Step-by-step safety review covers training, dispatch and scene entry

Participants observe a moment of silence for the late Fire Lieutenant Kim Jin-seok, who died in the line of duty in a metal parts factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Oct. 16, during an emergency meeting on firefighter safety held Friday at the Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters. [Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters]
Participants observe a moment of silence for the late Fire Lieutenant Kim Jin-seok, who died in the line of duty in a metal parts factory fire in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, on Oct. 16, during an emergency meeting on firefighter safety held Friday at the Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters. [Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters]

The Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters convened an emergency meeting Friday to strengthen firefighter safety in the wake of a fatal blaze at a metal parts factory in Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province. The gathering, titled "Emergency Countermeasures Meeting for the Prevention of Safety Accidents in Firefighting Operations," was held at the auditorium on the fourth floor of the 119 Special Response Unit building.

About 40 people attended, including Ulsan Fire and Disaster Headquarters Chief Kim Yong-su, fire station chiefs, the safety experience center director, senior department heads and the Ulsan branch chief of the National Civil Servants' Union's fire division. Participants reviewed the current state of safety management across different areas and discussed ways to improve it.

Key topics included reorganizing the firefighting training and education system, strengthening the on-scene judgment capabilities and dispatch procedures of first-arriving command units, improving the authority and operational effectiveness of on-scene safety inspectors, enhancing the inspection and utilization of specialized equipment, strengthening the sharing of facility and hazardous materials information between the 119 integrated situation room and the scene, and improving accurate situation reporting at disaster sites and the media response system.

Participants particularly focused on confirming the roles and cooperative frameworks needed to preemptively eliminate risk factors at each stage — from training through dispatch to scene entry. They also discussed standardizing scene-entry procedures for first-arriving command units and ways to rapidly provide hazardous materials information required for responding to special disasters.

The headquarters said it would work with each responsible department to develop concrete action plans based on the improvements identified at the meeting and would continue to monitor their implementation.

"Ensuring the safety of firefighters is a fundamental prerequisite for protecting the lives and property of citizens," Kim said. "We will closely examine risk factors at the scene and enhance our capacity for swift and accurate disaster response through rigorous training and improvements to our safety management systems."


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