Wednesday, a fire in Reynolds Hall forced students and instructors to evacuate the building.

A fire alarm went off between noon and 1 p.m. When the alarm sounded, the Joplin Fire Department was contacted.

The fire department responded, arriving to the parking lot between Reynolds and the Leggett & Platt Athletic Center.

“Just a small electrical fire in one room,” Dean of Students Ron Mitchell said at the scene. “It was contained quickly. The alarm went off, everybody left exactly like you’re supposed to.

“The fire department was called, they’ve got it contained,” he said.

Dr. Gerald Schlink, professor of biology, said a student worker in Reynolds Hall was the first to detect the fire.

The student alerted Schlink and he sounded the alarm.

Most 1 p.m. classes were canceled, but as of 2 p.m., classes resumed as normally scheduled.

According to a University press release, an autoclave began creating large amounts of smoke in a lab room.

Firefighters said the overheating of wiring in the machine caused the smoke.

“It burnt up a motor and a contact on it,” Joplin Fire Chief Mitch Randles said.

“That’s what caused all the smoke and the odor throughout the building.”

Randles said the fire was confined to the individual autoclave machine and that no damage was done to that room or the rest of the building.