“…Investigators have determined that the fire was started by a cigarette on a couch in the second floor room of Bradley Morris, the tenant who died…The fire caused extensive smoke damage, however, with the second floor most affected…It took nearly three months for workers from Service Master to clean all of the building, a job that 
included painstaking work on the metal framework of the suspended ceiling…”
The heat of the fire was intense enough to burst the windows of the apartment, but the construction of the building helped keep the blaze contained, Chadron Fire Chief Pat Gould told The Chadron Record shortly after the fire. The fire burned through the ceiling of the apartment, but its spread was limited by the building’s brick walls and the lath and plaster construction of the upper levels.
The clean up job also included replacing every carpet and smoke alarm in the building, repainting, and completely reworking the apartment where the fire started, the Bagneschi’s said.
The work ended up costing some $160,000, a figure doesn’t count the time Bagneschis put into the project themselves. “It’s been quite a chore,†said Larry.
