Smoke and steam coming from behind Dabney Hall were cause for a false alarm Friday afternoon with two EMS trucks and five fire trucks arriving on the scene.

According to Capt. Jon Barnwell of Campus Police, at first officers thought the smoke was coming from Dabney Hall.

When police officers were first alerted of the smoke, he said, they did not ask that anyone in Dabney Hall evacuate the building.

“If people are safer in a sheltered area, you leave them there,” he said.

But according to Barnwell, someone had dropped a cigarette from the Atrium and it fell on a pile of leaves close to a vent above the Free Expression Tunnel.

“A cigarette fell down the grate at the Atrium, and it caught the debris on fire,” he said.

Smoke rose up through the vent as the air carried it up when the leaves caught fire, Barnwell said.

According to Barnwell, the smoke and the smell from the fire eventually dissipated into the air after officers located the fire and put it out.

A mounted patrol officer blocked the entrance to the Free Expression Tunnel from the Brickyard as emergency vehicles surrounded the area.