UPDATE 12:04 p.m. —

An Ames man died in a fire that engulfed a two story house on Illinois Avenue about 11 p.m. Sunday night. 

Ames Police said one of the residents at 1322 Illinois Ave. in West Ames died in the fire, while two other men in the house, Carl Boese, 27, and Lin Yang, 26, were taken to Mary Greeley Medical Center.

The State Fire Marshal will continue to investigate the cause of the fire. However, neighbors said one of the men living in the house told them the fire started from a fire pit in the back yard.

Check back with the Iowa State Daily as the story develops. 

FIRST REPORT —

The Ames Fire Department is unsure if all occupants escaped a two-story house fire that engulfed a house on Illinois Avenue late Sunday. 

“We heard that there’s possibly four people that live there, maybe three. We believe a couple got out. The last I heard, they might be at Mary Greeley Hospital,” said Shawn Bayouth, chief of the Ames Fire Department.

Bayouth said the two confirmed occupants were receiving medical attention from Mary Greeley Medical Center, but was unsure of the status of the other two roommates. 

Neighbors Will Hatcher and Chrystel Crenshaw said they were in their home when they heard their neighbor pounding on the door sometime after 11 p.m. Sunday. 

Crenshaw said they could already see from her home directly across the street that the back side of their neighbor’s home was completely engulfed. Both Hatcher and Crenshaw ran across the street to help the three or four men who lived in the house. 

While on the lawn, she and Hatcher could hear one of the men yelling, but the smoke was so thick they could not see him. 

“He jumped out the second floor window just to get out of the house,” Crenshaw said. “[Hatcher] used a bat to break a window because we were trying to yell. We weren’t sure if there was another person in there.”

Crenshaw said she believes three young men had recently moved into the home, but did not know them well. 

“The one guy was just laying there and we were trying to get him away from the building because he was saying, ‘my back hurts,’” Hatcher said. “‘Well, I don’t want this house blow up on all of us.'” 

Crenshaw said the man was eventually able to crawl away while she and Hatcher tried to determine who else was in the flame-engulfed home. Crenshaw said the man told him he was not sure if his third roommate was still in the home or had not been in the house at the start of the fire. 

“We were still running around the house because he didn’t know if his friend was in there or not,” Crenshaw said. “We still kind of feel helpless.”

Hatcher said their neighbor told them he believes the fire was caused by a fire pit at the back of the house, but the cause is still under investigation. 

“It was pretty windy, so I’m assuming it blew some coals up to the house,” Hatcher said. 

Crenshaw, who works at Mary Greeley Medical Center as a nurse, said she would try to visit the men tomorrow if they were still in the hospital. The neighborhood will help them, she said. 

Though Bayouth was not able to confirm the status of the occupants of the home or the cause of the fire, he said the State Fire Marshal will be investigating. 

Bayouth said the fire was serious enough to have three fire trucks on the scene. Though crews were able to enter the home around 12:15 a.m., the home was charred up to the roof.

“The fire was heavily involved when [fire crews] got here,” Bayouth said. “They put the fire out on the structure from the outside because we couldn’t make interior attack right away, which is a little unusual to have a fire that heavily involved right off the bat.

“We think the fire crew saved the majority of the structure.”