A tenant at a Midtown apartment was forced to escape out his second-floor window to get away from smoke and flames when the next-door unit caught fire Wednesday afternoon.

No one was injured in the blaze at 3500 Indiana St., off West 36th Avenue, though several pets suffered smoke inhalation and, gasping for air, were hauled off by gritty firefighters. One cat later died.

The fire appeared to have started in an upstairs unit of the four-plex, though its cause remained under investigation. The occupants of that unit were not home at the time of the fire, reported about 3:20 p.m.

Next-door neighbor Ken Bailey, 41, said he was working on his bedroom when he heard breaking glass and crackling flames. Bailey, the only one in his unit at the time, looked out his front window and saw the exterior walkway, which was under a plywood covering, engulfed in flames.

"I thought about opening the door and running outside, but then I thought better of it," Bailey said. "I didn't know what else to do. I went back to the room I was working on and closed the door and then the smoke started coming in that room I was in. I tried thinking of something I could throw down. I didn't want to jump."

He grabbed a collapsible ladder he kept inside and threw it out his second-floor window to people who had gathered below to help, he said. As they worked to set the ladder up, he started climbing out the window, planning to dangle until it was ready, he said.

"By that time they had it set up so I was able to climb down," said Bailey, who was standing on the icy street later wrapped in a borrowed blanket and wearing only socks on his feet.

One of the people below was Carlton Bullington, 44, who was driving by on 36th when he saw black smoke spewing into the sky.

He pulled onto the street to find the top front of the structure engulfed in flames and began trying to get residents out. He said a woman and two kids got out of one first-floor unit after he knocked and he kicked in the door of the other one when no one answered. That unit was unoccupied. Bullington said he then went around the back to see Bailey starting to climb out the window. With him down safely, they moved the ladder to the other top floor unit.

"I went up, broke out the window, and it was totally black smoke and no one answered," Bullington said.

Two cats and two dogs survived the fire, although some needed CPR, fire department spokeswoman Jen Collins said. But a third cat pulled from the building died of smoke inhalation, she said.

Firefighters had the blaze under control inside a half hour.

"There was heavy, dark smoke coming out; we could see it from a couple miles away," Capt. Zach Westin said. "Pretty much the second floor means of egress for all the people was blocked off due to fire so we had to fight our way in there to gain access to the rooms and extinguish the fire that way while we were trying to conduct our search."

Tenants from all four units were displaced. The Red Cross was providing assistance.

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