MFD: Two ‘poofs’ lead to evacuation at Madison café

MADISON, Wis. (WMTV) – A pair of ‘poofs’ alerted employees at a Madison café to a dryer fire that forced the evacuation of that business and the one next door on Wednesday morning.

The first ‘poof’ came about 15 minutes after a load out of the dryer at the restaurant on the city’s far west side, employees told the Madison Fire Department. Before that, some workers had smelled something burning, but couldn’t find anything wrong. When they checked after initially hearing something, they still could not find any problems.

Then, right after they finished checking: ‘poof.’

At that point, the workers found the fire inside the dryer and called 911 for help. Firefighters responded around 9:20 a.m. to the café, in the 8400 block of Old Sauk Road, and were greeted by thick smoke as they went into the small room where the dryer was located. Firefighters used a fire extinguisher to put out the flames.

Both the restaurant and a store next door were evacuated, and fire crews checked out the roof for signs of fire. After not finding any, they removed the dryer from the building and began ventilating the shops.

The cause of the fire is still unknown. The fire department found some tripped electrical breakers and said there was no evidence of a lint building. No injuries were reported.

Click here to download the NBC15 News app or our NBC15 First Alert weather app.