Fire breaks out at Chai Chee data centre, one taken to hospital

One person was taken to hospital after a data centre in Chai Chee caught fire in the early hours of March 14.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, the Singapore Civil Defence Force said it was alerted to the blaze that took place at 750C Chai Chee Road at around 6am.

An e-mail sent out by SG.GS, the cloud data centre provider partner of Singapore Internet Exchange, said an "explosion" caused the fire.

"We have dispatched our field engineers to do a thorough investigation of (the) damage and will notify you once any update is available," said the e-mail.

Initial checks showed that servers within the centre are still in service, said the e-mail, but the company "needed some time to recover".

In a statement, SG.GS said the fire broke out at a data centre owned by WebSatMedia. Although SG.GS leases rack space from WebSatMedia, the fire did not originate in one of SG.GS's systems.

All SG.GS staff in the building were immediately and safely evacuated and have since been given the all-clear to re-enter the facility, the statement added.

"SG.GS is not the data centre owner and we understand that the fire has been put out by the building's fire suppression system and the local fire brigade. We are working closely with teams on the ground to re-establish network connectivity to any of our affected clients," said SG.GS managing director Shawn Ang.

SCDF said the fire involved a server rack and was put out with a dry powder fire extinguisher.

The sprinkler system was also activated, said SCDF, adding that one person was taken to Singapore General Hospital for smoke inhalation.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

In September 2024, a data centre in Loyang housing systems for tech companies like Lazada and Alibaba caught fire, resulting in firefighting operations that lasted for more than 36 hours.

The fire was linked to lithium-ion batteries kept in the battery rooms on the third floor of the building, and four water jets were deployed to contain the fire. About 20 people got out of the building before firefighters arrived, and there were no reported injuries.