A Study on the Problems and Improvement by Analyzing the Disastrous Large-scale Forest Fire Response System: Focusing on Simultaneous Forest Fires along the East Coast of Gangwon-do Province

Abstract

On April 4, 2019, the forest fire that spread simultaneously to five cities and counties, including Inje, Goseong, Sokcho, and Gangneung and Donghae, on the east coast of Gangwon-do, was extinguished at an early stage. It is regarded as the result of the response with full force of Korea Forest Service, National Fire Agency, Militray, and other related organizations. However, it is also true that the limitations of current forest fire response system and the operation of forest fire response personnel, facilities and equipment were revealed in the process of responding Gangwon forest fire. To find solutions to these problems, from March 3 to April 2, 2021, a survey was conducted with firefighters, forest officials and residents in Gangwon-province with experience in forest fire on a total of 29 questions about Law and Policy, Forest Fire Response System and Operation of manpower and equipment. Based on the results of the survey and literature research, an improvement plan for the Forest Fire Disaster Response System was sought. Based on our survey results, we propose the following measures to improve South Korea's forest fire response system in the future. ; the incident command system should be unified, forest authorities' forest fire prevention and management system should be further strengthened, and forest fire response system must be improved to the level of other major countries through better legislations.