Showing cigarette butts being thrown near surrounding buildings
"The weather was clear at the time, reflecting off the marble wall surface"
A police officer quickly subdued a fire caused by a cigarette butt with remaining embers in front of a police substation building and demonstrated keen observation skills to identify the culprit.
A police officer holding a fire extinguisher directly suppresses the flames when a fire breaks out in front of the police box building. [Image source=Gyeonggi Suwon Seobu Police Station]
On the 20th, Yonhap News reported that the Suwon Western Police Station in Gyeonggi Province has booked a man in his 20s, identified as A, without detention on suspicion of arson and is investigating him. A is suspected of causing a fire by discarding a cigarette butt on the first floor of a multi-family residential building in front of the Dangsuh Police Substation in Gwonseon-gu, Suwon City, around 11:30 a.m. on the 13th.
Closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage capturing the incident shows that the embers from the cigarette butt discarded by A ignited nearby piled-up waste paper, causing the fire to grow and spread toward a utility pole and parked vehicles. A passerby witnessed this and alerted the Dangsuh Police Substation about the fire. Sergeant Ma Dong-min, who was on duty at the substation, grabbed a fire extinguisher from the substation and put out the flames. Other staff members soon joined in, even using the substation building’s power supply, which helped completely extinguish the fire within minutes. Fortunately, no additional damage occurred, such as the fire spreading to the building or vehicles.
Following this, the police launched an on-site investigation to determine the cause of the fire. Although the CCTV did not directly capture the fire scene, the police discovered a faint image on the marble wall of a nearby building showing an unidentified man flicking cigarette ashes and discarding them at the fire scene. The clear weather and strong sunlight at the time helped reflect surrounding objects well on the marble wall. Subsequently, the police identified A’s identity through footage from another angle and apprehended him around 12:40 p.m. on the same day.
Sergeant Ma cautioned that a small ember can lead to a large fire and said, "Just as preventing a large fire is possible by not overlooking small embers, the police will continue to pay close attention to even minor evidence and do their best to ensure citizens’ safety."
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