A shipment of 113 new fire trucks arrived from China via the Sihanoukville port yesterday, and will be distributed across the country.

Neth Vantha, the deputy municipal fire chief at the Ministry of Interior, said 99 trucks will go to the provinces while the rest will be kept at the ministry. He declined to say how much the trucks cost.

"Provinces . . . are still lacking fire trucks to use in faraway areas," he said. "We will deliver [these trucks] to those areas for effective intervention."

In 2017, the ministry will order more trucks, he added.

There were 590 fires in Cambodia in 2015, an increase of 14.7 per cent from the previous year. They killed 35 people and consumed almost 600 homes.