Amazon Web Services reports fire at UAE data centre

On March 1, 2026, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced an incident at its data center located in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The facility experienced a power shutdown after objects struck the structure, leading to a fire in the early hours of the morning. According to AWS's Health Dashboard, the event affected the Availability Zone known as mec1-az2 within the me-central-1 cloud region. The company reported that around 4:30 AM PST, debris collided with the data center, igniting sparks that caused the fire. This specific Availability Zone is designed for reliability and serves as a backup. In response to the fire, local fire services cut off power to both the facility and its generators as they worked to extinguish the blaze. AWS indicated that it would take several hours to restore connectivity to the impacted zone, but assured clients that the other Availability Zones in the region remained operational. While Amazon has yet to confirm any connection between the fire and the recent regional tensions, the company has been proactive in addressing the situation. AWS advised customers to redirect their workloads to alternative Availability Zones or different AWS regions to minimize service disruption. Fortunately, the other data centers in the UAE are functioning without issues. AWS Availability Zones comprise clusters of large-scale data centers, each equipped with independent power, cooling, and networking systems. This multi-zone architecture enables customers to seamlessly shift operations to another zone within the region if needed. The incident occurs amid rising tensions due to missile and drone strikes linked to Iran's response to US and Israeli actions, but AWS has not attributed the fire to these geopolitical developments.