OAKLAND TWP — Sound asleep in his apartment above a garage, Andrew Fink didn't hear the neighbors and passers-by pounding on the door below and honking their car horns about 2 a.m. today.

He had no idea that a fire was starting to overtake the apartment on Route 68, despite the efforts of the Good Samaritans to sound the alarm.

Suddenly, an explosion.

“That woke me up but I didn't know what it was,” the 24-year-old Fink said. “I came to the door and saw the fire. It was going pretty good.”

Unsure of any available escape path, he took an unconventional route.

“I jumped from the porch,” he said.

He stuck the landing after the 12-foot leap and was not injured.

However, the rental apartment he had been renovating for the past month was destroyed. Many of his belongings are gone, too.

The owner, John Zanicky, not only lost the building, but he lost a prized possession — a mint condition 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air that was parked in the three-bay garage.

But a second '57 Chevy Bel Air in the garage apparently was spared. Each car was valued in the tens of thousands of dollars range.

Investigators did not immediately rule on a cause, but they suspect an electrical problem sparked the fire. A damage estimate was not known.

Nearly three dozen firefighters from eight departments battled the blaze that appeared to have started outside the structure.