Fires in Electrical Rooms and Comm Rooms

[Alangh]

Hello,

I am researching information on replacing Halon systems in electrical rooms, control rooms, computer rooms and telecommunications rooms.
We expect to replace the Halon with a dry pipe sprinkler system.
Of course, the questions arises; what happens when water hits the electrical equipment?
There are, of course, a number of electrical rooms, especially power distribution rooms, that have had sprinklers for years.
Has anyone had any experience with a fire in an electrical room where the sprinklers discharged?

Thanks,

Alan

[SWLAFireDawg]

Is is set in stone that the new system will be using water as the extenguishing media? I would think a non destructive media would be preferred for that environment.

We have moved away from Halon as well, but replaced those systems with Inergen. Our particular locations are safety critical, and a water system would cause shut downs which would be of greater impact to the environment than the cost of the new sytems. Inergen is pretty "environmentally-safe" and "people-friendly", and leaves no residue.

I've never seen what happens when water hits an area like you describe, but I would imagine it would be a total loss, almost as bad as if it had burned.

And I know I sure wouldn't throw water at it even from a defensive posture, or try to enter the room in an offensive posture, until I was triple sure ALL, and I mean ALL main power to the room had been terminated.

[nmfire]

Umm. Who is the brain child behind this idea? Water. Electricity. Sensitive and critical electronics. :confused:

[doughesson]

I remember seeing in a Fire Apparatus magazine from Dec 2005 a squib about a liquid that looks and pours like water but it won't hurt electrical stuff.I'll dig through my old magazines and see what it was.
I couldn't remember what the chemical makeup was if you threatened to tell my ex my new address but the writer was sure excited about the uses around computers.
Does anyone know how that idea panned out or not?

[kerekesk]

I remember seeing in a Fire Apparatus magazine from Dec 2005 a squib about a liquid that looks and pours like water but it won't hurt electrical stuff.I'll dig through my old magazines and see what it was.
I couldn't remember what the chemical makeup was if you threatened to tell my ex my new address but the writer was sure excited about the uses around computers.
Does anyone know how that idea panned out or not?

3M makes a product called Flourinert which is a dielectric fluid. I read about it in reference to overclocking computers. It's apparently quite pricey so I doubt it'd be used to extinguish fires.

[Halligan84]

4KV and 480V switchgear rooms getting converted from CO2 to preaction systems now. Double interlock. I am far more comfortable with this system than the previous. There are some different type heads out there and piping configurations to reduce hazards.

[martinm]

My full time job is in a police communications centre which suffered a major fire last year. Give me a few days and I'll put together the report etc on it for you.

[dmleblanc]

We also switched out all our Halon fixed systems to Inergen for our critical communications and electronics rooms/buildings. I would definitely look into this option before considering a water system. A sprinkler activation could do more harm than good.

[dmleblanc]

http://www.reliablefire.com/inergenfolder/inergen.html

Here's some info....

[SWLAFireDawg]

4KV and 480V switchgear rooms getting converted from CO2 to preaction systems now. Double interlock. I am far more comfortable with this system than the previous. There are some different type heads out there and piping configurations to reduce hazards.

Good call switching from CO2...not very people friendly in high concentrations.

Are the new preaction systems the type which create the super-fine water mist? I've heard they do minimal damage, and act as a cooling / smothering system on incipient fires, creating mostly steam with minimal precipitation. Might not be a bad choice if the business can handle some slight down time.

[Halligan84]

No, they are not water mist systems although I think they would be a good alternative to Halon or Co2. Water is not a great idea for electronics or comm rooms, but high voltage switchgear is a different story. Failure of this switchgear releases tremendous energy which results in destruction of the unit. The bigger concern is cable tray fires resulting from the failure. Gaseous agents have shown very poor performance with deep seated cable fires.

[SWLAFireDawg]

Very good point....I had not really thought about it from that angle...the switchgear I mean.

And I think that may have been more of the information that the original thread was looking for.

[doughesson]

Okay,as promised here's more on what I was yammering about yesterday.
The stuff is called Tyco's Sapphire Fire suppression fluid and received numerous awards for being innovative at least.
The article didn't give much information beyond that it doesn't get things wet like water does.
The link with the article may or may not still work but it's http://www.fireapparatusinfo.com. the issue in question is Fire Apparatus' Nov/Dec 2005 issue.
Tyco Safety Products makes the stuff but there wasn't any contact information to include here.

[dmleblanc]

I've heard of that Sapphire stuff as well....pretty impressive, one demonstration I saw involved pouring a glass of the stuff directly onto a laptop computer keyboard...no harm done. I've heard you can also dunk a cell phone in it with no problem.

[DeputyMarshal]

I am researching information on replacing Halon systems in electrical rooms, control rooms, computer rooms and telecommunications rooms.
We expect to replace the Halon with a dry pipe sprinkler system.
Of course, the questions arises; what happens when water hits the electrical equipment?

You may want to consider a two-tiered system of both traditional sprinklers and an alternative suppression system that is more electrical equipment "friendly". Depending on the code system in place where you are, that may be your only alternative*. Ideally you end up with a "friendly" system that activates early, initiates a controlled electrical shutdown, and hopefully controls the fire. If it doesn't, the traditional sprinklers kick in to protect the building/occupants even if it means damage to the equipment in the protected space.

*(Our code, for instance, only allows you to omit required sprinklers in favor of an alternative system if they wouldn't be appropriate for suppression -- not just because they might damage something in the space.)

[doughesson]

I've heard of that Sapphire stuff as well....pretty impressive, one demonstration I saw involved pouring a glass of the stuff directly onto a laptop computer keyboard...no harm done. I've heard you can also dunk a cell phone in it with no problem.

But how does it mix with Koolaid?

[perrypower05]

Water + Electronics = No More Electronics!! I have seen it myself.

[Alangh]

Thanks for the great responses. You guys have a great forum here.

Alan

[Alangh]

My full time job is in a police communications centre which suffered a major fire last year. Give me a few days and I'll put together the report etc on it for you.

Thanks very much. This sounds like exactly what I am looking for. Did sprinklers go off?

Alan

[RalphSafety]

In my opinion, a pre-action system, with a double interlock, is the way to go. The double interlock will only flow water after 2 detectors have been activated, and there is enough heat generated to activate a sprinkler head, at which point you have already lost the equipment and need to protect the building structure. My location removed the Halon systems a long time ago and replaced with pre-action systems.

We recently removed the CO2 system we had, it was getting expensive to maintain, and from experience, they can be a life hazard. During an activation of a CO2 system, the door to the room was blown out, narrowly missing a firefighter.

I have used Sapphire for one small, ultra-critical room, and it is a safe system to use, but the drawback is the cost of the system. Unless you have mega-bucks or you are protecting some sort of ultra-critical facilty, like a Air Traffic Control Centre or Nuclear Power Plant, it is hard to justify the cost.

[JHR1985]

A water mist system with distilled water should work fine. Water is a conductor of electricity but only because of the minerals in the water. You distill the water and it wont conduct the electricity. For more infomation, IFSTA Fire Protection System book 3rd edition has a little more info about distilled water

[firespec35]

We are getting a FM 200 system installed at my f/t job for an area that we had a high dollar loss due to accidental waterflow. Supposedly it is a halon replacement and is people friendly. I know nothing about it because they are in the install phase and we won't get any training on it till it is done

[spareparts]

I have a question re replacing a data/telephone room sprinkler system with a clean agent system: Does your AHJ require emergency power off (shunt trips on AC mains & remotely operated DC circuit breakers on UPS batteries and 48V DC telco plant) upon clean agent discharge?

[InsuranceLCRep]

The big problem with any clean agent gas is it has one shot to get to the fire. If a damper does not close, a door is left open, or the cable guy drilled a 3” hole for a ½” wire and no one came back to fill the hole, the gas concentration needed to extinguish the fire can not be maintained and the fire does not go out. NFPA 2001 requires a fan pressurization test when the fire suppression system is commissioned. I see in many proposals or jobs it is an option and guess what, they do not want to spend the $$ for the test. So how do you know the room is tight?? The smaller the room the harder it is to pass the test. So we have companies removing sprinklers and installing a gas system only and not maintaining the enclosure. Fire occurs; fire does not go out, loss of equipment, big business interruption loss!:mad:

If you go with a gas only system make sure you have controls in place to inspect the enclosure on a regular bases for holes. Where wall and ceiling and floors meet are leak points. Install hold open devices that close when the fire detection system operates at all doors so no one places a box in front of the door to hold open the door. Make sure they install smoke detection and NOT heat detection to detect the fire. By the time the heat detector activates you already have a fire and damage. If you install Intergen rooms do not have to be as tight then with FM 200 and other gasses in this family. Make sure the IT manager does not shut of the sprinkler system because they do not want water in the room (yes as stupid as this seems I have had this happen more then once with pre-action sprinkler systems because they do not know how they operate. All they know is it is a sprinkler system.).

From an insurance point of view I recommend the following for high $$$ rooms or operations like a computer room. Install an early warning air sampling fire detection system like a Vesda systems. This system will detect the fire at the circuit board level before it gets big. It constantly samples the air for anything abnormal. Then install a double interlocked pre-action sprinkler system. If it gets hot enough to activate a sprinkler head you have a fire and who cares about water damage. I would set it up so the 2nd smoke detector drops power to the room since most fires in computer rooms are electric. Also install a shut off valve above the pre-action valve so the valve can be trip tested as required by NFPA 25 annually. With the valve shut you do not have to ever worry about water above the equipment. Make sure this valve has electronic supervision and is kept open at all times.

[InsuranceLCRep]

I have a question re replacing a data/telephone room sprinkler system with a clean agent system: Does your AHJ require emergency power off (shunt trips on AC mains & remotely operated DC circuit breakers on UPS batteries and 48V DC telco plant) upon clean agent discharge?

If they know what the heck they are doing they will ask for this. :D