A fire started in a bedroom late Thursday afternoon at Hilltop of Pepper, 630 Pepper Ave. in Wisconsin Rapids.

WISCONSIN RAPIDS − A fire that started in a bedroom late Thursday afternoon has displaced 19 residents of Hilltop of Pepper.

At 4:47 p.m. Thursday, a caller reported a fire in a bedroom at the assisted-living facility, which specializes in caring for people with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, Wisconsin Rapids Fire Department Division Chief Brennan Agen said. Hilltop of Pepper, 630 Pepper Ave., has a sprinkler system, which activated and extinguished a large portion of the fire.

When firefighters arrived, they finished putting out the fire, Agen said. There were 19 residents at the facility who had to be placed at a different facility for the night. The Hilltop of Pepper building currently is not inhabitable.

Agen didn’t know how long the residents would be displaced.

At 9:30 p.m. Thursday, a Wisconsin Rapids officer driving by Hilltop heard an alarm and reported it, Agen said. Firefighters responded to the alarm, but the fire had not rekindled, Agen said. Because the home cares for people with dementia, the building is equipped with an alarm system that goes off if a resident tries to open an outside door, Agen said. The electricity to the building had been shut off and when it was turned back on it set the alarm off, Agen said.

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

More local news: Want to own a paper machine or bulldozer? Second auction planned for Wisconsin Rapids paper mill.

More local news: Take a look inside Immanuel Lutheran Church’s new Mission Center and church building as construction continues

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.

The latest northeast Wisconsin weather forecast from Storm Team 5…

Another beautiful day Friday! High pressure will deliver the sun again, temperatures go up a slight bit from yesterday, and humidity levels will remain comfortable. Rain chances bump up this weekend with afternoon/early evening rain both days. On Saturday, the best chance for rain will favor areas north of Green Bay, and on Sunday, the best chance will favor communities well south of Green Bay.

Rinse and repeat forecast for Friday. Sunny in the morning and partly cloudy in the afternoon. SW winds from 5 to 15 miles per hour will bring all communities into the upper 70s and lower 80s.

Looking great Friday night, mostly clear with a low of 62 degrees.

Most stay dry Saturday with rain popping up in the pm hours over the north. You’ll feel a little humidity again with a high of 84 degrees. Severe weather is not expected.

Partly cloudy and 81 degrees Sunday. The same boundary that brings the small rain chance Saturday will be in central and southern Wisconsin on Sunday. That could be the focus for more isolated showers or weak thunderstorms in the afternoon, this time south of Green Bay.

It’s time to reimagine your road snack game.

This is our newsletter-first column, Microtones. It runs on the site on Fridays, but you can get it in your inbox on Thursdays by signing up for our email newsletter.

“Small Bites” is about exploring the broader world of food and drink in Madison through approachable and specific experiences.

Summer in the Upper Midwest is equal parts sitting by a lake and spending time in a car to get to said lake. Where I grew up in Minnesota, we had three massive suburban lakes within a 10-minute drive. But don’t assume those lakes are good enough. There are better lakes if you head north (or northeast, into the part of Wisconsin vacationland annexed by Twin Cities Money sometime in the early 1990s). My family would drive up to a Minnesotan vacation spot near where my mom grew up, just outside of Moorhead, and the best we could hope for was some Doritos or a skinny beef stick from the gas station. Pickings were slim, or rather, Slim Jim.

It wasn’t until I was older and heading to college in Chicago that I got to experience the Wisconsin cheese hut. Rising in the distance along the various truckstops of I-94, just cresting over the green tree tops, I could see the red lettering on yellow background perfectly: CHEESE. Inside, the store was jam-packed with various cheddars and goudas, shrink-wrapped or waxed, all proudly in a line to represent America’s Dairy State (California has not—and will not—ever claim the cultural title). Aside from the cheeses, most cheese huts have a wide variety of meat sticks, jerkies, and sausages, and the experience feels more like a grocery store than a road trip fuel-up destination. Especially with all the stacked cases of New Glarus beer. 

But I’m old now. College was 20 years ago. A bag of chips eaten at the wrong time of day in a moving vehicle might ruin my stomach. Don’t get me wrong: a vacuum-sealed bag of cheese curds and some landjäger aren’t health foods. But they are real food. And that can make a difference for an aging gastrointestinal tract. So I say this: it’s time to stop treating the roadside cheese hut as a tourist stop or cultural artifact and embrace them as a quick way to grab tasty snacks. 

Back in December, my partner and I drove down to Miami to visit family. And deep in the middle of Georgia, we finally saw the much-lauded cult-favorite gas station/rest stop/compound known as Buc-ee’s. It was about three-to-four times the size of the Love’s across the interstate with hundreds of gas pumps and a carnival-sized convenience store. Inside, you could find a central hub where hot sandwiches were pumped out at rapid speed (including some head-turners like the hot pastrami). Deeper in, a weary traveler would find themselves lost in aisle after aisle of packaged snacks. A veritable snack haven. A snacker’s paradise. 

We left with some fudge (wait, why?), Beaver Nuggets (just caramel puffcorn), and habañero mango hot sauce (again, why?). All three items had the Buc-ee’s logo on them, but I think it’s clear that Buc-ee’s doesn’t have a facility producing all these foodstuffs with original recipes. It may be a one-stop snack adventure, but I struggled to find anything unique or culturally relevant inside that Buc-ee’s that might suggest I was in a specific region of the United States. Banality, thy name is Buc-ee’s.

Flip that against a roadside cheese hut, and you’ll see what I’m talking about. You might find some award-winning Sartori Cheese varieties like Merlot BellaVitano or MonteAmoré Cheddar. Or you can even pop into Carr Valley’s own retail location just off of I-94 in Mauston. The company’s cheesemaker, Sid Cook, has won “more national and international awards than any other cheesemaker in North America,” as Carr Valley’s website puts it. There are other incredible smaller-but-world-class creameries like Uplands (home of the second-most decorated cheese in US history) and Saxon that have incredible renown and are commonly spotted at these cheese huts. And whatever dairy’s cheese curds you may find while browsing Ehlenbach’s Cheese Chalet in DeForest, it’s important to remember that fresh packed curds are hard to find outside of dairy-rich regions. I’m not suggesting that Wisconsinites take cheese curds for granted, but manna from heaven, if constantly falling out of the sky, is hard to value properly.

What’s a bag of jalapeño kettle chips when you can just peel and eat an entire summer sausage like a banana? Who has the power to judge you for holding a brick of Hook’s Two-Year Cheddar like a sandwich, taking bites out of the corner while you drive on to your destination? These roadside cheese huts are more than just supplies for eventually: they’re repositories for gustatory delight in the here and now. Forget stopping for a frozen custard: there’s a tub of Merkt’s and a bag of pretzels that are calling your name from Humbird Cheese in Tomah. Sure, you can get your fill of high-end cheese from the kind folks at Fromagination when you get home to Madison. But why not indulge in the good stuff while you’re on your way out to an adventure? There’s some really good string cheese out there that I’m sure you’ll want to dig into once you get past Stevens Point.

It’s no secret that Madison is becoming more and more developed everyday. New apartment buildings are needed to meet Madison’s current housing crisis, but they often come at the expense of unique restaurants and businesses. As Dane County continues to grow, more and more of the city will become steel and glass. Just know that when that starts to happen, you always can run away to a roadside cheese hut to dip back into a bit of Wisconsin’s Germanic and Nordic roots. What are you waiting for? Grab a half-pint of mozzarella balls and eat ‘em like a bag of popcorn. Sure can’t do that at any rest stop in Georgia.