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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?
This sounds like the work of a disgruntled CS student turned MBA. After all, how better to learn about screwing your former classmates than burning down their building (unless you made sure they were inside it at the time) :P
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Francis Chee, a postgraduate student at the university, was at the scene of the fire. He said: "There are a lot of liquid nitrogen tanks outside the building and they use liquid nitrogen heavily there. I did hear several explosions sounding like gas canisters going off."
Obviously not a chem grad student... nitrogen would have helped put out the fire. Still, the exploding canisters act like rockets and prevent fire-fighters from getting close.
The only two things that I can think of that might be of some consolation are that because this dealt with technology much of the research should be in electronic form and backed up and that many times you'll discover a more efficient way of doing things when you go back and design the same thing a second time (although one normally does not have the luxury/misfortune to do so).
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
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.
...I'm specifically thinking about the one that took out the Debian servers last year. (Too tired to find a link...sorry.)
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BBC just so happens to have a webform specifically for grammar errors. Instead of posting it on slashdot, simply submit the correction here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_395 0000/newsid_3955200/3955259.stm
First Google buys all unused fiber optics:/ 28/2156233&tid=217&tid=230&tid=193
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/08
To corner the market.
And now mysterious fires ravage the competition.
When cold stuff gets hot it expands! Expansion in an enclosed space leads to explosions when the container eventually fails.
I think that after two examples (the other being the Ardman fire) of why you should invest in proper fire suppression equipment in one month's time in one nation should be enough to make people realize that such systems are a worthwhile investment.
Then again, such things are usually put low on the list of priorities whenever possible, because "it won't happen to us".
You can even get the upper hand when explosives are present, you can get systems that will have fire suppressants leaving the discharge head before the explosion is even visible (some systems are guaranteed to have the suppressant flowing in less than 50 milliseconds of onset of the event that triggers the release.)
I suppose it just comes down to a matter of deciding how much you value your operation and assets.
Hmm, not knowing that liquid nitrogen becomes gaseous nitrogen when you apply heat, and that very high pressure makes containers explode...? And after you've mocked someone else...? Even more priceless!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Combined, you're looking at an easy 5 years lost research time best case scenario. Worst case scenario you're looking at anywhere between 10~30 years lost time since some scientists may not want to wait for the facilities to be rebuilt and just take their expertise elsewhere and their not the sort you can replace easily. Theres always the distant (but unlikely) possibility, that they might not even rebuild the facilties and simply shelf or sell off the data to others.
And of course, this doesn't even touch the financial costs, the damage to the school's prestige and damage to the school's pride.
A massive fire has destroyed a leading computer science research facility.... They should've invested in a better firewall...
...what all these researchers are going to do now that they're out of work?
I bet they're glad to be alive... what if they had been in the building when the explosion happened? An event like that is certainly going to effect the very fiber of their beings.
Be relentless!
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.
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Just a correction on the news item: the actual CS department was unharmed, and CS students are unlikely to be directly affected at all. According to an interview with the admin Chris Gutteridge on Surge FM (Coral) (the Uni radio), all students files and documents are safe and were backed up. The internal intranet and internet connectivity is still up, although a couple of servers have been cut off. It is electronics students and researchers who have lost out here.
For those that aren't aware, Soton has a combined electronics and computer science facility. Electronics in Mountbatten, and CS in the attached Zepler building. Only Mountbatten was affected, and Zepler recieved only minor smoke and heat damage. This is remarkable as Mountbatten has been entirely gutted due to the explosions, whereas Zepler appears to be otherwise perfectly fine.
Mountbatten did have a modern sprinkler system, quite why it failed and why the fire escalated will be investigate in the next few days. There are also concerns over the lack of information about chemicals stored there, which prevented fire crews from stopping the fire earlier.
Yep, the Mountbatten building houses most of the electronic / microchip facilities for southampton. According to my brother (a student there), the fire's taken out the Clean Room, used for chip fab. Seeing how the cost for building clean rooms start in the millions, that's gotta hurt.
I'm an alumnus of Southampton Uni - I graduated 10 years ago and revisit the city (and sometimes the campus) once or twice a year. I had a few lectures in that building, but mostly I was in Maths on the other side of the campus.
:-/ /me keeps an eye out for photoblogs
The building in question is in a very tightly-packed part of the campus, and if memory serves is probably only about 200yds from the neighbouring houses (Hartley Road etc). So it sounds like it could have easily been a lot worse.
On the plus side, the campus is on top of the edge of the river valley, so the whole of the nearby Itchen valley would have been treated to an early fireworks display
If it did, you could use something a lot cheaper like CO2. 1301 halts fires when it's at only 3 to 7% concentration, barely diluting the oxygen let alone displacing it.
What happens is much more interesting and I've never found a good reference with a complete explanation. Under heat, loose halogen atoms break off the halon molecules and react with short-lived intermediate molecules from the combustion process, taking them out of circulation and breaking the reaction chain.
I looked into this once trying to figure out if the chemistry is related to that behind ozone depletion, but never found out.
The scientists at Southhampton were saddend by news of the Japenese doing a dvd in 0.5seconds, the best they had managed was in 4 seconds. So, late at night, confident that they could better it if they just increased the voltage a bit (they use overclockers.com for tips) they tried. It got hot, but lo! Wasn't there some liquid nitrogen around? But they still couldn't beat the Japense, so up the voltage went again. And then Bob, the youngest scientist used the jug of Liquid nitrogen to cool his beer, and before someone could refill it from the vat in the next room, a situation developed. But, before the fire, they did manage to beat the Japs, only the evidence is now toast. Truth.
If you google "southampton university fire", you will see amongst other things, adverts for a Fire Safety Officer!!
b view.jsp?function=View&id=05B0046
From http://www.jobs.soton.ac.uk/adminweb/jsp/jobs/sJo
"Following a review of its provision of fire safety services, the University of Southampton has established a post of Fire Safety Adviser. This is a significant role in one of the UK's most successful Universities. With in excess of 100 major buildings, and a range of work from laboratories and workshops through to offices and teaching spaces, the post will provide a stimulating and varied challenge.
The successful applicant will be involved in all aspects of fire safety including fire risk assessments, developing associated compliance strategies and policies, and delivering training. Considerable knowledge and experience in the practical application of fire precautions legislation and standards is essential. You are likely to have held a similar position in a large organisation, or will have extensive experience of advising on meeting the requirements of the Building Regulations, or will have undertaken the role of Fire Safety Officer with a Fire and Rescue Service. Candidates who possess membership of the Institute of Fire Engineering and/or hold Fire Service Modules A - E will be at an advantage. Good interpersonal and communication skills are essential, and additional training in the role will be provided as required. You must be able to travel off site to provide services to all parts of the University.
University benefits include pleasant working environment, generous annual leave and pension scheme, sport and social activities.
Salary in the range of £22,774 - £28,007 per annum"
This is (uh, was) a multi-million dollar (OK, multi-million pound, sorry) facility.
Where was all of the fire-suppression equipment?
Why was the builing itself so flammable?
I can understand using wood in lower-cost construction (e.g., residential homes), but such a valuable facility should have been constructed out of concrete and steel.
In addition, it should have had many or all of the following characteristics:
- No wood in/on the walls, and no paper-coated drywall.
- Steel doors.
- No wooden floors (just tile and such).
- No wooden furniture (e.g., only steel desks, etc.).
- Flame-resistant paint.
- Flame-resistant fabric, where fabric is necessary (on chairs, curtains, etc.).
- Steel bookcases with doors of steel or tempered glass.
- Steel cases (instead of plastic) and aluminum (OK, aluminium, sorry) knobs on the scientific equipment, and sealed electronics wherever possible.
- Copper/steel/cast iron pipes, instead of PVC.
- Flame-resistant coatings on all wiring, etc.
- Dangerous experiments (e.g., those requiring explosive chemicals) conducted in outbuildings.
- And, most importantly, a working, effective, and periodically tested fire-suppression system.
This is all very expensive, and is probably not cost-effective in most situations.However, since the "facility was one of the best in the world", and "Some of the most advanced research work in the country, and indeed the world was carried out in this facility", I think that the added expense would have been worth it.
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
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.