Tragic fires with heavy casualties continue to haunt Korea. One cannot help but ask why. Despite our status as a technological powerhouse, we seem unable to break this cycle of disaster. The answer lies in a fundamental flaw: Our fire safety is designed to satisfy the law, not to save lives.
In Korea, fire safety is often reduced to a mere administrative formality. Regulations are strictly based on building size and usage, regardless of the actual type or quantity of combustible materials inside. It fails to design an appropriate fire protection design in the field and fails to propose suitable fire protection for new facilities emerging from technological advancements.
Furthermore, this rigid system encourages a dangerous trend where buildings are designed just below certain size thresholds to avoid installing automatic fire suppression systems. This is not engineering; it is a bureaucratic maneuver to cut costs.
Technological stagnation has followed the practice. For large-scale landmark projects, the conceptual fire design is almost exclusively performed by foreign firms. Local companies are relegated to detailed design, adjusting foreign concepts to fit rigid local codes. Even though Performance-Based Design (PBD) is legally mandated for large-scale buildings in Korea, it has failed to fix the core problem. The failure of Korea's PBD stems from the absence of clear national guidelines on how to design scientifically. Instead, the law simply tells developers to "scientifically persuade" fire officials. Fearing responsibility for any deviation from the norm, officials rarely approve flexible designs, and most PBD reports eventually surrender to mirroring existing prescriptive codes just to obtain a permit. As long as Korean firms are confined to being administrative followers, our fire safety technology will never evolve.
In contrast, the Czech Republic treats fire safety as the foundation of building design. During the conceptual stage, they analyze each room’s specific fire load, smoke production and occupancy load. This step is fundamental to gathering fire-related data for every room, a process that is laborious and time-consuming. The data then dictates the fire-resistance ratings of every wall, beam, column and ceiling. It also dictates the smoke removal system. In this system, fire safety is not a secondary consideration; it is the lead authority that dictates — and if necessary, alters — the structure of buildings to guarantee safe evacuation routes independent of active systems. In Korea, fire safety is subordinate to architecture — buildings are designed first and the fire safety systems are later “fitted into the predetermined structure."
For a long time, I have been aware of the shortcomings in Korean fire safety and have heard that PBD is the answer. However, gaining firsthand insight into the outputs and rigorous processes of the Czech fire safety system has been a true eye-opening experience. In Korea, the types and characteristics of combustible materials are subjects found only in exam papers; except for very exceptional cases, they are almost never applied in actual design.
If Korea is to protect its citizens, fire safety must move from being a bureaucratic hurdle to a foundational engineering principle. We must stop prioritizing administrative speed over technical depth. It is time to embrace a system where the structure of a building is defined by the safety of those inside, rather than accepting human loss as the price of efficiency.
Jang Cheol-hois an engineer. Contact him at [email protected].
Source: Korea Times News
