An apartment building at 230 Campus Ave. caught fire Thursday afternoon.

Matt Bogenschultz, freshman in electrical engineering, and Bill Franey, sophomore in electrical engineering, live in a nearby apartment building and said they saw the fire start.

“A pile of leaves caught fire,” Bogenschultz said.

The students said they told their roommate to call 911 and went outside.

The two realized the fire was getting bigger, so they ran inside and started knocking on people’s doors to tell them to leave.

A bike rack and the back side of the building apparently caught fire. The windows on the second and third floors were knocked out.

Eric Doll, senior in landscape architecture, said his apartment wasn’t burned, but he lost his bike in the fire.

Doll said he was allowed back in his room and he didn’t see any damage to his room, but said the ceiling was pretty burned up.

“There were actually flames in the two bedrooms. There was a fire inside of [my neighbor’s] bedrooms. I’m sure it ate up the beds and dressers they had,” Doll said. “The firemen were squirting water and breaking windows and everything is probably ruined.”

He said residents are not allowed to stay in the building because the fire hit some of the utilities and the electricity is out.

“I wouldn’t want to stay there anyways. I was in there for five minutes and we had smoke in our lungs,” Doll said.

He said he talked to First Property Management, who own the building, and they said they were working on getting a hotel lined up for the people living in the building.

Doll said he was at home when the fire started.

“I heard a pop,” Doll said. “It was a tire from the bike rack … I heard that and I didn’t think anything of it. The next thing I hear is someone saying 911. So I got up. I was going to take a nap, but I looked out the window. I ran out there barefoot and there was a 10-foot fire,” Doll said.

He said there was a giant pile of dried leaves that he believes caught fire first.

“It kind of sucks. It is what it is. I’m pretty sure it was someone smoking a cigarette. I dislike smoking even more now,” Doll said.

The Ames Fire Department said they have an investigator looking into the cause of the fire, but it is still unkown.