No one was hurt, and a dog and a cat that lived in the building also got out safely, according to Ivy Zerphey, a resident of the building and a property manager for Kalyani Real Estate, which controls the apartment house.

On scene within about two minutes of the 8:31 p.m. alarm, city firefighters conducted an interior attack — although they knew everyone was out before they arrived — and they had the fire under control in about half an hour, according to Fire Chief Adam Free.

Zerphey was in her living room when she heard the building’s fire alarm, she said.

She came out of her apartment, looked down and saw fire starting to bubble through the walls of the stairwell, she said.

The fire caused most of its damage after traveling up through balloon framing. The building is probably salvageable. Mirror photo by William Kibler

She roused the resident of the other apartment on the second floor, then ran up to the third floor, where she banged on the door of the single apartment there, whose resident was using a fire extinguisher in an attempt to put out fire that had broken out inside his apartment, she said.

He was unaware that the fire was elsewhere in the building, she said.

“I said, ‘we need to get out,'” she said.

He complied.

The fire caused most of its damage after traveling up through balloon framing, which is an older construction method in which studs extend from the foundation to the roof.

The building is probably salvageable, although there is approximately $40,000 damage, Free estimated.

Not long after firefighters arrived, yellow-orange bursts of flame pulsed out of the peak of the gable facade facing the street, as a firefighter worked just inside an attic window and as another one used a long-handled tool to pull open vent holes in the roof from his perch on an aerial truck extension ladder.

Later, after the fire was under control, firefighters sat on the asphalt of the avenue, resting.

The firefighters who had gone into the house first came to sit one after another on a gurney that AMED had set up on the sidewalk to have their vital signs checked.

It was a precaution to detect any problems that may have resulted from their efforts in the building, Free said.

The Red Cross was expected to be on scene to help with blankets and food, and the Salvation Army was supplying drinks, according to people at the site.

Kalyani has some open apartments that it was planning to offer to the displaced residents who otherwise didn’t have a place to go, Zerphey said.

Everybody was assured to have someplace, she said.

Free didn’t know the cause of the fire or whether it ought to be considered suspicious.

Fire inspector Justin Smithmyer will be investigating, he said.

Landlord Shawn Sponsler was watching from across the avenue.

He owns 14 rental units in five buildings — four of which are in the city.

Fire is a major worry, he said.

“You’re always concerned for the tenants’ safety,” he said.

It’s heartening, however, that a virtual “army” shows up almost immediately when there’s an emergency like Wednesday night’s — firefighters, police and ambulance workers, he said.

The city’s rental inspection program is also reassuring, with its emphasis on life safety issues like smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and sufficient avenues of egress, he said.

It’s all especially welcome, given the city’s older housing stock, he said.

The taxes that support all of that is some of “the best money I spend,” he said.

All 13 firefighters on duty in the city’s four fire stations Wednesday evening, plus another 12 called out for the blaze, were on scene, Free said.

On the sidewalk near the AMED gurney, Free tended a small table on a tripod where identification tags for all the firefighters on site hung or lay.

Nearby, Assistant Chief Steve Osmolinski was keeping track of where each of those firefighters were — most critically, those inside the building, Free said.

“If something should happen, we know who is where,” Free said.

There has been a rash of fires in the city in recent months.

Free has no explanation.

“If I knew (why), I’d put a stop to it,” he said.