Almere data center fire under control; Caused outages throughout Netherlands

Firefighters finally managed to get a fire in a data center in Almere under control late on Thursday evening, Veiligheidsregio Flevoland reported. The blaze caused outages throughout the country for organizations with servers in the center. Utrecht University is closed on Friday due to the fire.

The fire broke out at around 8:40 a.m. on Thursday in the technical room of the data center, director Alexandra Schless told NOS. About 12 hours later, the blaze was under control, and firefighters turned their attention toward extinguishing it completely.

“At this moment, a drone is going inside to map the consequences of the fire. We are not going inside ourselves; that is too dangerous,” a spokesperson for the Veiligheidsregio, the safety office that covers the region’s first response services, told NOS at around 9:30 p.m.

The NorthC Data Center houses servers on which national and international customers can store their IT environments. No servers or data carriers caught fire, but part of the power supply burnt down. “At the request of the fire department, we switched off the power supply,” director Schless told the broadcaster. “The equipment in the data center is therefore not running.”

Because the power was cut, organizations whose platforms are stored in Almere could not use their systems. These include Statistics Netherlands (CBS), Utrecht University, and transport company TransDev.

Due to the fire, Utrecht University (UU) is closed on Friday. “There are problems with the network, applications, and websites of Utrecht University. This has a major impact on the daily work, research, and education of and for colleagues and students,” the university said in a statement.

UU’s digital systems and access passes aren’t working, so students and employees cannot enter work and study spaces. “The necessary safety measures cannot be provided.”

Several GP practices are also unable to access their systems. Amsterdam house doctor Jaap Wynia’s practice has the server that runs its systems and information in Almere. “With that shut down, apparently we have nothing left,” Wynia told NOS. “We cannot access patient data and their files, we do not know the scheduled appointments, and it is harder to reach people because we cannot access their phone numbers.”

Because the fire caused a lot of smoke, it triggered multiple NL-Alerts in the Flevoland region, urging locals to keep their doors and windows closed and turn off ventilation systems. At 8:13 p.m., the Veiligheidsregio said that people who couldn’t smell smoke any longer could open their windows again.