PORTLAND, Maine, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Five people died in an early morning apartment fire in Portland, Maine on Saturday and several hours after the blaze broke out rescuers were trying to determine if there were additional victims.
One man who suffered severe burns escaped by jumping from a second-story window. He is hospitalized in critical condition, fire officials said.
Five people are believed to live in the unit where the fire broke out shortly after 7 a.m., but rescuers said up to four others who were at a Halloween party there on Friday night may have stayed over.
Two bodies were found on the second floor of the two-family apartment house and two other bodies were found on the third floor. The fifth body was discovered some time later.
Seven people were able to escape the fire without injury, Portland Fire Chief Jerome LaMoria said.
One of those who escaped, Nathan Long, said when his alarm woke him on Saturday he smelled smoke and ran to the back of the house where he and another tenant jumped from a window, to a porch and then to the ground.
"I feel pretty lucky, I'm kind of numb," Long told the Portland Press Herald.
Although some students from the nearby University of Southern Maine reside in the building, officials said none of the known victims were from the school.
