As a crane tore off the exterior wall, the smoldering bed frames and mattresses of a fraternity cold-air dormitory were a solemn reminder of a Saturday morning fire that could have been much worse.

While much of the Theta Chi Fraternity house at 219 Ash Ave. was destroyed by a grease fire that ignited about 4:30 Saturday morning, all fraternity members and guests escaped unharmed.

“The occupants did a real good job of evacuating everyone. When our team did a search, we found that everyone was already out,” said Mike Childs, chief of the Ames Fire Department. The fire department was on the scene shortly after officials were called at 4:36 a.m.

Started in kitchen

The fire, which was fueled by a pan of grease left on two hot stove burners, started in the kitchen and spread through the walls to the second and third floors. It then spread to the roof.

“They have one of those big commercial gas stoves. Two burners were in full-on position. The others were in off position,” Childs said. “The stove ended up being the point of origin. We can tell that by the burn patterns on the surface of the walls and the depth of the char in the wood on the ceiling.”

Childs spoke with the Theta Chi cook, Carlton Jaquess, who informed him the burners were turned on sometime early Saturday morning after Jaquess checked the kitchen at 1:30 a.m.

While only Jaquess and the house manager have keys to the kitchen, Jaquess told Childs the fraternity members have been known to enter the kitchen through a window, especially for late-night “kitchen raids.”

“We don’t know which individual accidentally left the burners on. We are confident it was an accidental fire caused by the burners being left on,” Childs said.

The chief said fire officials will question individuals, but “it’s highly unlikely someone will step forward. Our biggest concern is to determine if the fire was set, and we don’t feel it was that way at all.”

Flames not immediately visible

When the fire department arrived on the scene, “what we saw was a fire on the first floor that had advanced to second and third floors. At that point, the flame was hidden in the walls. It wasn’t too long before we saw flames on the north side of the house,” Childs said.

The age of the house and how it was constructed contributed to the fire’s spread, he said. The house, built prior to 1922 when Theta Chi purchased the structure, did not have the same fire stops — such as fireproof walls and carpets — as more modern houses.

“We started with an internal attack on first and second floor. We reached a point where the floor we were working on started to get weak and spongy. We had to pull out of the inside,” Childs said. The Ames Fire Department, assisted by the Nevada Fire Department, then began an external attack on the fire.

After the visible flames were extinguished, a track hoe pulled down the walls of the north and west sides of the second and third floors so firefighters could extinguish the flames still hidden in the walls.

Neighbors aid evacuation

While smoke detectors played a big role in the evacuation of the house, it was the fraternity’s next-door neighbors who spotted the smoke first.

“I saw smoke coming out of the kitchen around 4:30 a.m.,” said Jim Kaucher, a member of Theta Delta Chi Fraternity, at 217 Ash Ave. “I rang the doorbell quite a few times. I told the cook that something was burning in the kitchen and they better go check it out.”

About this same time, smoke detectors in the Theta Chi house began going off.

“The smoke detectors started going off and people were going room to room waking people up. Everyone stayed calm,” said Mike Taylor, Theta Chi president. He said the reason everyone was calm was because no flames were yet visible. “Second and third [floors] were full of smoke. Everyone got out as fast as they could,” he said.

Childs said the smoke detectors saved several lives. “Without something to wake people up, it can be a very dangerous situation,” Childs said.

The Theta Delta Chi house, north of the Theta Chi house, was evacuated around 5:30 or 6 a.m. when a north wind began to blow flames and smoke toward the house.

Little salvageable in house

After investigating the house about 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Childs said most of what he saw within the structure was “charred black. There’s nothing salvageable on third, very little on second, maybe a few things on first and in the basement — not a lot.”

Theta Chi senior, Brian Vandall, hopes he can recover some of the possessions from his room on second floor. “I hope I can get some of my clothes out — just something. I can see my paddle on the wall and some of my posters are still hanging up,” Vandall said.

Staring up at the destroyed northwest corner of the house, Vandall joked that his air conditioner, “El Coronado,” was still intact. More somberly, Vandall said he will discuss with his parents the possibility of dropping out of school for the semester.

“The worst part is picking your life back up and starting all over six weeks into the semester,” Vandall said.

Saturday afternoon, the fire department took several fraternity members into the burned structure to show them the dangerous areas. The responsibility of deciding what to do with the house, which was insured, will be up to fraternity members and alumni.

ISU community assists members

Since the fire, the 22 members of the fraternity have camped out in several places. The university has provided the students rooms in the Towers Residence Halls and emergency supplies were furnished by the Red Cross. Several fraternity members are staying with friends in Ames.

Members can stay in the Towers as long as they need housing, said Tom Thielen, vice president for student affairs.

The university will also provide emergency loans to the students, if needed, and access to replacement school supplies.

“The university has helped us out a lot. Everyone has given us a lot of support. The Red Cross has been here all morning to give us clothing and toiletries. Our alumni and corporation board got here as soon as possible,” Taylor said.

“The Red Cross helps with the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter,” added Doris Guy, Red Cross disaster volunteer. Volunteers got clothes for the fraternity members at a rummage sale on Saturday at Collegiate Presbyterian Church.

“I just went over there and pulled clothes off the racks. They were great,” said Blue Maas, a disaster volunteer.

Other businesses that donated food for victims and volunteers were McDonald’s, the Memorial Union and Hy-Vee.

Theta Chi’s national organization in Indianapolis, Ind. will be working with the university, fraternity members, parents and alumni to help the chapter recover and move on.