Fire Breaks Out at a Data Center Leased by Elon Musk’s X

Fire Outside, on Thursday, at a data center in Helszburo, Oregon, Illon Marsat X rented it, forcing a response from emergency crews, according to multiple sources that spoke to WIRE. The sources require not to disclose her identity because she is not authorized to publicly talk about the company.

Firefighters arrived at the Hilzburo Technology Park, in a suburb of West Portland, at 10:21 am, according to Hilburo Fire spokesperson and rescue Pesith Beach. They found a room with batteries considered to be involved in the fire. Beach pointed out that the fire did not spread to other parts of the building, but he said that the room concerned was heavy with smoke. As of 3:00 pm, the crew was still at the scene.

X did not immediately respond to a request to comment from WIRED. It is not possible to know if the server operations in the data center have been affected by the accident.

Before buying Elus Musk Twitter, the company had three data centers in Sacramento, Portland and Atlanta. This ensures that in the event of a decrease in the data center, traffic can be transferred to the other two – and a division so that no single data center is overwhelmed.

About Christmas Eve 2022, Musk Close X Data Center in Sacramento in an attempt to reduce costs. The company witnessed a major interruption in the wake of the closure. During the next six months, the company has transferred more than 2573 servants from the Sacramento facility to data centers in Portland and Atlanta, according to internal documents.

In the Portland region, X appears to be hired an area of ​​a building linked to Digital Realty, one of the largest databases in the world. Digital Realty provides different levels of operational support in their locations, which can contain two or more tenants. It is not clear whether X shares this facility with other companies.

“The fire accident in the PDX11 facility” was contained and that the fire administration had left, “Ryan Young, Vice president of the American Operations at Digital Realty, said in a statement on Thursday evening. “All employees were safely evacuated, without any reported injuries,” Yong. “We continue to monitor the situation, determine the priorities of the safety of our employees, the safety of the facility, and reduce the effect of customers.”

Young refused to comment on customers.

Batteries often work as a reserve energy source in data centers. But lithium ion varieties can be volatile, and problems related to safety measures have contributed to maintenance and insufficient data fires around the world. Beach, a firefighter spokesman at Helszburo, says he cannot remember any previous fire that involves batteries in many other data centers in the Origon state area.

X’s PROPORT, Xai, has obtained criticism in recent months for its rapid expansion of its energy capacity in a new data center in Memphis, which was opened last year. This facility, called Musk Colossus, was built quickly, Breakneck to train Xai’s Grok and other artificial intelligence tools. The company has installed more than 30 gas turbines operating with methane, but because the turbines are temporary, a federal pollution monitoring permit is not required, which seems to be used as a loophole in the clean air law. The elbow has extracted widespread criticism from black and surrounding brown societies, which are already exposed to a large amount of air pollution and industrial emissions from other facilities in the region.

Update 5/22/25 11:03 et: This story was updated to include an additional comment from Digital Realty.