Fire Safety Science Digital Archive

Dae-gu subway fire was the largest fire accident in 30 years of Korean subway history which culminated in 339(192 death, 147 wonded) casualties and 520 million won financial loss. There are reasons for this catastrophic Dae-gu subway accident. First of all, inadequate preparation of fire fighting system for early prevention, and failure of communication between train drivers and operation controller caused substantial delay in evacuation process, allowing fire to propagate to another rolling stock approaching from opposite direction. Secondly, extremely inflammable and toxic nature of interior materials of rolling stock made passengers suffocate badly during evacuation and also made fire propagate to the adjacent train. Thirdly, lack of capacity of smoke control equipments, hydraulic extinguishers and emergency guide lights to adapt to big scale fires meant the existing emergency facilities were inadequate. This paper proposes to discuss defects in the current emergency systems and offers solutions such as fire-proof rolling stock cabin materials and detailed improvement plans of subway safety facilities for prevention of further fire accidents like Dae-Gu fire.