A mas­sive fire erupt­ed at the South Ter­mi­nal of the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day morn­ing leav­ing hun­dreds of pas­sen­gers strand­ed, flights be­ing di­vert­ed and a fire of­fi­cer frac­tur­ing his leg while re­spond­ing to the blaze.

Of­fi­cials said the fire led to all air­port ac­tiv­i­ties com­ing to a com­plete stand­still, with at least four flights di­vert­ed to To­ba­go as the run­away was tem­porar­i­ly closed.

The Air­ports Au­thor­i­ty, in a state­ment, ex­plained that the fire be­gan around 5 am en­gulf­ing the Amer­i­jet In­ter­na­tion­al Air­lines ware­house at the South Ter­mi­nal com­pound and quick­ly es­ca­lat­ed, send­ing thick plumes of smoke bil­low­ing across the fa­cil­i­ty.

The ware­house is a car­go stor­age and re­dis­tri­b­u­tion fa­cil­i­ty.

Fire of­fi­cials said one eye­wit­ness raised an alarm, and with­in min­utes, of­fi­cers from the near­by Pi­ar­co Fire Sta­tion were called in to bat­tle the in­tense blaze as all em­ploy­ees at the var­i­ous fa­cil­i­ties and sec­tions of the air­port were evac­u­at­ed.

Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Fire Ser­vice (TTFS), Daron Dasent, told Guardian Me­dia that the sit­u­a­tion de­mand­ed im­me­di­ate back­up from units based at Cen­tral Head­quar­ters and Tu­na­puna Fire Sta­tion.

Fire of­fi­cials said amid the ef­forts to ex­tin­guish the fire and pre­vent it from spread­ing, a fire­fight­er suf­fered a se­ri­ous in­jury, a frac­tured left leg, and was sent for spe­cial­ist med­ical care.

No oth­er in­juries were re­port­ed.

With the fire rag­ing and con­cerns mount­ing over po­ten­tial haz­ards stored with­in the ware­house, air­port au­thor­i­ties made the call to shut down the air­port en­tire­ly.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty or­dered the run­way closed; this re­sult­ed in de­part­ing flights be­ing de­layed and in­com­ing flights be­ing di­vert­ed. 

Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, in a state­ment is­sued to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day evening, said a to­tal of 13 out­go­ing flights, com­pris­ing both in­ter­na­tion­al and do­mes­tic were de­layed. He said nine in­com­ing flights were de­layed, four of which were di­vert­ed to To­ba­go un­til the air­port re­sumed nor­mal op­er­a­tions.

For al­most three hours, the usu­al­ly bustling Pi­ar­co air­port was at a stand­still.

Flights from Grena­da, Fort Laud­erdale, Mi­a­mi, and Kingston were among those forced to reroute to the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in To­ba­go.

Caribbean Air­lines con­firmed the di­ver­sions in an of­fi­cial state­ment, apol­o­gis­ing for the dis­rup­tion while as­sur­ing the pub­lic that safe­ty re­mained the top pri­or­i­ty.

The run­way was re­opened at 8.35 am.

By mid­day, all op­er­a­tions at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port re­sumed in full af­ter the all-clear was giv­en by the Fire Ser­vice and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Civ­il Avi­a­tion Au­thor­i­ty. How­ev­er, of­fi­cials warned that de­lays were still pos­si­ble and urged pas­sen­gers to stay in con­tact with their re­spec­tive air­lines.

Min­is­ter Sinanan said the blaze was quick­ly brought un­der con­trol and fire per­son­nel re­mained on the scene un­til the site was ren­dered safe.

He said there was no in­for­ma­tion from Amer­i­jet re­gard­ing the cost of dam­age.

In the wake of the emer­gency, Amer­i­jet’s Mi­a­mi of­fice re­leased a state­ment con­firm­ing that all staff mem­bers were safe and un­in­jured. The com­pa­ny said it was work­ing close­ly with lo­cal au­thor­i­ties and would is­sue fur­ther up­dates fol­low­ing a full as­sess­ment of the dam­age.

Up to yes­ter­day evening, there was no word on what led to the fire but in­ves­ti­ga­tors were re­port­ed­ly pay­ing spe­cial at­ten­tion to whether haz­ardous ma­te­ri­als stored in­side the ware­house may have in­ten­si­fied the blaze.