A 24-hour emergency response system centered on the wildfire prevention headquarters will run from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15; a joint drill with Seoul and Geumcheon-gu on Thursday follows the Safe Korea Exercise held Oct. 14
Gwanak-gu will operate a round-the-clock emergency response system from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 — the official fall wildfire-prevention period — covering every stage from prevention and initial response to mop-up operations, with the district's wildfire prevention headquarters at the center.
About 46 percent of Gwanak-gu's total area is forested. The district is linking its existing wildfire-monitoring CCTV cameras — including those installed along key ridgelines of Gwanaksan and Samsungsan — to an ICT-based wildfire surveillance platform, and will run an AI-powered real-time monitoring system alongside it to detect early warning signs such as smoke and cut response times.
The district will also conduct thorough pre-season checks on the operational status and deployment of key firefighting equipment, including wildfire suppression vehicles, high-pressure hose storage units and wildfire extinguishing facilities. Any problems found during inspections will be repaired promptly so that equipment is ready when needed.
Particular attention will be paid to the water supply and operational status of wildfire extinguishing facilities and the water-discharge readiness of suppression vehicles. Specialized wildfire prevention and suppression teams will step up patrols of fire-prone areas and major hiking trails, while public awareness campaigns and management of fire hazards such as illegal burning will run in parallel.
To sharpen real-world response capabilities, the district held a Safe Korea Exercise on Oct. 14, using wildfires and structural fires as the disaster scenarios. The drill covered the full range of emergency response — alert dissemination, resident evacuation, on-site command and inter-agency coordination — to test and improve field execution.
A joint drill with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Geumcheon-gu is scheduled for Thursday. The exercise will focus on inter-agency role allocation and coordination to strengthen the cooperative framework needed to respond swiftly and cohesively when a wildfire crosses administrative boundaries.
Gwanak-gu received the 2026 Wildfire Prevention Merit Award from the Ministry of Interior and Safety this year in recognition of its spring wildfire prevention efforts. Building on that record — which included AI-based real-time surveillance and a tightly structured response system — the district plans to further reinforce prevention and initial-response capabilities this fall.
"Wildfire prevention starts with the attention and actions of each and every resident, so I hope everyone follows safety guidelines when hiking and enjoys a safe, pleasant time on the mountain," District Mayor Park Jun-hee said. "Drawing on the experience accumulated through the Safe Korea Exercise and the joint drill with Seoul and Geumcheon-gu, we will build an even more robust response system to protect the lives of our residents and our precious forests."
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