Roof fire at QTS data centre in Piscataway

What happened

Fire broke out on the roof of a QTS data centre at 101 Possumtown Road, Piscataway, New Jersey, in the early hours of 23 November 2022. It was reported at 02:45 and extinguished by 05:00 with a heavy water stream from an aerial platform. No injuries were reported. The cause was not reported, and it was not reported whether water entered the data hall or affected cooling or power systems.

The operator had not, at the time of the report, confirmed any service outage. Satellite images were reported to suggest extensive solar panels on the roof, and one fire-service image may show panels damaged by the fire, but that has not been confirmed.

Contributing factors

The cause was not reported. Firefighters spent extra time on overhaul because flammable roofing materials, including tar, were stored on site for a two-storey extension. It is not known whether those materials, the roof equipment, or anything else started the fire.

Lessons learned

1. Keep stored flammable construction materials segregated from an operating data centre and tell the fire service where they are.
2. After a roof fire fought with heavy water, check whether water reached power or cooling equipment before treating the site as unaffected.
3. If solar arrays are present on a data centre roof, include them in the fire risk assessment and in information given to responding crews.

Source

datacenterdynamics.com