Escape rooms should protect against fire hazards: Ministry

Rooms provided for takagism, or escape-room games, should take necessary precautions against fire, according to an announcement issued Saturday.

An escape room is a game where a team of players cooperatively discover clues, solve puzzles and accomplish tasks to get out of the enclosed space.

Recreation sites providing escape-room games should seriously ensure the safety of players. Those places are full of colorful flashes and sounds that could easily mislead players while fleeing for their lives in a fire, the Fire and Rescue Department of the Ministry of Emergency Management said.

Those places are organized by sized cells and most are set up on a one-way path. They use combustible materials in the setting and props, such as draperies, paper windows and plastic plants, which produce a lot of smoke and even toxic gas if on fire, and will hinder evacuation and rescue in a fire.

In 2019, five young girls died in a fire in Poland when they were surrounded by fire in an escape-room. Earlier this year, a Chinese woman was injured in such a room full of lights while immersing herself in a character game in Central China's Hunan province.