Unnamed Administration sources reported that Sean Donelan said:

One of the lessons from the Los Angeles CO fire was the danger to firefighters with fires in telecommunication facilities. Fortunately such fires are rare. But that rarity means few departments have any experience with such fires. Hinsdale was a wake up call for the telecommunications industry, L.A. was a wake up call for the fire service. Five years later, NFPA, AT&T and Telcordia (bellcore) are still debating what should be done. For the most part, the experience has not yet reached down to either the local fire departments or the people building data and telecommunication facilities.

http://www.nfpa.org/Research/summaries/los_angeles.html

This report mentions: However, no automatic power shutdown systems are currently available.. which drags us straight into the comp.risks area. Telco systems qualify as ultra-high-reliability and the battery plant of same is the most basic of those. They spend bigbux$ on having that -48v there, no matter what. If you now do install a system that will shut same off, I will bet dollars to donuts it will false at least once, bringing down an office. Where do you draw the line? At the same time, that battery string is a multi-headed monster to the F/R folks: Ready source of fire - tens of thousands of amps of short circuit current for the taking; Explosion potential -- both from the H2 gas and just steam from a short. Goodly quantities of acid and lead to fly/spill/etc. While the acid is not instantly lethal, and can be mitigated readily [LOTS of water ASAP]; the cleanup after & 2nd order effects are significant... Redundancy -- FD may kill the power at the service entrance and keep the generator for starting; but that battery short circuit is still glowing. But the biggest issue is perhaps not the above but social. In decades past, the only place with a 2000 A-H -48v string was a Telephone Company building, with Telephone Company rules and craft people. Much as I despised dealing with them; they had a Book and followed it. They wrote their Book after attending the School of Hard Knocks. It showed. Now, there are THOUSANDS of folks in a city with UPS+battery installations, and dozens with "Big Enough To Be Afraid Of" ones. Yet there is no regulatory heritage as in the 60Hz arena; and the designers are sometimes ..suspect... in their experience, not having the worshiped, or maybe even seen, the Book. The city inspector never saw the battery rooms @ TPC, so he's equally guideless. (Terry Kennedy talks of being asked to consult on one job and after one look, putting as much distance between them and him as possible.) In short, This Stuff Will Kill You, and needs a specialized designer as much as your billing code and java pages do.... and such are not found in the Yellow Pages. Beware. -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

Having been a firefighter/paramedic in a past life... There have been several instances in recent memory where fire departments have been sued (and had to pay damages) where unnecessary or excessive damage was caused by their response to an emergency call. One example that always stuck in my mind: Breaking down a door that would have opened if they tried the handle. -- Very few local governments even have top-notch legal representation, and many don't know how to defend something like that against a good legal team. Deepak Jain AiNET On Sun, 18 Jul 1999, Sean Donelan wrote:

nathan@robotics.NET (Nathan Stratton) writes:

...

As a volunteer fire fighter I will agree with you on that one. I often wonder why more people don't sue for damage, I guess there is little they can do. Some people in fire fighters actually have fun cutting holes where they don't need cut or flooding places with water they know don't need it. Our department is very good, but many of them are not concerned with the property at all.

One of the lessons from the Los Angeles CO fire was the danger to firefighters with fires in telecommunication facilities. Fortunately such fires are rare. But that rarity means few departments have any experience with such fires. Hinsdale was a wake up call for the telecommunications industry, L.A. was a wake up call for the fire service. Five years later, NFPA, AT&T and Telcordia (bellcore) are still debating what should be done. For the most part, the experience has not yet reached down to either the local fire departments or the people building data and telecommunication facilities.

http://www.nfpa.org/Research/summaries/los_angeles.html -- Sean Donelan, Data Research Associates, Inc, St. Louis, MO Affiliation given for identification not representation