A handwritten letter with a drawing by 6-year-old daughter of the fallen firefighterSCREEN CAPTURE
Among the final tributes to firefighter Kim Jin-seok, who died in the line of duty on Saturday, was a handwritten letter from his daughter with a simple yet poignant wish: "Let's meet again someday."
"Hi, dad. It's me, Ha-yun,” the 6-year-old wrote in the letter laid before Kim's memorial portrait at a funeral hall of Soon Chun Hyang University Hospital Bucheon in Gyeonggi on Sunday. The letter began with “To my dad, I miss you.”
"You left us yesterday, and I miss you so much already. We're at the funeral home now.”
Despite her age, she appeared to know just how much she had meant to her father.
"And I know I was the one you loved most," she wrote. "My deardad, let's meet again someday. I'll probably be a grown-up by then."
The letter ended with a repeated expression of love: "I love you. I miss you, dad. I love you."
She drew a heart and signed her name beneath the words. On one side of the page, she sketched red and blue fire trucks and wrote "Off to the rescue" beside them.
The letter came to public attention after ruling Democratic Party Rep. Song Young-gil shared it on Facebook on Saturday.
"Tears welled up in my eyes when I saw his memorial portrait and the letter his 6-year-old daughter Ha-yun had written to him," Song wrote. "I pledge to do everything in my power to prevent tragedies in which a firefighter's goodbye before leaving for work becomes their final farewell."
Mourners bow in front of a portrait of fallen firefighter Kim Jin-seok at a funeral hall in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, on Oct. 17.BLUE HOUSE
Kim was among the crew first sent to contain a factory fire in Bucheon on Friday. He died at a hospital at around 12:55 a.m. Saturday despite medical treatment, while another firefighter suffered serious injuries.
The fire broke out at a metal injection molding and printing factory in Ojeong District at around 8:38 a.m. Firefighters brought the blaze under control two hours and 28 minutes later.
Kim reportedly planned to move his family into a new apartment in Gyeonggi in the coming weeks.
The government plans to honor Kim with a posthumous promotion from fire sergeant to fire lieutenant and the Aquamarine Stripes of the Order of Service Merit. It will also arrange for his burial at a national cemetery.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
