No fire in the sky: preventing an astronaut’s worst nightmare

“A risky and dangerous situation,” recalls ESA astronaut Reinhold Ewald of the in-orbit fire he experienced aboard the Mir space station back in 1997. “The fire was so enormous and the smoke and vapour coming off this fire site was such that we couldn’t see at arm’s length – and I could not at that time have imagined that we go on with the mission.”