| Istanbul: Turkey's largest conglomerate archive is now protected from fire by WAGNER's OxyReduct |
With a valuable collection of documents, objects and works of art the Koç Corporation wanted to ensure that they were protected from the risk of fire. OxyReduct creates a fire-free environment and thus offered Koç Corporation the ultimate form of fire protection.
Founded by Vehbi Koç in 1917, the Koç Corporation has grown to be Turkey's largest holding group with over 100 separate corporations operating in 100 countries. In 2004 the group had a turnover of $16.6 billion with interests as diverse as the manufacture of cars, food, TVs and washing machines and the operation of petrol stations, supermarkets and retail outlets.
A purpose built 5,000m³ archive was built in the basement of Koç's new corporate complex in Istanbul to house the main collection. A second archive area was also built for Koctas, one of the first corporations in the Koç Group.
With such a valuable archive it is imperative that a fire cannot start and no matter how good a fire detection, extinguishing or suppression system is, a fire has to start for the system to work - causing inevitable damage. OxyReduct creates an environment where fires cannot start, by continuously reducing the oxygen level in a closed area by adding nitrogen to the air. The oxygen is reduced to a level in which most combustibles do not inflame and an open fire is impossible. Importantly, people can enter and work in the archives at any time.
Over 200 major organisations throughout Europe, including the British Library, Jaguar Land Rover and British Airways, have already installed OxyReduct systems in a wide range of applications including IT data centres, communication suites, archives, museums, cold/freezer storage and warehousing. OxyReduct has proved itself to be cost effective compared to traditional protection systems for high-value storage and mission critical applications.