A fireplace broke out Thursday morning at a knowledge heart in Hillsboro, Oregon, leased by Elon Musk’s X, forcing an prolonged response from emergency crews, in keeping with a number of sources who spoke to WIRED. The sources required anonymity as they aren’t approved to talk publicly in regards to the firm.
Firefighters arrived on the Hillsboro Expertise Park, in a suburb west of Portland, at 10:21 am, in keeping with Hillsboro Hearth and Rescue spokesperson Piseth Pich. They discovered a room with batteries that have been deemed to be concerned within the hearth. Pich famous that the fireplace had not unfold to different elements of the constructing, however mentioned the room in query was heavy with smoke. As of three:00 pm, the crew was nonetheless on the scene.
X didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from WIRED. It couldn’t be discovered whether or not server operations on the knowledge heart had been affected by the incident.
Earlier than Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the corporate had three knowledge facilities in Sacramento, Portland, and Atlanta. This ensured that if one knowledge heart went down, site visitors might be shifted to the opposite two—and cut up so no single knowledge heart was overwhelmed.
Round Christmas Eve 2022, Musk shut down X’s knowledge heart in Sacramento in an effort to chop prices. The corporate skilled a significant outage within the wake of the shutdown. Over the following six months, the corporate moved greater than 2,573 server racks from the Sacramento facility to knowledge facilities in Portland and Atlanta, in keeping with inner paperwork.
Within the Portland space, X seems to lease house from a constructing that has been linked to Digital Realty, one of many world’s largest builders of information facilities. Digital Realty offers various ranges of working help at its websites, which might have a number of tenants. It’s unclear if X shares this facility with different corporations.
Ryan Younger, vp of Americas operations for Digital Realty, mentioned in an announcement to WIRED on Thursday night that the “fire-related incident at our PDX11 facility” had been contained and that the fireplace division had left. “All personnel have been safely evacuated, with no reported accidents,” Younger acknowledged. “We proceed to observe the scenario, prioritizing the protection of our personnel, the integrity of the ability, and minimizing buyer influence.”
Younger declined to touch upon clients.
Batteries typically perform as a backup energy supply at knowledge facilities. However lithium-ion varieties might be unstable, and points with maintenance and insufficient security measures have contributed to pricey blazes at knowledge facilities all over the world. Pich, the Hillsboro Hearth Division spokesperson, says he couldn’t recall any earlier hearth involving batteries within the Oregon area’s many different knowledge facilities.
X’s mother or father firm, xAI, has taken criticism in latest months for its fast enlargement of energy capability at a brand new knowledge heart in Memphis, which opened final 12 months. That facility, which Musk named Colossus, was constructed up at breakneck velocity to coach xAI’s Grok and different AI instruments. The corporate put in greater than 30 methane-powered fuel generators, however as a result of the generators are non permanent, a federal allow for air pollution management is not required, which seems to take advantage of a loophole within the Clear Air Act. The ability has drawn widespread criticism from surrounding Black and brown communities, who’re already uncovered to a considerable amount of air air pollution and industrial emissions from different services within the space.
Replace 5/22/25 11:03 ET: This story has been up to date to incorporate extra remark from Digital Realty.
