The fire started around 3 a.m. in one unit at an apartment complex on Winston Drive, located in the shadow of the Stonestown Galleria Shopping Center and San Francisco State University.
Firefighters did not take long getting to the building, which sits near fire station 19.
The complex is owned by the university, and many of the evacuated residents were students there.
"I was asleep. I heard a noise, we smelled smoke and we came outside," said evacuee Xander Kent.
"What was the sound you heard?" asked ABC7's Terry McSweeney.
"An ear-splitting fire alarm," said Kent.
Residents from two apartments are being kept out of their apartment because of smoke, but everyone else is back home.
