Firefighters Caught Inflating Their Experience, Thought to Be Special Forces Veterans...

Firefighters who were hired by inflating their experience despite having no service in special forces have been caught.

According to the office of Jeon Bong-min, a member of the People Power Party belonging to the National Assembly's Public Administration and Security Committee, on the 28th, the Fire Agency's "Comprehensive Investigation on Qualification Requirements for Career Competitive Recruitment in the Rescue Field" confirmed that seven firefighters were hired despite not meeting the career qualification requirements.

The Fire Agency conducted a comprehensive investigation of 3,903 career recruitments in the rescue field from April to May and held an advisory committee meeting involving appointment and recruitment department officials and lawyers to inspect the actual status of career recruitment.

As a result of the investigation, all seven firefighters failed to meet the requirement of having more than three years of service in special forces.

For example, a firefighter who was appointed to the Gyeongnam Fire Headquarters in 1995 and was a former Marine Corps member had no special forces service experience, and a firefighter appointed to the Gyeongnam Fire Headquarters in 2002 who was a former Navy member had only 1 year and 10 months of special forces service. The remaining five also fell short of the required service period by 1 to 11 months.

Firefighters conducting extinguishing operations at the fire scene [Photo by Yonhap News]

The Fire Agency plans to proceed with the cancellation of appointments if, after re-verification by the city and provincial fire headquarters, the lack of required experience is finally confirmed.

Earlier in April, a complaint was received through the People's Petition system that firefighter A did not meet the eligibility requirements during the recruitment process. Firefighter A is a veteran who was selected as the "Rescue King" after performing life-saving missions at various emergency scenes for 20 years.

As a result of an internal audit by the fire authorities, this was found to be true. Firefighter A, who was a former member of the Navy Special Forces Underwater Demolition Team (SSU) in 2003 and was hired as a career firefighter at the Gyeongnam Fire Headquarters, actually had only 2 years and 1 month of service.

Firefighter A explained, "I applied after seeing the recruitment notice and thinking that the '3 years of experience' requirement referred to the entire military service period," and added, "I absolutely did not inflate or falsify my experience." However, the Gyeongnam Fire Headquarters judged that regardless of intent, it was A's own fault and canceled the acceptance due to ineligibility.

Assemblyman Jeon said, "It is clearly wrong that some firefighters were accepted with false experience causing innocent victims, but their contributions in protecting the lives of the people for years should not be disparaged," and added, "The recruitment system must be reviewed to prevent such incidents from recurring."

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