'Brave Citizen' Who Shut Off Gas Valve and Worked to Rescue People from Burning Building

A citizen turning off the LPG tank valve in a building on fire. Photo by Yonhap News Agency

[Asia Economy Reporter Hana Na] Citizens joined forces to rescue people trapped inside a burning building and prevent a larger fire, ultimately extinguishing the blaze without any casualties.

On the afternoon of the 5th at around 6:40 PM, a fire broke out in a one-story restaurant building in Yeoju-si, Gyeonggi Province.

A (38), who was having dinner with a group at a restaurant in the adjacent building, heard an employee shout "Fire!" and evacuated outside.

A’s group immediately fetched two fire extinguishers from a nearby store upon seeing the restaurant on fire, but it was not enough to control the fierce flames.

At that moment, B (48), one of the group members, decided to stop the fire from spreading by shutting off the gas first and ran toward the burning building to close the gas valve. B turned off the valves of three liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tanks near the building and moved them away from the flames. During this process, B suffered second-degree burns on his hand.

After closing the valves, A’s group was waiting for the fire truck to arrive when they heard an urgent voice from a restaurant employee inside the burning building saying, "There are people inside."

They immediately started knocking on the door and shouting, searching for people trapped by the fire. A said, "After shouting and knocking for a while, a woman and two boys, who appeared to be mother and children, came out of the building. They said they were unaware of the fire."

Firefighters arrived and carried out extinguishing operations, putting out the fire in about 1 hour and 20 minutes without any casualties.

The fire authorities are investigating the cause of the fire, which is believed to have started due to electrical factors.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.