• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.47-55
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• 2012

There are currently various domestic high-rise construction projects underway. Such projects may maximize the economic impact, and yield other benefits, however, there is also a possibility of fire, terrorism, and other disasters that one may not even imagine. This study of high-rise structures' damage reduction measures the fire-fighting ability of the fire fighters at the scene of an indoor emergency upon entry. In order to identify the practical limitations, the fire fighter entered from the 1st floor to reach the top 54th floor. 1.Time required to reach the top floor without the respirator 2.Time required as well as pressure consumption to reach the top floor with the respirator equipped was measured; based on the results, performable range of operations during a fire fighting activity were presented.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.237-244
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• 1997

The goal of this research is to evaluate methodology that uses satellite data for the analysis of flood and drought damaged area. Land cover classification were performed using satellite data that were acquired at disaster periods and comparatively normal times. Damaged area was extracted by use of overlay analysis in land cover change and compared with the field survey results. The results show analysis of flood damaged area could be carried out with single scene acquired at adequate day, and are corresponded with field survey data very well. And also, some areas that had been missed in field survey were found. The suggested method proved to be more accurate and effective way for mapping inundated areas of floodplains than field survey that would be held a few month later. The results on the analysis of drought damaged area show that drained water could be detected just only in small area, and crop damaged area could not be verified in objective validity. Drought analysis by remote sensing was proved not to be adequate for practical use in this study.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2024

Ensuring swift on-site access to fire engines is crucial in preserving the golden time and minimizing damage. However, various mobility constraints in alleyways hinder the timely entry of fire engines to the fire scene, significantly impairing their initial response capabilities. Therefore, this study analyzed the significant mobility constraints of fire engines, focusing on Seoul, which has many old town areas. By leveraging survey responses from firefighting experts and actual observations, this study quantitatively assessed the frequency and severity of mobility constraint factors affecting the disaster responses of fire engines. Survey results revealed a consistent set of top five factors regarding the frequency and disturbance level, including illegally parked cars, narrow paths, motorcycles, poles, and awnings/banners. A comparison with actual road-view images showed notable consistency between the survey and observational results regarding the appearance frequency of mobility constraint factors in vulnerable areas in Seoul. Furthermore, the study emphasized the importance of tailored management strategies for each mobility constraint factor, considering its characteristics, such as dynamic or static. The findings of this study can serve as foundational data for creating more detailed fire safety maps and advancing technologies that monitor the mobility of fire engines through efficient vision-based inference using CCTVs in the future.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.105-111
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• 2013

This study aimed to identify the recognition of fire risks on their field operations among firefighters and contribute to setting up safety measures accordingly. A self-administered questionnaire were used to evaluate their recognition of job risks. About 93.4% of respondents answered they have exposed to job risks and 73.4% answered that they had high safety awareness. Our study showed that the lower service years and ranks the fire officers had, the lower relevance in statistics their awareness of the risk of the field operations and safety concerns had. The vulnerable group is those aged 20 to 39, with under 10 years of service, at a lower rank of senior fire sergeant. The study suggests coming up with the measures to motivate the officers to perform safe operations by improving their safety awareness.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.1201-1209
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• 2008

In Seoul, there are lots of skyscrapers that have above 60 stories and buildings that have more than 8 basement levels, as well as massive distribution complex region which is connected to subways, departments, malls, hotels, and exhibition halls. When an accident, such as fire and explosion, happens in these areas or structures, if we can't find where fire-fighters are, who go into the building to suppress the fire, we couldn't be sure of their safety as well as effective command. Actually, it may cause much more damage itself and restrict either fire suppression or lifesaving. To protect people's life and properties as much as possible, this study will show the method to construct system of disaster-management supports with effective operation of fire force and scientific fire strategy in the scene by using Ubiquitous technique to enormous disasters.

• Journal of Korean Society of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.562-570
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• 2019

Objectives: Rapid Intervention Crews (RIC) are indispensable for rescuing firefighters who are lost or trapped. They are included in Disaster Scene Standard Operating Procedures. This study was conducted to examine the use of RIC at emergency scenes in South Korea. Methods: We conducted a nationwide survey of 4,913 firefighters in South Korea. The firefighters' experiences of use of RICs were assessed by asking, "How often are RICs available at fires?" Results: A full 40.8% of firefighters answered that they 'never' have RICs available at fires. Another 8.4% responded that they 'always' have RICs available, which is much lower than the rate among US firefighters (19.9%). RICs are available more often for firefighters in the capital area than for firefighters outside the capital area (13.4% vs. 5.1%, p<0.001). The larger the jurisdiction served, the more likely the firefighters were to have RICs available (p<0.001). Conclusions: These results imply that firefighters in South Korea are at risk. It is necessary to recruit personnel to improve the use of RICs and to explicitly include RICs in SOPs, training, and business plans.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.211-216
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• 2012

Fires are the most common disaster and early fire detection is of great importance to minimize the consequent damage. Simple sensors including smoke detectors are widely used for the purpose but they are able to sense fires only at close proximity. Recently, due to the rapid advances of relevant technologies, vision-based fire sensing has attracted growing attention. In this paper, a novel visual sensing technique to automatically detect fire is presented. The proposed technique consists of multiple steps of image processing: pixel-level, block-level, and frame level. At the first step, fire flame pixel candidates are selected based on their color values in YIQ space from the image of a camera which is installed as a vision sensor at a fire scene. At the second step, the dynamic parts of flames are extracted by comparing two consecutive images. These parts are then represented in regularly divided image blocks to reduce pixel-level detection error and simplify following processing. Finally, the temporal change of the detected blocks is analyzed to confirm the spread of fire. The proposed technique was tested using real fire images and it worked quite reliably.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.424-430
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• 2021

The purpose of this study is to analyse the characteristics and spreading laws of parameters such as fire smoke, concentration of CO, visibility, and temperature at fire scene in high-rise residential buildings under the different conditions of fire doors and automatic fire extinguishing systems. Using Pyrosim to simulate diverse fire scenes in a high-rise apartment with corridors, to analyze the changes in those parameters. The results show that when a fire occurs, closing the fire-fighting corridor will increase the smoke temperature and concentration of CO in the stairwell, and reduce the height and visibility of the smoke layer; the automatic fire extinguishing system effectively suppresses the increase in the temperature of the fire smoke and the sedimentation of the smoke layer. Reasonable setting and operation of the automatic fire extinguishing system could effectively inhibit the spread of fire. Although closing fire corridor can slow down the direct upward spread of smoke through the corridor, it will force the fire smoke into the stairwell, which will seriously affect evacuation through the stairs. Therefore, in order to reduce risks, it is forbidden to close the fire doors of the firefighting corridor and stacking combustible materials in the corridor, Also, intensifying inspections and ensuring the normal operation of the automatic fire extinguishing system are indispensable. Based on the research results, the significance of installing fire-fighting facilities in the construction of high-rise apartments was discussed and proved.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.334-345
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• 2022

The Enforcement Decree of the Framework Act on the Management of Disasters and Safety Article 3-2 specifies two 'disaster management supervision agencies' for responding to shipping disasters. These are the Korea Coast Guard, which is an on-scene disaster-responding and coordinating agency, and the Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries, which is a government department, thereby leading to possibilities for confusion. In the case of shipping disasters, where a personnel entitled full power to deal with shipping disasters is designated and his/her powers and duties are clearly made, relationship of leading and supporting agencies is made clear, and command system is simplified, an efficient response to shipping disasters is made possible. In the management of shipping disasters, all the disaster management processes, that is, prevention-preparedness-response-recovery, should be dealt with systematically and consistently. Notably, to swiftly and efficiently cope with a disastrous situation, the decision-making and command system must be simplified. The establishment of a command system and decision-making must be made independently, based on expertise. In the US, irrespective of the type of disasters, the FEMA plays a leading role and the USCG responds a response to maritime disasters by establishing the Incident Command System or Unified Command System that is an incident management system. In the UK, the MCA supervises an event and responds to it, and the SOSREP has full power to work with command and coordination independently. SOSREP, among others, is necessary to prevent an inefficient dealing of a shipping disaster owing to confrontation between participants. With reference to such leading States' practice, the Korean government should make a standardized and simplified response to maritime disasters. This study deals with a new maritime disaster responding system and provides an idea of the revision of the existing legal regime.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.48-56
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• 2016

A crude oil leakage from a large atmospheric storage tank occurred on 4 April 2014 at 14:50 in Ulsan City, while storing the crude oil in the tank. Emergency Rescue Control Group was deployed in the scene. The company, Fire Service Headquarters and associated agencies got together in Command Post (CP) for discussing an effective corresponding strategy. Many solution plans were drafted in the debate such as power down, stopping the facilities, checking the density of inflammable gas, suppressing oil evaporation, moving the leaked crude oil to a nearby tank and a processing plant and avoiding marine pollution. All the solutions were carried out in cooperation with several agencies and partners. The oil leakage accident was successfully settled up within the process of responding, The Fire Service Headquarters and the company thought that the most important thing was the suppression of oil evaporation and the elimination of ignition source. With Fire Service Headquarters and several agencies' every effort, an explosion and a fire didn't occurred in the scene. This study suggest the improvement of the operating system in Emergency Rescue Control Group in case of petroleum leakage, explosion and fire accidents of atmospheric storage tank, different from a ordinary disaster. Assuming that petroleum leakage in atmospheric storage tank develop the explosion and fire accidents, the spreading speed of the flame and the burning time was experimented and compared with each other. Furthermore, this study concentrates on the effective field response plan prepared for the afterward explosion and fire accidents from petroleum leak in a storage tank, with the database experimented and analyzed in accordance with the angle of radiation in the foam nozzle and the pressure of pumping in a fire engine.