An Army Brigade Explores Building a High-Temperature Training Risk Early-Warning System
PLA Daily report by Ma Dinggui and reporter Sun Xingwei: "The load-bearing cross-country event is being adjusted to indoor physical training!" On a midsummer afternoon, Company Commander He of an Army brigade immediately adjusted his training plan upon receiving a heat stroke risk early-warning notice issued by the brigade's duty room.
"Weather indices are an important indicator for high-temperature training risk early warnings, but they are not the only criterion. Relying solely on subjective experience to conduct heat stroke prevention and control is highly prone to misjudgment." The brigade's leadership explained that every year after the onset of the hottest summer period (入伏), the garrison location frequently experiences high-temperature and high-humidity weather, placing considerable pressure on heat stroke prevention and control. In the past, risk prevention and control for high-temperature training relied primarily on the risk-assessment capabilities of leading cadres, who would generally evaluate training intensity by observing weather conditions and the physical condition of officers and soldiers. This model had shortcomings such as lagging assessments, vague standards, and rough-and-ready prevention and control measures, making it difficult to effectively guard against the occurrence of heat stroke and liable to leave safety hazards.
To address this, the brigade explored building a high-temperature training risk early-warning system: equipping field temperature and humidity measurement devices to dynamically monitor weather data, promptly issue early-warning information, and scientifically adjust training plans; drawing heat tolerance curves based on officers' and soldiers' training conditions to establish risk-data early-warning contingency plans; and, by collecting multidimensional visualized data and cross-referencing the PLA-wide heat stroke tiered prevention and control standards, generating early-warning reference charts for training risk levels and safe training durations. The brigade's leadership told reporters that they have accordingly established a four-level response mechanism: green warning — conduct high-intensity training as normal; yellow warning — reduce load-bearing and shorten rest intervals; orange warning — suspend field load-bearing events; red warning — immediately halt all outdoor training. This ensures scientific training (科学练兵) and safe training.
In order to further drive the shift in heat stroke prevention and control from "experience-led (经验主导)" to "data-driven (数据驱动)," the brigade has refined officers' and soldiers' thermal health databases by leveraging opportunities such as induction physical examinations, quarterly heat tolerance screenings, and high-temperature training assessments, providing scientific data support for summer training. Before summer training begins, they comprehensively assess the training environment and other conditions to scientifically set training events, training intensity, and rest frequency, moving the prevention threshold forward. "In the past, summer training mainly relied on feel to regulate the training tempo; now we let the data speak — prevention and control is more scientific, and training is safer." A battalion commander in the brigade told reporters that before this summer began, they specifically organized a data-based heat prevention specialist training session, organizing training cadres and medics to study and master heat index assessment, data collection and analysis, and tiered emergency response procedures, resolutely breaking down the traditional prevention and control mindset of "experience over standards, physical sensation substituting for data (经验大于标准、体感代替数据)."
It is reported that since the onset of the hottest summer period this year, units throughout the brigade have steadily completed planned training tasks, with assessment scores on multiple training events surpassing the same period in previous years.