Atlanta Airport Fire Under Investigation

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March 15th, 2013

An audio version of this story.

A fire Thursday night at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is now under investigation.

This is the second incident in the terminal connection areas in the past month.

The fire broke out in one of the airport’s electric sidewalks around 7:30 p.m. Thursday according to Aviation General Manager Louis Miller. “Fortunately there was someone there to put the fire out when it first happened to get it out very quickly. So it minimized the amount of smoke.”

But the smoke was still a problem.  For about an hour, the area had to be shut down leaving some people in the concourses and others on their planes.

Miller says the airport maintenance staff will try to determine the cause of the fire. The moving sidewalks were originally installed in 1980, and the airport is in the process of replacing them. But Miller said he did not know whether it was an old sidewalk or a new one where the fire broke out.

Last month, smoke coming from a motor on one of the people-moving trains filled the area, requiring a temporary shutdown of the train system.

No one was hurt in either incident.

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