A fire at a metal-parts coating factory in Ojeong District, Bucheon, Gyeonggi Province, on the morning of October 16 injured six firefighters and two factory workers. The Kyunghyang Shinmun reported that about 100 containers of flammable material were found, yet no fire-safety inspection had been carried out in five years.
According to the Kyunghyang Shinmun, the fire began around 8:38 a.m. in a washing room on the third floor of a five-story building in Naedong, Ojeong District. Authorities raised the response to Level 1 at 8:57 and to Level 2 around 9:09, brought the main blaze under control around 10:21 and fully extinguished it around 11:06.
광고 문의 · 300×250Casualties were concentrated among firefighters. Of those who entered to rescue someone, two near the entrance got out, but two working deeper inside could not escape the rapidly spreading flames. One was taken to hospital in cardiac arrest and is being treated; besides two seriously hurt, four had minor injuries. The Hankook Ilbo and Sisa Journal also reported that two factory workers inhaled smoke, bringing the total to eight. How the firefighters became trapped is under investigation.
The central issue is flammable material. The Kyunghyang Shinmun said firefighters found about 100 twenty-liter containers of Class 4 hazardous materials such as petroleum products, while Financial News reported more than 180 containers presumed to hold Class 2 petroleum products such as gear oil and cylinder oil. The difference may reflect counting time and method; the exact amount is expected to be settled by the joint forensic inspection and chemical analysis.
Under hazardous-materials rules, storing Class 2 petroleum of 1,000 liters or more (non-water-soluble) or 2,000 liters or more (water-soluble) requires a permit from the fire chief. The factory reportedly has no record of such a permit, which raises the possibility that it stored more than the threshold without approval. Whether it was actually subject to a permit has not yet been confirmed.
Blind spots in safety management also emerged. The building is divided among tenants by floor and its floor area is below the sprinkler threshold, so it had only an automatic fire-detection system. The Bucheon fire station said no fire-safety inspection of the factory had been conducted in the past five years, while the building’s management company had reported ‘no abnormalities’ in self-inspections. A fire in January 2021 at the same factory, believed to have started in residue inside a paint dryer, caused no major casualties or damage.
Financial News reported that Gyeonggi Governor Chu Mi-ae visited the site and promised to identify hazardous-materials businesses in advance, crack down on violations and strengthen prevention training. Police and fire authorities plan a joint forensic inspection on the morning of October 17 to establish the cause and whether materials were stored illegally. We could not confirm any separate presidential order on this fire; President Lee Jae-myung was reported to have wished the injured firefighters a speedy recovery at the National Sports Festival opening the same day and to have said firefighter safety comes first.
The accident renews questions about relying on self-inspection reports. In small factories with complicated tenancy and hazardous materials that accumulate in small amounts, unreported storage is hard to detect from outside. Depending on the forensic findings, debate over inspection cycles and enforcement of hazardous-materials rules is likely to continue.
