Fire Agency: "Last Year, Firefighting Activities Reduced Fire Damage by 16 Trillion Won"

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The National Fire Agency announced on the 17th that fire suppression activities last year reduced property damage by 15.9 trillion won.

According to the National Fire Agency, 36,267 fire incidents occurred last year, resulting in 2,128 casualties (278 deaths, 1,850 injuries) and approximately 1.09 trillion won in property damage estimated by the fire department.

The amount of reduced fire damage is calculated by subtracting the estimated total loss amount of fire targets (17 trillion won) from the fire damage amount (1.09 trillion won), meaning that firefighting activities protected citizens' property worth more than 14 times the damage amount.

In March last year, at a market fire scene in Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, firefighters arrived within 5 minutes of the report and immediately extinguished the fire on the basement first floor, preventing the fire from spreading beyond the kitchen area. The damage amount for this fire was 3 million won, and the reduced fire damage amount was about 4.4 billion won. Also, in December last year, at a fire in the changing room inside a subway station in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, firefighters arrived within 4 minutes of the report and immediately extinguished the fire on the basement second floor, preventing the fire from spreading beyond the changing room. The damage amount for this fire was about 200,000 won, and the reduced fire damage amount was 3 billion won.

Lee Il, Director of the 119 Response Bureau, said, "To reduce fire damage, arriving at the scene within the golden time is most important, but currently the golden time arrival rate is 65.9%, and this rate needs to be increased." He added, "For rapid fire truck dispatch, we ask for citizens' voluntary participation and cooperation in securing fire lanes, such as yielding the way when fire trucks approach and prohibiting illegal parking."

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