By Heath Urie – Colorado Daily

A four-story apartment building on Marine Street near Lincoln Place in Boulder burned for hours Saturday, displacing dozens of University of Colorado students and about 50 residents in all.

More than 50 firefighters from Boulder and neighboring agencies responded to the scene of the three-alarm fire, which began about 5:15 p.m.

Firefighters said late Saturday the fire was contained to the roof of the building — 949 Marine St., known as the Hill House Apartments — and that crews would stay through the night to ensure the blaze didn’t spark up again.

Boulder Fire Chief Larry Donner said he was initially concerned that the entire building might burn, though it appeared late Saturday that at least some units can be salvaged.

“I’m still optimistic,” Donner said about an hour into the battle. “We’ll have to see how it goes.”

Fire investigators said they did not know Saturday what sparked the fire, which spewed smoke and ash throughout the immediate area and forced several nearby homes to also be evacuated.

Donner said the fire was “one of the larger ones we’d get in the city of Boulder.”

One firefighter suffered heat exhaustion, Donner said. There were no reports of other injuries.

Apartment resident Jacob Graham said he was the first to call 911 when his neighbor’s porch on the top floor of the structure’s north side caught fire.

“We were sitting in our living room and heard some crackling,” Graham said. “Our porch was on fire.”

Graham said he and his roommate used a fire extinguisher on the flames but could not put them out. He said they ran down the hall, alerting neighbors to leave the building.

The blaze left as many as 50 people displaced for the night. The property management company that owns the building made arrangements for some residents to stay at a hotel overnight.

The Mile High Chapter of the American Red Cross plans to offer a service center at 1 p.m. Sunday for residents who want to apply for long-term aid, although a location for the center had not been determined late Saturday, Boulder police and fire spokeswoman Sarah Huntley said.

According to Huntley, there is a sprinkler system installed in the building, but not between the ceiling and roof.

“That would have been really helpful,” Huntley said, although the building was constructed before modern fire codes would have required fire-suppression systems in uninhabited parts of the building.

Ryan Lackman, a 21-year-old senior at CU, was on the bottom floor of the building when smoke began filling the air.

“I was just watching TV and saw the fire truck come in,” he said. “The police told us to get out.”

Dozens of people lined the sidewalks to watch firefighters tackle the inferno with towering ladders and jets of water.

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