A fire that broke out the previous day, the 18th, at a Coupang logistics center in Incheon has dragged on, remaining unextinguished despite overnight firefighting efforts by authorities.
According to the Incheon Fire Headquarters on the 19th, the fire that broke out at around 6:54 a.m. the previous day at Coupang's No. 32 logistics center in Seoknam-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, had not been fully extinguished as of 6 a.m. that day, 23 hours after it started. At the logistics center, which has a total floor area of 299,000 square meters and stands eight stories above ground, the fire that started on the sixth floor spread to the seventh floor.
Firefighting efforts have faced difficulties due to combustible household goods piled up inside and the building's wide-open structure. As thick smoke and intense heat made it difficult for firefighters to enter the interior, authorities have continued intensive water discharge operations from the outside using the ramp area on the side of the building.
Authorities deployed 198 pieces of equipment, including aerial ladder trucks, a high-volume foam discharge system, and high-performance chemical trucks, along with 549 personnel including firefighters and police officers to the scene, while maintaining the national fire mobilization order issued at 3:15 p.m. the previous day.
"The fire has not spread to areas other than the sixth and seventh floors of the logistics center," a fire authority official said. "We expect the firefighting work to take a long time."
President Lee Jae-myung said the previous day, "Make all-out efforts to extinguish the fire and take every measure to prevent the damage from spreading." Prime Minister Han Seong-sook instructed related agencies, "We must be alert to secondary accidents such as damage to residents and internal collapse caused by the fire." Choi Yong-cheol, head of the Central Emergency Rescue Control Team, said, "We must closely monitor the risk of the building's collapse and carry out firefighting operations systematically within the scope where the safety of firefighting personnel is secured."
