THOUSAND of bottles of banned liquid and gel items confiscated from air travelers turned into a conflagration when airport authorities tried to dispose them using a road roller Friday afternoon.

Flames shot up as high as 10 feet in the air seconds after the roller driven by Rosevelt Anito began to crush the bottles, tubes and canisters.

The items made a 50-meter long carpet of bottles and tubes on the grounds of a parking lot at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 1 (NAIA1), fronting the building of the 1st Police Center for Aviation Security (PCAS) of the Police Aviation Security Group (ASG).

The explosions and flames sent airport officials, including general manager Alfonso Cusi, the media, and spectators who watched the supposedly low key activity scampering for safety.

Officials frantically directed Anito to steer the road roller away from the burning items to prevent the fire from getting bigger. Even then, there were intermittent explosions and bursts of flames.

Calls were made to dispatch a fire truck but only a small pressure washer arrived several minutes later to extinguish the fire.

"The friction caused by the roller’s passage must have started the fire. Obviously, there was a chemical reaction," Cusi told reporters at the scene.

Anito told the Inquirer that he didn't realize flames were licking at his road roller until he heard the screams and saw people telling him to get the vehicle away from the items. He said that this was the first time that such a thing happened to him in his 10 years working at the MIAA.

Anito said jumping off the vehicle didn't cross his mind. "If I had jumped a greater mishap may have happened because the roller could have hit vehicles and people," he said.

The items to be disposed ranged from ordinary toothpaste, mouthwash, contact lens solution, lotion, hair spray and mousse, and expensive imported perfume like Bulgari, Escada, Kenneth Cole, and Calvin Klein.

Confiscated from passengers on domestic and international flights, they filled up 115 balikbayan boxes since the liquid ban was imposed by the Manila International Airport Authority (MIAA) last Aug. 11 following a foiled terrorist attack in London's Heathrow Airport.

London authorities had said there was a plot to blow up trans-Pacific flights in mid-air using liquid bombs, prompting airport authorities worldwide to implement the stringent liquid ban at their international airports, including the NAIA.

The MIAA rejected suggestions to donate the confiscated items because some of them could be expired and may be hazardous to the recipients.

Cusi said they decided to destroy the confiscated items to show the public that these were not being pilfered by airport personnel. There was also the risk of the confiscated items getting stolen and they were starting to eat up storage space.

The MIAA tried to downplay Friday’'s apparent boo-boo by saying that the incident simply showed the hazards that could be caused by aerosol in an aircraft.

Cusi also reiterated his appeal to passengers to put liquid and gel items in their check-in luggage to avoid having these confiscated at the final security check at the domestic and international airports as the ban has not yet been lifted.