UPDATE, 4:35 p.m.: Humboldt Bay Fire Batallion Chief Chris Emmons tells the Outpost‘s Hank Sims that one of the cineplex’s auditoriums started filling up with smoke. The theater’s staff handled it great, Emmons said, making sure everyone was evacuated safely.

Fire crews have responded along with PG&E, with an electrician searching for the source of the smoke. Emmons said it’s a strange electrical outage. Though several circuits are out, responders haven’t found any tripped breakers. And though the smell of smoke is obvious, they’ve been unable find where it’s coming from.

Emmons added that the theater will almost certainly be closed for the day.

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Original post:

Photo submitted via Facebook by Felicia Muir.

Moviegoers were evacuated from Broadway Cinema in Eureka this afternoon when Humboldt Bay Fire responded to reports of smoke and the smell of electrical fire. The Outpost‘s Hank Sims is on the scene and spoke with an employee of the multiplex, who said there was an electrical problem in one of the theaters around 3:30 p.m.

“Hopefully, we will be back open tomorrow,” the employee said, though he admitted that he doesn’t know exactly what’s happening.

Two fire trucks and an incident command vehicle have responded, and the fire department personnel are currently inside the building. 

The moviegoers who were evacuated received vouchers. We will update this post when we have more information.