A fire broke out at the gas room on the second floor of the M15X building in SK Hynix's Cheongju campus at 9:50 AM local time on June 12, according to reports. Following the incident, approximately 3,600 employees from both the M15 and M15X facilities were immediately evacuated.
The fire was extinguished by on-site personnel. Authorities have confirmed there were no casualties and no gas leaks have been detected. Investigations are ongoing to determine the exact cause of the fire and to verify the total number of people evacuated.
SK Hynix stated that the incident "appears to have occurred during work related to gases." The company also noted that, as evacuated employees have not yet returned to their posts, it is "still checking whether production equipment has been affected."
Previous Fire Incident at the Same Plant
This is not the first incident at the Cheongju facility. Just 11 days prior, on June 1 at 10:32 AM, a fire occurred in a gas room on the sixth floor of a connecting area between the same M15 and M15X factories. Reports indicated the fire was quickly controlled after the sprinkler system activated, but some fluorine gas leaked during the incident, resulting in six injuries. The injured were taken to the company hospital for treatment.
That earlier accident also triggered the emergency evacuation of roughly 3,600 employees.
A spokesperson for SK Hynix at the time stated, "We immediately completed the evacuation of all personnel, and the fire has been extinguished. We will cooperate with relevant authorities in investigating the cause and will file a report with the competent agencies." The company added that equipment operations were not abnormal, production was not interrupted, and employees would return to work after safety checks were completed.
The M15 and M15X facilities are core semiconductor manufacturing plants for SK Hynix in Cheongju. In both incidents, the point of origin was a gas room—a critical area in chip manufacturing used for storing and supplying special process gases.
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