Hwaseong-si Focuses Organizational Capabilities on Preventing Industrial Safety Accidents

Strengthening the Emergency Duty System and Establishing Related Organizations
Creating Fire Risk Maps for High-Risk Factory Areas

Hwaseong City in Gyeonggi Province is focusing its organizational capabilities on preventing industrial safety accidents such as the Arisel factory fire.

Hwaseong City announced on the 8th that it held a meeting on the 7th to review measures for preventing factory fires and has begun preparing countermeasures to achieve zero industrial safety accidents.

Officials from Hwaseong City are discussing key measures at the factory fire accident prevention strategy meeting on the 7th.
[Photo by Hwaseong City]

This response by the city is interpreted as a reaction to recent incidents causing human and environmental damage, such as the Arisel factory fire in Jeongok-ri, Seosin-myeon, and a fire at a hazardous chemical storage facility in Yanggam-myeon.

According to Hwaseong City, out of 1,856 fire incidents that occurred in Hwaseong from 2021 to 2023, 394 were factory fires, accounting for 21%. Fires at warehouse facilities and waste disposal companies also reached 133 cases, or 7.2%. The city explained that large-scale fires in the area have shown an increasing trend, rising from 5 cases in 2022 to 22 in 2023, and 16 cases up to July this year.

The city’s countermeasures can be summarized as ▲expanding the emergency duty system ▲establishing an Industrial Safety Headquarters and operating Industrial Safety Keepers ▲creating dedicated organizations for safety management and labor affairs.

The city plans to subdivide the emergency duty system into five levels in cases of fires at factories (manufacturing), logistics warehouses, and resource recovery facilities, strengthening roles from the moment a fire report is received to prompt initial response, accident management, and recovery. This supplements the current system where the city’s role is not clearly defined during fire response stage declarations and is limited to supporting fire stations’ requests before fire response stage 2, such as dispatching to fire sites for contaminated water control and accident management support.

The city will establish guidelines for preventing and responding to large-scale industrial disasters and analyze data to produce a 'Factory Area Fire Risk Map' to enable rapid disaster site response at high-risk workplaces and prevent secondary environmental pollution caused by contaminated water.

The related organizational structure will also be strengthened. To prevent recurrence of accidents like the Arisel factory fire, Hwaseong Industrial Promotion Agency will establish an 'Industrial Safety Headquarters' and plans to revise related ordinances within the year. The newly established Industrial Safety Headquarters will be responsible for ▲safety inspections and management of high-risk companies ▲industrial safety education and expert training including foreign workers ▲support for safety facility construction.

The city will also launch 'Industrial Safety Keepers' to conduct regular inspections in areas such as fire, electricity, and hazardous materials, while creating a safe working environment through industrial site consulting.

To create a safe industrial environment, the city plans to establish a 'Labor-Management Cooperation Division' in October. This division will include ▲Labor-Management Cooperation Team ▲Industrial Safety Team ▲Migrant Worker Support Team, handling tasks such as protecting the safety and human rights of workers including migrant workers, supporting industrial safety accident sites within the city, and safety management.

Jung Myung-geun, Mayor of Hwaseong City, said, "Until now, there have been limitations in fire prevention and response due to lack of authority. We will revise related ordinances to clarify the basis for promoting industrial safety work and create related organizations to actively respond to ensure safety."