Calls to 911 came rushing in Saturday night from people seeing smoke in the Flowers Baking Company vicinity on South Madison Street and the surrounding area.
The smoke resulted from a fire in the insulation of a bakery oven's exhaust stack.
"The bakery employees took swift action, immediately notifying the fire department and evacuating the bakery," said Paul Baltzer, Flowers Foods Inc. vice president of communications.
Thomasville Fire/Rescue received the fire call at 9:26 p.m. Saturday. Smoke was coming from the roof when firefighters arrived, said Tim Connell, fire/rescue chief fire marshal.
Connell said flames were coming through the exhaust flue.
He said firefighters found the fire 90 percent self-contained because of the blaze being in an enclosed oven stack.
Firefighters, who were at the scene until 11 p.m., doused hot spots until it was determined the blaze had not spread from the stack.