Rojas, the general manager, looked up and noticed white smoke emanating from the corner of the kitchen.

“So I come outside and I come get (my area manager),” she said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, our store is smoking up,’ and he runs inside and I run inside and my coworkers are getting all the customers out and I’m just making sure that everybody’s out and that all employees come out.

“And we’re just standing here and, like, three minutes later, the ambulance was here, the firefighters were here, and they took care of the rest.”

Regan Hendricks, the area manager, grabbed a fire extinguisher.

“And right here,” he said, referring to the southeast corner of the building where the drive-thru is, “there were flames inside the wall. They weren’t coming out of the building, but I could see them because there was like a vent in the wall, there’s a hole.

“So I stuck the fire extinguisher in there and I just sprayed the whole thing and it went out for a few seconds, and then all the sudden, it caught right back up on fire, and at that point the fire department showed up.”

Rojas said there were five employees, including Hendricks, and about four customers in the building at the time.

Layton City Fire Department Battalion Chief Jason Cook described the smoke as “voluminous” but said extinguishment was done in about 20 minutes. He added that there were no injuries.

In order to put out the fire, Cook said crews had to open exterior walls to get access.

According to Cook, evidence points to an electrical malfunction near the freezers, though he said the cause isn’t definitively determined yet. He said it’s not suspicious.

Crews from the Layton City Police Department and Hill Air Force Base Fire Department assisted in the response, Cook said.

Hendricks praised the work of the restaurant crew in the evacuation efforts, saying it was handled perfectly and everyone knew what to do.

“Everyone got their food, too, so it’s OK,” Rojas said.

Contact Standard-Examiner editor Ryan Comer at rcomer@standard.net.