Smoke billowed above Sydney's CBD on Australia Day as a small blaze in a kitchen caused the evacuation of a high-rise apartment building.
Firefighters say the blaze in the ground-floor Castlereagh Street restaurant on Tuesday wasn't big, but thick smoke travelled up all 38 storeys of the building through the elevator shaft and escaped through the roof.
The fire led to the evacuation of around 100 people from the tower just after 11.30am, said NSW Fire & Rescue.
Smoke filled several floors of the building, with the sprinkler system containing the blaze before crews quickly extinguished the oil fire in the kitchen.
"It was quite a small fire but there was quite a lot of smoke," City of Sydney Station Commander Tony Camilleri told AAP.
The fire had caused a partial roof collapse in the restaurant kitchen but the damage was fairly limited, he said.
The heavy smoke could be seen from several streets away.
Onlookers crowded the street as emergency crews blocked off part of the road to traffic, with streets reopening by 2pm.
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