Daea Hotel fire

The Daea Hotel fire was a fire that broke out at about 8 a.m. on 14 January 1984 in the fourth-floor health club of the Daea Hotel in Buzeon-dong, Busanjin-gu, Busan Metropolitan City. The cause was the careless handling of a kerosene heater.¹

Scale of damage

• Casualties: 38 dead and 68 injured (including 5 foreign nationals dead and 6 injured)
• Property damage: 300 million won

Overview of the incident

A health club employee, Kim (30 years old at the time, born 1955), entered the health club from the sauna, raised the wick of a kerosene heater installed there to its maximum, and lit it. He then returned to the sauna and checked the heater's burning condition for about 20 minutes. While he was refilling the heater from a plastic kerosene tank at its inlet, kerosene from the hose spilled onto the heater and ignited, causing the fire.²

Response

The fire, first ignited on the fourth-floor health club at about 7:50 a.m. on 14 January 1984, spread to other floors of the hotel by about 8 a.m., and smoke spread widely to the outside of the hotel. A fire report was received by 119, and firefighting units arrived at 8:17 a.m. Afterward, firefighting operations began, and the initial suppression was completed at 9 a.m.

Afterward, rescue teams, aerial ladder trucks, and drop mats were prepared, and rescue operations began. Seven helicopters, including an Air Force helicopter, were deployed to rescue guests trapped on the rooftop, but five people died during the rescue operations.

Large-scale rescue and search operations did not begin until 11:30 a.m. The day before the fire, 13 January, popular entertainers were performing, so young people visited the hotel in large numbers. Many of them, having drunk heavily and being overtired, could not easily wake up in the morning and did not hear the fire alarm, which increased the number of casualties.

In addition, the fire burned about 460 pyeong of the hotel building, which covered roughly 2,200 pyeong in total, and furniture and fixtures such as chairs, wardrobes, and televisions were completely burned, causing material losses of 300 million won.