"Breaking Illegally Parked Vehicles to Move Fire Trucks"… First Forced Action Case Emerges

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Daehyun] A case has emerged where the 'forced disposition' clause under the Fire Services Act, which allows forcibly removing or relocating parked vehicles during emergency fire dispatch, was applied for the first time on site.

According to the Fire Agency and Seoul Gangdong Fire Station on the 2nd, a fire broke out on April 11th in the basement level 1 of a house located in an alley in Seongnae-dong, Gangdong-gu. At the time, a dump truck for fire suppression could not pass due to illegally parked passenger cars in the alley, but the vehicle owner did not respond to contact attempts.

Accordingly, firefighters, under the judgment of the on-site commander, damaged the side of the vehicle to move the fire truck to the fire scene.

Follow-up measures related to vehicle damage were handled by the Fire Agency, not the on-site firefighters or Gangdong Fire Station. This is the first case since the forced disposition clause was introduced in the Fire Services Act 2 years and 10 months ago.

A Fire Agency official said, "Until now, employees have felt burdened by compensation and reimbursement issues related to forced disposition, but since the system changed this year, the sense of burden felt on site seems to have lessened."

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