ROME (Reuters) - Rome's Fiumicino airport resumed full operations after smoke from a forest fire on Wednesday forced Italy's busiest hub to suspend takeoffs and restrict landings.
Airline Alitalia announced the resumption of services in a Tweet several hours after the blaze broke out in one of several forests of pine trees near the airport.
Forest rangers said in a statement that the blaze had affected about 40 hectares of a nature reserve that totals some 16,000 acres. The fire had been whipped by winds and put under control by fire-fighting planes that dropped water on the area.
A fire in one of the terminals on May 7 affected services for more than two months before the airport fully opened on July 17.
Fiumicino is on the Mediterranean Sea, west of the capital. It is close to a number of parks and nature reserves of forests of pines native to the area.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Larry King)