Guryong Village Fire Fully Extinguished After About 13 Hours

Fire authorities said they fully extinguished the fire in Guryong Village at about 4:39 a.m. on the 28th and lifted the Level 1 response.

That was 12 hours and 49 minutes after the fire broke out at about 3:50 p.m. the previous day in a temporary building in Sector 2 of the village.

Some of the fire spread to nearby Guryongsan, but after the main blaze was brought under control at dawn that day, crews extinguished the remaining hotspots and put out the fire completely.

A woman in her 30s sustained minor injuries to her leg in the fire. No other casualties were confirmed.

After the fire broke out, firefighters deployed 232 personnel and 110 pieces of equipment, including six helicopters, to fight it. However, darkness, a shortage of water and strong winds made the operation difficult.

Thirty-nine residents evacuated on their own because of the fire. Authorities determined that 107 people from 77 households had been affected, and Gangnam-gu set up shelters in the gyms at Gaepo Middle School and Guryong Middle School, as well as nearby lodging facilities.

Firefighters declared a Level 1 response at 3:59 p.m. the previous day, then raised it to Level 2 at 4:29 p.m. as the flames spread.

Later, at about 10:05 p.m., they downgraded the response to Level 1 after determining that the fire was no longer spreading.

Large amounts of smoke rose from the fire scene and were spotted as far away as Dobong-gu in Seoul and Anyang, Gyeonggi Province.

After receiving a briefing on the fire the previous day, President Lee Jae-myung instructed officials to “mobilize all available resources to fight the fire and make every effort to rescue the residents living there and ensure their safety.”

Guryong Village is an unauthorized shantytown formed when people displaced by redevelopment and others moved there as the Gangnam area was developed in the 1970s and 1980s, including in connection with hosting the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.

The closely packed shacks, built from easily flammable materials such as vinyl and plywood, allow fires to spread quickly, and fire trucks also have difficulty accessing the area.

On January 16 this year, a fire that started in Sector 4 of the village also spread to nearby sectors, forcing 258 residents to evacuate.