Lee Jiwon of Cheonan City Council: "Only Four Wildfire Responders... Dedicated Team Needed"

"Only 11 Wildfire Suppression Vehicles, Additional Purchases Needed"

On June 4, Lee Jiwon, a member of the Cheonan City Council in Chungnam, proposed, "Our city's wildfire response team consists of only four people. In order to respond to disasters, we need to establish a dedicated team."

Lee emphasized this point during a five-minute free speech at the 280th regular session, first plenary meeting, held that day.

She referred to the large-scale wildfire that started in Sancheong, Gyeongnam, in March, which burned 103,786 hectares of forest, resulted in 31 deaths, and left around 4,000 people displaced. She stated, "About 48% of our city's area is forest. Recently, the number of wildfires here ranked third nationwide, so we are by no means in a safe zone."

As measures to prevent disaster escalation, she suggested: expanding and upgrading wildfire suppression equipment; establishing a dedicated team; and improving the expertise and working conditions of firefighting crews.

Lee pointed out, "Although our city has the fourth largest forest area in Chungnam, we have only 11 wildfire suppression vehicles. By contrast, Buyeo-gun, which has a similar forest area, has 22 vehicles, and Asan and Seocheon, which have less forest, have 19 and 17 vehicles respectively. We must immediately purchase additional vehicles and upgrade outdated equipment."

She continued, "Our city's 'Forest Protection Team,' which manages all forest-related matters, consists of only four people. With just these few, we cannot respond effectively to disasters. We need a dedicated team to handle prevention, suppression, and recovery from damage," she stressed.

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