Students at Missouri Western in their first week of classes at Murphy Hall were evacuated briefly Tuesday, after smoke from a burnt-out ventilator motor filled the first floor of the building.

The incident started at about 1:40 p.m. just as one class session was about to end and another was about to start. By about 2:15 pm the fire department had cleared the scene except for one unit that remained behind to ventilate the building.

University spokesman Kent Heier tells us that dozens of students, faculty and staff were evacuated from the building.

“At least one hundred people were evacuated, maybe more, it’s hard to tell,” Heier said. “It came as one class session was about to end and another was about to start. It’s difficult to say how many of the people milling around had evacuated and how many were trying to get in for the next class period.”

Heier says there were approximately 16 classes in session when the evacuation was ordered, and another, like number about to start. This was only the second day of classes of the new semester, and the first day on the Tuesday-Thursday schedule.

Murphy Hall is a general purpose classroom building. Several academic departments are housed there, including Nursing, Communication Studies, and Education.

There were no injuries.

Heier said the 3:00 and 3:30 p.m. classes were expected to take place as scheduled.