Report ·
Our report on the June 24 generator fire at SEC1
PIR-2025-03 sets out what caused the fire, why Hall 2 overheated after it, what we have changed and how affected customers will be credited.
Our report on the generator fire at SEC1 on June 24, PIR-2025-03, is published in full.
In short: both utility feeders were lost at 13:41 during the heat wave and the site transferred to generator power as designed. At 15:12, oil from a failed turbocharger seal on generator 3 reached its exhaust manifold and ignited the insulation around it. Our engineers shut the set down and put the fire out within four minutes. With one set out, the generator controls shed two chillers to protect the others, as they were programmed to, and Hall 2 overheated for 36 minutes. Some customers’ equipment shut itself down.
The fire was the visible failure. The one we are most concerned about is the second: our load-shedding sequence treated cooling as less critical than it is. We have rewritten it, added water mist to every generator enclosure, changed our turbocharger inspection interval, and credited every affected customer under the service level agreement, whether or not they asked.
Cordgrass Data · Secaucus, New Jersey · July 18, 2025