Grass fire near runway at city airport

A fire was spotted in a stretch of grass beside the secondary runway at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport (NSCBIA) here today, an Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said.

The incident happened around 1.35 pm but there were no reports of any casualty, the official said.

Flight operations also remained unaffected, he said.

"A grass fire much beyond runway number 19R was reported today. The fire was doused within five minutes," the Director of NSCBIA Atul Dixit said.

"No injuries were reported and no operations were affected. The reason behind the fire was unknown," the airport director said.

The fire was possibly caused by crackers used to scare away birds from the runways, an AAI official at the airport said.