An apartment fire early Sunday morning killed two Ames residents while they were sleeping, leaving their 5-year-old daughter without parents.

Michelle M. Newton, 25, and Roosevelt Stewart, Jr., 26, were pronounced dead on arrival at Mary Greeley Medical Center after Ames firefighters pulled them from their apartment at 420 E. 7th St.

The firefighters performed CPR on them in an attempt to resuscitate the couple. The suspected cause of death is smoke inhalation.

Their daughter was staying overnight with relatives.

“The whole thing is just really sad,” said fire Capt. Tom Hilts.

The fire, which was reported at 4:30 a.m. by neighbors Andrew Messersmith and Chris Cicci, was small enough that it was easily extinguished, Hilts said.

“We got the call about 4:30 [a.m.], figure in three to four minutes response time, and we got them out by 4:41 [a.m.],” he said. “So it didn’t take too long.”

“It was not a major fire,” said Ames Fire Capt. Richard Taylor. “It was a couple of small areas with flames. They were able to get into the apartment and locate the victims pretty easily.”

The apparent cause of the fire was a gas stove burner left set on high, Hilts said.

“The last report that anybody saw them was about quarter to two,” he said. “They probably were cooking something, and I’d guess [the fire] started sometime between 2 and 3:30 [a.m.].”

When the fire department arrived on the scene, they were unsure exactly where the couple was. They used a thermal-imagining camera to locate the pair.

“Initially, we used it just to see where the fire was at,” Hilts said. “Then we used it to search for the bodies.”

Taylor said the thermal cameras are relatively new to the fire department and have been in use for only two years.

“They pick up heat from a human body,” he said. “You can even trace footsteps where someone has recently walked.”

Newton and Stewart were found without any burns on their bodies, as only the kitchen and bathroom received fire damage. The rest of the third-floor apartment suffered heavy smoke and water damage, however. Hilts said the damage is estimated at about $30,000.

Three other apartments on the third floor of the 36-unit brick apartment complex received smoke damage, he said. Red Cross is providing housing for the three people displaced by smoke damage.

Hilts said investigators are unsure why the couple was not awakened by the blaze, but there is some suspicion the smoke alarm may have malfunctioned.

“A resident on the second floor heard a smoke detector and she was sure it was coming from the room,” he said. “But the neighbors who called it in said they didn’t hear it go off and that their own alarm didn’t go off until they opened the door to the hall.”

Hilts said the smoke detector was not battery operated; it was wired into the wall, so battery failure is not a possibility.

Hilts said the smoke detector would be tested today and witnesses would be re-interviewed.

Although he was not sure, Taylor said there might be a medical examination of the bodies to see if the couple’s blood alcohol level was high or if there was anything else affecting their bodies at the time of the fire.

“There generally is [an examination] in something like this,” he said.