Gyeonggi Fire Department: "Fire Death Rate Increases 3.4 Times When Reported by Neighbors or Non-Residents"

Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters 119 Call Center

In the early stages of a fire, the mortality rate was found to be 3.4 times higher when the initial 119 caller was a ‘non-resident such as a neighbor’ rather than a ‘resident.’

The Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters announced on the 10th that, based on an analysis of the characteristics and types of the first 119 callers from 869 confirmed cases out of 954 fire incidents that occurred in the province from January 2022 to the end of February 2024, residents accounted for 363 people (42%) and non-residents (neighbors, etc.) accounted for 506 people (58%).

In particular, among non-resident reports, the number of deaths was 98, which is 3.4 times higher than the 29 deaths reported directly by residents.

The Fire and Disaster Headquarters explained that the reason for the significantly higher mortality rate in reports made by non-residents is that when a fire is discovered by neighbors or passersby and reported, the fire has already progressed to some extent, causing a delay in the reporting time.

Additionally, when classifying the caller’s voice into ‘calm type’ (composed and restrained), ‘excited type’ (urgent and fast-talking), and ‘panic type’ (incoherent), and analyzing the casualty rates, casualties were 0.2 times higher in the excited type and 0.5 times higher in the panic type compared to the calm type.

This indicates that when the caller’s psychological state is excited or panicked, it causes significant difficulties in gathering information for dispatch.

Jo Sun-ho, head of the Gyeonggi-do Fire and Disaster Headquarters, said, “As shown in the analysis report, early 119 reporting is crucial to minimizing damage when a fire occurs. We will expand education on how to report to 119 in safety training for residents, and it is very important to install fire alarms that can quickly detect fires and fire extinguishers for early fire suppression, so please make sure to have them installed.”

Meanwhile, the number of fire incidents with casualties over the past three years was 463 in 2022, 411 in 2023, and 80 as of February 2024.