Large fire engulfs tire plant in Daejeon; no serious injuries reported

A huge fire has engulfed a tire plant in the central city of Daejeon, but no serious injuries have been reported, fire officials said Monday.

The fire broke out at 10:09 p.m. Sunday at the plant operated by the nation’s leading tiremaker, Hankook Tire & Technology Co., according to the Daejeon Fire Headquarters.

The fire agency said no serious injuries have been reported, but 10 plant workers and one firefighter have sought medical treatment due to smoke inhalation.

More than 750 firefighters have been battling the fire for nearly 12 hours, but strong winds and dry conditions are hampering the efforts, the authorities said.

The agency said the fire is presumed to have started from a tire-shaping machine in the northern part of the second plant where flammable materials are stored.

“There is difficulty with putting out the fire as tires are made from flammable materials,” Kim Joon-ho, a fire official, told reporters, adding that nine helicopters were additionally mobilized.

Tires stored at a warehouse adjacent to the second plant are presumed to have burned, Kim said, citing it as the reason for a huge black smoke cloud.

Hankook Tire, the world’s seventh-biggest tiremaker by sales, estimated 210,000 tires were burned due to the fire.

The authorities earlier evacuated residents from nearby apartments due to the blaze and instructed others in the vicinity to close their windows.

Two middle schools located near the plant were closed for the day, while another high school nearby was switched to remote classes.

The fire has also caused transport disruptions, including to train services running near the factory and vehicle traffic on an expressway.

The operation of high-speed KTX trains that had detoured around Daejeon was resumed early Monday.

The interior ministry has also ordered officials to prevent any secondary damage to buildings and residents living nearby.

Hankook Tire suspended the production lines in the Daejeon plant on Monday morning to find what caused the fire and assess the size of damage, a company spokesman said over the phone.

The other local plant is in Geumsan, 200 kilometers south of Seoul.

It has eight plants — two in South Korea, one in Hungary, one in the United States, three in China and one in Indonesia — whose combined capacity reaches about 100 million tires per year.