Rome’s Fiumicino airport was forced to suspend all flights for around two hours Wednesday after a fire broke out in a nearby pine grove, spreading dense smoke across the runway.
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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 (about half a mile) 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.