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 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, surely the envy of any collector, was valued — pre-fire — 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.

Fink, a general contractor, had moved in only a week ago and was nearly finished with a monthlong renovation of the three-bedroom apartment fitted with cathedral ceilings.

“It was 90 percent done,” he said. “All I had to do was paint the ceilings.”

Once completed, his girlfriend, Nicole, and the couple's 10-month-old daughter, were to move in, too.

Fink, who works for Volaric Construction of Petrolia, had gone to sleep about 10 p.m. Wednesday.

His unexpected wake-up call would be an explosion, apparently from the fire igniting a propane tank on a gas grill under the apartment's large three-level deck.

Sleep groggy, Fink walked through the hallway and kitchen to a door leading to the porch. On his way, he could hear a commotion down the stairs outside.

“I heard banging and yelling and the honking horns,” he said.

Fink opened the door. The flood lights above the porch cut through the darkness and lit up the outside of the apartment.

“I could see it was completely engulfed,” he said.

He wasn't sure he could make it down the interior stairs to ground level. His best option, he thought, was to jump from the porch.

He saw a neighbor using a garden hose in a futile effort to fight the fire.

Fink managed to rescue his car and an all-terrain vehicle from under the porch but there was little else he could do. He repeatedly telephoned Zanicky to advise him of the fire but the owner was sleeping and apparently did not catch the first few calls.

By the time the first fire crews showed up, the blaze was out of control. Fink looked on helplessly as the flames tore through the building and garage. In the path of the fire was one of the restored Bel Airs.

“It was all original,” Fink said of the classic car.

Zanicky, who lives nearby and showed up during the fire fight, focused on saving the other Bel Air parked in the bay farthest from the other car.

Firefighters couldn't let him make an immediately rescue effort.

“There was heavy smoke,” said Chief Kevin Hesidenz of the East Butler Volunteer Fire Department. “There was no way he could have gotten it out until we had the fire under control.”

Eventually, Zanicky got the go-ahead to drive the car out.

At first sight, it appeared the vehicle had some smoke damage but otherwise it is in decent shape.

Hesidenz, who appreciated the car, was happy.

“It's a beautiful car,” he said. “It was a great knock down by the fire departments that saved that.”

Zanicky said he believed he had insurance but was unsure of the amount of coverage.

Fink had renter's insurance but no immediate place to live. The Butler chapter of the American Red Cross is helping him.