Lawless said there are 12 apartments in the building and most have two residents but she did not know the exact number of students evacuated during the fire.

“The police and fire departments responded promptly, within five minutes or so,” she said. “Because they responded so quickly, they were able to prevent the fire from becoming worse and they probably stopped the whole building from burning down.”

The cause of the fire is not yet known, said Fire Inspector Gerald Rodabaugh of the East Lansing Fire Department’s Fire Prevention Bureau.

Rodabaugh said the damage to the building is estimated at $75,000 and there was an estimated $25,000 in damage to personal belongings in apartments 48 and 51.

Apartment 51 is located on the same floor as apartment 48 and it sustained more damage than other apartments because one of the residents left the door open after he went back in the apartment to retrieve his laptop, Rodabaugh said.

“We don’t know how much was lost in apartment 51 because it’s mostly smoke damage and most of that can be salvaged by cleaning,” he said. “(DTN hopes) to get the students back into their apartment by this weekend.”

Rodabaugh said all of the apartments beside 48 and 51 were cleaned and ready for residents to move in by 3 p.m. Monday, but some residents who already were given hotel accommodations by the American Red Cross of Central Lower Michigan remained in the hotels.

Paul Spata, a disaster response volunteer for the Red Cross said three volunteers arrived on the scene of the fire and assisted 10 residents, accounting for five apartments.

Spata said residents in need of food, clothing and shelter because of the fire were given a debit card to purchase those necessities.

Physiology junior Brittany Rashid and her roommate were among the residents assisted by the Red Cross and they currently are staying at the Howard Johnson Inn, 1100 Trowbridge Road.

Rashid and her roommate were among four people trapped on the third floor of the apartment during the fire.

“The whole night was extremely stressful for both of us,” she said. “I’ve never been more terrified in my life. The fact that we were stuck up there while the fire was going on, I just keep thinking how we could have died.”

Rashid said she would like to see a better method of dealing with fires in the future, possibly a system that links the fire alarms in Capitol Villa directly to the East Lansing Fire Department.

Lawless said because the official report has not been finalized DTN cannot speculate as to the cause of the fire, and once the report is complete the company will make further safety assessments.