Summary Fire hazard in nuclear power plants (NPPs) is particularly often investigated as potential cause of safety equipment failure and confinement loss. Many fire events recorded in NPPs involve electric cables, widely used throughout facilities. IRSN is developing the CALIF3S/ISIS computational fluid dynamics software devoted to fire simulation in large‐scale confined and mechanically ventilated compartments. This paper presents two aspects of the CALIF3S/ISIS code ability to simulate fires. The first one concerns vertical and horizontal spreading of a cable tray fire in open atmosphere using an approach based on the FLASH‐CAT cable fire spread model. Resorting to the suitable parameters of the FLASH‐CAT model based on video fire analyses of tests enables to properly compute the heat release rate of the fire. The second aspect concerns the ability to simulate the evolution and consequences of fires in confined and mechanically ventilated compartments. For these cases, the heat release rate measured during the corresponding experiment is used as input data for the calculations. The predicted evolutions of pressure or gas temperatures are in relatively good accordance with the experiments. The major discrepancy concerns gas concentrations in the fire room which is attributed to a lack of information about the properties of the fuel material.