A fire destroyed three buildings and damaged four others at Crossgates apartment complex in Starkville early Tuesday evening.
Starkville Fire Department’s Fire Chief Rodger Mann said the fire started around 5:58 p.m., and the Starkville Fire Department arrived on the scene at 6:04 p.m.
Mann declined to release any details about the fire’s origin, but said there would be an announcement Friday morning.
Buildings 19, 20 and 21 were completely destroyed, totaling 24 apartments, Mann said.
Crossgates resident James Warnock, MSU biomedical engineering professor, said he saw the fire start on the southeast corner of building 19. It caught the side of the building on fire, spread to the roof and the wind spread it to the other buildings, Warnock said.
Mann said the fire’s intensity increased due to 20 miles per hour winds.
“We were battling the wind more than the fire,” he said. “If it had not been for the wind blowing, it would have been a routine call.”
Mann said MSU officials helped identify and account for all residents who were MSU students, and all residents were eventually accounted for. Three firefighters had injuries, Mann said.
Starkville Electric Department and the Starkville Police Department provided significant help by increasing extra water pressure and evacuating residents, Mann said.
After losing everything, victims of the fire are still trying to put together the pieces of their lives.
Andy King, junior communication major and one of the residents of now-destroyed building 21, said when his friend told him their apartment was on fire, he did not believe him.
“My roommate Chris had called me three or four times during worship and I hadn’t been able to answer, and I finally called him and he was like, ‘Man, this is something important. Our apartment is burning down.’ I thought he was joking to start with me and when we came over [to the scene] and I was like, ‘Wow,'” he said.
King, like many others that night, said he did not know what he was going to do.
“I don’t have any books, my backpack is gone, my clothes. I [had] a 32-inch TV in there – that’s pretty much gone,” he said.
Emily Cain, MSU communication instructor, also lost all her belongings in the fire.
She said she was in her apartment in building 20 when she saw smoke outside her window. She stepped outside to see what was going on.
“I put on my flip-flops and a guy in our breezeway just started yelling for us to move our cars or they’re going to burn up,” Cain said. “I think I asked him, ‘Our building?’ and he said, ‘No, the other one, but it’s going to burn up your car.'”
She said she and her other neighbors scrambled to move their cars safely. She said she drove to a nearby friend’s house and watched the fire from there.
“The firefighters came and the smoke was really black, but the firefighters started doing their thing and it turned white, and we thought, ‘Oh it’s under control, no problem,’ and then about 10 minutes later, the smoke was black again and it seemed closer – it was because it had jumped across [the street to the other buildings],” she said.
Cain said she knew she had gone through a traumatic event, but she did not fully understand its impact until she returned to the scene of the fire.
“When you see it burned out and the second story roof where my couch was – that’s when you’re like, ‘OK, so that’s done,'” she said.
Cain said returning to campus has been a welcome escape from the overwhelming task of rebuilding after the fire.
“I think it’s helping me to try to keep things as normal as possible,” she said.
Her students and fellow faculty members have been very supportive, Cain said.
“Losing everything, honestly doesn’t feel that bad when I’m here [at school],” she said. “I think the sense of normalcy of being here and going on with school has helped a lot.”
Despite the tragedy, Cain said she has been amazed by the generosity she has seen from the community following the fire.
“I have been offered so many spare bedrooms, and couches and clothes, she said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve cried in the last day and a half, not because of what I’ve lost, but because it’s just so touching what people are doing.”
Copy Editor David Breland, Staff Writer Gage Weeks, Managing Editor Aubra Whitten and News Editor April Windham contributed to this story.