Was it that last pair of jeans?

That's what Quincy House residents wondered on Monday, after an overloaded washing machine began to smoke and then set off a fire alarm.

Several Cambridge fire trucks and an ambulance rushed to the scene in a "precautionary response," according to Lieutenant Edward L. Enos of the Cambridge Fire Department.

"We checked it out, and that's what it turned out to be," he said.

Enos said a motor inside the washing machine had burned out, causing a belt attached to the motor to smoke.

The machine "corrected itself," Enos said, and the smoking stopped. No fire ever developed, and there were no injuries.