▲ A firefighter puts on a protective suit for removing beehives.
"Even if you wear it and move around for just 10 minutes, your entire body is completely soaked."
On August 7, when the daytime high soared to 36°C (97°F) at the Suwon Nambu Fire Station in Gyeonggi Province.
Firefighter Lee, who was in charge of demonstrating firefighting equipment, skillfully put on a heavy turnout gear used for fire responses.
The weight of the gear worn by personnel during fire responses is equivalent to carrying a male elementary school student on one's back.
When fully equipped with turnout gear, a fire helmet, a self-contained breathing apparatus, a radio, a personal flashlight, and a firefighting axe, the equipment alone weighs between 25 and 30 kg.
Among these, the breathing apparatus alone weighs about 10 kg.
The capacity of a breathing apparatus typically lasts for about 40 minutes, but during actual firefighting and rescue operations in a real fire scene where personnel breathe heavily, it is exhausted and must be replaced within 20 to 30 minutes.
Firefighters repeatedly enter and exit blazing fires carrying heavy equipment while refilling their air supplies.
To prepare for such situations, firefighters repeat team-level tactical training and individual physical conditioning whenever there are no dispatches.
This is because when a fire report is received, they must arrive at the scene within the golden time of 7 minutes (2 minutes for report reception and 5 minutes for travel time).
To save even a fraction of a second, personnel gear up with more than 25 kg of equipment inside a moving fire truck.
It is not just the flames that torment firefighters during the summer.
During this season when the activities of bees, from honeybees to hornets, become vigorous, every fire station is flooded with more than 10 reports of beehive removals per day.
Next, Fire Sergeant So, who was in charge of demonstrating the protective suit for beehive removal, put on the pure white protective suit piece by piece.
Fire Sergeant So connected the top and bottom with a zipper to completely block skin exposure from head to toe, put on thick gloves, and covered his face with a mesh helmet.
Fellow Firefighter Jeon Jun-young, who assisted in putting on the protective suit, tightly wrapped blue tape around the gaps between Fire Sergeant So's gloves and sleeves to prevent bees from penetrating inside the clothing.
Although he armed himself with the protective suit in just one minute, beads of sweat had already begun to form on Fire Sergeant So's forehead.
Weighing just a little over 2 to 3 kg and made of specially processed nylon fabric to prevent bee stingers from piercing through, the protective suit allows no wind to pass through, instantly drenching the entire body in sweat the moment it is worn.
Although difficult to wear, the protective suit is an essential item that protects the safety of personnel from injuries.
The working environment is also far from easy.
If a beehive is within reach, the job finishes quickly, but if it is located in hard-to-reach places like inside a wall or under the eaves of a roof, they must struggle under the scorching sun for over an hour.
Firefighter Jeon vented, "When you wear the beehive removal protective suit in the scorching heat, the perceived temperature exceeds 40°C (104°F). Moving around for just 10 minutes soaks your whole body in sweat and drains all your energy."
The first thing personnel look for when returning from such sites is cold ice water.
Firefighters agreed that a sip of cold water after battling intense flames and beehives in the scorching heat is like an oasis in the desert.
Firefighter Lee smiled as he said, "When I measure my body temperature right after taking off the turnout gear, it sometimes exceeds 38°C (100°F). Still, after coming out of a fire scene where the internal temperature fluctuates around 1,000°C (1,832°F), even the midsummer heat feels cool."
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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