T 0.1 Fire

Fire can cause severe damage to people, buildings and their facilities. In addition to damage resulting directly from fire, consequential damages can be identified, which can assume catastrophic proportions in their damage effect especially for Information Technology. Damage resulting from fire-fighting water, for instance, does not occur only at the location of the fire. It can arise also in lower lying areas of the building. During incineration of PVC, chlorine gases are produced, which form hydrochloric acid when combined with moisture in the air and water for fire-fighting. When hydrochloric acid vapour is disseminated via the air-conditioning system, damage can thus be incurred to sensitive electronic devices, located in a very remote part of the building from the scene of the fire. However, "ordinary" fire smoke can also have a damaging impact on IT-equipment in this way.

Not only negligent handling of fire (e.g. unattended open flames, welding and soldering works), but also improper use of electrical appliances (e.g. unattended coffee machine, overloading of multi-socket adapters) can result in an outbreak of fire. Technical defects of electrical equipment can lead to a fire as well.

The propagation of fire can be promoted by:

• keeping fire-proof doors open using wedges,
• inappropriate storage of combustible materials (e.g. waste paper),
• failure to follow relevant fire protection standards and instructions,
• lack of fire detection and alarm systems (e.g. smoke detectors),
• missing or unprepared hand-held or automatic fire extinguishers (gas extinguishing systems),
• inadequate fire prevention facilities (e.g. lack of fire insulation in cable routes or use of unsuitable insulating materials for thermal and acoustic insulation).

Examples:

• At the beginning of the 90s a mainframe computer centre in the Frankfurt area suffered catastrophic fire damage leading to a complete failure.
• It often happens that small electrical appliances, such as coffee machines or table lamps, are improperly installed and therefore cause fires.