Two men who selflessly ran inside a burning apartment Tuesday are being credited for saving the life of a woman who was trapped inside.

Charles Moffitt and his son Steve said they ran inside Piedmont Street Apt. D 13 shortly before 3 p.m. when they saw smoke coming from the roof and heard screams of "help."

Charles Moffitt said that while they were in the building, the rooms were filled with a lot of smoke and the heat broke the glass in the front bedroom window, but the men were able to pull the woman, whose name has not been released, to safety.

"We just happened to come home early from work today and saw smoke coming from the roof," said Charles Moffitt. "I think we both went into a panic and just ran as fast as we could. The whole place was filled with smoke, but we did all we could to pull her to safety."

Lenoir Fire Chief Ken Briscoe said that if those neighbors had not heard the victim's cries for help or ran inside the home, her burns may have been much worse.

"They probably saved her life," Briscoe said.

Caldwell EMS Supervisor Shannon Wiles said the victim suffered burns on her lower extremities, but he couldn't speculate to which degree. He said the woman was alert and conscious at the scene and was flown to Charlotte's Carolinas Medical Center as a precaution.

"She was stabilized at the scene, and her vital signs were good, but we went ahead and flew her to CMC just in case," Wiles said.

LFD Lt. Sam Smith, public information officer, said members of the Lenoir Police Department and LFD's investigation team continue to investigate the cause of the blaze and have not estimated the amount of damage. He said it appears that the fire started in the bedroom, spread to the living room and then traveled into the attic area. The smoke also traveled into the attic areas of both Apt. D 14 and Apt. D 15, according to Briscoe.

"Now that we have the fire under control, we are going to remove all of the stuff from the bedroom area and try to reconstruct what may have happened," Briscoe said. "We hope to be able to determine the exact origin of the fire so we can figure out exactly what happened."

Smith said crews from Lenoir headquarters, Lenoir Station 2 and Valmead fire departments took control of the fire while officers with the Lenoir Police Department assisted as needed. Hudson Fire and Rescue and Gamewell Fire Department were placed on standby at their stations until nearly 6 p.m. when the final truck cleared the scene.

Chief Briscoe requested assistance from the City of Lenoir's Public Works department to apply sand to standing water, and representatives with the American Red Cross also responded.