{"id":91044,"date":"2026-07-19T10:12:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T10:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/91044\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T10:12:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T10:12:13","slug":"black-smoke-engulfs-coupang-warehouse-as-firefighters-race-to-stop-blaze-spreading-to-5th-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/91044\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Smoke Engulfs Coupang Warehouse as Firefighters Race to Stop Blaze Spreading to 5th Floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FireFire at Coupang’s Distribution Center No. 32. Incheon \u2014 Chae Min-seok<\/p>\n

A fire broke out at Coupang’s No. 32 logistics center in Incheon, and fire authorities have been battling the blaze for a second day, but the flames are not easily being brought under control. The site of the fire was packed with flammable items such as household goods, and the building’s structure makes smoke ventilation difficult, hampering firefighters’ access. No casualties resulted from the accident. But even though fire prevention facilities were strengthened following the fire at the Deokpyeong logistics center in Icheon, critics say these measures remain insufficient to contain fires at ultra-large logistics centers.<\/p>\n

At 11 a.m. on the 19th at Coupang’s No. 32 logistics center in Seongnam-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, thick black smoke was pouring out from the small windows on the charred building. Firefighters were continuously spraying water from the outside using ladder trucks and cranes, and building debris fell limply wherever the water hit. Around the burning building, fire trucks and police cars moved back and forth continuously, supplying materials and controlling traffic. Nearby residents could only watch the surging smoke with worried expressions.<\/p>\n

The fire, which broke out around 6:54 a.m. on the 18th, is still not extinguished. On this day, Jeon Jae-in, head of the disaster response division at the Incheon West Fire Station, held a briefing in front of the fire scene and explained why the firefighting was being delayed. “The logistics center where the fire broke out is a large warehouse with a three-tier rack (shelf) structure, and a large volume of flammable materials is stored there,” Jeon said. “The high-temperature dense smoke is causing extreme difficulty in securing internal visibility and in firefighters’ entry.”<\/p>\n

A large volume of household goods was reportedly stacked on the 6th and 7th floors of the logistics warehouse where the fire broke out. Inside, household goods vulnerable to fire were piled on high shelves, similar to how a warehouse-type big-box store stacks its goods, so once a fire catches, it does not go out easily. Moreover, if items stacked higher than a person’s height were to collapse, a dangerous situation could arise, so firefighters cannot force their way in.<\/p>\n

The building’s structure is adding to the difficulty of extinguishing the fire. Due to the nature of a warehouse, the logistics center has fewer windows than ordinary buildings. Because there are no openings to release smoke to the outside, the interior is currently filled with smoke and heat. With the interior temperature exceeding 150 degrees, it is impossible for firefighters to enter, and equipment to clear the items stacked indoors is also difficult to deploy. Fire authorities are tearing off parts of the building’s exterior wall for ventilation, and they plan to deploy personnel and equipment for additional search for people and to assess the scale of property damage once the smoke and heat are released to a certain level.<\/p>\n

The greatest concern is the possibility that the fire, which has now spread to the 6th and 7th floors of the building, could spread to the 5th floor. According to a fire official at the scene, a large number of dangerous items such as lithium batteries and wireless robots are stored on the 5th floor. In particular, lithium batteries do not go out easily with water once they catch fire, so extinguishing them could take even longer. Fire authorities are making an all-out effort to prevent the fire from spreading to the 5th floor, and they said that observations using drones and thermal imaging equipment have so far found no signs of the fire spreading.<\/p>\n

The smoke and hazardous substances spreading to nearby residential areas are also a problem. Residents near the logistics center are currently blocking the gaps in their doors with wet newspaper to keep out the smoke pushing into their homes, or leaving their buildings altogether and praying only for the wind direction to change. Mr. Park, a resident in his 60s near Seongnam Station whom the reporter met near the scene, sighed and said, “Since yesterday, the smoke has been repeatedly coming toward my house and then retreating, so I couldn’t sleep a wink.” He added, “Today too, I’m worried even a small spark might fly over, so I’ve been outside my house for hours.”<\/p>\n

A resident who runs a gas station near the fire site also said, “Since yesterday, I’ve continuously seen flames and smoke coming in, so it’s a difficult situation. Because it’s a gas station, I’m worried a spark might fly over, but I think the fire department will handle it well.” He added, “The smoke keeps coming in on the wind, so nearby residents are also suffering, unable to even open their windows. The soot is more toxic than I expected, so I bought a mask from a nearby shop and am wearing it while working.”<\/p>\n

\"FireFire at Coupang’s Distribution Center No. 32. Incheon \u2014 Chae Min-seok<\/p>\n

Currently, fire authorities have mobilized 28 special vehicles, including four aerial and articulating trucks from Incheon and 24 support vehicles from other cities and provinces, to conduct water-spraying operations on the upper floors. From the air, firefighting helicopters have been mobilized to intensively extinguish the fire that spread to the 7th floor. In addition, maintaining the national fire mobilization order issued the previous day, authorities have deployed 221 pieces of equipment and 575 personnel at the scene to carry out firefighting work. So far, there is no concern of the building collapsing.<\/p>\n

Fire authorities forecast that they will be able to bring the main fire under control and carry out initial extinguishing late in the afternoon. “It is difficult to measure precisely,” said Heo Seok-gyeong, chief of the Incheon West Fire Station, “but based on 7 a.m. this morning, we expect the fire to be extinguished 16 hours later (11 p.m.).”<\/p>\n

The internal sprinklers are presumed to have operated normally. However, this is not the first case where items stacked in a large facility burned and the fire grew, and some point out that fire prevention devices remain inadequate. During the fire at Coupang’s Deokpyeong logistics center in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, in June 2021, it was revealed that some 16.2 million products inside the building acted as kindling. After the fire grew, flammable packaging materials such as cardboard boxes and plastic were stacked in large quantities on high shelves, making firefighting difficult. The flames were completely extinguished on the sixth day, after about 130 hours, but in that accident one firefighter who had gone to extinguish the fire was isolated by the re-spread of the flames and died.<\/p>\n

Experts explain that although fire safety standards for large logistics warehouses have been revised, blind spots still exist. Ham Seung-hee, a professor in the Department of Fire and Disaster Prevention at the University of Seoul, said, “Overseas, they classify grades based on how flammable materials are stacked and how much smoke is generated when a fire occurs, using these as criteria for judging risk, and they also manage sprinkler water-spray density differentially. However, in Korea, standards are applied uniformly, mainly based on area and height.”<\/p>\n

He continued, “After the Coupang Icheon logistics center fire, fire safety standards for large logistics warehouses were extensively revised, and afterward regulations were reorganized to prohibit the installation of pre-action sprinklers. But whether the fire safety standards for spaces where items are stacked densely through automation, spaces where flammable materials can be concentrated even more, are appropriate compared to the existing warehouse fire safety standards has not been reviewed.” He added, “Rack-type warehouses are unmanned, so they use dry-pipe systems. They do not fill the sprinkler pipes with water, and only open the heads when a fire is detected. Naturally, water-spraying is delayed compared to wet pipes, and when flammable materials are concentrated in large quantities, the rate of fire spread is too fast, so in many cases effective initial control is not achieved.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire at Coupang’s Distribution Center No. 32. Incheon \u2014 Chae Min-seok A fire broke out at Coupang’s No.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[426,47871,47684,47872,47873,47868,47869,47870],"class_list":["post-91044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coupang","tag-coupang","tag-coupang-deokpyeong-fire","tag-coupang-logistics-center-fire","tag-dry-pipe-sprinkler-system","tag-fire-prevention-standards","tag-incheon-warehouse-fire","tag-lithium-battery-fire","tag-warehouse-fire-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}