Submitted Photo Hawk Estates Building 2 in New Town is shown on Easter Sunday. The building was destroyed by an early morning fire. Many are stepping up to help building residents who lost their apartment homes and belongings in the fire.

NEW TOWN – Local people and others from all around are coming together to support residents of an apartment building that was completely destroyed in an early Easter Sunday morning fire in New Town.

The fire occurred at the Hawk Estates Building 2 in New Town.

Donations of food and clothing for the residents are pouring into the Northern Lights Wellness Center in New Town, according to Dr. Monica Mayer, North Segment councilwoman to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation (Three Affiliated Tribes) business council, and Vonnie Alberts, public relations director and legislative aid for the North Segment. Funds have also been set up for monetary donations.

Anyone with questions about donations can call the Wellness Center at 701-627-3456 or call North Segment chief of staff Nathaniel Mayer at 701-421-8219.

Many residents were not home when the fire occurred but were away for the Easter holiday weekend, said Alberts. She said no one was injured in the fire.

Monica Mayer said 34 of the 36 units in the building were occupied and at least 68-90 people lost their homes. She said they are all ages but no elders were living there.

She said they estimate the fire started about 5 or 5:30 a.m. Firefighters responded from departments including New Town, Stanley, Plaza, Parshall and Mandaree, Mayer said. She said the New Town department has a new ladder and without that ladder for the three-story building it would have been a bigger catastrophe.

Mayer said when she, Nathaniel Mayer and Becky Lyson, director of Housing for the North Segment, arrived at the scene they started calling everyone in the building and North Segment security officers helped get people out.

“People ran out with their pajamas on. I saw a little girl carrying an Easter bunny,” Monica Mayer said.

“Every resident got out,” she said. “All these material possessions can be replaced. My priority was to make sure everybody was safe and out of there.”

Residents of the apartment building are being lodged at the 4 Bears Casino & Lodge, the former New Town nursing home and some are staying with family members, she said.

She said so many people in the community have stepped up to helped out with the various needs from feeding the firefighters to filling the Northern Lights gym with donations.

“I was so elated everybody stepped up to help,” Mayer said, adding, “There’s just a ton of unspoken heroes.”

Mayer said the apartment building site has been fenced and other security measures taken so no one can go back into the building because it is too dangerous. “It’s a total loss,” she said.

After the insurance company has completed it’s work, she said an excavation team will be contracted to clean up the site.

Mayer said the priority now will be the displaced families and helping them.

Another apartment building, Hawk Estates Building 1, is adjacent to Building 2 but was not damaged by the fire.

The two buildings, built for a total cost of $16.3 million, were part of a grand opening held in July 2017.