The Chef de Mission of Australia’s Olympic team, Kitty Chiller, has called an urgent meeting with IOC officials after a fire broke out in the team’s residence at the athletes’ village.

The Australians were angry after the residence became a fire trap because sprinklers and alarms had been turned off before the incident, believed to have been caused by a worker smoking on Friday afternoon Rio time.

Australian athletes and officials, said to number about 100, had to be evacuated when the fire started in a car park rubbish bin.

Of concern to Chiller, who received a certificate two days ago to say the building complied with fire standards, is that the village has a strict no-smoking policy.

The village has had ongoing heath and safety concerns. Photo: AAP

While nobody was injured, officials were forced to knock on room doors to alert athletes to the evacuation as smoke filled stairwells in the lower part of the residence.

“What we understand is the fire alarm had actually been silenced in our building while they were doing maintenance work on a building next door, so the alarms and sprinklers didn’t activate,” Chiller told AAP.

“It’s absolutely not satisfactory at all.

“We hadn’t been advised that the fire alarms were silenced, so how we found out was basically smoke in the corridors and stairwells.”

Kitty Chiller is demanding more from the IOC. Photo: Getty

Chiller had previously made it known she had health and safety concerns about the village.

She had noticed widespread smoking by workers and contractors and that large volumes of rubbish hadn’t been cleaned up.

“There is a lot of rubbish around this place, which a lot of countries have been talking about for the last few days, left from contractors, left from workers,” she said.

“There is a lot of smokers and this is my real issue. There’s a lot of workers and contractors smoking in the village and the athletes’ village is a non-smoking venue.

“What we think has happened is that a cigarette has been thrown in a rubbish bin or on rubbish and that is what started the fire.”

Kitty Chiller speaks about Rio Olympic Village fire:

“We’ve asked for a reminder to go out to all staff and contractors that there is no smoking.

Team spokesman Mike Tancred said “there was a lot of smoke and we had to evacuate. The firefighters came, it was controlled and we returned.”

“There was no big drama,” he added.

The Australian team initially refused to move into its Village accommodations last weekend, citing shoddy conditions, including blocked toilets and dangerous wiring.