One of the most serious national problems is the shortage of houses, especially in great cities. Housing shortage resulted from an overpopulated city brought the high-rise apartment buildings. While these buildings provide city-dwellers with much more houses, they have the basic fire safety problem in proportion to their heights. In these respect, this study aims to present the basic data for the fire safety design of high-rise apartment buildings. In this study, national fire damage statistics of past eleven years were investigated and the problem of the fire safety design of high-rise apartment buildings was studied through the methods of questions, observations and records on the representative six high-rise apartment buildings in seoul.