The door, deadbolted shut, blew open on Friday afternoon. And Nico Fundark — with her 5½-week-old son on her shoulder — ran out of her apartment in the Worsley’s building, never to see any of her belongings again.

Fundark’s apartment on the third floor was two doors down from where there was a fire.

With her door blown open, the fire alarm blaring and her baby, Stanley Joseph Salamon, in nothing but a bib and diaper, Fundark ran to the building’s first floor, to wait for her fiance, 28-year-old Steven Salamon, who was at work.

“I already had him (the baby) in my arms so we just took off,” she said.

Firefighters were able to grab a box with important items, like the baby’s Social Security card. But Fundark and Salamon were told that everything else was ruined by heat, smoke and water.

Firefighters spent about seven hours fighting the blaze, which began shortly before 4 p.m. Friday at 161 N. Main St., in an apartment on the building’s third floor, and ultimately spread into void spaces between the building’s walls, ceiling and roof before being extinguished late Friday night.

About a year ago Fundark and Salamon moved into the building looking for a new start — Salamon working at a new job, driving a truck for Fischer’s; Fundark preparing to quit her job to care for the baby.

Now everything is either gone or so tainted Fundark wouldn’t want to use it.

“It’s been sitting in that water,” Fundark said. “With baby stuff, I wouldn’t chance using it.”

Three days after a fire ripped through the well-known building on the corner of Main and East North streets, tenants were briefly allowed back into their apartments while an investigation into the cause of the blaze continues.

Luke Smith, 37, moved into a two-bedroom apartment on the building’s second floor about a month ago.

Smith is a bartender and server at Applebee’s, and was in the middle of working a double shift on Friday when a friend called to tell him that the building was on fire.

At first Smith thought it was a joke. Then he saw the pictures and got a call from his mother, Maureen, who lives on South Main Hill, saying she could see the smoke pouring into the sky.

On Monday Smith said he was staying with his family while he figures out what to do. He said all of his possessions had been destroyed.

“I went in, but there was basically nothing I could salvage,” Smith said. “I’m kind of just picking up the pieces right now.”

Kayla Hildebrand, who lived on the building’s second floor with her fiance, David Shoup, and their 3-year-old son, Jory, said her family found a moment of joy on Monday amid the wreckage: the family’s cat, Pickles, that had been missing since Friday.

The family had just finished remodeling a different second floor apartment in the building on Friday, and was eating at the Monroe Hotel when the blaze broke out.

Hildebrand said the family celebrated the return of Pickles on Monday, but found that nearly nothing else in their apartment was salvageable.

“Our roof is gone. My son’s bed and everything is smashed,” Hildebrand said. “We didn’t catch the majority of the fire, but we got a lot of water damage, a lot of smoke damage.”

Without family in the immediate area to help them out, Hildebrand said, they planned to spend the next couple of days at a hotel and continue working with charities and social service agencies to find new, long-term housing.

Churches, the American Legion, the Elk’s Club and city officials were working to help victims displaced by the fire, tenants said Monday. And online fundraising accounts through the website gofundme had also been set up.

Hildebrand said the outpouring of community support was making a huge difference.

“I want to thank the community for what they’re doing for us,” Hildebrand said. “Without them helping us, we’d still be in the same clothes we were in when the fire broke out.”

In all, the fire displaced a dozen people — nine adults and three children — said Kevin Brown, a Red Cross spokesman. The Red Cross provides monetary assistance to displaced victims and generally provides for about three days of short-term lodging, Brown said.

City officials have condemned the building, and Fire Chief Nick Ban said he would recommend it be torn down for safety reasons. Ban said Monday that it would ultimately be up to the owners to decide whether to demolish the structure or rebuild it.

The building is owned by Keri Dolan, her sister, Cheryl Worsley, and their mother, Lorraine Worsley. On Monday, Dolan met a second time with city officials and said she also expected to meet with insurance agents about the disposition of the building.

Rebuilding would mean bringing the building up-to-date with the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code, and dealing with what is likely severe water damage, Ban said.

“When you have a building comprised of wood timbers and wooden floors and you put that much water in it ... the damage is what the damage is,” Ban said.

He said Monday that no determination of the fire’s cause or nature had been reached, and he declined to offer a preliminary assessment of the blaze.

He said the building’s age and composition presented firefighters with a real challenge on Friday.

“It really got a jump on us, even though we were on the scene in three minutes,” Ban said. “Time is important, and I would remind everybody, please make sure your smoke detectors work. They are the difference between life and death, and time is not on your side in a fire.”

John Evans, the city code enforcement officer, declined Monday to speculate on the cost of tearing down the structure. Evans said there are various “styles” of demolition that might be employed at Worsley’s — from bringing in a crane to using a specially-equipped excavator to pull the building down into itself.

“I haven’t seen a building in Butler torn down with a crane in a long time,” Evans said. “This being a three story (building), they may need to bring one in.”

But, he added, it’s difficult to know what strategy might ultimately be used. For example, there are high voltage power lines on the north side of the Worsley building, which is something a crane would want to stay far away from.

Evans said other factors, like asbestos remediation and special disposal of the building’s materials, could also impact what is done and how much the project costs.

He also said it was “possible but not likely” that any demolition would be allowed to close Main Street for any length of time because it is a state road.

Ultimately, Evans said, the city would have to review and approve any demolition proposal.

Tenants of the building directly behind Worsley’s, at 115 E. North St., were affected by the fire as well. Though it was not damaged in the blaze, the brick building that houses a residential treatment facility run by Irene Stacy Community Mental Health Center is only separated by several feet from Worsley’s.

Kevin Martin, the facility’s program supervisor, said 19 clients living at the center were forced to evacuate Friday night. Martin said the clients were taken to hotels with the help of county officials.

Monday morning a taped-off section of sidewalk next to the facility’s front door and a vague smell of smoke inside its waiting room were the only reminders of Friday’s fire.

“Everybody’s kind of back to business,” Martin said. “(The impact) is very minimal at this point.”

Thomas Graham, a vice president and executive board member of Downtown Butler, an organization which promotes downtown business, said the loss of the building has both short- and long-term effects along Main Street.

“It makes things much more difficult because there was four viable business locations in that building,” Graham said. “So we’ve displaced two businesses, and the opportunity for two more has been extinguished.”

Graham, who is the owner of the business Frames & Pixels, said it’s too soon to start talking about the possible long-term impacts of the building’s loss, and said the organization wanted to extend its sympathies to the Worsley family, and its thanks to emergency responders who worked to keep neighboring structures safe Friday night.

“I can’t even imagine what they’re going through right now,” he said. “It’s going to take some time to sort those things out.”