University Village, a three-story student apartment complex under construction near California State University, Fresno, was destroyed by fire Tuesday morning, three months before it was scheduled to open.

The amount of the loss was not immediately determined, but the value of the project was $16 million, according to the developer.

Firefighters continued to mop-up Tuesday night, and investigators said a search for clues to how the fire started would begin today.

Construction on the 105-unit, 406-bed complex started last July and it was scheduled to open in August, said Jason Wills, vice president of the developer and property manager, American Campus Communities of Austin, Texas.

Karen Johnson, university director of housing, planned to meet with officials from American Campus.

"We are going to brainstorm about what we can do to help students who won't be accommodated this year," she said. "We don't even know how many. ... Over 400 are waiting for beds."

Fresno State's enrollment has been at record levels and is expected to grow this fall to around 21,000.

"Our campus residence facilities are completely filled," university spokesman Mark Aydelotte said. "People were looking forward to having this in place because of its convenience to campus."

As recently as five years ago, the campus didn't face such a tight housing market. Now more students choose to stay an extra year in university housing. About 35% of those who lived in university housing last year have chosen to continue.

The fire will force students to consider older apartments farther from campus, Johnson said, but they will lack high-speed Internet and other amenities of the destroyed units.

Johnson said she will try to develop a list of housing vacated by students who just graduated.

The apartment project is located at 1766 E. Barstow Ave., across the street from Bulldog Stadium.

Wills said all the buildings had been framed and roofed, and that more than half of them had been fitted with drywall. One building was finished and waiting to be carpeted.

Wills said it was too early to say whether the project would be restarted.

He said 90% of the complex's fire sprinkler system had been installed, but it still was being tested and not ready to be used.

The fire, reported at 4:30 a.m., appeared to start in the middle of the complex.

Cirilo Medina, a Fresno Fire Department battalion chief, said flames were shooting out of the roof when the first units arrived. He said the first concern was preventing the fire from spreading to nearby occupied apartment buildings.

At the height of the blaze, nearly 70 firefighters were on scene.

No injuries to civilians were reported, but two firefighters suffered minor injuries, said Jose Vasquez, a Fresno fire captain.

Dozens of residents in neighboring apartments were evacuated because of the intense heat and hot embers and other burning material falling on roofs.

"You could hear the stuff hitting the top of the roof," said Daryl Henderson, 23, one of the tenants at Arbor Place, located west and north of the burning complex. "It sounded like hail."

Heat from the blaze damaged the exterior of one apartment at Arbor Place and about a half-dozen cars, including Henderson's, parked along Tenth Street.

About two dozen other vehicles parked at Plaza Apartments, east of the complex, were damaged.

The heat also shattered more than a dozen apartment windows at the Plaza.

Chris Baer, 34, a resident of the Plaza, said she and her husband were asleep when neighbors started banging on their door about 5 a.m.

A neighbor, Mishelle Schoonover, 26, said she was awakened by people talking loudly outside. She was ready to yell at them to be quiet when she looked out the window and saw the flames.

At Arbor Place, numerous residents, including Henderson, used garden hoses to spray their roofs.

Sergio Chavez, 33, said he was awakened by a friend who had stayed with him overnight.

"You could feel the heat coming in from the outside," he said. "The window was glowing red, and big rocks of fire were falling on the roof."

Liz Gomez, a spokeswoman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., said fire officials asked the company to shut off power to the area about 7:30 a.m.

She said about 725 customers were affected, some for about an hour. All customers had power restored by around 3:30 p.m., she said.

The construction site did not have any live power lines when the fire broke out.

On the Fresno State campus, the university lost power from about 7:40 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., said university spokesman Aydelotte.

The university's commencement was last weekend, so only a few faculty and staff people were on campus Tuesday morning.

One mother and her daughter found themselves trapped in an elevator of the Education Building when the power went out. They used a phone to call campus police, who got them out.

University officials and university police inspected Bulldog Stadium and found no damage.

But Aydelotte was struck by the intensity of the heat from the fire. This was obvious from the condition of cars parked near it.

"They were melted," Aydelotte said. "Bumpers, taillights, tires. They weren't burned. They were melted. ... Taillights were melted out of their sockets and fell to the ground. One car cover was melted onto a car. Windshields were fractured. ... It was startling."