Generator short circuit starts fire at Bitcom facility in Caxias do Sul

What happened

A fire broke out at about 9 a.m. on Saturday 7 September 2019 at the downtown Caxias do Sul facility of Bitcom, an internet, telephone and pay television provider serving about 50,000 customers in the region. The reported cause was a short circuit in one of the facility's generators, after a car struck a utility pole on Rua Vinte de Setembro and cut mains power. The company said the fire started at the back of the building and spread to other areas.

Four fire trucks attended. Two people inside the building left without injury. Internet and telephone services were disrupted. By early Monday broadband had been restored to 85 percent of subscribers, and corporate cloud, email and hosting services were expected back by 12 September. The source suggests that the company may have physically moved equipment to a second site a little over 100 metres away, and that the fire service authorised the move once the fire was under control.

Contributing factors

Loss of mains power after a road traffic collision with a utility pole. The reported cause was a short circuit in a generator, which the source does not confirm through an investigation. The source does not report on the generator's maintenance or protection, or on the building's fire separation.

Lessons learned

1. Backup generators and their connections need protection, inspection and maintenance, because a fault on standby power can start a fire.
2. Sites should test the switchover to standby power and the fault response regularly, including sudden loss of mains supply.
3. Keep critical power equipment in fire-separated spaces, and have a tested plan to restore or relocate services to a second site.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, outages, backup supply and restoration, from every incident on the register.

Source

baguete.com.br