ST. STEPHEN, New Brunswick – Twenty-three people were homeless Tuesday after a fire ripped through a downtown, three-story apartment-business complex, briefly trapping five children and three adults.

Two people received minor injuries, and a dramatic rescue occurred soon after the fire broke out Monday night.

Around 8 p.m. EDT, the St. Stephen and Calais, Maine, fire departments were alerted that the five-apartment complex was on fire and that people were trapped on the third floor.

The building at 107 Milltown Blvd is about a block and a half from the Canada Customs office.

“The fire started at the back,” said Wayne Dow of St. Stephen, who had been visiting friends in one of the apartments. “Somebody pounded on the back door, and as soon as we opened up the door, the smoke and flames and everything was coming in. We had to run to the side, kick the windows out, put wet towels over the faces of the kids so they could breathe.”

On Milltown Boulevard, passers-by saw a woman who was in one of the third-floor apartments hold a baby up to a window she had just kicked out.

“You couldn’t see how many people were really at the window because there was so much smoke,” said Lauri Russell of Oak Hill. “By the time I jumped out of the vehicle and ran up here, there was a couple of guys already coming from behind the building with a ladder. They were getting the ladder up and then people on the street stopped and we formed a chain and they just started passing the children and babies down.”

The children were ages 2 to 13. “They were all checked for smoke in their lungs and nose,” said Kim Holmes of St. Stephen. “One little girl had bronchitis. She was very shaky. The little ones were fine. Within 10 minutes they were playing with toys.”

Russell said the passers-by were able to rescue five children and three adults. “Here I am an old fat lady running up the street with flip-flops on, and I can’t even run well with sneakers on, but you just do what you have to do. Nobody had to say do this do that, everyone just knew what had to be done, and we stood there as they passed the kids down we got them and brought them into the resource center,” she said.

The fire occurred in a building that housed Chapter II Bookstore and a drop-in center for the mentally handicapped. The Family Resource Center is across the street.

“There are a lot of heroes here tonight,” said Fire Chief Danny Carlow from Calais, which is just across the St. Croix River in Maine. He helped direct firefighters and the Calais hook and ladder truck.

As firefighters attacked the fire from all sides, the hook and ladder truck stretched high overhead and firefighters armed with chainsaws punched holes in the roof to release the built-up gases. The holes added oxygen to the fire, which seemed to breathe new life into it, and all of a sudden single licks of orange flames turned into a raging inferno.

More than an hour after the fire started, firefighters were able to crawl through windows on the second and third floors and attack the fire from inside.

Seconds before 9 p.m. a horn on one of the fire trucks gave out a long loud blast, alerting those inside to get out because the roof appeared to be ready to collapse. They scrambled onto nearby ladders. But the roof was stabilized and they again entered the building.

Around 10 p.m. firefighters were able to get into the bookstore on the first floor and hand out a few books to owner Heather Langlais. Langlais said she had recently canceled her insurance because of runaway premium costs. “This is nine years of my life now gone,” she said.

St. Stephen Fire Chief Jeff Richardson said that two apartment occupants sustained minor injuries, with one woman, who had burned her feet, taken to Charlotte County Hospital and kept overnight. Twenty-three people lost their homes.

A couple of people who had been on the street watching the fire were taken to the hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.

Richardson was on the scene Tuesday along with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a fire marshal. He said the fire began at the back of the building, and authorities were suspicious of its origin.

He estimated the loss at around $500,000. Firefighters were able to finish mopping up around 12:30 a.m. Tuesday.