A fire in Schilletter Village apartment complex early Tuesday morning destroyed an upstairs bedroom and forced the evacuation of three families.

The blaze gutted the bedroom in unit 61C, occupied by Ju-Whan Eom, Sei Kyoung Park and their child, according to a university news release.

Apartments 61B and 61A, which are in the same building, suffered minor smoke and water damage.

Eom, Park and their child were housed temporarily in University Village.

They are now transferring their remaining belongings to unit 61D, which had been vacant and was cleaned up today by Iowa State’s Department of Residence personnel.

Carl Moen, associate director for apartments, said the fire was caused by a short in the cord of a water heater in Eom and Park’s bedroom.

“The neighbors upstairs came knocking on our door to let us know there was a fire in their bedroom,” said Madonna Smidt, who lives below Eom and Park in 61A with her husband, Jeffrey Smidt.

“My husband grabbed our fire extinguisher, and William [Zhang, in 61B,] grabbed his, and we ran upstairs to see what we should do. The minute I started walking, I smelled something burning,” Smidt said.

Jeffrey Smidt said the upstairs hallway was filled with clouds of smoke.

“By the time we got up there, there was a lot of really toxic smoke,” he said, adding that Eom was still fighting the fire despite the smoke.

“We had to get him out of there,” Smidt said. “The smoke was only two feet off the floor. It was time to bail out of there.”

Smidt said Eom closed the door to the bedroom as he left.

“That probably saved the building, because it contained the fire in one room,” he said.

“[Eom and Park] really were heroes in the situation,” he said, praising them for notifying their neighbors soon enough to prevent any casualties.

Madonna Smidt said Department of Public Safety officials and the Ames Fire Department arrived on the scene a few minutes later but could only prevent the fire from spreading.

She said the Red Cross, Dean of Students Kathleen MacKay and even Yong-Shik Lee, a Korean-speaking professor from the political science department, showed up to help.

“We’re very appreciative of everybody. They’ve been asking all day if there was anything they could do. We have a wonderful community here. The whole university community was there for us,” Smidt said.