SpaceX Says No Personnel Injured, No Damage To Surrounding Property

While awaiting the arrival of shuttle Discovery back at Florida's Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday, some of the assembled media were also drawn to the sound of sirens in the vicinity of SpaceX's Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

Fortunately, representatives with SpaceX say, it sounded worse than it was.

"At 10:45 AM, a fire began during demolition activities at SpaceX’s Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40)," the company writes. "The Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Fire Department arrived nine minutes later and promptly extinguished the flames. There were no injuries to personnel or smoke inhalation, and no damage to surrounding property."

SpaceX says the fire was apparently ignited when demolition contractors were sectioning an aging structure in preparation for removal, using  steel cutting torches. Some nearby materials ignited. The work was monitored by a fire watch, and the fire department was summoned according to standard operating procedures.

"This kind of thing is not unheard of during large scale demolition. That’s why we have procedures in place. Everyone acted professionally and by the book, and fortunately no one was hurt," said Norman Bobczynski, SpaceX’s launch site director.

CEO Elon Musk was informed of the situation, and said SpaceX will work closely with officials at the Cape to investigate the event and will make any changes deemed necessary.

First opened in 1965, SLC-40 (shown in the background below) hosted numerous Titan launches over four decades. The most recent launch occurred in April of 2005.

As ANN reported, on November 1 SpaceX conducted an official ground breaking ceremony in preparation for transforming the site into a facility for its Falcon 9 and future Falcon 9 Heavy missions to launch commercial satellites, supply missions to the International Space Station (ISS), and eventually lofting crew carrying missions to the ISS and other orbiting destinations.

FMI: www.spacex.com