Fire in UPS room at Seoul data centre during electrical testing

What happened

A fire broke out on Tuesday 29 September 2026 at a data centre in the Gasan-dong area of Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, South Korea. Firefighters were called at 11:55 am. Geumcheon Fire Department sent 80 officers and 14 fire engines, and the fire was extinguished by 3:13 pm. The fire department reported no casualties, but 105 people were evacuated. The fire is thought to have started in a transformer in the data centre's uninterruptible power supply (UPS) room, and the cause remains under investigation.

The fire department did not name the facility. STT GDC confirmed to DCD that the fire occurred at its Seoul 1 facility, a 30MW site launched in July. The operator said smoke was generated after an electrical component failed while new electrical equipment was being tested in a test environment separate from the systems supporting customers, and that there was no impact on customer systems, services or operations.

Contributing factors

Not yet established. The operator said an electrical component failed during testing of new electrical equipment. The fire is thought to have originated in a transformer in the UPS room, and the investigation into the cause was continuing at the time of reporting.

Lessons learned

1. Energising and testing new transformers and UPS equipment carries fire risk, so electrical tests should include a fire-risk assessment and a defined isolation plan.
2. Test environments should be physically and electrically separated from live customer systems, and that separation should be verified before testing starts.
3. Data centres should pre-plan evacuation and liaison with the local fire service, since more than 100 people were evacuated here.

More lessons on electrical protection and isolation, spacing, layout and fire spread, fire suppression and firefighting, from every incident on the register.

Source

datacenterdynamics.com