Understanding the Risks

Data centers contain a high number of fire hazards because of the high concentration of electrical equipment, cabling, and cooling systems. Electrical faults or overheating, combined with the presence of combustible materials can quickly escalate into a fire. Therefore, a comprehensive fire protection strategy is essential to keep the data safe from these risks.

Special Environments

Fire protection engineers categorize data centers as special environments. This is a type of environment that contains sensitive information which might be vulnerable to a fire, but using water to put out a fire would damage the sensitive equipment it is intended to protect. This means that common fire protection systems that use large amounts of water such as traditional sprinkler systems are not suitable for fire protection.

So, the question is, how are we supposed to fight a fire with little to no water?

Understanding the Elements a Fire Needs to Burn

Fire requires three elements to burn: oxygen, heat, and fuel in the form of some kind of flammable material. Traditional sprinkler systems combat fire with water, which drenches the fire and surrounding area with water, removing heat and potential fuel sources. However, when there is a need to protect a special environment, there are some fire suppression systems that focus on combatting oxygen, and relies less on drenching the area with water.

Here are three examples of these systems that use less water:

Clean Agent Systems

A clean agent fire suppression system uses an inert gas or chemical that is stored in a container, which is then discharged when a fire is detected. This system helps to suppress the fire without harming the equipment, environment or employees. The NFPA 2001 Standard on Clean Agent Fire Extinguishing Systems defines clean agents as electrically non-conductive, volatile, or gaseous fire extinguishing agents that do not leave a residue upon evaporation.

Water Mist System

This system uses high pressure water to produce very fine water droplets. By spraying a large amount of very small droplets, this creates a large water surface area which can lower temperatures more readily. When these tiny droplets turn to vapor, a great amount of oxygen and heat is absorbed from the fire. The water mist system has high efficiency against fires and because they use less water, the minimize impact and water damage to sensitive areas in data centers.

Dual Agent Fire System

A third option is a dual agent fire extinguishing system. A unique alternative is a dual agent fire extinguishing system which uses a combination of two different types of suppression agents in order to provide a higher standard of fire protection.

For example, Victaulic has a hybrid fire extinguishing system that emits extremely fine water droplets smaller than white blood cells, alongside nitrogen gas. The addition of nitrogen dilutes the air and allows the small water particles to absorb the heat, which means the atmosphere does not support combustion. This system effectively extinguishes fires with next to zero wetting, no expensive clean-up, equipment damage or any profit loss from systems being offline. Because it has close to no wetting, this design is great for data centers which could be rendered inoperable by even small amounts of water damage. This is an environmentally green design that uses non-toxic agents to keep personnel safe during activation.

Special environments are very valuable but with the right fire protection system, you can be confident that your information remains secure in the event of a fire.

RAN Fire Protection Engineering are experts at designing the best fire protection systems to suit the needs of your special environment. Get in touch today.