HARRISVILLE — When Stephanie Ace woke up about 2 a.m. Thursday, she smelled something unusual in her apartment.

“I just started to smell something. It wasn’t a right smell. It was abnormal, and then I saw the girl upstairs was calling me” she said.

Ace, 21, answered the call, and her neighbor told her that the building was on fire.

Her husband Ben was at work, so her first instinct was to gather up her six pets and get them safely out of the building.

“My animals are like my kids to me; I’m getting them out first if anything happens,” she said.

Without stopping to put on shoes, she grabbed her guinea pig’s cage under one arm, a cat under another arm and put leashes on two dogs while her third dog followed her out.

Once she put the pets in her car, she rushed back into the building to find her other cat.

But she saw that the ceiling above her bed had burned through and the apartment was filling with smoke.

“I couldn’t see, and I couldn’t breathe. It filled with smoke in seconds,” she said.

Though she had to leave without finding her cat, it had hidden in her box spring and was still there, just fine, that night when they were allowed to re-enter the building.

Firefighters extinguished the blaze at 607 E. Mercer St. by about 6 a.m. Thursday. Nearly everything in the building’s four apartments was either burned or destroyed from smoke and water damage.

No people were injured, but two cats belonging to a woman who lived upstairs died. In total, five adults and two children now are temporarily homeless and lost most of their possessions.

The building is owned by Eric Snyder of Harrisville who said that the tenants are staying with relatives or have made arrangements to stay elsewhere.

The former tenants included the Aces, Deb Knight, Darlene Knight, Brittany Overly and her two young boys, he said.

Red Cross communications director Kevin Brown said that American Red Cross of West Central Pennsylvania is providing assistance to all of the former residents.

Two of the tenants received temporary lodging at a motel paid for by Red Cross, and all the tenants received assistance with food, clothing and transportation for a couple days while they figure out what to do next.

“We don’t want to see anybody be displaced. That is our mission: to help folks in these circumstances,” Brown said.

Ace said that she and her husband have insurance, so they are talking to an insurance adjuster about a claim and looking for a new place to live while they stay at a motel in Grove City for a week.

Firefighters were able to salvage a few important items including wedding pictures and Ace’s wedding ring. Another tenant was able to get back her family Bible and a pair of glasses.

Ace said she was glad that everyone was OK, and she was grateful that her neighbor was looking out for her and the other tenants.

“You never know what is going to happen. It could be in the blink of an eye your house is gone. You can’t take anything for granted. Love everything, especially your neighbors,” she said.

State Fire Marshall Luke Nelson said Friday that the cause of the fire is undetermined, but likely accidental.

His investigation confirmed that it started in a spare bedroom of a first floor apartment. The woman who lived in that apartment was at work at the time.

Due to the amount of damage to that room, police may never know a cause, Nelson said.

“The damage is very severe to the room, so it’s very difficult to determine a cause,” he said.

Since there was no evidence of criminal activity, the investigation was turned over to Snyder’s insurance company.

Snyder said his insurance company told him the building was valued at $275,000 and will likely be considered a total loss. He is still working with an adjuster to weigh his options for the future of the property.

The building was built by the Walter family in 1962. They ran Walter and Walter Florist there for more than 30 years.

Snyder bought the building from Maxine Walter 23 years ago and has rented it as apartments.

Walter, who was also a carpenter, used to live in one of the apartments and much of the woodwork throughout the building was custom made.

“It was a really neat old building,” Snyder said.

He said the fire companies did a great job to prevent the blaze from spreading to the neighboring houses. They also saved his garage which contained supplies for his painting business.

Since he lives down the street, he was there shortly after the fire broke out.

“There were nine companies here and they worked their butts off,” he said.