Korea Forest Service "All-Out Effort to Prevent Autumn Forest Fires Including Blocking of Burning Wildfires"

The Korea Forest Service is strengthening its wildfire response capabilities in preparation for an increase in forest visitors during the autumn season.

On the 30th, the Korea Forest Service announced the '2023 Autumn Wildfire Prevention Measures' at the Government Daejeon Complex. These wildfire prevention measures will be implemented in accordance with the autumn wildfire caution period (November 1 to December 15).

To prevent wildfires, the Korea Forest Service will first focus on shredding agricultural byproducts, identified as a major cause of burning-related wildfires, and will conduct safety inspections of wood-fired boilers used in forest-adjacent areas along the East Coast.

In particular, this year, the core initiative is to raise fines for illegal burning from up to 1 million KRW to up to 2 million KRW, by promoting amendments to laws such as the 'Forest Disaster Prevention Act.'

The autumn wildfire monitoring system will also be strengthened. By the end of the year, an artificial intelligence-based wildfire monitoring 'Information and Communication Technology (ICT) platform' will be established at 10 locations, and wildfire risk forecasts will be expanded from short-term (3 days ahead) to mid-to-long-term (7 days to 1 month ahead) forecasts.

To enhance wildfire suppression response, 9 additional high-performance wildfire suppression vehicles will be deployed.

Furthermore, information on nationally important facilities (1,150 locations), such as substations and hydroelectric and pumped-storage power plants, will be integrated into the wildfire situation control system to enable real-time information sharing among related agencies during wildfire occurrences.

The Korea Forest Service will operate a wildfire prevention task force and run a wildfire situation room 24 hours a day while implementing the wildfire prevention measures.

Nam Sung-hyun, Administrator of the Korea Forest Service, stated, “The Korea Forest Service will focus on minimizing wildfire damage during the autumn wildfire caution period by establishing a cooperative system with related agencies such as the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, National Fire Agency, and Korea Meteorological Administration.”

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