by 60 percent, the company said.

Fang Jianxian, general manager of industry news outlet lmjx.net, said: "The level of fire protection equipment in China has made a quantum leap in development in the past 20 years, and is currently in a critical stage of moving from 'following' to 'running parallel', and moving toward 'leading' in some fields. Equipment made in China already meets the vast majority of domestic fire protection needs. We have a complete range of equipment, significant cost advantages and extremely high cost-effectiveness. The most complex application scenarios have also spawned a large number of product innovation achievements."

In recent years, with the acceleration of urbanization and the rise of public awareness of the importance of fire protection, demand for firefighting products and services has been growing dramatically. Beijing-based research firm huaon.com showed that in 2015, China's fire protection market totaled 235.5 million yuan. In 2023, this had surged to 468.3 billion yuan, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.97 percent.

Xiao Qiaowei, head of Sany's emergency equipment research institute, said: "Firefighting is a special field. Chinese companies are more active in technical innovation. As an industry leader, Sany will strive to make innovations, constantly improve reliability and safety, and bring out better firefighting equipment."

Fang from lmjx.net said: "Improving the manufacturing level of firefighting equipment is a systematic project that requires joint efforts from the government, industry, enterprises and research institutions. The key is to continuously strengthen basic research and core technology breakthroughs, promote intelligent and digital transformation, improve the standards system, strengthen quality supervision and support enterprises going global."