Residents of three apartments were forced out of their homes late Tuesday morning after a fire was started by a discarded cigarette.

No one was injured in the 11:30 a.m. fire at the six-apartment building in Edwards Mill Apartment complex, off Edwards Mill Road less than a mile from the Crabtree Valley Mall. Firefighters did rescue an 8-month-old dog named Charlie who was left alone while his owner was at work.

Ashley Thorpe, 19, was watching television in her boyfriend Aubrey Burnette's apartment, 4617 Mill Village Road, when she noticed smoke outside and flames inside the second story of the apartment. Burnette, 18, ran outside to grab two fire extinguishers in an attempt to fight the flames himself while Thorpe began throwing piles of clothes down the stairs to save them.

The flames proved too much for the couple, and Thorpe dialed 911 for help from the Raleigh Fire Department.

"We need everything y'all got," Thorpe said she told emergency dispatchers.

Raleigh firefighters arrived and began spraying water on the fire in the back of the six-apartment structure, said Rusty Styons, division chief for the Raleigh Fire Department. Investigators determined the fire was accidental and caused by a cigarette left burning in the storage unit of the apartment Burnette shares with his mother, Joann.

Neighbor Amanda Stephens, 21, got a call at work that her dog Charlie was saved by firefighters. Charlie, a Labrador Retriever and German Shepherd mix, usually hides in his crate when scared and was doing just that when firefighters rushed into the apartment.

Luckily, Charlie spoke up, Stephens said.

"They didn't see him until he started whining," she said.

A few hours after the fire, Charlie appeared to be back in good spirits as his owner Stephens began moving her belongings to a new apartment provided by the complex's management company.

"He just wanted out of there," she said.