Fire and Disaster Management Agency

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency (消防庁, Shōbōchō) (FDMA) is an external agency attached to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in Japan.

The Fire and Disaster Management Agency was established through article 3 paragraph 2 of the 1948 National Government Organization Act and article 2 of the 1947 Fire Department Organization Law. The agency is charged with supervising firefighting efforts as well as project planning, ordinance enforcement, and establishing standards and policies regarding fire fighting.

The agency does not handle the actual fire fighting, direct management, or day-to-day activities of the individual municipal departments, but they own and maintain the fire engines, helicopters, and other support vehicles used by the various departments nationwide. They also provide training, guidance, and other support for each department.

There are prefectural FDMA offices throughout Japan to help handle any natural disasters, terroristic attacks, and the like. Some of its structure since 2003 is modeled after the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the United States. It was established to provide a unified way of approaching and handling any sort of disaster. Its 2020 budget was ¥16,344,273,000.