Here's how ABC have described the incident...
Fire forces emergency landing in Sydney
A British Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing at Sydney airport this afternoon, when a fire broke out on board just after it took off.
A spokesman for Airservices Australia says no-one was injured during the incident, which occurred just minutes after BA Flight 16 left Sydney for Singapore with 270 people onboard.
"At about 4:10pm, having literally gone about five nautical miles north of Sydney, (the captain) declared a Mayday and sought to return immediately to Sydney airport," the spokesman said.
Airport emergency services closed runways to all other traffic and called in police, fire brigade and ambulance services to back up the airport's response team.
The jumbo jet landed without incident and passengers were evacuated safely down mobile stairways after the plane came to a halt on the tarmac.
One of the passengers, Mike Souter, says the cabin was very warm before take-off but the pilot said the temperature would drop after take-off.
Mr Souter says passengers were informed shortly after take-off that there was a fire in the plane's hold.
"There was quite a strong smell of smoke and quite visibly the cabin crew were alarmed by the situation," he said.
Officials have confirmed an alarm in the forward cargo hold of the Boeing 747-400 alerted cockpit crew to the fire and emergency staff on the ground later said a small electrical fire had broken out.
"Fire crews say there was a small electrical wiring fire in the forward cargo hold which was extinguished by the onboard extinguisher system," the Airserives Australia spokesman said.
He added that there was "about a metre-square of fire damage."
BA said in a statement that the problem appeared to have been caused by faulty wiring to a refrigerator in one of the plane's galleys.
An airline spokeswoman says company officials are assessing whether the aircraft will be able to continue its journey.