Video shows fire on baggage conveyor belt at Calgary airport

A conveyor belt caught fire Tuesday evening as it was loading luggage onto a plane at Calgary International Airport.

Liz Robb was flying from Comox, B.C. to her home in London, Ont., Tuesday evening and stopped at the Calgary International Airport for a layover.

She saw the fire about 10:30 p.m. and caught the incident on video.

"I was inside the airport and someone had mentioned there was a fire outside... there was a conveyor belt, the kind they use for loading luggage on and off, and it was engulfed in flames at the time," she said.

Robb said twopeople initially came out and attempted to extinguish the fire, but the flames only got bigger. She said it was about five minutes before the airport fire department arrived on scene.

"The flames were going pretty good and it was right up next to the aircraft, so I assume there was likely a fair bit of damage to the exterior of the aircraft," she said.

She said WestJet staff evacuated passengers from Zone B of the airport and moved them to Zone A, but the evacuation only lasted about 20 minutes.

Robb said the incident didn't faze her.

"No, I wasn't concerned at all. We have great standards here in Canada as far as our air crews go. I mean, stuff happens. Hopefully we will find out what the actual cause of that fire was," she said.

Airline investigating

WestJetconfirmed in an email that they are investigating a fire that occurred on a belt loader that was loading baggage and cargo onto one of the company's planes.

The airline said emergency crews were called and were able to quickly extinguish the fire, preventing any damage to the plane. No travellers or crew were hurt in the incident.

Three flights were delayed due to the incident, andoperations were back to normal as of Wednesday morning.

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