Florida Airport Shut Down After Fire Erupts in Parking Garage

Videos shared to social media showed thick black smoke billowing from the garage.

Jacksonville International Airport in Jacksonville, Fla., in March 2019. Google Street View

Florida’s Jacksonville International Airport temporarily closed on Friday afternoon after a fire broke out in the hourly parking garage.

“Due to a fire in the Hourly Garage, the airport is currently closed,” the airport wrote in a post on its official X account at around 12:45 p.m. It added that emergency responders were on the scene and that both inbound and outbound road access to the airport had been shut down.

Videos circulating on social media showed thick black smoke billowing from the garage building as firefighters worked to contain the blaze.

Around 3 p.m., the airport provided an update stating that while the hourly garage remained closed, other parking areas such as the daily garage and economy lots had reopened.

Airport shuttle buses are still running, with pick-up relocated to the pre-arranged/premier parking lot on the lower level of the baggage claim area, the airport said.

According to air traffic tracking site FlightRadar, the airport remained closed to passenger flights, with operations expected to resume no earlier than 8 p.m. local time.

The cause of the fire and whether there were any injuries remained unclear at the time of publication. Airport officials have not yet provided an estimate for when full operations will resume. The Epoch Times has reached out to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for comments.

Local outlet First Coast News reported that multiple vehicles caught fire on the third level of the garage. According to the airport’s website, as reported by First Coast News, the garage was 95 percent full at the time of the incident.