Fire Protection Design Requirements: Meta Lebanon Data Center Campus, Lebanon, Indiana

Meta Description: Fire protection design for Meta's $10B, 1-GW data center campus in Lebanon, Indiana — NFPA 13, NFPA 72, and NFPA 2001 under Indiana's adopted code editions.

Section 1: Project Overview

Meta Platforms broke ground on February 11, 2026, on a hyperscale data center campus at the LEAP (Limitless Exploration/Advanced Pace) Innovation and Research District in Lebanon, Indiana, Boone County. Indiana Governor Mike Braun participated in the groundbreaking ceremony, which marks one of Meta's largest infrastructure investments to date: more than $10 billion committed for a phased, multi-year buildout.

The campus spans 1,500 acres and is planned to include 13 buildings — 10 dedicated data center halls plus logistics, network support, and administration facilities — totaling approximately 4 million square feet. The design targets 1 gigawatt (GW) of total power capacity to support both AI compute workloads and Meta's core platform infrastructure. Turner Construction and Mortenson are the general contractors. Meta has indicated the first buildings are expected to be operational by the end of 2027, with the full campus developing across up to six phases.

At peak construction, the project will support more than 4,000 trade workers on site. The Lebanon facility is Meta's second Indiana data center and their 27th in the United States.

Section 2: Fire Protection Challenges Specific to This Project

A 1-GW hyperscale campus with ten separate data center buildings presents fire protection design challenges that differ substantially from conventional commercial construction — and from older-generation data centers built around lower-density, air-cooled server environments.

Multi-building campus scale. Each of the ten data center halls requires its own independently designed fire alarm, sprinkler, and suppression systems. The designer must also address campus-wide concerns: fire department access roads across a 1,500-acre site, fire hydrant spacing and fire service mains under NFPA 24, and coordination of building fire department connections with a site hydrant grid serving up to 13 structures simultaneously.

Liquid cooling and a changing fire load profile. Meta has publicly confirmed the Lebanon campus employs liquid-to-liquid cooling and external chillers in place of traditional air cooling. Where dielectric fluids are used in direct liquid or immersion cooling configurations, the fire load characteristics change in ways that NFPA 13 (2010 edition) — Indiana's currently adopted standard — does not specifically address. The designer must work directly with the Boone County AHJ and reference current FM Global Data Sheets or manufacturer listings to establish an approved protection approach for those server environments.

High-density electrical compartments. Each data center building will contain high-density UPS systems, transformer vaults, and potentially lithium-ion battery energy storage. These spaces carry different suppression requirements than the open server halls and require compartmentalization and system selection decisions made independently of the main hall protection strategy.

Data continuity and discharge risk. At this scale, an inadvertent water discharge in a live server hall carries significant financial exposure. Pre-action or double-interlock pre-action sprinkler systems, combined with very early warning fire detection (VEWFD), are necessary to reduce the probability of accidental activation while maintaining code-compliant automatic sprinkler protection throughout.

Section 3: Required Systems and Applicable Codes

Indiana's fire protection codes are adopted under Title 675 of the Indiana Administrative Code (IAC), administered by the Indiana Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission under the Department of Homeland Security. For a project in Boone County, the following standards govern at minimum:

Indiana adopted NFPA 13 (2010 edition) under 675 IAC 28-1-5 and NFPA 72 (2010 edition) under 675 IAC 28-1-28. The state life safety standard is NFPA 101 (2012 edition). For NFPA 2001, NFPA 75, NFPA 110, and NFPA 855, the Boone County AHJ should be consulted directly — Indiana state minimums represent a floor, and local jurisdictions may enforce more current editions of these standards. Given the novel scale and occupancy type of this campus, a pre-application meeting with the Boone County building and fire authority is strongly advisable before design development begins.

Section 4: What Designers Need to Think Through

Several design decisions must be resolved early — before construction documents are issued or pre-application meetings with the Boone County AHJ are scheduled.

Occupancy classification. Under the 2012 IBC (Indiana's adopted edition), data center halls are typically classified Group B (Business). However, large UPS rooms and battery energy storage areas may require Group S-1 analysis or accessory occupancy treatment depending on quantities and configuration. The occupancy classification drives egress layout, travel distance calculations, sprinkler density, and alarm zone boundaries.

Double-interlock pre-action design. Indiana's adopted NFPA 13 (2010) permits both single-interlock and double-interlock pre-action systems. For server halls at this scale, double-interlock provides the strongest protection against inadvertent discharge but requires a separate detection system — typically VEWFD — to initiate the first interlock. That detection system is designed and submitted under NFPA 72 (2010) and must be coordinated with the building management system for alarm sequencing and HVAC shutdown.

Fire department access at campus scale. With 13 buildings across 1,500 acres, fire access road layout, dead-end road turnarounds per IFC, and fire department connection placement cannot be deferred to permit submission. These require resolution during schematic design, coordinated with the civil engineer and with Boone County fire authority.

NFPA 75 scope at the data hall boundary. The current edition of NFPA 75 addresses fire protection for IT equipment rooms and specifically contemplates raised-floor and open-frame server environments. The designer must reconcile the detection requirements in NFPA 75 with the sprinkler design basis in NFPA 13 (2010) and confirm which NFPA 75 edition the Boone County AHJ enforces — particularly as liquid-cooled server configurations outpace the prescriptive guidance in older editions.

Section 5: How ProTech CDS Approaches Projects Like This

Hyperscale data center campuses require a fire protection consultant capable of committing to a phased, multi-building buildout — not just producing a permit package for Building 1. ProTech CDS provides fire alarm, sprinkler, suppression, and BIM coordination design, with NICET IV review and PE seals available in Indiana and all 50 states when the AHJ requires them.

White-label delivery means the drawings carry your firm's title block. ProTech CDS operates as an integrated extension of your design team across every permit phase. For engineers or developers beginning to scope a data center project at this scale, code compliance reviews and AHJ coordination strategy are available through lockin.protechcds.com.

Section 6: Call to Action

Designing fire protection for a hyperscale data center? ProTech CDS provides full-scope fire alarm, sprinkler, and suppression design, with NICET IV review and PE seals available in all 50 states when the AHJ requires them. Start your project at lockin.protechcds.com or contact us at admin@protechcds.com.