The fire came less than two weeks after a similar incident at the same plant on June 1.
According to workers and fire officials, flames started at around 9:55 a.m. in a gas room on the second floor of its M15X facility at the plant. The fire was fully extinguished within about 10 minutes after the automatic sprinkler system was activated.
The fire is believed to have occurred while six workers were mixing fluorine and nitrogen inside the room. Fluorine is toxic to humans.
All employees were immediately evacuated due to concerns over a possible gas leak. Fire authorities said no gas leak was detected, but about 13 workers who complained of symptoms such as dizziness were taken to an on-site hospital.
One worker at the scene suffered a first-degree burn to his ankle, while the rest were apparently found to have no health issues.
With authorities reportedly still unable to determine the cause of the fire earlier this month, SK hynix had launched a companywide campaign from June 4 to June 10 in response to a series of recent incidents.
The M15X facility is one of SK hynix's key production bases for manufacturing next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a critical component used in artificial intelligence (AI)-related applications.
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