Eighty-year-old Irving Sisson was inside his southwest Houston apartment talking with a computer repairman when the smoke alarm on the fifth floor sounded Monday morning.

His first move to escape started at his front door at the Bellerive, in the 7200 block of Bellerive, but it was too late.

"We opened the door and there was nothing but smoke," he said, "so we slammed it shut again."

While Sisson and the computer technician ultimately had to break out a window and await the help of a ladder truck from the Houston Fire Department, most residents at the complex for elderly and disabled people managed to escape the fire and dense smoke using the stairways. Neighbors or emergency workers helped residents who used wheelchairs and walkers.

No deaths were reported, but three residents were sent to Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital. Two were released later Monday. One was transferred to another hospital. Twelve others were treated at the scene.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

As 120 firefighters fought the blaze, many residents - some wearing only pajamas, nightgowns and robes, others barefoot - took refuge in an apartment complex across the street. At least two apartments were opened for some, while others milled around outside the units or rested in lawn chairs.

Clad in flip flops

Firefighters tapped out the blaze around 11:30 a.m. About an hour later most residents had left the scene, but Sisson remained - wearing a sweater, pants and flip flops - waiting to get in his car and drive to a relative's house. But his car was trapped inside the police barricade, cluttered with Houston Fire Department vehicles and water hoses.

Sisson, who lived in apartment No. 505, said he believes the fire started next door to him at apartment No. 507 shortly before 10 a.m.

Three floors above Sisson's apartment, Dimitri Neagu, 62, a retired Sam's Club employee, was helping neighbors down the stairs from the top floor Monday morning.

"I heard a woman in the apartment below me scream, `Help me, I'll die' " Neagu said.

Besides fire alarms, police and others pounding on doors likely saved some lives, residents said.

That's what alerted Saydesh Kapur, who was in his 83-year-old mother's sixth-floor apartment.