Italy's Busiest Airport Suffers Delays Due to Forest Fire
Impacting Travel Donald Wood July 29, 2015

A major airport in Italy was dealing with a forest fire Wednesday that shut down the facility for a short time, causing major travel headaches for passengers.
According to EuroNews.com, Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy’s busiest airport, had resumed full flight activity after smoke from a nearby forest fire caused officials to suspend takeoffs and restrict landings Wednesday morning.
Italian forest rangers told EuroNews.com that the fire had impacted around 16,000 acres of a pine trees in a nature reserve that surrounds the airport. The fire spread quickly due to dry conditions and wind, but fire-fighting planes got the blaze under control by dropping water on the area.
Once the fire was under control, Fiumicino Airport once again allowed planes to take off and land, including airline Alitalia, which shared the time of the first aircraft to depart from the facility following the blaze on Twitter:
#Fiumicino airport is fully operational again. AZ flight nr 1133 to Ancona has taken off.>> pic.twitter.com/o9tNtApEyg
— Alitalia (@Alitalia) July 29, 2015
Several Italian news outlets also shared images of the fire near the airport on Twitter:
#Incendio vicino scalo #Fiumicino, blocco di tutti decolli in aeroporto http://t.co/PtiFcafsOa pic.twitter.com/nezl8MmREo
— Agenzia ANSA (@Agenzia_Ansa) July 29, 2015
Incendio a Fiumicino, stop decolli - Alitalia: blocco disposto da autorità #fiumicino http://t.co/79xaSvpEcM pic.twitter.com/WQzaa3pIZ0
— Tgcom24 (@MediasetTgcom24) July 29, 2015
Located on the Mediterranean Sea, Fiumicino Airport is surrounded by several parks, nature reserves and forests, but forest fires have not been a major issue in the past. Fire, on the other hand, has been a problem for the airport itself.
In May, TravelPulse reported that over 175 flights were canceled due to a fire that broke out in the international terminal. Thousands of passengers were stranded as the firefighters took almost five hours to get the blaze under control and the airport back to normal.
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