iFly Fire: Insulation panel caught fire as welder worked, EPFD says

A spokesman with the El Paso Fire Department told ABC-7 the massive fire at the iFly construction site in West El Paso was caused by a welder.

iFly is an indoor skydiving facility set to open next year. The fire department said that while the welder was working, some sparks landed on the insulation panels, causing the fire.

The construction site is located at 430 Vin Rambla Drive. It is off I-10 West in between Executive and Sunland Park. The fire was reported shortly before 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

No injuries were reported at the site. The fire department could not yet provide a damage estimate.

iFly co-owner Bill Adams told ABC-7 on Thursday that he still hopes to meet the goal of opening the El Paso location in April 2019.

Adams said an engineer visited the site on Thursday and determined that the structure of the building is fine and that the indoor equipment was unharmed.

It will take about a week or two to clean up the mess from Wednesday’s fire.

Adams told ABC-7 other iFly facilities have caught fire during the construction phase and most of the time it is related to welding.

Adams says those fires happened overseas and that the fire in El Paso is the first one to happen in the U.S. at one of his locations

Adams praised El Paso firefighters for their rapid response to the fire.