Five Iowa State students escaped their burning house without injury early Saturday morning after it caught fire due to careless smoking, said Lt. Scott Siberski of the Ames Fire Department.

Ames firefighters responded to a police dispatch at 4:13 a.m. reporting a fire at 214 Howard Ave., Siberski said.

He said a neighbor called 911 after hearing a smoke detector and seeing smoke coming from the house. The neighbor also saw an individual on the roof, Siberski said.

“We found a story-and-a-half dwelling, and it had a lot of smoke visible,” he said.

Siberski said initially the firefighters did not see any flames, but then flames came from the northeast corner of the structure.

“There was a lot of fire damage on the first floor, heat and smoke damage throughout the rest,” he said.

Assistant Ames Fire Chief Clint Petersen said the five residents who were home escaped through various parts of the house. One went out the front door, one out the back door, two out the window of their first-floor bedroom and one climbed out a second-story window onto the roof and slid down to the ground.

Although no one was seriously injured, Petersen said two residents were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation by Mary Greeley Medical Center paramedics. Two other residents were not at home, he said.

Petersen said all the residents who were home were in bed at the time of the fire, but the last ones to go to bed did so only a few minutes before the fire was reported.

“Smoke detectors in the house woke them up,” he said. “There was thick, black smoke throughout the house. They had to crawl on their hands and knees to get out.”

Petersen said the most probable cause of the fire was careless smoking on the part of one of the residents.

Although no one was injured, Petersen said smoke detectors prevented the fire from being fatal.

“This really points out the importance of smoke detectors in the house,” Petersen said. “Without the early alert, we most likely would have had one or more fatalities.”

He also said the residents were able to survive because they knew of more than one exit from their rooms.

“Within a few minutes of getting out, flames had spread throughout the first floor,” Petersen said. “If they didn’t know the exits, they wouldn’t have gotten out.”

The seven students living in the house rented the property from Adeel Rahman, 2817 Pinehurst Circle.

According to the city assessor’s office, the house is valued at $76,800.