WGBA -Fire Destroys UWGB Apartments
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A campus apartment building at UW-Green Bay is a total loss after an early morning fire. During the school year more than 60 students live in Building 109. But with summer break in full swing no one was living there when the fire started and no one was hurt.
A 5am wake up call for campers at UWGB.
"He [fireman] bangs on our door. He's like, 'We need to evacuate the building. There's a fire,'" said Nicole Schonitzer, an art program camper.
A 17 unit campus apartment building known at Building 109 was burning.
"We look out our window and I thought it would be like a little electrical or kitchen fire and there's this huge fire!" Schonitzer recalled.
Though there was no one inside Building 109, dozens of high schoolers were staying in nearby dorms for art and music camps. They had to be evacuated.
"There was fire coming up and firemen were there already there was smoke going all the way across. It was pretty bad," said art student Allison Sanders.
Mitchell Thompsen, another art student, said the evacuation went smooth though the fire was raging nearby. "When we were actually walking over there was a huge explosion."
A newspaper delivery man first spotted the fire about 5am and called 911.
"I did see some cars out here in the parking lot and [it] made me hope that they weren't in that building when it happened because there's no way no one was getting out of there," said Gene McDermid.
The empty apartments were a stroke of luck since fire crews say the flames were too hot to even enter the building.
"When we got there the back part of the building was already involved in fire," said Capt. Nick Heil of the Green Bay Fire Department.
The big problem now, trying to figure out where to house the 63 students who were assigned to live at Building 109 in the fall.
"Never a good time to have a fire on a college campus," said UWGB's Mike Heine.
School officials are working on alternate housing for the kids who were supposed to live in Building 109. They say the damage was about $3.5 million dollars. Fire crews say the cause of the blaze is "undetermined." They have ruled out arson.
