Fire authorities set this year's target for fire trucks' "arrival within 7 minutes" at 69.4%.
The National Fire Agency said on the 17th it has drawn up a "comprehensive plan to secure the golden time for fire trucks in 2026." The National Fire Agency set last year's arrival-within-7-minutes target at 68.7% for fire scenes and exceeded it by 0.6 percentage points at 69.3%.
To speed up on-scene arrival, the National Fire Agency will work with the Small Enterprise & Market Service (SEMAS) to build an "intelligent dispatch system for traditional markets." Previously, navigation guided only to market entrances, but the crux is to create a system that can provide real-time guidance to the precise location of shops inside markets and the optimal entry routes.
The National Fire Agency also plans to raise the installation rate of the '119 Pass' from about 20% last year to over 40% this year. The 119 Pass is a system that instantly opens communal entrance doors with a dedicated card. It can reduce the time firefighters waste checking entrance passwords.
The National Fire Agency will also expand installation of the "priority signal system for emergency vehicles," which allows fire trucks to pass through intersections without stopping, and will launch a joint maintenance effort with local governments aiming to resolve by more than 5% year over year access-challenged areas such as narrow alleys where fire truck entry is difficult or zones with habitual illegal parking.
The National Fire Agency will also work to spread a public participation–oriented culture of yielding, partnering with TBN Traffic Broadcasting to transmit real-time emergency yielding announcements to drivers along dispatch routes when disasters occur.
Kim Seung-ryong, acting commissioner of the National Fire Agency, said, "Seven minutes before a fire reaches its peak and four minutes to prevent brain damage in cardiac arrest patients are golden times that are absolute for saving lives," adding, "If advanced traffic systems are combined with active yielding by drivers, we will be able to save more lives."