Firefighting vehicles up from 29 to 108, crews expanded to 755; night response also bolstered
The Korea Forest Service has significantly expanded its fleet of firefighting vehicles and suppression crews ahead of the fall wildfire season, while also strengthening its nighttime response capabilities.
The agency announced Wednesday that it had established and would begin implementing its "2026 Fall Wildfire Prevention Plan," which reinforces cooperation and joint response systems among relevant agencies.
While large wildfires in South Korea and most other countries once broke out mainly during specific seasons, climate change — including stronger winds and drier conditions — has made year-round outbreaks increasingly common. The agency said thorough prevention and rapid initial response are now critical, and that it would commit all available resources to protecting lives and property regardless of season.
The plan focuses on building a proactive management and efficient field response system, with priorities including cause-specific prevention measures and public awareness campaigns, round-the-clock situation management, enhanced suppression capacity, and faster resident evacuation support.
To that end, the number of helicopters mobilized across ministries has been expanded from 261 last year to 315. The agency also secured 108 high-performance, multipurpose firefighting vehicles suited to South Korea's terrain and capable of carrying large water loads, and increased the authorized strength of its elite aerial and special suppression units by 156 personnel to 755.
In addition, 14 night-flight pilots qualified to operate seven helicopters capable of nighttime firefighting have been trained in-house, and the agency plans to deploy them actively when weather and operating conditions permit. On the ground, a rapid-response force of about 1,700 personnel will operate overnight to improve the agency's ability to contain nighttime fires in their early stages.
Inspections of households in forest-adjacent areas that use wood-burning boilers will be completed by the end of this month, before the main fire-risk period begins. Under revised regulations, trees within 25 meters of a building may be felled without a permit with the landowner's consent, and procedures for obtaining consent from absentee landowners for wildfire prevention projects have been streamlined to accelerate fire-prevention work near forested areas.
To sharpen public awareness, the agency will enforce a revised Forest Disaster Prevention Act starting Nov. 13. The law raises the maximum prison term for negligently causing a wildfire from three years to five years, and increases the fine for lighting a fire without a permit from 2 million won ($1,510) to 3 million won.
Under the same revised law, the Korea Forest Service will also actively seek to recover from those responsible for starting wildfires the full costs of suppression and post-fire restoration.
"Preventing wildfire disasters is a critical task directly tied to public safety and lives, so the key is building a seamless system from advance preparation to on-the-ground response," Korea Forest Service Commissioner Park Eun-sik said. "We will work closely with relevant agencies to carry out the fall wildfire prevention plan without a hitch and commit all our efforts to delivering real results."
kwonhl@heraldcorp.com
