Fire at Wellington Airport terminal

Fire brigades are responding to a fire at Wellington Airport that broke out on Friday evening.

Fire and Emergency said they received a call through the automated alarm at 7:15pm.

A spokesperson said this initiated a response from the Wellington Fire Brigade and the Wellington Airport Fire Brigade.

They confirmed there were a total of nine trucks at the scene.

"It's been escalated to a second alarm level. Now they've reported it being a piece of machinery on fire.

"It has activated a sprinkler system as well."

They could not confirm if it was inside or outside the building.

One woman waiting in the airport said it appeared the roof over the departure gate area was on fire.

She was just about to board Air New Zealand flight NZ377 to Christchurch when passengers who had already boarded started to be evacuated from the plane.

"It was chaos. Gate staff appeared confused and instructions were not provided for about 10 minutes".

"You could see smoke and smell it. We are now being evacuated out of the terminal. It's a total mess."

More to come...