NY Times

The thick, smoky fire was unusual because it started in an underground storage room on a mezzanine inside the station, a transfer hub in Greenwich Village. It started at 8:02 a.m., and firefighters did not declare it under control until more than three hours later. Seven firefighters had minor injuries.

By 8:41, service had been suspended on much or all of seven lines: the A, C and E, which travel under Eighth Avenue, and the B, D, F and V lines, which run under the Avenue of the Americas. Other lines, like the G, were delayed or rerouted as a result. Full service was restored at 12:15 p.m., transit officials said.

The fire, which echoed a string of major disruptions that shut down busy subway lines at peak hours three times in January and March, was a striking reminder of the system's vulnerability. It occurred as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is seeking voter approval of a $2.9 billion transportation bond act on the Nov. 8 ballot, has been trying to curry favor with the public. On Tuesday, the authority announced a plan to give fare discounts and free rides to subway, bus and commuter-rail riders during the holiday season.

Riders caught in the confusion yesterday expressed impatience and anger. Several said they had received perplexing or vague instructions from transit workers.

Laura McCune, a manager at a health food store who boarded an F train in Park Slope, Brooklyn, followed a conductor's instructions and transferred to a Manhattan-bound A train, hoping to later double back and take a third train to her job on the Lower East Side.

"When we got into West Fourth, I got off the train and the station was filled with smoke," she recalled. "I was coughing. Then they announced there was no F service. As I walked out of the station, I passed police officers and transit workers. Nobody said a word to me." Bewildered passengers wandered the station, seeking directions. "This was unacceptable," Ms. McCune said. "The station should have been evacuated immediately. I am fuming."

Edward Deitch, a senior news producer at "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," was on a southbound C train when it slowed to a halt just north of West 72nd Street. The train's two crew members then had a conversation that was broadcast, willingly or inadvertently, over the public address system.

"The motorman said to the conductor, 'Can you call ahead to 59th to see what's going on?' and the conductor replied, 'I don't think the radio's working,' " Mr. Deitch recalled. "There was nervous laughter on my car."

At 72nd Street, the train stopped again and the passengers were treated to another exchange: "The motorman asked, 'Did they tell us to hold in the station?' and the conductor said, 'Not really. You want to get going, you think?' The motorman says, 'O.K.,' and then we were off."

Mr. Deitch, who lives on the Upper West Side, arrived at work 45 minutes late. "What struck me was the poor communication, not only between the transit workers but also with the riders," he said.

John Coloe, a deputy assistant chief in the Fire Department, said that firefighters had to drag hoses to the work room and protect themselves from high levels of carbon monoxide. They could not safely begin fighting the fire, he said, until the power to the area was shut off.

Lawrence G. Reuter, the president of New York City Transit, said the agency could not shut off power for about 40 minutes after the fire started, because of the need to evacuate about eight trains filled with passengers.

Moving the trains to West Fourth Street and evacuating passengers through the station was the safest course of action, he said, because there was only a small amount of smoke on the platforms.

"There was no danger to the customers, there was no smoke on the platform, so we held off turning power off until we could get them safely out of trains," Mr. Reuter said at an afternoon news conference.

Even after the trains were evacuated, the fire stubbornly raged on. Around 10 a.m., electricity was restored and another fire flared up, in a different part of the work area. The fires were finally put out at 11:16 a.m.

The cause of the fire was not known. The mezzanine - which is wedged beneath the Eighth Avenue lines and above the Sixth Avenue lines - is regularly used by track workers, train crews and other employees. The station opened in 1932.

For a while early yesterday, the disruptions seemed so extensive that some riders were left bewildered. "I guess this was the unpredictability everyone was telling me about," said Jessica Hulst, 22, a teacher's aide who moved to Manhattan two months ago from Vancouver, Wash.

Wendy Newsome, 40, who had ended her night shift at the James A. Farley Post Office in Midtown, was one of thousands of commuters who had to adjust their schedules. After discovering that the A train she usually takes home to Brownsville, Brooklyn, was not running, she walked to Seventh Avenue and boarded an M20 bus downtown.

"It's a pain, but hey, you learn to live with it," she said while riding a Brooklyn-bound L train. "What else are you going to do?"

Alan Feuer and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting for this article.