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The Jackson County juvenile detention center was evacuated after a plumbing-system motor caught fire and filled the building with smoke. A fire alarm went off at about 11:40 p.m. Sunday, said Juvenile Services Deputy Director Joe Ferguson. Detention center staff worked with Medford firefighters and police in response to the incident, he said. Ferguson said they couldn’t immediately locate the source of the smoke, which turned out to be a burned-out motor in the basement. “It produced a lot of smoke into the building, and initially, our staff and the fire department couldn’t figure out where that smoke was coming from. So we made the decision to evacuate our building, which included our residential program and our detention facility,” he said. The center is currently housing 14 juveniles in its detention center and nine minors in its residential program. The detention center operates as a jail for juveniles, including those who have violated terms of their probation or those awaiting the outcome of serious charges in court. Kids in the residential program are on probation and live in the building, but they have outside activities, home visits and other freedoms. The youths from the detention portion of the building were placed in shackles and waited outside in the center’s sally port, a secure outdoor space with high walls where vehicles come and go, Ferguson said. He said the area is the most secure location outside the building. Since the center’s sally port has no roof, the kids were not trapped inside a building with potentially harmful smoke. One drawback was that the sally port was a cold place to wait for the detention facility kids, Ferguson said. Kids in the residential program were able to sit inside a heated van in a parking lot while they waited for the smoke to clear from the building, he said. At about 2 a.m. Monday, all the kids were able to return to their rooms. They were allowed to sleep longer Monday morning to make up for the lost hours of sleep, he said. The fire was limited to one motor. Maintenance personnel were working to replace the burned motor with a spare on Monday, Ferguson said. Other motors were not damaged and the center’s plumbing continued to work, he said. Reach Mail Tribune reporter Vickie Aldous at 541-776-4486 or [email protected] . Follow her on Twitter @ VickieAldous .