Fire Department officials issued a preliminary determination Wednesday of the cause of a fire that ravaged an apartment complex at 103 N. Franklin Ave, and owners of the complex said they were optimistic about recovery of the building.

Acting Ames Fire Chief Clint Petersen said the Fire Department is reasonably sure that the cause of the fire was electrical. However, the determination is still preliminary, and the investigation is not yet closed.

“We’re still following other evidence that takes some time to get through analysis,” he said.

Petersen said the department was nearly finished examining the cause of the fire.

“We’re definitely reaching the end of the investigation,” he said.

The fire, which occurred early Friday morning, took firefighters three hours to extinguish, Petersen said. The blaze started in an attic area above apartment six and spread overhead to 11 other units, eventually damaging units one through 12. Emergency personnel were able to get all 18 of the tenants who were home out the blaze without injury.

Terri O’Berry, co-owner of the complex along with Phil O’Berry, said the 23 homeless tenants were being housed by Red Cross in the Howard Johnson Express Inn on Highway 69.

Most of the former tenants will have to find other housing, but Terri O’Berry met with city officials on Tuesday morning to discuss whether utilities could be turned back on and tenants in the six unaffected units could move back into the complex.

“We’re involved in getting the tenants back in because the city did approve turning on the utilities,” she said. “The electricians and plumbers are working today, and tenants should be able to move back in Friday evening.”

The decision to allow tenants back into their apartments was based on an inspection done by the Fire Department.

“The building inspector and the fire chief looked at every aspect of safety,” O’Berry said.

She said it was discovered that units 13 through 18 were completely unaffected by the flames.

“There was no damage,” she said. “And I guess that bespeaks the power of a fire wall.”

O’Berry said some of the units in the former motel that were subjected to fire weren’t completed ruined.

“There’s a lot of the first 12 that’s not really too bad,” she said.

Even with only moderate damage in some of those 12 units, Petersen said preliminary property damage estimates are between $200,000 and $250,000.

The owners of the apartment complex, formerly known as Campus Courts, are not sure yet whether they will rebuild the damaged units.

“We have to get notification from the city,” O’Berry said, “but in the near future, we should know.”

In order to rebuild after a fire, city ordinance mandates that no more than 60 percent of a structure can be destroyed. O’Berry estimated that only 45 percent of the complex was lost, and she is optimistic about the possibility of rebuilding.

“They [city officials] have told me that no one has ever not been able to rebuild,” she said. “We can’t say for sure, but we probably will be rebuilding.”