Crews from Edmonton Fire Rescue Services responded Monday afternoon to a blaze at a townhouse complex in the city’s southeast.
Firefighters were called at 12:35 p.m. to a fire near 69 Street and 15 Avenue/Mill Woods Road in the Menisa neighbourhood.
Crews arrived four minutes later to an active fire, the city said.
Eight crews, or about 23 firefighters, responded to the blaze at the York Mills complex. Resident Kris Alexander was cooking lunch when his aunt spotted a neighbour outside on a balcony in distress and thick, black smoke pouring out of the second floor of a unit.
“She saw the mom and the baby in the second floor,” Alexander said. “She (was) panicked and then she wanted to jump from the second floor because there’s a lot of smoke coming out.”
Alexander said he ran over and caught the woman’s baby, before the mother jumped off the balcony.
Get daily National news
Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.
Sign up for daily National newsletter
By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
“I catch the baby from the second floor and also the mom,” he said, adding the mom landed on his leg, leaving his knee tender.
Alexander’s wife Ria Conde was in their basement when her children ran downstairs and told her there was a fire. She came upstairs to find her aunt holding the baby.
“My aunt, she was holding a baby — the two-year-old girl — and she said, ‘call 911 now!'”
Other concerned neighbours came over with blankets while the couple took the baby inside their home to shelter away from the noise and chaos of firefighters arriving to put out the flames.
Alberta Health Services said EMS assessed three people on scene and took an adult to hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Alexander believes the mom may have hurt her hip, and was one of the people taken to an ambulance to be checked out. Conde added she believed the mom was taken to hospital.
Alexander and Conde said another child, a teenager, also lives in the townhouse where the fire began, but they were not home at the time.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.