Flammable mattresses blamed for hotel fire in Gyeonggi that killed seven

Mattresses in a guest room at the hotel in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, where seven people died from a fire on Thursday evening, were found to have been the ignition source.

Police oversee the scene on Sunday at a hotel in Bucheon, Gyeonggi where a fire broke out on Thursday evening. Seven people died and 12 others were injured from the fire. [YONHAP]

Mattresses in a guest room at the hotel in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, where seven people died from a fire on Thursday evening, were found to have been the ignition source.

Experts emphasized that hotels should be required to use flame-retardant mattresses, which are less likely to catch fire once flames break out.

According to the fire authorities on Sunday, smoke started leaking out of Room 810, the point of ignition at the hotel on Thursday, toward the hallway at 7:37 p.m.

The fire erupted on the eighth floor of a nine-story hotel in Jung-dong in Wonmi District, Bucheon, at 7:39 p.m. on Thursday.

Among the seven lives lost were guests in their 20s and 50s.

The victims, all Korean nationals, included four men and three women, said police. Twelve others were injured, with three in serious condition, and were taken to the hospital for treatment. Smoke leaked out about two minutes after the guest initially assigned to 810 left the room.

After entering the room, the guest heard a thudding sound from the air conditioner and detected a burning smell. The guest asked the hotel staff for a room change and moved to a room on the 6th floor.

During this process, the door to Room 810 was left open toward the hallway, and the smoke from the room filled the floor in one minute and 23 seconds, making it impossible for other guests to evacuate to the ground floor quickly.

This was captured in its entirety on the CCTV secured by fire authorities. Based on what the guest from Room 810 witnessed before the fire, authorities assessed that an air conditioner leak caused the fire.

“We believe that sparks fell from the air conditioner and spread to the sofa and mattress,” a fire department official said.

Air conditioner fires usually occur due to overload caused by long-term use or when dust or other foreign substances get caught in old wires.

At the time of the fire, the air conditioner in Room 810 was wall-mounted, and it was reported that the sofa was right underneath it and a bed mattress directly next to it.

If a mattress catches fire, the entire room can be engulfed in explosive flames, which is called a “flashover” phenomenon.

According to a past study by the Korean Society of Hazard Mitigation, mattresses that catch fire can spread flames 490 times faster than a television set.

The so-called “flame growth rate” of a mattress was 230 times faster than that of a wooden desk, a notorious fire hazard, and nine times faster than that of a chest of drawers.

The police and fire authorities are investigating the exact cause of the fire based on the results of a detailed investigation by the National Forensic Service.

“If the spark from the air conditioner in Room 810 had fallen to the floor, the combustion and smoke would not have spread as quickly as it did,” a fire department official said. “We suspect the fire spread quickly because the sofa and mattress were near the air conditioner.”

On Sunday, the phone call record of the first caller who reported the fire to the local fire department was also released.

According to the records obtained by the office of Democratic Party (DP) member Youn Kyun-young on Sunday, the fire report related to the Bucheon hotel fire was received at 7:39 p.m. on Thursday.

The caller, presumed to be a hotel staff member, initially said, “There is a fire here,” while stating the hotel’s name in the call.

The caller repeatedly confirmed the exact name of the hotel and was asked where the fire was coming from. He accurately explained the location of the fire, saying that it was "coming from Room 810.”

Upon receiving the call, fire authorities dispatched a fire truck as the continued the call. The call responder asked the caller if he had evacuated the hotel, to which the caller said he hadn’t. When the responder again urged the caller to evacuate the premises, the caller replied only with an exclamation and hung up.

Three minutes after this initial report, a level one response was issued, and four minutes later, at 7:43 p.m., first responders arrived at the scene. However, the hotel was already filled with flames and black smoke.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]