Fire safety of cables concern both human safety and equipment damages in case of fire. Cables form of course only a small part of a building, but also an essential part. Cables may be located in areas and spaces with ventilation or along ceilings, where fire propagation is especially agressive. Furthermore, they may be placed in areas where they are the main burnable building part, or is the potential cause of extreme burning damages.

Consequently fire behavior of cables has major significance for end users.

In the past cables were mainly PVC sheathed as this material offers splendid mechanical and climatic performance. The disadvantage in case of fire is unfortunately development of dense, black, suffocating and highly corrosive smoke. Therefore, the application of alternatives were developed and has got increasing popularity. Most popular of these alternatives is halogen free compounds based on "EVA", but other materials are also used. These PVC alternative cables are commonly identified as "halogen free". The the main constituent of PVC is chlorine, which is in chemical terms a "halogen" (like fluorine and bromine, which are also commonly used in electronics for building up fire retardancy). All materials have their special characteristics as discussed elsewhere.