DOWNTOWN — A car fire in the parking garage under the Illinois Center caused a partial evacuation of the 111 E. Wacker office building along the Chicago River Thursday afternoon.
A heavy Fire Dept. presence arrived because of the 2 p.m. fire.
The burning car was put out by the Fire Dept. No one was hurt.
A few dozen people stood in the courtyard in front of the building, many of them saying they'd been working on the 30th floor when alarms sounded.
Others, despite not being told to evacuate, were driven out of the building by a burning smell.
"We started to smell a really smoky smell, like an electrical fire, and when we heard all the sirens we just grabbed our stuff and left," said Shawn Vallera, who works in a marketing company on the eighth floor. "We just figured, better safe than sorry."
By 2:45 p.m., many of the evacuated office-dwellers had returned to work.
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