An Alpha Chi Omega house fire caused some sorority members to lose personal belongings, but that didn’t lower their spirits for formal recruitment week.

The fire at Alpha Chi Omega, 301 Lynn Ave., started around 7 p.m. on Aug. 12, and the cause of the fire is still unknown.

The fire started in the bedroom shared by Sara Foulk, senior in advertising, and Sarah Pry, senior in speech communication.

“Pretty much everything is gone – our computers, so therefore all of our pictures, and everything from the past four years is completely gone,” Foulk said.

Foulk has no idea what may have started the fire.

“I had just been in the room two hours before it started and everything was completely fine,” Foulk said. “Nothing was turned on – there was one fan that was going and my computer and that was it.”

When the fire started, the sorority’s members were all attending a recruitment meeting in the dining room on the first floor.

“Our recruitment adviser went upstairs and she saw smoke when she got up to the second floor,” said Alyssa Ericson, senior in music. “She came down and asked us all to go outside and across the street.”

Foulk said when everyone got outside there wasn’t much smoke coming from the third-floor room. After a few minutes of confusion, flames started to billow from a few top-floor windows.

After the blaze, two fraternities pitched in to help the Alpha Chi Omega members keep their recruitment events running.

“The men of Beta Sigma Psi and Phi Kappa Psi were absolutely amazing,” Foulk said.

Ericson said the two fraternities helped them out by opening their doors and allowing Alpha Chi Omega to host recruitment events at each house. Beta Sigma Psi repainted their first floor for the sorority women.

“The night of [the fire], on Sunday night, Kappa Alpha Theta let us use their entire house,” Ericson said. “They gave up all of their beds and they all slept downstairs. They gave us their home.”

The sorority members were displaced from their house for six days, but 30 members moved back in on Saturday.

Caryn Albrecht, senior in elementary education, said it was comforting to know that all the girls were alright when the fire started.

“It’s been hectic, but we have each other, and everybody was safe and everybody’s been just so supportive,” Ericson said. “It’s just a really good example of the positive aspects of the greek community here at Iowa State.”

Even though Alpha Chi Omega couldn’t give house tours during Rush Week, 23 women joined the sorority.

Foulk said many women thought that sororities only competed and didn’t get along very well, but this experience has proved differently.

“We’re one community and that everyone works together as one big family,” Foulk said.