[Anchor]
Last month, a fire broke out at a solar power system installed on the rooftop of a kindergarten in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, prompting a harrowing emergency evacuation of more than 200 children. While solar power facilities on kindergarten and school rooftops are increasing in line with government policies, safety measures for children are failing to keep up.
Here is reporter Hong Seung-yeon.
[Reporter]
The solar panels and surrounding equipment are charred black.
On October 21, a fire broke out at a solar power facility on the rooftop of a kindergarten in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, forcing over 200 kindergarteners and faculty members to evacuate in an emergency.
[Ahn So-young / Kindergarten Homeroom Teacher : The alarm went off during after-school classes, so (the children) had to evacuate.]
Including an elementary school in Yangsan, South Gyeongsang Province last February, there have been 13 fires at school solar power facilities over the past three years.
The government plans to install solar power systems in all national and public schools by 2030.
Installation has been completed in about 3,500 schools, accounting to 34 percent of the total, and additional installations are underway in about 400 more locations this year, but fire prevention measures are not keeping pace.
More than 80 percent of the roughly 630 fires at solar power facilities that occurred over the past five years were caused by electrical factors.
To prevent this, dedicated circuit breakers are necessary, but schools where systems are already installed are exempt from the mandatory requirement.
[Kong Ha-sung / Professor of Fire and Disaster Protection at Woosuk University : Electrical arcs cannot be cut off by regular circuit breakers. (Even after cutting off the circuit), voltages of several hundred volts or higher often remain. Arc fault circuit interrupters must be installed.]
Even if a fire breaks out, it is difficult to cut off the power immediately, resulting in a high risk of reignition.
[Choi Jeong-yeol / Fire Investigator at Daejeon Seobu Fire Station : Even if it looks like the residual fire has been cleared up, electricity starts to be generated again once the sunlight hits. Sparks occur and the fire can reignite.]
The government has shortened the statutory inspection cycle for solar power facilities from once every four years to once a year, but it remains at the level of a memorandum of understanding without enforcement power.
Even this only covers elementary, middle, and high schools, leaving infant and toddler facilities excluded from the inspections.
The Ministry of Education projected that solar power installations would save 10 million won in electricity bills per school annually, but safety measures and inspection systems to prevent fires still remain stagnant.
(Video Reporter: Kim Min-cheol, Video Editor: Shin Seeun)
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