Building fires caused by wires and cables often result in severe casualties and property losses due to their characteristics of rapid spread, high difficulty in fire fighting, and large amount of toxic flue gas. Such accidents have a far-reaching and profound impact on the cable industry, driving reforms in multiple dimensions including technology, standards, supervision and user awareness.

I. Promote the Upgrading of Flame Retardant and Fire Resistance Standards

Every major cable fire accident directly accelerates the revision of relevant standards. For example, in the early stage, buildings had relatively low flame retardancy requirements for cables. After the accidents, the industry gradually introduced more stringent testing indicators such as bundled combustion test, smoke density test and toxicity index test. Nowadays, high-rise buildings, large shopping malls, hospitals, schools and other crowded places have mandatory requirements for the use of flame retardant cables or fire-resistant cables, and the flame retardant grade has been gradually upgraded from Class C to Class B and Class A. The improvement of the standard system has raised the access threshold for cable products from the source.

II. Accelerate the Popularization of Low-Smoke Zero-Halogen Technology

Traditional PVC cables will release a large amount of thick black smoke and highly toxic hydrogen chloride gas when burning, which is the main cause of suffocation death in fires. Warned by fire accidents, the low-smoke zero-halogen cable technology has been rapidly promoted. This type of cable produces extremely low smoke emission when burning, and the generated gas is non-toxic or low-toxic, which has won precious time for personnel escape and fire rescue. Nowadays, low-smoke zero-halogen cables have been widely used in places with extremely high safety requirements such as subways, airports, data centers and hospitals.

III. Strengthen Product Quality Supervision

Cable fire accidents have exposed the problem that a large number of inferior products exist in the market. As a result, regulatory authorities have intensified the inspection of cable manufacturers, regularly carried out special rectification actions, and severely cracked down on illegal acts such as unlicensed production, cutting corners on materials, and passing inferior products off as high-quality ones. At the same time, the establishment of a product traceability system has been promoted, requiring the whole process of cable products from raw materials to factory inspection to be traceable, which has improved the overall quality level of the industry.

IV. Promote the Improvement of Users' Safety Awareness

In the past, many users only focused on price when choosing cables, and lacked awareness of safety performances such as flame retardancy and fire resistance. The painful lessons of fire accidents have made construction units, design units and end users pay significantly more attention to the safety performance of cables. Nowadays, in project bidding, indicators such as the flame retardant grade, fire resistance duration, and low-smoke zero-halogen performance of cables have become important technical parameters, and price is no longer the only determining factor.

V. Promote the Standardization of Construction and Maintenance

Fire accident investigations found that the direct causes of many fires are non-standard production of cable joints, damage to the insulating layer during construction, and non-compliant laying environments. These lessons have prompted the industry to introduce more stringent construction specifications and acceptance standards, requiring construction personnel to hold certificates for posts, and promoting the use of online monitoring technologies such as infrared temperature measurement and partial discharge detection to discover and eliminate hidden dangers in time.

Summary: Although wire and cable fire accidents have brought painful lessons, they have objectively promoted technological progress, standard upgrading and supervision strengthening of the industry. Nowadays, safer, more environmentally friendly and more reliable cable products are becoming the mainstream of the market, and the overall safety level of the industry has been significantly improved.