Fire in UPS room at Linx headquarters in Porto Alegre

What happened

On Sunday 10 March 2019 a fire broke out in a room housing uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units at the six-storey headquarters of Linx on Rua Olavo Barreto Viana in the Moinhos de Vento district of Porto Alegre, Brazil. The headquarters building contains the company's data centre. Linx said the UPS room is isolated and physically separated, on different floors from the data centre. Fire service personnel said one or two battery or electronic units burned in a small, closed room, and heat destroyed nearby objects.

At least eight firefighters with two fire appliances attended for about 30 minutes, and part of the road was partially blocked for the trucks. The building was closed until 14 March. Linx said no client was affected and services continued normally. According to the fire service, the building had emergency lighting, extinguishers where required by law, an internal hydrant system and a sprinkler system. No cause was given.

Contributing factors

No cause was reported. The fire service said the room was small and closed, and that heat spread to nearby objects. The source states the building had emergency lighting, extinguishers, a hydrant system and a sprinkler system.

Lessons learned

1. Locate UPS battery rooms in fire-separated compartments with detection and suppression suited to battery fires, and check that the separation is maintained in practice.
2. Assess how heat from a small battery room fire can damage adjacent objects and equipment, and confirm that sprinklers or other suppression cover the room.
3. Ensure data centre services can fail over to redundant power or sites so that a fire in a power room does not affect clients, and plan for a building closure after an incident.

More lessons on detection and monitoring, fire suppression and firefighting, from every incident on the register.

Source

baguete.com.br