When a major fire struck OVHcloud’s data centres in Strasbourg in 2021, one of the four data centres at the site was destroyed and another was damaged.
Around 100 firefighters were involved in the response, but the fire could not immediately be brought under control.
As a result, millions of websites were affected, while customers were asked to activate their disaster recovery plans. Reuters reported that public authorities, banks, retailers and news organisations were among those affected.
Some 3.6 million websites were hosted on the affected servers, which were subsequently exposed to water and firefighting foam.
The OVH incident shows how quickly a physical event inside a data centre can develop into an operational problem extending far beyond the building itself.
It also raises a key question for owners, consultants and operators: Can the fire suppression system contain the fire without creating additional damage of its own?
Water is highly effective against fire, but in a server environment it can also pose a serious risk to sensitive electronics.
The same applies to suppression agents that leave residues, contain PFAS or require extensive cleanup.
When every minute of downtime can have financial consequences, the cleanup following a fire becomes part of the overall risk calculation.
Inergen extinguishes fires without damaging equipment
This is where automatic gas-based fire suppression systems come into play.
Inergen is designed for total-flooding applications and consists of naturally occurring gases.
In the event of a fire, the gas is released automatically and lowers the oxygen concentration in the protected area sufficiently to suppress the fire.
The system leaves no water or chemical residue on servers or other equipment.
An effective data centre requires a comprehensive fire protection strategy that includes early detection, automatic suppression, proper system design and ongoing maintenance.
But the choice of suppression agent is also an important part of overall risk management when the goal is to avoid damage to sensitive equipment.
For decision-makers, the issue is therefore not simply choosing a system capable of extinguishing a fire.
It is about selecting a solution that also protects what a fire could otherwise put at risk: uptime, data, equipment and customer trust.
At Lotek, we advise on automatic Inergen fire suppression systems for applications including data centres and server rooms.
Each solution is designed for the specific protected area and can be integrated into the data centre’s overall fire protection strategy.
Because in a data centre, the best fire suppression solution is not necessarily the one that simply puts out the fire.
It is the one that makes it possible to move forward.
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