MOSCOW. June 15 (Interfax) - A steppe fire near the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan has claimed the life of a driver of one of the enterprises in charge of supervising districts where rocket parts fall after launches.
"Following the successful launch of the Soyuz 2-1a launch vehicle [LV] with the Progress MS-06 resupply ship on June 14, 2017" as part of the International Space Station program, the lateral blocks of the launch vehicle fell in the designated district some 50 kilometers west of the city of Zhezkazgan, the Russian state corporation Roscosmos said.
"A steppe fire broke out in an uninhabited area because of complicated weather conditions in the district where the lateral blocks fell (temperatures at 34 degrees above zero with gusts of wind of up to 15 meters per second). There was no threat to the population. The fire was contained," Roscosmos said.
A KAMAZ truck driver, an employee of Reutov NPO Mashinostroyeniya, which oversees the districts where rocket parts fall, was killed during efforts to put out the fire, it said.
"The KAMAZ truck was engulfed by flames as a result of a particularly strong gust of wind," Roscosmos said.