Amazon's new data center which is under construction was caught by fire on Sunday as reported by NBC. Amazon's data center which is located in Ashburn, Virginia is being constructed by a third party contractor. Additional reports indicated that Amazon's operation was not affected by the fire since the data center is not yet in operation.
Mary Maguire, spokesperson for the Loudoun County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management, said it was "a fire on the roof, involving the roof, roofing materials and construction materials. Workers who were on the roof when the fire broke out were able to extricate themselves safely."
According to official statement released by Amazon, none of the workers were injured and the fire was quickly contained due to the local fire departments quick response to the incident. Based on reports, the fire started around 10:12 am local time and firefighters were able to extinguish it in less than an hour.
The data center being constructed was supposed to host Amazon's AWS cloud service in the eastern part of the United State and since the facility is not yet operational Amazon has assured its users that no service interruption will happen.
Amazon's official statement stated, "We can confirm that a facility in Northern Virginia that is in the early stages of construction for AWS by a third party, caught fire early this morning. Thanks to the rapid response from the local fire officials it was quickly extinguished. There were no injuries. It was not a production facility and caused no impact or risk of impact to operation."
The area Northern Virginia has lately been a favorite spot for tech giants putting up their data center and servers. Based on statistics, cheap power cost and satisfactory tax rates are just few of the reasons that attract companies in putting up data centers in the area.
