Sector V: A fire broke out at a coffee outlet outside a restaurant near the Webel building in Sector V's EN block on Wednesday evening.

The fire, first spotted around 5.30pm, sparked panic among employees of IT companies heading home.

Three fire tenders took 30 minutes to douse the flames, which damaged the façade of the outlet. No one was injured but the blaze disrupted traffic in the area for around 15 minutes.

The restaurant is on the ground and first floors of a five-storeyed building. A number of offices are located on a part of the first floor and the three upper floors.

"Fire-fighters and policemen evacuated employees from the offices in the building that houses the eatery as well as in adjacent buildings," an officer of the Electronics Complex police station said.

"I saw men running out of the coffee outlet. Soon after, the flames reached the height of the first floor of a building. I ran out of my shop," recounted Hari Prasad Shaw, who runs a paan stall opposite the restaurant.

Pallavi Chakraborty, who works in an office nearby, said she was out on a tea break when she saw the flames. "The flames were leaping out of the coffee outlet. I immediately ran in the other direction," said Chakraborty.

An officer in the fire and emergency services department said their control room had got a call about the fire around 5.45pm. "We reached the spot within five minutes of getting the call and controlled the blaze within 30 minutes," the officer said.

"A leak from a cooking gas cylinder might have triggered the blaze. Employees at the counter said they had smelt LPG before the fire broke out. We have started a probe," an officer of the Sector V fire station said.