Slashdot Mirror
Fire Destroys Southampton Fibre-Optics Center
Sam Haine '95 writes "BBC News reports that a fire has burnt down a CS facility at the University of Southampton. It's notable because the facility was one of the best in the world." From the article: "Some of the most advanced research work in the country, and indeed the world was carried out in this facility ... We probably will have to start from scratch, and it will take a couple of years to rebuild the facility"
I'm only speculating, but I hope for their sake they have all of their data backed up and off-site. How ironic would it be for a company steeped in high speed communications technology ostensibly with the capability to set up their own redundant high-speed SAN to lose data and research in the fire? I'm hoping they didn't, but wonder if they did, considering their projection of a couple years to recover, and also having to start from scratch. Does that mean for the research?, or the building only?
What about the building's fire sprinkler system? Why did it fail? Or why didn't it have one?
It's amazing how much fire can destroy and how fast. Even with advanced fire suppression systems, fire departments, etc. Without any of these, fire can be even more devastating. I was talking with a guy who said they don't have a fire department in his area, and that when there is a remote fire department responding, it's too little to late. Fires in his area take out acres and acres of land and homes. It's impossible to get insurance in the area. I joined my local volunteer fire department about a year and a half ago, and I never realized until then just how frequent fires are, and how easily they can get out of control. The biggest thing is to prepare for the worst and pray for the best.
Sig: I stole this sig.
There's also the question of cannisters exploding... Cannisters generally don't do this - they tend to be rather boring, not even speaking much, unless there's something already happening. Cannisters will react to heat - but, like I said, a halon system should have dealt with heat sources long before they became a threat. Cannisters with explosive gasses CAN explode if the valve is leaky and there is a static discharge. But anyone leaving highly explosive substances around massive sources of static, or indeed, in containers that are faulty - well, they should expect something like this. You should generally store cannisters and gas cylinders in well-ventillated but secure locations containing no combustible materials or materials likely to pick up a static charge.
In practice, you can't go around stowing every single piece of equiptment in absolutely ideal conditions. In consequence, accidents like this are going to happen. Because they are going to happen, the important thing is to keep the impact to a minimum. A lot of effort over the years has gone, not only in building fire suppressing systems, but also in figuring out how to build structures that will contain a fire. The slower a fire can spread, the more likely it is to exhaust fuel and/or oxygen before it can find more.
Now, explosions get more problematic. Once you get explosions, there's not a whole lot even the best design can do, because you have to assume that there will be a sizable area affected. Aside from minimizing risk (through correct handling and operating procedurea) and trapping precursors (such as nearby fires, static, etc), there's not much that can be done. If you want to have a building survive explosions, you've got to design it very differently - lots of honeycombed structures that can absorb the high energies involved, for example. On the whole, though, you wouldn't design a fibre optics centre that way. Fibre isn't known for exploding. Fireworks factories SHOULD be built that way, and a lot of people killed in such explosions might well be alive if such buildings WERE built correctly for the conditions, but that's a whole different ball-game.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The building is/was part of Electronics and Computer Science (http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/, but the servers are down at the moment). It was a postgrad/research building (no undergrads). I did my PhD research there 7 years ago.
I know there is computer science research being done in the building, which is shaped like a 'U'. From what I saw on the news, the fire started in (and destroyed) the other side of the building (the opposite leg of the 'U') where the the clean rooms and laboratories are. It seems to have burned the side of the facing leg of the U off too.
I was working in the Optoelectronics Research Center (http://www.orc.soton.ac.uk/) when I was there. The sort of research they do isn't going to be restored from backup tapes. Some past results may be, but even without fires I often heard stories about people losing years of work when their hard disk crashed or laptop was stolen.
Obviously you know little about fire in the real world.
Wood is one of the better materials to have in a fire. Yes it burns, but it has the rare characteristic that it gives warning before it fails. A steel floor feels perfectly stable underfoot while the firefighters are rushing around, and then suddenly reaches the fail point and falls. A wood floor starts feeling softer and softer underfoot until it suddenly fails. Fire fighters can estimate how much time they have left before the building goes by feel. (though odds are this building did not have wood floors)
Wood is a good insulator, while steel conducts. A wood door will resist fire longer than a solid steel door, which will start whatever is on the other side of the door on fire. (steel fire doors have insulation inside that is better than solid steel, so this is a non-factor, but it is important to consider)
Paper covered drywall is a great thing to have in a fire. 5/8inch drywall is good for 1 hour in a typical home fire. Multi-unit dwellings have drywall between all units for this reason.
While smoke is always harmful, the smoke from a wood fire is much less harmfull than most other things that burn.
Wood desks do not burn easily. The heat tends to spread too fast to catch the rest of the desk on fire. If the building is on fire the wood desks will make it worse, but if you start a wood desk on fire in the middle of a room (where nothing else will burn) it is unlikely to spread to the next desk. (note that I'm talking solid wood, composites behave differently in fire)
Proper construction is much more complex than you realize.