According to Kia, at around 7:40 pm on the 28th, sparks flew and smoke occurred at the painting facility of Kia Autoland’s 3rd factory in Hwaseong, South Korea. When the fire broke out, the automatic fire extinguisher in the factory was sprayed, and Kia’s own fire brigade was dispatched to the scene to extinguish the fire. The fire was said to have been completely extinguished around 9:30 p.m.
There were no casualties, but the operation of the painting line was suspended as eight robots broke down. The rest of the processes, such as press, body, and assembly, were in normal operation until the morning of the 29th, but as the painting line restoration work was delayed, it was eventually decided to suspend the entire operation of the 3rd plant.
Labor and management held an emergency temporary industrial safety and health committee meeting and agreed to grant a nine-day rest period from this day to the 6th of next month to assembly and painting line workers at the third factory that caught fire. During this period, a detailed fire investigation involving external experts and an emergency inspection of facilities such as robots will be conducted.
The third plant in Hwaseong produces three models: K5, K8, and EV6. Among them, the K5 and K8 are models produced only at the Hwaseong Plant 3. With operations suspended for a week, production of these vehicles is also expected to suffer some setbacks. Meanwhile, factories 1 and 2 in Hwaseong, which produce K3, Niro, K7, Sorento, and Mohave, are operating normally.
