STEVENS POINT − With temperatures in the single digits Wednesday evening, firefighters from seven departments fought a fire at a nursing home.

“They did a great job; I’m very proud of them,” Stevens Point Assistant Fire Chief Joe Gemza said.

At 10:44 p.m. Wednesday, a caller reported a fire at North Crest Assisted Living, 2225 Eagle Summit in Stevens Point, Gemza said. When the first Stevens Point firefighters got on scene, they saw smoke coming from the building and called for assistance. The Plover, Amherst, Rudolph, Stockton, Dewey and Hull fire departments responded to the scene, along with the Stevens Point Police Department.

Police helped firefighters evacuate more than 20 residents from the smoky building. Stevens Point Transit brought in busses for the residents to stay warm and transported them to locations where they could spend the night, Gemza said. The owners of North Crest Assisted Living are working with families to find long-term locations for the residents to stay until they can return to North Crest.

Firefighters were on the scene until 2:10 a.m. Thursday, Gemza said. The firefighters were able to use the city busses and parts of the building to get warm. Firefighters’ wet gear got stiff as soon as they went outside into the cold, Gemza said.

“We had a lot of frozen firefighters,” he said.

All the groups that came together did a good job, Gemza said. Despite the temperatures and the number of residents who needed to be evacuated, no one got hurt, he said.

The building suffered both smoke and fire damage, Gemza said. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Contact Karen Madden at 715-345-2245 or kmadden@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @KMadden715, Instagram @kmadden715 or Facebook at www.facebook.com/karen.madden.33.

This article originally appeared on Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune: Stevens Point nursing home residents displaced by Wednesday night fire