Two firetrucks carrying half a dozen San Francisco firefighters descended on a 12-story building near the SF State campus Wednesday afternoon as a fire alarm sent dozens of tenants scrambling to get safely outside.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the responders to determine that it was all a false alarm. But it was a tense half hour for roommates Tatyana Zamarian and Nicole Steafano, both SF State juniors.

“We looked out our [second floor] window but didn’t see any smoke or anything,” said Zamarian. “But we just grabbed our important stuff and got out.”

Just after 4 p.m., Zamarian, Steafano and a few dozen other tenants evacuated the building at Font and Junipero Serra Boulevards, located just a few blocks from the university’s campus.

Less than 10 minutes later, said Zamarian, the firetrucks, firefighters and a fire department van had arrived. And within 20 minutes, they determined that the alarm went off when a tenant on the seventh floor burned his dinner and opened the door to let the smoke escape into the hallway.

“[The building manager] actually told us not to open the door if there’s smoke,” Steafano said.

Although the pair was momentarily unnerved — and slightly annoyed — they took an optimistic view of the situation.

“Now we know the fire department is really fast,” Steafano said.

“And I know that I’ll wake up in the middle of the night [if there’s a fire],” Zamarian added.