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Data centers have the potential for fire and so local fire departments must spend resources being prepared for such a thing. Edit: water (and sometimes electri

Data centers have the potential for fire and so local fire departments must spend resources being prepared for such a thing. Edit: water (and sometimes electricity) are local services also and data centers use quite a bit of these.

AussieWog93 2mo ago
Not a data centre expert, but don't they quite famously pump CO2 into the server rooms automatically if the fire alarms go off, even if there are people in the room?
- dividedbyzero 2mo ago
  That's not always a thing and doesn't help with fires in the rest of the complex. Backup generators, fuel depots, power distribution, large-scale cooling infrastructure all pose fire hazards even when facilities are built with actual regulation. The current AI buildout in the US happens pretty much without any meaningful regulation and gives the impression they'd build unshielded nuclear reactors serviced by children while running if they felt they could get it running cheaper and faster.
  - trollbridge 2mo ago
    Yes, that’s exactly my impression. When regulations do exist they use political means to try to evade them for a 1% cost savings.
- officeplant 2mo ago
  C02 fire suppression is rare in datacenters. That's more of an offshore thing in my experience (I design fire suppression systems for a living, and do life safety systems). Typically server rooms are currently Fluoro-K / Novec123 if they have space constraints on the suppression systems. Those cylinders take up the least space per cubic foot of protected environments. These are less harmful than previous gasses like Halon, but still not good for the environment. If you're lucky we get given ample room for cylinders and can go with Argon suppression systems, but that can take up more than 4 or 5 times the space alone and adds a lot of cost in engineering manifolds, etc. CO2 takes up as much space as Argon systems and will kill someone who doesn't leave the hazard area before release so its generally not used in any datacenter project I've done. Powerplant's at datacenters often use drychem systems instead or foam releasing systems.
trollbridge 2mo ago
I can affirm that local fire departments are not spending resources preparing for data centre fires in any special way. However, I can attest a recently built DC used political means to dodge aspects of fire codes (mostly related to building road infrastructure for fire truck ingress). Amazon also secured a 75% reduction in property taxes for 30 years.

AussieWog93 2mo ago

Not a data centre expert, but don't they quite famously pump CO2 into the server rooms automatically if the fire alarms go off, even if there are people in the room?

dividedbyzero 2mo ago
That's not always a thing and doesn't help with fires in the rest of the complex. Backup generators, fuel depots, power distribution, large-scale cooling infrastructure all pose fire hazards even when facilities are built with actual regulation. The current AI buildout in the US happens pretty much without any meaningful regulation and gives the impression they'd build unshielded nuclear reactors serviced by children while running if they felt they could get it running cheaper and faster.
- trollbridge 2mo ago
  Yes, that’s exactly my impression. When regulations do exist they use political means to try to evade them for a 1% cost savings.
officeplant 2mo ago
C02 fire suppression is rare in datacenters. That's more of an offshore thing in my experience (I design fire suppression systems for a living, and do life safety systems). Typically server rooms are currently Fluoro-K / Novec123 if they have space constraints on the suppression systems. Those cylinders take up the least space per cubic foot of protected environments. These are less harmful than previous gasses like Halon, but still not good for the environment. If you're lucky we get given ample room for cylinders and can go with Argon suppression systems, but that can take up more than 4 or 5 times the space alone and adds a lot of cost in engineering manifolds, etc. CO2 takes up as much space as Argon systems and will kill someone who doesn't leave the hazard area before release so its generally not used in any datacenter project I've done. Powerplant's at datacenters often use drychem systems instead or foam releasing systems.

trollbridge 2mo ago

I can affirm that local fire departments are not spending resources preparing for data centre fires in any special way. However, I can attest a recently built DC used political means to dodge aspects of fire codes (mostly related to building road infrastructure for fire truck ingress). Amazon also secured a 75% reduction in property taxes for 30 years.