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I don't understand this sentiment. It is an industrial site. Nobody got hurt. The fire didn't spread to other people's property. Why are you all so upset about

I don't understand this sentiment. It is an industrial site. Nobody got hurt. The fire didn't spread to other people's property. Why are you all so upset about this?

cbg0 5y ago
It could have spread, and people could have gotten hurt. If you have a useful head on your shoulders, then you should have a proactive mindset and try to prevent issues instead of sending thoughts and prayers after the fact.
- krisoft 5y ago
  > It could have spread, and people could have gotten hurt. Could it though? It is a standalone installation on an industrial site. There are about ten meter-ish standoff between them and their neighbours. (which is also an industrial site) > If you have a useful head on your shoulders, then you should have a proactive mindset and try to prevent issues And if you have an even more useful head on your shoulders you calibrate your level of upset to the level of actual danger.
  - lbriner 5y ago
    If you think 10m is enough of a fire break, you have no experience of fire. The infra-red heat that comes off of a fire is incredibly intense and can easily spread those distances as that distance, especially if pieces of flammable debris were to bridge the gap. It woul dbe fair enough if that design was recognised and signed-off by the local inspectors, then no-one would complain but it sounds like they were just not doing the risk assessment properly.
  - magicalhippo 5y ago
    > There are about ten meter-ish standoff between them and their neighbours. Here in Norway there was a vicious fire[1] in a small town in 2014. It was during winter, and it had been below freezing for months before. If you think 10m is enough to contain a fire, here's a quote from the Wikipedia article: For a while it was thought that the [village's ice rink] would be a fireline. But the fire made a jump of over 130 meters, and then set fire to a water truck. [1]: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brannen_i_L%C3%A6rdal_2014 https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brannen_i_L%C3%A6rdal_2014
  - breakingcups 5y ago
    Yes, firemen and the technical personnel who had to turn off the power in a room with 1-meter long arcs definitely could have gotten hurt. Also, > the level of actual danger was quite high, 10 meter is nowhere near enough to ensure a fire won't jump over and it might suit you not to make insinuations on the level of danger if you don't have enough experience in the area you're talking about.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wiz21c 5y ago
I don't understand your sentiment. The design choices created substantial risk to the life of firefighters.
KyeRussell 5y ago
Why is Hacker News uniquely such a hotbed for uninformed libertarianism? 1. There were concerns about lead poisoning that were only quelled with testing. I doubt you have knowledge beyond an environmental protection agency, or a crystal ball. 2. As someone else has already said, a break that small for a fire that large is laughable. 3. Fighting this fire put human life at risk. 4. Fighting this fire also used resources that could’ve been allocated elsewhere, or not at all. Every business operation does not exist in its own vacuum, and you cannot say that concern is illegitimate just because “nothing bad happened”. Again, you did not have a crystal ball then, and you still don’t.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  It’s a pretty common attitude in software and business. A significant number of people mistake their work implementing processes in software as domain expertise. (Why would I talk to a building engineer, I has the Google?) It’s a type of hubris or arrogance. Often times software people get deep in the weeds and think a lot about a particular problem set, but don’t realize that they are actually working inside a fence and don’t see the bigger picture. It’s just like driving - your skill on a racecourse is scoped by the ability of generations of engineering of the brakes that enable you to go fast. Nowadays, we have mid career tech people here who have never known anything but building stuff in clouds, and have had everything related to building facilities magically taken care of behind the AWS curtain. Anything related to datacenter facilities is black magic.
  - cbg0 5y ago
    That's some nasty gatekeeping right there.
Spooky23 5y ago
I think the upset is a general feeling, not necessarily at the incident. Living in a modern era, I think we take for granted that the building regulations prevent this type of disaster, and it looks like they don’t. Even in an industrial park, one would expect that engineering effort would have gone into fire suppression and safety systems. It’s easy to wave off something as “whatever, it’s an industrial facility”, but skimping on things like shutoff switches is a demonstration that the company was chasing pennies and putting worker lives at risk. Nobody got hurt because nobody was there.
boringg 5y ago
I think the sentiment is this was easily avoidable if the company had put in some standard technology. It feels like there were corners cut and maybe even the data center was built in an area that had lax fire standards to lower the cost.

I don't understand this sentiment. It is an industrial site. Nobody got hurt. The fire didn't spread to other people's property. Why are you all so upset about this?

cbg0 5y ago

It could have spread, and people could have gotten hurt. If you have a useful head on your shoulders, then you should have a proactive mindset and try to prevent issues instead of sending thoughts and prayers after the fact.

krisoft 5y ago
> It could have spread, and people could have gotten hurt. Could it though? It is a standalone installation on an industrial site. There are about ten meter-ish standoff between them and their neighbours. (which is also an industrial site) > If you have a useful head on your shoulders, then you should have a proactive mindset and try to prevent issues And if you have an even more useful head on your shoulders you calibrate your level of upset to the level of actual danger.
- lbriner 5y ago
  If you think 10m is enough of a fire break, you have no experience of fire. The infra-red heat that comes off of a fire is incredibly intense and can easily spread those distances as that distance, especially if pieces of flammable debris were to bridge the gap. It woul dbe fair enough if that design was recognised and signed-off by the local inspectors, then no-one would complain but it sounds like they were just not doing the risk assessment properly.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > There are about ten meter-ish standoff between them and their neighbours. Here in Norway there was a vicious fire[1] in a small town in 2014. It was during winter, and it had been below freezing for months before. If you think 10m is enough to contain a fire, here's a quote from the Wikipedia article: For a while it was thought that the [village's ice rink] would be a fireline. But the fire made a jump of over 130 meters, and then set fire to a water truck. [1]: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brannen_i_L%C3%A6rdal_2014 https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brannen_i_L%C3%A6rdal_2014
- breakingcups 5y ago
  Yes, firemen and the technical personnel who had to turn off the power in a room with 1-meter long arcs definitely could have gotten hurt. Also, > the level of actual danger was quite high, 10 meter is nowhere near enough to ensure a fire won't jump over and it might suit you not to make insinuations on the level of danger if you don't have enough experience in the area you're talking about.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wiz21c 5y ago

I don't understand your sentiment. The design choices created substantial risk to the life of firefighters.

KyeRussell 5y ago

Why is Hacker News uniquely such a hotbed for uninformed libertarianism? 1. There were concerns about lead poisoning that were only quelled with testing. I doubt you have knowledge beyond an environmental protection agency, or a crystal ball. 2. As someone else has already said, a break that small for a fire that large is laughable. 3. Fighting this fire put human life at risk. 4. Fighting this fire also used resources that could’ve been allocated elsewhere, or not at all. Every business operation does not exist in its own vacuum, and you cannot say that concern is illegitimate just because “nothing bad happened”. Again, you did not have a crystal ball then, and you still don’t.

Spooky23 5y ago
It’s a pretty common attitude in software and business. A significant number of people mistake their work implementing processes in software as domain expertise. (Why would I talk to a building engineer, I has the Google?) It’s a type of hubris or arrogance. Often times software people get deep in the weeds and think a lot about a particular problem set, but don’t realize that they are actually working inside a fence and don’t see the bigger picture. It’s just like driving - your skill on a racecourse is scoped by the ability of generations of engineering of the brakes that enable you to go fast. Nowadays, we have mid career tech people here who have never known anything but building stuff in clouds, and have had everything related to building facilities magically taken care of behind the AWS curtain. Anything related to datacenter facilities is black magic.
- cbg0 5y ago
  That's some nasty gatekeeping right there.

Spooky23 5y ago

I think the upset is a general feeling, not necessarily at the incident. Living in a modern era, I think we take for granted that the building regulations prevent this type of disaster, and it looks like they don’t. Even in an industrial park, one would expect that engineering effort would have gone into fire suppression and safety systems. It’s easy to wave off something as “whatever, it’s an industrial facility”, but skimping on things like shutoff switches is a demonstration that the company was chasing pennies and putting worker lives at risk. Nobody got hurt because nobody was there.

boringg 5y ago

I think the sentiment is this was easily avoidable if the company had put in some standard technology. It feels like there were corners cut and maybe even the data center was built in an area that had lax fire standards to lower the cost.