"I saw the biggest house fire of my life," said a witness to a fire at a fraternity house in Madison which has injured three firefighters and displaced everyone living inside it.

The fire started late Monday night, around 11:40 p.m., at the Sigma Phi Epsilon House on the 200 block of Langdon Street near the UW-Madison campus.

"The flames were twice the size of the house and I saw the ceiling collapse," said the man.

Madison Fire spokesperson Bernadette Galvez said an officer saw a glow in the back of the house. 

"She went to investigate, help evacuate everybody, and we started to put the fire out," said Galvez. 

Two of the three firefighters who got injured went to UW Hospital, while another got transported to Meriter Hospital.  They suffered a minor burn, dehydration and a muscle strain.

All 25 people who live in the frat house escaped injury, but they now need a new place to live.

Sigma Phi Epsilon spokesman Ryan Sugden said he heard Madison fire officials calling it a "total loss.  Nothing will be salvaged from the home, including the fraternity members' contents and personal belongings."

He also states more than half the students in the house will have to take finals this week.

It took firefighters what's been described as "a few hours" to put the two-alarm fire out, and crews say 1,000 people were watching them put it out over a period of nearly three hours.

Authorities are investigating, but they don't have any word yet on a cause.  They estimate damage at about $750,000.

This is the second fire in the last nine years at the Sigma Phi Epsilon House.  In 1999, a fire at the same place caused $300,000 in damage.