Fire forces evacuation of Manhattan office building; no injuries

[March 25, 2014]  (Reuters) — A small fire erupted in a Manhattan office building's duct work late on Monday evening that sent smoke into Midtown and caused the building to be evacuated, officials and media said.

Emergency calls reported smoke on the lower levels of the 48-story Time & Life Building late on Monday evening, New York Fire Department spokesman Danny Glover said, adding there were no injuries and the fire was out by about 11 p.m. EDT.

Heavy smoke could be seen outside the Avenue of the Americas building, which had been evacuated, NBC reported. Glover could not confirm that it had been evacuated.

The roughly 2 million square foot (185,806 square meter) Time & Life Building, opened in 1959, is home to a number of media outlets in Midtown, developer Rockefeller Group said on its website.

(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson; editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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