In the Russian Federation over the past few years, every third fire is associated with the ignition of electrical installations, whereas more than 70 % of them being fires from electrical wiring and cable lines.

Such fires are of great hazard for industrial enterprises, especially those with a round-the-clock technological mode of operation, when a certain part of the time distribution and group lines feeding technological electrical equipment remain unattended.

The article provides for the information on the following developments of FGBU VNIIPO EMERCOM of Russia on improving the efficiency of fire prevention for such fires: participation in the creation of new generation cables of increased reliability and fire safety (flame retardant; with low smoke and gas emission; fire-resistant with low corrosiveness and toxicity of insulating materials combustion products). The work, in general, as well as G.I. Smelkov is awarded the Prize of the Government of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology; development of the normative documents regulating fire safety requirements to ensure fire safety for electrical wiring and methods for their hazard assessment; creation of the calculation method for determining critical conditions (radius of conductor cross section, insulation induction time and duration of the overcurrent flow), at which the cable products ignition is possible under the conditions of overcurrent influence at the incomplete short circuits and electrical network overloads. The method allows to predict the possibility of ignition occurrence of the conductors in the network, and, if necessary, to perform the appropriate fire prevention measures.