Hong Beom Seok is a South Korean former special forces soldier of the Republic of South Korea, former firefighter and military, exercise, and firefighter YouTube content creator with kthd.studio. After enlisting in the Special Warfare Command in 2006 and being commissioned to the 164th Special Warfare NCO, he served in the 11th Airborne Special Warfare Brigade for one year, and later moved to the 707th Special Mission Battalion, where he served from 2007 to 2012. In 2012, he served in the 11th Brigade until 2014 with his next three years serving in the 707th Special Mission Battalion until he was discharged as a sergeant in 2017.
In 2017, he was appointed as a firefighter as a rescue specialist. He is Korea’s first world firefighters competition champion by winning the championship’s top title of Toughest Firefighter Alive (TFA) at the 2018 World Firefighter Competition held in Chungju, beating 150 firefighters in a four-day TFA sport/event, which consists of hose pulling, an obstacle course, and a tower and stair climbing. He further demonstrated his physical/athletic abilities by winning first place in both the individual and team competition segments of the show "The Soldiers", a global elite military survival TV series. He quit being a firefighter in 2022 to focus on competitions that can showcase his physical abilities.
(Source: Korean = Namu Wiki || Translation = MyDramaList)
