The tunnel, on the main freeway between Taipei and Ilan County, has in the past caused fears about its safety, with a total of six fires breaking out inside since its opening in 2006, reports said. The issue of fire prevention in general also gained more public attention after last week's blaze at the Formosa Plastics Group's sixth naphtha cracker plant in Yunlin County.

DPP lawmaker Huang Wei-cher told a news conference that members of the public had informed that a gardening firm had won the bid to take responsibility for fire safety inside the key tunnel.

At the time of the tender, the government did not specify which companies qualified to participate in the bidding for the contract, he said. The company was originally only registered to do gardening work, yet it won the bid issued through a staff recruitment agency, the lawmaker said.

Huang said that only after winning the bid did the company start recruiting personnel, and only high-school graduates without any firefighting experience. The team leader was the only staff member with any relevant talent, making people wonder if the company should have been put in charge of such a sensitive job, the lawmaker said.

The National Freeway Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation replied that the company fulfilled the requirements of the job, and that there were no rules limiting the names of the contract bidders.

The tender was only issued to find the most basic self-defense firefighting team, with the county fire brigade setting up patrol posts on either extremity of the tunnel, said bureau official Hsu Cheng-chang. In emergencies, the county fire service could also call in assistance from the National Fire Administration, he said.