Fire at Burger King prompts evacuation at Southwest Florida International Airport

A concourse at Southwest Florida International Airport was evacuated Friday morning after a fire started in one of the airport restaurants.

The fire at Burger King in Concourse B started around 7:30 a.m. and led to people being evacuated as a precaution, as is standard in such situations, according to RSW. One plane was also moved away from a gate.

The fire led to thick plumes of smoke filling the concourse.

“As I was moving through security, the alarms were already going off but no one was moving quickly and nobody acted like it was much of anything,” said Linda Graves Arnold, one of the people evacuated from the concourse.

Graves’ flight was delayed by about 90 minutes, but she made it back to St. Louis.

Firefighters arrived soon after to contain the fire. By 8:12 a.m. it was extinguished and the area was being ventilated. It was determined that the fire started near a stove.

Flights from Concourse B — Southwest and Frontier airlines — moved to another concourse until clean up was finished.

No injuries were reported in the incident.

“Everyone was coming out of the terminal and people were surrounding each other and there was a big mob of people,” said Kim Vandress, of Fort Myers.  “You kind of want to get away from the people, so we backed away and stood off by ourselves waiting and listening.”

“This was supposed to be easy Peezy,” Vandress added.

Concourse B remains closed, but flights arriving at RSW in the afternoon were not impacted.

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