Firefighters have been grabbing the headlines recently. The inquest into the death last year of fireman Wong Ka-hei while fighting a factory blaze in Tsuen Wan was in the news this week, ending in a jury finding of death by misadventure.
And the newspapers have been following firefighters' continuing battle for a pay rise, with their leaders lamenting that Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen favours the police during the grade structure review of disciplined services. The past week also marked one year since the Cornwall Court building blaze in Mong Kok, which took the lives of two firemen.
But things are a bit different - and sweeter - in the fictional world. Take TVB's hit series Burning Flame III, which has earned the support of more than 80 per cent of TV viewers and airs its two-hour grand finale tonight. The firemen in the series are not just handsome and courageous, they also appear to be invincible.
TVB has leaked one of the highlights of tonight's show. The series protagonist, station officer Chung Yau-sing, played by Wong Hei, puts on his uniform again and miraculously joins a firefighting operation - despite having lost a leg in a previous accident.
And on arrival at the scene he asks for permission to enter the premises being eaten by the blaze. What happens next? We don't know; TVB wouldn't say. But out of curiosity, we rang Chiu Sin-chung, chairman of the Fire Services Department Staff General Association, to check on how closely art imitates life.
'This is only a drama. It's fictional,' he said of Burning Flame III. This plot highlight would have no chance of taking place in real life. 'Any other disciplined service cannot do what we do. Our work has high requirements for physical strength, which equals that of a professional athlete. It's common for injured firemen to be reinstated doing office work, but never operations. We do not want to put their lives in danger.' Mr Chiu said firefighters were very close to the hearts of Hongkongers. They were the most loyal of public servants and would never say no to jobs passed over by other disciplined services teams.