(28 Jul 2006 | SearchStorage.com)

Iron Mountain storage facility burns to the ground
A six-story Iron Mountain Inc. warehouse in London caught fire earlier this month and completely burned to the ground, along with the paper records of more than 600 customers, the company confirmed. A second Iron Mountain facility in Ottawa was also hit by fire recently.

Investigations are underway to determine the cause of the fires and why sprinkler systems failed to work. Iron Mountain spokespeople say records stored at both facilities were archived, inactive business records.

"That's not to say that the records are unimportant, but the inactive records that are moved offsite for long-term storage are less important than active business records used to run businesses," said Melissa Mahoney, director of corporate communications at Iron Mountain. "Customers keep them for long-term preservation requirements, but they are not referenced very frequently." She said there were no lawsuits that she knew of in connection with the fire.

The facility, in Bow, east London, was 126,000 sq. ft. It was a modern building, built in 2002 and fully equipped with "fire suppression systems," according to Mahoney. Iron Mountain has hired an investigation group to review its security procedures and has not ruled out suspicious activity as a cause of the blaze. The company is adding more security staff at its facilities, conducting additional reviews, and background checks on personnel and all third parties it works with.