Newell Hall was evacuated Monday after fire alarms were heard in the building.
A malfunctioning elevator motor in the building caused smoke, which set off fire alarms in the building, according to Keith Saunders, a spokesman for the Gainesville Fire Rescue.
University Police Department spokesman Jeff Holcomb reported that the fire alarms went off at 12:35 p.m.
Manmeet Waria, a Ph.D. candidate in soil and water sciences, said fire trucks arrived at the scene about 10 minutes after the alarms went off.
The two fire trucks that arrived at the scene parked at the Hub and evaluated the situation before leaving around 1:05 p.m.
There were no reports of the elevator being stuck or anyone trapped inside as the elevator malfunctioned, Saunders said.
“We have seen that elevator break two or three times before,” Waria said. “So, my reaction was that the elevator broke and there was no real fire. But, you never know.”
This isn’t the first time the building has been evacuated in the past two years. An identical incident involving smoke created by an elevator motor occurred at Newell Hall on Sept. 1.
