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by JOHN ANNESE
An early morning fire in a Meiers Corners townhouse sent eight firefighters, along with a mother and daughter rescued from the building's third floor, to borough hospitals with minor injuries.
City firefighters used ladders to rescue five people from the second and third floor windows of 36 Oakville St., as flames tore through the basement, where the blaze began.
The fire in the attached townhouse began shortly after 2 a.m. and sent heavy smoke into the other three floors.
The single occupants of the basement and first floors escaped on their own, as did Abdalla Zaki, who lives in the second floor apartment. Firefighters helped Zaki's wife and two teen-age daughters escape out of a front window.
Firefighters rescued the mother and daughter from the rear window of the building's third floor.
Fire officials couldn't identify either of the third floor's occupants, or provide the age of the daughter, although some neighbors said they thought she was a teen-ager.
The fire burned a wooden deck in the backyard, but didn't spread past the basement, fire officials said.
"The basement was fully gutted," Division 8 Deputy Chief Richard Howe said on the scene.
He didn't identify a cause, saying that city fire marshals would conduct an investigation.
Marco Cannamela, 23, was in the basement apartment when the fire alarm woke him up, and he fled out rear door to the backyard.
"I was sleeping. I was on my bed watching TV," Cannamela said. "And I woke up."
Zaki, meanwhile, said he awoke to find himself surrounded by heavy smoke. His wife and daughters made their way to the front window to be rescued, he said, but he couldn't see where he was going, and eventually took a stairway to the property's backyard.
Zaki wasn't sure where he was going to stay early this morning. "My phone's there. My wallet's there. My key's there. I have no idea," he said. A pair of police officers tried to help him make arrangements later on in the morning.
Cannamela said his cousin was the house's owner, and that he was staying there for a couple of weeks until he could find a permanent place to live.
The building's landlord, a short, blonde-haired woman, arrived at the scene shortly after the fire. She paced and made calls on her cellular phone, talking to fire and police officials and asking them questions about when to contact her insurance company.
She would not identify herself to the Advance.
Karen Dean, who lives on Rupert Avenue, directly behind the townhouses, said she called 911 after hearing her neighbors scream for help.
Ms. Dean and her boy friend, Dan Richardson, said they saw the mother in the third-floor window.
"She's on the top floor with the flames underneath," Richardson said.
Ms. Dean said the woman had no place to jump, and they couldn't reach her.
Richardson said he tried to climb the backyard fence to help the woman escape, but his path was blocked by a wall.
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