In the race to dominate the AI industry, tech giants are planting data centers across the US. But for many Americans, silicon valley’s cash crop feels more like an invasive species — one which, when it takes root, begins to overwhelm everything around it.
For one thing, the facilities are incredibly noisy, their cooling systems likened to a “distant jet that never leaves.” Their collective energy demand is so high that they’re driving up utility prices throughout the country, in some cases prompting insufferable CEOs to resort to methane gas generators, choking local communities with noxious fumes. Their water intake is so enormous that taps in nearby homes can stop running, while their excessive pollution has been linked to a growing cancer risk.
That’s before we even get into the massive financial problem with the AI data center gold rush, which in many ways is now holding up the stagnant US economy.
As if all that weren’t enough, one community is now learning about another obnoxious data center trait: their tendency to burst into flames.
The fire department in Jerome Township, Ohio, an exurb northwest of Columbus, has grown increasingly annoyed at two Amazon data centers over the last four years. Since the first site was approved by local officials in 2021, first responders have answered a combined 84 emergencies between the two facilities, a rate of about two calls a month, according to The Columbus Dispatch.
That’s on top of regular safety inspections. Whenever they arrive, fire officials and EMS workers say they’re met by facility security, who can make them wait as long as an hour for Amazon’s authorization to enter (data centers are critical to US national security, after all.)
In April, local news reported a two-alarm fire at one of the facilities, which caused more than $50 million in damages and tied up first responders for over 24 hours. It’s a cushy deal for Amazon, which papered in a 100 percent property tax abatement lasting ten years for each site, meaning local residents are fronting the bill every time the fire department goes on a data center run.
“That taxes our resources every time we go,” the township’s fire chief, Douglas Stewart said.
Jerome Township isn’t alone. In 2025, Amazon had 56 data centers planned or in operation throughout Ohio, some of which are on pause following local pushback, the Dispatch reported earlier this year. That’s just a fraction of the 179 data centers Ohio is host to as of this month.
The Columbus suburb of Hilliard, for example, has a population of 37,000 residents who are surrounded by three separate data center campuses, each of which contains as many as five data centers. Though township residents might object to their tax dollars being drained by, those decisions have already been rubber stamped at the local level — easy targets for deep-pocketed tech corporations.
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