Hwaseong fills safety gaps with tech, wins national award

Hwaseong City won a special prize from the National Information Society Agency (NIA) on Friday at the 31st Local Government Information and Communications Best Practices Competition, hosted by the Ministry of Interior and Safety, for what organizers called the nation's first barrier-free smart evacuation guidance service for people in fire-alert blind spots.

The service grew out of a recognized problem: people who are deaf or hard of hearing have difficulty learning immediately that a fire has broken out when they are in elevators, restrooms or accessible restrooms that lack visual alarm devices.

Rather than asking whether the law required such installations, the city set out to identify safety blind spots that existing legal standards alone could not address, focusing instead on whether residents could actually detect a fire in real time.

In response, the city linked fire control panels, digital information displays and sign-language video systems through the Internet of Things. When a fire breaks out, the displays automatically switch screens and guide users on the situation and evacuation procedures through sign language, text and images — the country's first "visible fire alert" system.

The service acts as a dual safety net, providing visual information not only to deaf and hard-of-hearing residents but also to members of the general public who may not clearly hear audio announcements, helping everyone recognize a fire emergency more quickly.

The city installed the system at 10 locations as a pilot this year and plans to add four more sites in 2027, with further expansion to follow.

The award is also significant because it reflects three years of proactive administration — turning on-the-ground ideas into policy and identifying safety blind spots that existing laws and systems had yet to address.

The city previously won a Prime Minister's Award in the civil servant proposal category at the 2024 Central Excellence Proposal competition for a related idea, and received a special prize in 2025 for an emergency alert-linked guidance service for socially vulnerable groups. This year's NIA president's special prize marks a continued record of translating citizen-safety ideas into concrete policy.

"Even a small idea, when put into practice on the ground and used to find and fix the safety gaps that laws and systems have yet to cover, is a vital part of proactive administration," Hwaseong Special City Mayor Jeong Myeong-geun said. "We will continue expanding safety services that residents can tangibly feel — particularly ensuring that safety policies designed for vulnerable members of society, like this service, translate into broader safety gains for all citizens."