22 fire trucks and 89 firemen rushed to Ewha Campus Complex (ECC) to put out a fire that started in the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning) unit on the B6 floor at 14:05 on March 31. Six people had to evacuate directly from the vicinity of the fire, and there were no casualties. The exact cause of the fire is yet to be known and is projected to take up to three weeks to be uncovered.
The initial fire started in the HVAC unit located on the B6 floor of ECC. Immediately after noticing the fire, Ewha’s Fire Safety Officer tried to put it out by using fire extinguishers and pouring water onto the flames. While these attempts were not entirely successful, they helped in maintaining the fire and preventing it from further growth. The main fire was put out 25 minutes after the fire department arrived on the scene, and it took an additional four hours until the fire department could withdraw from the site.
Evacuation procedures were led by the Office of General Affairs and the Control Center. Students that were in their fifth-period classes had to evacuate mid-lecture.
“Everyone including the professor thought it was a joke, especially with the fire coinciding with April Fool’s Day festivities,” So Yeon Park, a freshman from the Department of Political Science & International Relations, looked back on the incident. “It was after we realized what was happening that we recognized the gravity of the situation and began to evacuate.”
Staff members of the Department of Educational Technology’s 60th anniversary celebration event also assisted in evacuating people from the building.
Jo Eunsu, the student co-representative of the Department of Educational Technology, was at the event as the general managing staff member. The fire broke out while the event was still underway at Lee Sam Bong Hall, located on the B4 floor of ECC. Staff members noticed smoke entering the venue and began to run out to the hallways and yell at those on the upper floors to evacuate.
Jo led the evacuation of students on the lower floors of ECC, shouting at the remaining students to leave the building.
“All I could do was keep shouting at everyone to evacuate,” Jo recalled.
Jo added that while the responsibility she held as the general manager of the event played a role, her course of action was more of an instinctive one.
“Witnessing the severity of the situation with my own eyes made me put evacuation of all students as my main priority,” she said.
The location of the fire in the HVAC unit made it a potentially treacherous situation as this unit is connected to other parts of the building. The HVAC unit controls the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air of the building, and is therefore connected to different parts of the establishment through ductwork.
It is possible that the fire could have spread to other parts of the building through these ducts. Thanks to the early and prompt response to the initial fire, ECC was able to avoid such harm. Meanwhile, the causes of the fire remain unresolved and may take two to three weeks to fully determine what happened.