Korea – Data center fire: 10 hours battling battery blaze to salvage data
A lithium battery fire at the National Information Resources Service’s data center in Daejeon, Friday, which temporarily shut down 647 government IT systems, was declared extinguished at around 6 p.m. on Saturday — nearly 22 hours after the fire started.
Firefighters faced tough challenges as directly dousing the fire with water risked damaging crucial servers, powered by more than 380 battery packs.
At one point, temperatures in the server rooms soared to 160 degrees Celsius, making it nearly impossible to enter. Most of the battery packs caught fire and were destroyed.
Kim Gi-seon, head of the Yuseong Fire Station in Daejeon, said to reporters at the scene,
Lithium-ion batteries need to be extinguished with large amounts of water or cooled by being submerged in water.
“However, because destroying servers containing critical national information could cause even greater damage, we could only spray small amounts of water and used gas suppression systems to contain the fire.”
Since it was difficult for firefighters to enter the facility, the authorities focused on cooling operations inside the server room, he added.
Authorities initially declared the fire extinguished early Saturday, but one of the batteries reignited about two hours later, extending the fight.
The firefighters had to carry each pack out of the building and submerge it in water tubs to prevent reignition. The batteries will remain underwater for two to three days.
A total of 227 firefighters and 67 pieces of equipment were mobilized to combat the blaze, according to fire authorities.
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Korea – Data center fire: 10 hours battling battery blaze to salvage data, source
