City Hall closed briefly in fire scare

A midmorning fire scare closed city hall down for about an hour.

The scare came when a smoke detector sounded in the building around 10:40 a.m., and fire crews were called to the scene. By the time crews arrived, city staff had been evacuated from the building and there was a faint smoky haze inside the building.

The building was thoroughly searched and crews were not able to discover the source of the smoke, according to Maricopa Fire spokesman Brad Pitassi. Pitassi added that it is likely the source of the smoke was from a brief malfunction of a piece of office equipment.

“Thankfully this was a small occurrence,” Pitassi said. “It shows the importance of having working smoke alarms and an evacuation plan in place.”

City Hall reopened at 11:30 a.m.