Earthquake, heritage fire and wildfire scenarios tested at Hwagyesa
About 410 participants check response systems from rescue to cultural asset protection
Gangbuk-gu in Seoul held the "2026 Disaster Response Safe Korea Drill" on Friday at Hwagyesa, a temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism, and at the district's disaster safety operations center.
The exercise was designed to test inter-agency coordination and sharpen real-world response capabilities by simulating a complex disaster in which a major earthquake triggers fires that spread to a national heritage site and the nearby Bukhansan mountain.
About 410 people took part, representing the Gangbuk Fire Station, Gangbuk Police Station, the 2188th Army Unit, the Bukhansan National Park office of the Korea National Park Service, the Korean Red Cross, Hwagyesa and other agencies and civic organizations.
The drill centered on a magnitude-5.8 earthquake striking the Suyu-dong area of Gangbuk-gu, setting Hwagyesa ablaze and sending flames into surrounding wooden structures and Bukhansan.
Gangbuk-gu ran a tabletop exercise at its disaster safety operations center and a field exercise at Hwagyesa simultaneously. With the disaster safety headquarters and integrated support command both in operation, participants shared real-time situational updates and worked through a step-by-step response covering search and rescue, firefighting, resident evacuation, removal and protection of cultural heritage assets, and wildfire containment.
District Mayor Jeong Chang-su chaired the disaster safety headquarters meeting in his role as headquarters commander, reviewing each agency's response status and coordination arrangements. He then visited the Hwagyesa drill site to assess recovery operations and encourage participants.
This year's drill placed particular emphasis on the characteristics of a traditional temple housing national heritage assets — focusing on evacuation exercises to move cultural relics to safety in the event of fire, and on drills to prevent flames from spreading into the adjacent forest.
The district held a joint evaluation meeting with participating agencies that day to review areas for improvement identified during the exercise, with findings to be incorporated into future disaster response plans.
"In a disaster, swift initial response and cooperation among relevant agencies are paramount," Jeong said. "We will continue to strengthen our response capabilities through realistic drills and do our utmost to protect the lives and safety of our residents."
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