[Gangnam Perspective] Lessons We Must Learn After Disasters

Last year, instead of welcoming spring with fresh, hopeful news, we greeted it with "massive wildfires." On March 21, 2025, a fire broke out in Sancheong, South Gyeongsang Province, and the next day additional fires erupted in Uiseong, Ulju and Yangsan in North and South Gyeongsang. Fanned by strong winds and dry weather, these fires grew simultaneously and came to be known collectively as the "wildfires in the Yeongnam region." The disaster lasted for more than a week, leaving 183 casualties and destroying 104,000 hectares of forest, making it the worst wildfire in our history.
Watching those enormous wildfires last year, one thought kept coming back to me. Whenever a wildfire breaks out, we faithfully go through two steps. First, we watch videos of the spreading flames on our phones in real time. Second, we curse the carelessness of hikers and other visitors to the mountains.
The second step needs some unpacking. Of course, people who light fires or toss away cigarettes without putting them out in fire-prone areas are a problem. But bad actors have always existed, and they always will. The real question is why a fire started by a single careless person can end up consuming an area half the size of Seoul.
The statistics reveal an uncomfortable truth. Large wildfires account for less than 1% of all wildfire incidents. Yet they are responsible for about 90% of the total burned area. Most of the fires that occur frequently are extinguished quickly, while a tiny number of mega-wildfires turn entire mountains into ash. This is not a problem that can be solved simply by catching a few arsonists. It means there is a structural condition that allows fires to spread.
That structure can be summed up as "overcrowded forests." South Korea’s timber harvesting rate is about 20%. In other words, we are not cutting trees at the rate they grow. Forests are packed with trees that have not been harvested for decades. While leading forestry nations maintain harvesting rates above 80% to manage forest density, our forests have effectively been stockpiling fuel for wildfires. A single tree does not create a wildfire. It is the densely packed forest that amplifies the flames.
At this point, the common belief that "cutting trees destroys the environment" is turned on its head. Forests left unthinned are now triggering even greater environmental disasters. A single large wildfire can release enough carbon to wipe out decades’ worth of forest carbon absorption in one blow. In trying to save individual trees, we are losing the forest.
The climate crisis follows the same pattern. How much do the combined feelings of guilt among people who diligently sort their trash, carry tumblers and use public transportation actually affect greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions? About 73% of global GHG emissions do not come from individual behavior, but from the fossil fuel-based energy systems that power electricity, heating and transportation. No matter how hard individuals try to cut back, if the system remains unchanged, they are standing in front of that 73% wall.
So what are we doing now? Companies publish environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) reports. Governments announce carbon neutrality roadmaps. Citizens go plogging—jogging while picking up litter—on Environment Day. And then the following summer arrives, bringing heat waves that are hotter and longer than the year before.
Wildfires are determined not by individual carelessness but by national forestry policy. The climate crisis is determined not by personal lifestyle habits but by national energy policy. The reason this is so uncomfortable is simple. When we blame individuals, responsibility is dispersed. When we blame structures, politics must answer.
Saying that we need to cut down more trees in our forests still sounds almost taboo. During election season, no one dares to say that electricity rates must rise to expand renewable energy. Proposals to redesign cities around buses and subways are constantly pushed aside by pledges to widen roads.
When a fire breaks out, people ask: Who started it? But that is not the question we most need to ask. We should be asking why this forest burns so fiercely once it catches fire, and who allowed that structure to remain as it is.
Now that spring has come, we are once again hearing reports of wildfires across the country. It is policy that prevents fires from spreading. What we should demand from politics is not one more fire truck, but forests where flames cannot race out of control and systems that do not keep driving temperatures up. The scope of what individuals can change is smaller than we think, and the scope of what politics must change is larger than we admit.
ahnman@fnnews.com Seung-hyun Ahn, National News Editor Reporter