[scurvy]

Cardboard breaks down over time. It turns into particulate matter that goes airborne into really hot server intakes and comes out tiny little burning embers.

If it didn't burn down Google's stuff, it could have burned down other people's gear. I have decades of experience here; I'm not an ivory tower nerd. Any datacenter/colo provider worth a salt will jump on you immediately for having cardboard in your environment. DRT makes you unbox everything outside the various colos and won't even let cardboard enter.

[upofadown]

>comes out tiny little burning embers.

The auto-ignition temp of paper is over 200C. The maximum junction temperature of most electronics is somewhere around 100C. This this literally could not of ever happened unless the equipment was already on fire.

I'll leave the idea that cardboard breaks down fast enough to be noticed over the life of a server to someone more knowledgeable. I note that there was no mention of cardboard in the article.

[scurvy]

The motherboards were placed directly on cardboard trays. It says that in the article.