Welding mishap blamed for Amazon data center construction fire

As recently noted by Data Center Knowledge, last month's roof fire at a data center construction site for Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Ashburn, Virginia was traced to a welding mishap, according to local fire officials. Construction workers at the site were welding roof components from inside the structure, “which ignited nearby combustibles,” an official statement read. These combustibles were construction materials stored on the facility's roof.

As reported by Data Center Knowledge's Yevgeniy Sverdlik, "The contractor that is building the facility at 21263 Smith Switch Road has estimated the damage from the fire to range from $75,000 to $100,000, according to a statement issued by the Loudoun County Fire, Rescue and Emergency Management."

Sverdlik's report continued, "An AWS spokesperson confirmed...that the fire happened at the site where a third party contractor was building a data center for the cloud services company. The data center was not in production, so the fire did not affect any AWS users, she said. The contractor’s name was not disclosed."

The full story at Data Center Knowledge contains speculation as to whom the data center's developer is, based on the site's previous reporting.