Fire at waste recycling plant in Daesan-eup, Seosan, extinguished in 17 hours and 40 minutes (comprehensive)

(Seosan = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Joo-hyung and Byun Seon-jin = A fire broke out at a waste recycling plant in Daesan-eup, Seosan-si, Chungcheongnam-do around midnight on the 6th and was extinguished in 17 hours and 40 minutes.

After receiving a report from a foreign worker that "there was a fire in the factory," fire authorities issued the first response level at 1:09 a.m. on this day and deployed 40 pieces of equipment and 179 personnel to extinguish the fire.

Firefighting authorities first arrived at the scene at 6:34 a.m. and completely extinguished the fire at 5:40 p.m., 17 hours and 40 minutes after it started.

The factory where the fire broke out is a place that processes plastic and scrap metal to make solid fuel. It was found that it took a long time to extinguish the fire because about 1,000 tons of combustible materials such as scrap metal and non-ferrous metal were piled up.

There were no workers inside the factory at the time of the fire, so there were no casualties.

Previously, Seosan City sent a disaster safety text message to nearby residents at 3:32 a.m., urging them to "refrain from going out and pay attention to safety as a large amount of smoke is being produced."

Fire authorities plan to investigate the exact cause of the fire and the extent of damage.