A fire at a Jacksonville International Airport hourly parking garage on Friday, May 16, forced operations to shut down and delayed flights.

The blaze was reported at around 12:45 p.m. ET, according to The Florida Times-Union, part of the USA TODAY Network.

“Due to a fire in the Hourly Garage, the airport is currently closed. JFRD is on-site working on the issue. JSO has blocked inbound and outbound road access to the airport. Additional details will be forthcoming soon,” a post from airport officials said.

About 50 cars were damaged, with officials expecting the airport to reopen on Friday afternoon, News 4 Jax reported.

“They’ve sent in a drone and so far, it looks like we’re in good shape. We can’t know for 100% sure until we can actually get in there and inspect this car,” Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said during a news conference.

Amid the same news conference, Jacksonville Fire Chief Keith Powers said there was a partial collapse of the second and third floors of the parking garage.

“We’re not putting firefighters in there. We’re using drones to look for anybody that could be in there…but we won’t know until we can get in there and physically verify…this is going to be a long, long process, obviously similar to what we dealt with at the St. Vincent’s parking garage,” he said.

See the fire at Jacksonville International Airport

A video from the airport shows the blaze on the afternoon of May 16.

Contributing: Clayton Freeman, Florida Times-Union

Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.