(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Rome's Fiumicino airport was forced to suspend all flights for around two hours on Wednesday after a fire broke out in a nearby pine grove, spreading dense smoke across the runway.
Italian airline giant Alitalia said flights had resumed after firefighters gained control of the blaze and was "fully operational again".
Clouds of grey smoke blown by strong winds had briefly grounded all flights at the capital city's biggest airport, which was forced to close in May after a blaze devastated part of a terminal and had yet to fully reopen.
Teams of firefighters raced to tackle the fire in a pine grove in Focene, next to the airport, which appeared to have been started on purpose and had spread to engulf several vehicles in a nearby carpark.
"The situation is very serious, the blaze is about one kilometre wide," said Fiumicino mayor Esterino Montino.
"The fire seems to have started in two or three different places. It's difficult to intervene because the wind is blowing towards the pine grove," he said, as two fire-fighting planes and two fire-fighting helicopters helped battle the blaze.
May fire
The airport is still struggling to recover from a nighttime blaze triggered by an electrical fault in a bar which sparked scenes of total chaos earlier this year with thousands of people hit by flight cancellations and airport staff forced to wear protective masks.
Terminal three, which handles international flights, was seriously damaged and the airport was forced to reduce capacity by 40%.
Alitalia said on Wednesday that the cost of damages from the May 7 fire have reached ‚¬80mn ($88mn), but the figure could still rise.
The airline's CEO Silvano Cassano said in a statement that it had been an "extremely difficult period" and warned the company could be "forced to shift its growth elsewhere".
The fire was also bad news for the capital's mayor Ignazio Marino, who has been battling accusations that the eternal city has descended into grimy and dishevelled chaos, where the transport sector in particular has failed pitifully in the searing summer heat.
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