On July 12, a fire gutted Iron Mountain's 126,000-square-foot storage facility in London, destroying all of the records stored there, according to Melissa Mahoney, director of corporate communications at the Boston-based company.

An investigation is under way to determine the cause of the blaze, she said.

A day earlier, fire damaged a 65,000-square-foot Iron Mountain facility in Ottawa. Although the investigation isn't complete, the fire was likely caused by roofing contractors performing repairs at the building, Mahoney said. About 3 percent of the files in storage there were damaged, mostly by water, and less than half a percent were damaged beyond remediation, she said. Clients Have Questions

The fires prompted Rent-A-Center Inc. to step up plans to implement electronic achiving, said K.C. Condit, director of technical services at the Plano, Texas-based chain of 3,000 consumer-goods rental stores.

In the meantime, Condit is talking to his company's Iron Mountain representative about fire suppression in the warehouse used to store Rent-A-Center files.