Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge will be fully completed in the new year.

Punch-list items are just about all that remain to be completed in the effort to rehabilitate Pittsburgh's Liberty Bridge

Two years after a fire, the bridge's $81-million rehabilitation project is nearly complete.

When an intense construction fire shut down one of Pittsburgh’s busiest bridges last September, fire trouble had not been completely unexpected.

In the days before a large fire closed Pittsburgh’s Liberty Bridge for 24 days in September, crews working on the $80-million bridge rehabilitation squelched two minor fires, according to Occupational Safety and Health Administration documents obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette under the Freedom of Information Act.    

It took longer than expected, but Pittsburgh’s fire-damaged Liberty Bridge finally reopened last month.

The Pennsylvania Dept. of Transportation announced Friday afternoon that Pittsburgh’s fire-damaged Liberty Bridge will remain closed indefinitely as crews continue to repair 30 feet of a compression chord on a deck truss that was damaged in a Sept. 2 blaze. PennDOT, which hoped to finish the work by Monday, did not specify when the work would be done.