Short answer. Yes. Article 89 allows an employer to require overtime work when it is necessary to prevent loss of life or property during an actual or impending emergency such as a fire, flood, typhoon, or earthquake. Even though the overtime is compulsory in this situation, the employee must still be paid the additional compensation the law requires.
What the law says
Emergency overtime work. Any employee may be required by the employer to perform overtime work in any of the following cases: When the country is at war or when any other national or local emergency has been declared by the National Assembly or the Chief Executive; When it is necessary to prevent loss of life or property or in case of imminent danger to public safety due to an actual or impending emergency in the locality caused by serious accidents, fire, flood, typhoon, earthquake, epidemic, or other disaster or calamity; When there is urgent work to be performed on machines, installations, or equipment, in order to avoid serious loss or damage to the employer or some other cause of similar nature; When the work is necessary to prevent loss or damage to perishable goods; and Where the completion or continuation of the work started before the eighth hour is necessary to prevent serious obstruction or prejudice to the business or operations of the employer. Any employee required to render overtime work under this Article shall be paid the additional compensation required in this Chapter.
Labor Code, Article 89 — Emergency Overtime Work. Read the full provision →
The emergency ground, specifically
Article 89 lists disaster-related emergency work as one of the situations where overtime can be required: when it is necessary to prevent loss of life or property or in case of imminent danger to public safety due to an actual or impending emergency in the locality caused by serious accidents, fire, flood, typhoon, earthquake, epidemic, or other disaster or calamity. A fire or typhoon situation fits squarely within this description, so long as the overtime is genuinely necessary to prevent loss of life or property, or to address imminent danger to public safety.
This is one of several emergency-type grounds, not the only one
The article lists other situations authorizing compulsory overtime alongside the disaster ground: when the country is at war or a national or local emergency has been declared, when urgent work on machines or equipment is needed to avoid serious loss or damage, when it is necessary to prevent loss or damage to perishable goods, and when finishing work already started before the eighth hour is necessary to prevent serious obstruction or prejudice to the employer's business. The fire-or-typhoon scenario falls under the disaster clause specifically, but the article recognizes several distinct emergency-type triggers.
Being required to work does not mean working for free
Article 89 closes with an express instruction that ties back to all of the listed grounds: any employee required to render overtime work under this Article shall be paid the additional compensation required in this Chapter. The compulsory nature of emergency overtime under this article does not remove the employer's obligation to pay for it; the emergency justifies requiring the work, not withholding the pay that goes with it.
What the article leaves unaddressed
Article 89 does not itself define how severe a fire or typhoon must be before it counts as the kind of emergency the article describes, nor does it specify a cap on how many additional hours can be demanded in a given situation. Those judgment calls depend on the actual facts of the emergency and are not spelled out in the text. What is clear is that being asked to work through a genuine fire or typhoon emergency to prevent loss of life or property is something the law allows, provided the required additional compensation is paid.