By Mark LaFlamme,Staff Writer

LEWISTON – Four people were hurt early Friday when they jumped or fell from upper floors as an apartment house burned on College Street.

Fire investigators said the 2:45 a.m. blaze started in a ground floor apartment, and flames shot toward the second and third floors.

The blaze gutted the tenement. State fire officials believe a discarded cigarette on the first floor may have caused the fire, though the investigation was continuing Friday night.

As the building at 51 College St. became engulfed, three people leapt from a third floor deck as flames and smoke moved in around them.

Amber Brown, 17, Robin Stackhouse, 23, and Todd Owens, 20, each suffered injuries when they jumped to safety from a third-floor porch.

A fourth person, 26-year-old Elizabeth Greschaw, hurt her ankle when she stumbled and fell from a second floor deck.

All but Stackhouse had been released from the hospital by Friday night. Stackhouse remained at CMMC, where he was being treated for a broken bone in his back and lung damage from smoke, a family member said. A nursing supervisor said Stackhouse was listed in stable condition late Friday night.

Meanwhile, a couple on the first floor escaped with their two children after trying to snuff out flames that flared up in their bedroom.

Steve Hunt said he and his wife, Patty, used water and towels to beat out fire burning near a bedroom nightstand. But when the flames spread into woodwork beneath the mattress of their bed, the couple was unable to stop the fire from moving throughout the building.

“We tried; we really did,” Steve Hunt said.

The couple then fled the apartment with their sons, 8-year-old Devin and 6-year-old Dylan. Hunt said he and his wife attempted to alert neighbors in apartments above them, but they were thwarted by heat and smoke.

“We could not get to the third floor. There was too much smoke,” Hunt said. “We would have passed out and died right there.”

Fire crews attacked the flames from all sides while police and rescue crews began rounding up tenants.

The apartment house, which stands at College and Bartlett streets, is owned by Neil Patrick and Marion Bourgoin. The amount of damage was not immediately known.

Staff Photographer Daryn Slover contributed to this report.