G 0.1 Fire

Fire can cause severe damage to people, buildings, and their equipment. In addition to direct fire-caused damage, consequential damages can be identified that, particularly for information technology, can reach catastrophic proportions. Water damage from firefighting efforts, for example, does not only occur at the site of the fire. It can also occur in deeper parts of the building. When PVC burns, it releases chlorine gases that, combined with air moisture and fire suppression water, form hydrochloric acid. If these hydrochloric acid vapors are distributed through the air conditioning system, they can damage sensitive electronic equipment located in a part of the building far removed from the fire site. Even ordinary fire smoke can damage IT equipment in this way.

A fire can occur not only through careless handling of fire (e.g., unattended open flames, welding and soldering work), but also through improper use of electrical equipment (e.g., unattended coffee machine, overloaded power strips). Technical defects in electrical equipment can also lead to a fire.

The spread of a fire can be promoted by, among other things:

• Propping open fire safety doors with wedges,
• improper storage of flammable materials (e.g., waste paper),
• non-compliance with applicable fire prevention standards and regulations,
• missing fire detection systems (e.g., smoke detectors),
• missing or non-operational portable fire extinguishers or automatic extinguishing systems (e.g., gas extinguishing systems),
• inadequate fire prevention measures (e.g., lack of fire sealing on cable trays or use of unsuitable insulation materials for thermal and sound insulation).

Examples:

• In the early 1990s, a large data center in the Frankfurt area suffered catastrophic fire damage that resulted in complete failure.
• It regularly happens that small electrical devices, such as coffee machines or desk lamps, are improperly installed or positioned and thereby cause fires.