Safety requires money. The massive wildfire that broke out in the Gangwon region on April 4 was quickly extinguished because the government had steadily increased investment in fire safety in the last four years. The fire safety grant funded by the increase in the tobacco tax provided the money. The government is expected to significantly increase the budget to purchase more firefighting equipment in next year's budget.

According to the Ministry of the Interior and Safety and the National Fire Agency, a 1.6 trillion-won fire safety grant was distributed to local governments over the last four years from 2015 to 2018. Of these funds, 78.2% or over 1.2 trillion won was used for firefighting. The remaining 21.8% or 350 billion won was used to improve safety. Thanks to the bigger grant, the total budget allocated to firefighting, including the budget for the National Fire Agency (formerly the National Emergency Management Agency) and local fire-fighting headquarters, increased by nearly 1.3 trillion won from 3.5 trillion won in 2015 to 4.8 trillion won.

The fire safety grant is a tax attached to the tobacco tax. It was newly established in 2015 when the nation raised the tobacco tax. When the tax was introduced, the tax rate was 20% of the tobacco tax--118.8 won per pack of cigarettes. The money can only be used for fire safety-related purposes, such as the replacement of old firefighting equipment at local firefighting headquarters and the improvement of roads to fight fire.

The increase in the budget resulted in a big drop in the percentage of old firefighting vehicles from 22.8% in 2014 to 5.4% in 2018. The percentage of old rescue equipment such as cutters declined to 0% at the end of last year from 21% in 2014. In 2014, only 22.5% of firefighting agencies were equipped with professional emergency equipment, such as portable respirators, but at the end of last year, 100% of the agencies were equipped.

The nation also introduced expensive firefighting equipment, such as the large chemical fire engine, the Rosenbauer Panther. The latest model of the Rosenbauer Panther, which costs 1.8 billion won, can be operated unmanned, and can spray 10,000 liters of water even in strong winds. The Gijang Fire Station in Busan was the first in the nation to purchase it in 2015 to prepare for a possible accident at the Kori nuclear power plant, and currently a total of six fire stations have the massive fire engine. In the recent fire, a Rosenbauer Panther from the Siheung 119 Chemical Rescue Center was dispatched to gas stations and LPG stations.

The nation has steadily increased the recruitment of firefighters as well. In 2015, the number of firefighters was 42,634, but last year the number rose to 52,245. However, only 630 were employed by the central government. The government plans to convert the status of all firefighters to central government officials in the second half of this year and hire 11,000 more firefighters by 2022. To this end, they raised the fire safety grant tax rate to 35%.

This year's grant for fire the fire safety budget is 537.5 billion won, 28.8% higher than last year (417.3 billion won). The government will raise the firefighting tax rate to 45% by 2022 and raise 800 billion won in revenues. From 2021, the government will comprehensively review the recruitment of firefighters, the increase in labor costs, working patterns and the financial situation to determine further measures.

The budget for fire prevention also increased significantly. According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the budget for fire prevention at multiple-use facilities, such as saunas and hospitals increased more than three fold from last year (42.4 billion won) to 152.4 billion won.

The finance ministry decided to aggressively increase investment in firefighting in next year's budget. Deputy Prime Minister cum Minister of Strategy and Finance Hong Nam-ki visited the site of the fire in Gangwon-do this day and said, "We will provide funds according to plan so that the large helicopters that were to be introduced at the end of this year to strengthen the nation's response to wildfires in the east coast can be positioned in Gangwon-do," and added, "As for the local request for more firefighting equipment, we will actively review the issue in the process of allocating the budget for 2020."

Meanwhile, the government and the ruling party decided to include a budget for recovery from the wildfire in the supplementary budget. Reportedly, the money will go to expanding the local infrastructure as well as direct support for damages.