President Moon Jae-in has ordered officials to look into why enhanced fire safety measures did not work, his spokesman said, a day after a warehouse fire killed at least 38 people and injured 10 others.

Moon made the remarks while presiding over an emergency meeting with his chief of staff and other senior secretaries at Cheong Wa Dae's crisis management center to discuss Wednesday's warehouse fire in Icheon, about 50 kilometers south of Seoul.

"Fire safety measures have been strengthened since my administration came into office, and we need to look into why they didn't work at the scene," Moon was quoted as saying by presidential spokesman Kang Min-seok.

"We need to seek watertight fire safety measures and ways to implement them to make sure this kind of incident won't happen again," Moon said during the meeting at the crisis management center, also known as the "Cheong Wa Dae bunker."

Moon held a similar crisis meeting on Wednesday night.

The fire, which injured 10 people, two of them seriously, engulfed a four-story building under construction on Wednesday afternoon and was put out five hours later. (Yonhap)