What’s with All the Battery Fires in Virginia?

Four Fires in Nine Months at the Same Facility Beg Questions About Battery Risks

They say lightening never strikes in the same place twice, but if you live in Virginia, you must feel like fire does.

On September 12, 2025, Richmond area fire departments responded to a fire emergency at the Chirisa data center in Chesterfield County, Virginia. This was the fourth time fire services had been called to the SAME LOCATION since December 2024. As with the previous incidents, fire crews were called due to a fire in one of the large-scale batteries inside the data center installed as power backup. On this occasion, authorities reported that the fire was contained within the battery’s enclosure and was extinguished by its native fire suppression system. This is good news in the short term, but we must ask an obvious question:

What’s with all the battery fires?

According to a statement from the company that owns the Chirisa facility:

We believe the root cause was a manufacturing defect. The fire was contained within the battery cabinet enclosure and extinguished by a fire suppression system. It did not spread to the battery room or the building.

Great, but what’s does “manufacturing defect” mean? And why has this “defect” caused four fires at the same facility? To its credit, the company went on to say it is replacing ALL the batteries in the facility, but why is that necessary?

Solar, wind, Power Walls, electronic vehicles, data centers…all need batteries.

Batteries are already a central part of the future we are building, but the fires in central Virgina pose questions we need to answer. So, before the next fire at Chirisa, we are going to discuss battery technology and what is meant by “manufacturing defect” and why the potential for fires is something we need to consider as we further integrate batteries into our technologies in everyday use.