A gap between job status and who pays persists in South Korea’s fire services: local governments are funding 91.6% of firefighters’ wages this year, Gyeonggi Province figures show.
The Korea Herald reported the figures, citing Gyeonggi Province. Across the country’s 17 provincial and metropolitan governments, firefighters’ payroll totals 6.51 trillion won this year. Central fire safety subsidies provide 549.6 billion won, or 8.4%, with local budgets covering the remainder.
Firefighters entered the national civil service in April 2020. The government said the change was intended to make firefighting services more consistent across regions and improve working conditions. Local authorities continued to oversee the organization, personnel and budgets of their fire services.
The broader fire headquarters budget shows a similar funding split. Spending across the 17 governments totals 8.6 trillion won this year. Local governments provide 7.67 trillion won, or 89.3%, while the central government contributes 923.9 billion won, or 10.7%.
Under the Local Autonomy Act, local government responsibilities include fire prevention, response and investigation, along with rescue and emergency medical services. Those responsibilities remained with local authorities after firefighters’ employment status changed, as did most of the funding burden.
The central government’s share of fire-service budgets was about 7% in 2019 and rose to 11.5% in 2020. It peaked at 14.9% in 2021 before falling to 12.3% in 2022 and 12.4% in 2023. The share was 10.1% in 2024 and 11.5% in 2025, before reaching 10.7% this year.
In a March 2025 analysis, the Korean Association for Policy Studies assigned 43% of firefighting duties to the national government, 23% to both levels of government and 34% to local authorities. Gyeonggi Province combines the national and shared categories to calculate a 66% national component, which it compares with the central government’s 10.7% share of this year’s fire-service budget.
