A fire at a data center in Seoul, South Korea, forced the evacuation of 105 people on Tuesday, September 29. Firefighters extinguished the blaze within just over three hours, and the Geumcheon Fire Department reported no casualties.

Fire crews responded to an alarm at 11:55 am at the facility in the Gasan-dong area of the Geumcheon-gu district. The response mobilized 80 officers and 14 fire engines. By 3:13 pm, the fire was out.

Investigators believe the fire originated in a transformer located in the data center's uninterruptible power supply (UPS) room. The fire department has not confirmed the cause, and its investigation continues.

Facility identification

The fire department has not named the data center involved. However, news footage from the scene appears to show STTGDC's Seoul 1 facility. The 30MW facility spans 40,000 sqm (430,556 sq ft) and launched in July 2020's development cycle timeline — it was first announced in 2021 and went live this past July. STTGDC has been contacted for comment, which had not arrived at the time of publication.

Second major incident in two years

Data center fires remain relatively rare, but this is the second significant blaze to hit South Korean infrastructure in just over a year. In September 2024, a fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center in Daejeon caused devastating losses for the government.

That incident destroyed hard drives that had not been backed up, and an estimated 858TB of government information was lost. The NIRS fire exposed gaps in backup and disaster recovery practices across Korean public sector IT, and the Seoul incident will likely renew scrutiny of electrical infrastructure — particularly transformers and UPS systems — at facilities across the country.

What we know

• Time of alarm: 11:55 am, Tuesday, September 29
• Fire extinguished: 3:13 pm the same day
• Response: 80 officers, 14 fire engines
• Casualties: None reported
• Evacuations: 105 people
• Suspected origin: Transformer in the UPS room
• Suspected facility: STTGDC Seoul 1, a 30MW, 40,000 sqm (430,556 sq ft) site launched in July

The transformer fault scenario mirrors a common failure pattern in data center electrical distribution. UPS rooms house high-energy equipment operating continuously, and transformer failures there can escalate quickly if suppression systems do not catch the initial thermal event. The fire department's ongoing investigation should clarify whether detection and suppression systems operated as designed, and whether any IT equipment or customer data was affected.

Neither the fire department nor the facility operator has released information on service impact. Until STTGDC responds or investigators publish preliminary findings, the extent of any downtime or hardware damage at the site remains unknown.

This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.