National Fire Agency Administrator Kim Seung-ryong said, "AI (artificial intelligence) is advancing to a stage where it predicts risks, judges the scene, and proposes response priorities," adding, "What is needed now is not to replace a few pieces of equipment, but to redesign the entire system that protects people's lives, including the perspective from which we view disasters, the method of consolidation with the field, and the system that protects people's lives."
According to the National Fire Agency on the 22nd, Administrator Kim stated accordingly in a keynote speech at the 2026 International Fire Safety Expo held at EXCO in Daegu on the previous day.
Kim said, "Disasters no longer remain confined to a single site; they have entered an era where they spread across society's entire system," adding, "A data center fire can disrupt people's daily lives, and an accident in an underground common utility tunnel can spread across the entire systems of power and communications, transportation, and administration."
He added, "Fire services must now move beyond dispatch and response to become predictive, consolidation-driven, and leading," presenting AI and advanced science and technology as the core drivers.
Administrator Kim said that through quadruped robots, unmanned firefighting robots, drones, visibility-improvement cameras, AI control systems, and powered exoskeletons, crews will first check sites that are hard for people to access, and in complex situations will build a system in which AI supports commanders' decision-making.
He said, "AI voice recognition will analyze the content of emergency calls faster, big data will predict risk factors more accurately, and the AI control system will present the optimal dispatch resources and routes," adding, "Cutting all the time from intake to dispatch is the golden time that protects people's lives."
Administrator Kim also emphasized that fire services should play a key platform role that consolidates and integrates disaster response capabilities and should accumulate on-scene experience as data.
He said they will also build international competitiveness. Administrator Kim said, "K-fire services can become the benchmark for international disaster response and a new global safety standard," adding, "Korea's fire services will protect lives at people's side and, at the center of the world, create a new standard for safety."