Participants take part in the U+119 Memorial Run 2025, held last November. [LG Uplus]
Participants take part in the U+119 Memorial Run 2025, held last November. [LG Uplus]

LG Uplus will host the U+119 Memorial Run 2026 to honor firefighters who died in the line of duty. Now in its second year, the event is organized jointly by LG Uplus and the National Fire Agency. All registration fees will be donated to firefighters' families.

LG Uplus announced Monday that it will hold the U+119 Memorial Run 2026 with the National Fire Agency on Oct. 17 at Sejong Central Park.

The U+119 Memorial Run is LG Uplus's flagship corporate social responsibility project, in which participants run to honor the sacrifice of fallen firefighters and express their gratitude. Each runner wears a race bib bearing not only their own name but also the name and date of death of a firefighter who died in the line of duty.

Registration fees go to Sobang Gajok Huimang Naneum, a support group for bereaved families of fallen firefighters, where the funds are used for memorial activities and family assistance. This year's event is expected to be held on a similar scale to last year's.

Last year's U+119 Memorial Run drew about 2,000 members of the public and roughly 300 firefighter family members. At the opening ceremony, the pledge of allegiance was recited using AI voice synthesis technology developed by LG Uplus to reconstruct the voices of fallen firefighters.

The voices were based on recordings of Senior Firefighter Kim Su-gwang, who died fighting a fire in Mungyeong, North Gyeongsang Province, in January 2024, and Firefighter Park Dan-bi, who died in a helicopter crash while transporting an emergency patient from Dokdo in 2019.

Participants can choose between an 11.9-kilometer course — a distance symbolic of the fire department — and a 5-kilometer course designed for families and friends to complete together. The registration fee is 50,000 won ($34). Applications are available through the event's official website.

"We hope the culture of remembering and expressing gratitude for the noble sacrifice of firefighters who dedicated themselves to protecting the lives and safety of the public will continue to spread," said Park Gyeong-jung, head of external affairs at LG Uplus. "We will continue working with the National Fire Agency on a range of activities that support firefighter families and promote social value."


ko@heraldcorp.com