Fire in customer electrical equipment at Equinix SP4 data centre

What happened

A small fire occurred at Equinix IBX SP4 data centre in the Tamboré business park, Barueri, near São Paulo, at 12:34 local time on 30 March 2025. Equinix said the isolated incident involved a customer's electrical equipment in one rack. A status update indicated the fire was in an unnamed dark fibre provider's cage. The site was evacuated in an orderly way and water was discharged to contain the fire.

Some Equinix Fabric circuits and virtual connections with OCI and GCP were disrupted. Affected circuits were moved to another path and those services were restored by 20:56 UTC the same day. The fibre path between SP1 and SP4 was reported restored from 08:20 UTC on 31 March, while a path between SP2 and SP4 was still being restored. Only one data hall was partly affected. Equinix said the facility was operating normally and that the cause was still under investigation.

Contributing factors

A separate report suggested packaging left in recently arrived equipment that had been switched on. Equinix did not confirm that account. The cause has not been established.

Lessons learned

1. Check newly delivered customer equipment for packaging and other foreign material before it is energised. Do not treat an unconfirmed packaging theory as the cause until the investigation reports.
2. Keep diverse network paths so affected customer circuits can be moved quickly.
3. Keep evacuation arrangements and coordination with the fire service clear and practised.

Source

datacenterdynamics.com