POLAND — Some students got an unexpected break Monday after a small mechanical explosion at one of the school buildings.

Poland Local School District Superintendent Craig Hockenberry said Poland Middle School and McKinley Elementary School were evacuated just before 1:30 p.m. after staff at McKinley heard an explosion from the roof over the cafeteria and the lunch room began to fill with smoke.

Hockenberry, who was just next door at the middle school, said he first thought it was a fire drill.

“Then I saw there was a little bit of urgency and nobody seemed to know what was going on,” he said. “Within minutes, multiple fire departments were there, and nobody was hurt.”

Hockenberry said both schools were evacuated in about four minutes. The incident happened at 1:21 p.m. and everybody was out by 1:25.

The two schools hold about 1,000 students and 300 staff. McKinley, which houses grades K-3, holds 600 students and Poland Middle School, which houses grades 4-6, has about 410, Hockenberry said.

“Some kids were a little worried, but almost immediately it turned calm,” he said. “You know, we have all practiced this ever since we were little kids. In Poland, everybody has to do it once a month, and it’s routine now, so they know exactly what to do.”

Hockenberry said fire crews cleared the building in about 15 minutes and staff and students were allowed to go back in to get their coats before leaving for the day, since it was already close to dismissal time.

Hockenberry said the explosion and smoke do not appear to have harmed the building or any kitchen equipment, and the cafeteria will be open for service for the rest of this week.

Western Reserve Joint Fire District Chief Chip Comstock said the call came in as a routine alarm drop but was changed almost immediately to a commercial building fire call once the school notified them that there was an explosion and smoke was infiltrating the building.

He said that meant that his department, along with Springfield, Boardman, Struthers and Youngstown, responded to the call.

“They determined there was a problem with the blower motor that exploded, and as it tried to keep running, it caused the smoke to enter the school cafeteria area,” he said. “The smoke was eliminated relatively quickly.”

Comstock said the unit will have to be repaired, along with some superficial roof damage done by the fire crews’ tools as they worked to identify the source of the malfunction and ensure that there was no structural fire damage.

“I’m very happy with the fast assistance and response we got from our neighboring departments and I’m extremely happy it wasn’t anything very serious and nobody was hurt.”

Like Hockenberry, Comstock said the routine fire drills pay off. He said there are more than 30,000 fires a year at schools in the United States, but while the percentage of fires is so high, preparation keeps the injury rate very low.