A fire in the basement of the Michigan Union early Saturday afternoon resulted in the temporary evacuation of the entire building, according to several sources interviewed at the scene.

The fire occurred at about 12:10 p.m. in the Panda Express located in the restaurant court of the Union, according to two employees of the neighboring Wendy’s.

The two employees — Jen Krell and Christine Walkowski — said they saw fire behind the counter of Panda Express followed by a cloud of smoke.

“This was big, and then (there was) tons of black smoke,” Walkowski said.

At the sound of the fire alarm the two women said they left the building and waited outside for about an hour until they were permitted to re-enter at about 1:15 p.m.

“All the restaurants had to get a clearance to open again,” Walkowski said.

As of 2:20 p.m. Saturday, all restaurants in the basement of the Union but Panda Express had reopened for business. A Panda Express employee at the Union declined to comment.

Several calls to the Ann Arbor Fire Department were not returned as of 3:25 p.m. Saturday afternoon. The Department could also not be reached last night.

The fire occurred during a four-day Model United Nations event being held throughout the Union. The University of Michigan Model United Nations is an annual University-sponsored conference for high school students.

According to LSA senior Nick Bourjaily, the secretary general of internal affairs for UMMUN, the roughly 500 high school participants were evacuated from the Union when the fire took place.

But Bourjaily said it wasn’t a big issue since the conference’s participants were about to break for lunch anyway.

“They all left and waited in a group; no harm, no one got injured,” he said.

Bruce Crane, a high school junior from Mattawan High School in Mattawan, Mich. who is participating in the conference, said he was drafting a paper on illicit trafficking when he heard the fire alarm.

“We just grabbed our coats and left,” Crane said. “I thought it was a joke or something.”

Also a UMMUN participant, Kristina Mordarski, a sophomore at Arts Academy in the Woods in Fraser, Mich., said the evacuation was handled well and that nobody panicked.

“Everybody was pretty calm, keeping their heads clear,” Mordanski said.