“But following this emotional remark, will it affect my work? Absolutely not,” said the 55-year-old, who will replace Director of Fire Services Daryl Li Kin-yat. Li has taken early retirement.

He said the two events had spread manpower thin, while the top brass had to tackle the unfamiliar task of debunking protest-related rumours that had spread like wildfire.

Firefighters were often called to the scene to put out blazes set by radicals, who also hurled petrol bombs in some of the city’s busiest districts.

Leung, who joined the service as a station officer in 1983, found himself at the centre of a political storm after his comments, but has defended his choice of words and said he was referring to “rioters who broke the law” and never intended to make the remark public.

He said the comparison he drew was a trivial matter when some were flouting the law with acts that deserved true condemnation.

“It was on a different level compared with those rioters who had breached the law,” Leung said.

Coronavirus latest: 2 million cases as world leaders weigh easing lockdowns

Asked if his remark would affect the fire service’s neutral image, he pledged: “No matter what colour or political stance one belongs to, the management has to make sure that we have filled our statutory duties.”

During the protests, his officers were accused of standing idly by on one occasion when a man was attacked by others, he said. While he acknowledged that his colleagues were not trained or equipped to handle such confrontations, he said the incident had prompted him to write to frontline officers with new guidelines, urging them to step in, yelling at the perpetrators if possible, even if “rioters” were under attack.

He rejected the suggestion that he was subject to looser standards when more than 130 firefighters faced internal probes for posting inappropriate remarks, including expletives and insults directed at police online. He said his remark had been reviewed by the Civil Service Bureau.

Of the 130 complaints, he said, more than half were found unsubstantiated, while some were still under investigation.

More than 7,600 arrested during Hong Kong anti-government protests

Disciplinary counselling was the most severe punishment handed out, he said, while 11 fire officers had been arrested during the extradition bill saga last year, two of whom had already been cleared and given the green light to return to duty.

Li said the protests posed an immense challenge because they added to the service’s regular workload.

He said his colleagues had faced unfair allegations that they had failed to put out fires set by protesters, while the fact was it took time to get to the scene because of roadblocks.

“On one hand, we need to deal with all these social events, while on the other hand, emergencies of other sorts will not come to a halt because of them, which puts a huge strain on our manpower,” he said.

Li said his colleagues had also been putting in extra effort because of the pandemic.

He said recent measures put in place to combat Covid-19 made journeys longer for ambulances because they had to ferry suspected patients to AsiaWorld-Expo in Tung Chung, where many coronavirus tests were conducted. Ambulances had to be sanitised before being used again, he added.

He said more than 1,300 of his staff had been placed under medical surveillance. Eight were sent to quarantine centres, including six who came into contact with an elderly confirmed patient who failed to fully disclose his travel history.