Saturday morning. The weather was fair, the Cyclones were preparing to play the Hawkeyes in Iowa City, and in Ames, Chuck Mehle was drinking coffee at Deano’s coffee shop, as he usually does.

But, when a woman burst into the restaurant from the back entrance and reported that smoke was billowing from a second-floor window of a building across the street, Mehle, a recently retired firefighter, realized his downtime had been interrupted.

“I got up off my bar stool, and did what I had to do,” he said.

Mehle, along with two others, entered the burning building on the 100 block of Fifth Street, and, through the heavy smoke, went up to the building’s second-story apartments, pounding on doors to alert the building’s residents that a fire was burning.

Inside, Mehle said, the smoke was so thick that it had already made breathing difficult. He and the others had to crawl on the floor to reach doors. But they continued on, and by the time firefighters arrived on the scene, all but one of the residents had been accounted for.

The final resident exited the building as the fire department arrived.

Having retired from the department nine months ago, Mehle relied on his training and experience to tell him how to proceed.

“I had a pretty good idea of what I could do safely and still get out,” he said.

By roughly 8 a.m., Ames firefighters arrived at the scene to battle the blaze that damaged the building’s eight apartments and left 10 victims without homes and possessions.

One resident, Linda Dolph, was taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center for treatment of minor injuries. The fire, officials say, began in Dolph’s apartment, and had been started by a cigarette.

“She had some burns around her mouth and face,” said Mehle of Dolph’s condition after the fire. “She was real upset. She lost everything.”

Ames Fire Department officials said that although an estimate of the damages done to the apartments and the two businesses below is still being determined, the entire structure sustained smoke damage. The two businesses below the apartments, Tradewinds Cafe and EJ’s Legacy Gentleman’s Club, are closed because of the damages.

Aid is already being arranged for the 10 victims who were displaced by the fire. The Lincoln Way Chapter of the American Red Cross was dispatched by the Ames Police, and, as of Monday, the organization had provided more than $2,000 in financial and housing assistance to the victims.

Now, Jane Lanz, the emergency service director of the organization, is working the phones, trying to find affordable replacement housing. But the resident’s losses, she said, go much deeper than just their homes.

“It’s a devastating loss to all of them,” she said. “There were also pets involved, and when you lose a pet, it’s really a big loss for some people.”

Victims were also provided with vouchers to obtain new clothing and kits containing water and toiletries. Mehle said he and others close to the residents of the building had also started assembling care packages to ease the loss. Fire officials said that incidents like this one could be avoided with a little forethought. A working smoke detector installed in a residence can sometimes make the difference.

“Time and time again, we see these tragedies, and a lot of people, if you asked them the day before if they ever thought they’d have a fire, they’d say no,” said Capt. Brian Sorenson. “It’s always best to have a plan.”

Ames currently has a program to allow for the cheap purchase and installation of smoke detectors in residences.