Jesse Smith was standing outside his Hazelwood apartment building yesterday when a man ran up to him and pointed to smoke coming out of the building. Michael Whitelow, who lives nearby, also was outside when the driver of a car stopped and pointed out the smoke.

	Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Ernestine Murray holds baby daughter Dakota and gets support from niece Dejranette Farrish yesterday morning while watching firefighters battle a three-alarm blaze that damaged the Hazelwood apartment building in which Murray lived. Click photo for larger image.

The driver used his cell phone to summon firefighters to the seven-unit building in the 4700 block of Second Avenue; Smith and Whitelow headed into the building to alert residents. By the time fire crews arrived at the three-alarm fire of undetermined origin, said Fire Chief Michael Huss, all residents but one were out of the building, and she was on a back porch. "We got her down," Huss said.

Six of the units are rented, one is empty, residents said, but it was unclear how many people were home when firefighters were called at about 10:40 a.m.

Two people, one a firefighter with a back injury and the other a woman who uses oxygen and was short of breath, were taken to hospitals.

The evacuations preceded an explosion that could have been caused either by natural gas or the oxygen tanks used by the woman taken to the hospital, Huss said.

It appeared to have occurred at the rear of the second floor of the two-story building.

The fire damage was limited to the second floor and attic, and the first floor had water damage, Huss said. Damage was estimated at $40,000.

Whitelow, who lives near the apartment building, was reluctant to talk about his role in the rescues. "I'm not a hero. Anyone would have done what I did. I just ran upstairs and knocked on doors."

Smith, who escorted the woman on oxygen outside and awakened another woman who was sleeping, was equally modest about his role. He was more concerned with the elderly woman on oxygen, whom residents identified as Kathy Glasko.

"She was wheezing real bad when I took her out," he said.

Paramedics took the woman to UPMC Presbyterian. The unidentified firefighter was taken to Allegheny General Hospital, paramedics said.