Seoul City Develops Fire Prevention Measures for Aging Apartments

Seoul City announced on the 8th that it will actively strengthen safety management standards for aging apartments built before the introduction of fire and evacuation regulations to prevent fires.

The city has prepared and will implement the 'Seoul City Aging Apartment Fire Prevention and Damage Mitigation Measures.' In this regard, Mayor Oh Se-hoon will visit an apartment in Nowon-gu, which was completed over 20 years ago, at 11 a.m. on the 8th to directly inspect the management status of fire and fire prevention facilities.

Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon is receiving training on how to use a fire extinguisher during a civil defense fire response drill held at Seoul City Hall in November last year. Photo by Yonhap News

The apartment in question was completed in October 2002, before fire and evacuation regulations were fully introduced. Apartments with 15 floors or fewer are not required to have sprinkler systems installed, nor are they required to have evacuation devices (wan-gang-gi) installed in each unit.

The city has prepared various measures considering this situation.

It will actively support the improvement and expansion of evacuation safety facilities such as fire doors, evacuation devices (wan-gang-gi), and automatic opening and closing devices in aging apartments. When installing fire doors that automatically close upon detecting smoke during a fire, rooftop entrance automatic opening and closing devices, and evacuation safety facilities, the city will propose revisions to related standards to the government to allow the use of long-term repair reserves.

The management system for evacuation facilities such as fire doors will be improved, and supervision will be strengthened. The city will mandate that the management entities of multi-family housing directly inspect the maintenance status of evacuation facilities, such as whether fire doors open and close properly, on a quarterly basis and report the results to the relevant district office.

For multi-family housing, buildings with 16 floors or more and a floor area of less than 400㎡ per floor are excluded from the requirement to install special evacuation stairs. However, considering concerns about smoke spreading through the stairs, the city will recommend the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport remove this exception.

Additionally, to prevent unreasonable floor plans that force fire doors partitioning evacuation stairs to be left open, the city will strengthen reviews during the architectural planning stage.

Efforts will also be made in public fire evacuation education, promotion, and fire drills. The Seoul Fire and Disaster Headquarters will conduct year-round education and promotion on case-specific action guidelines focusing on 'Close the door and evacuate' and 'Check before evacuating' for citizens and apartment managers.

The 10th has been designated as 'Apartment Unit Inspection Day,' during which, starting at 7 p.m., all apartments in Seoul will conduct a 10-minute voluntary evacuation drill simulating a fire situation and self-inspection of fire facilities.

Mayor Oh said, "I extend my deepest condolences to the families who lost loved ones in recent apartment fires, and we will review and improve the overall apartment safety management facilities and systems to prevent such tragic accidents from happening again. In particular, we will actively promote institutional improvements so that evacuation safety facilities such as fire doors and evacuation devices (wan-gang-gi) can be installed in apartments built before the introduction of evacuation and fire regulations, which do not have sprinkler systems installed."

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