He said he and the woman tried to lift the man to carry him out of the house, on Ohialomi Place, but couldn't budge him.

Dioquino said he later learned that the man was an invalid who recently had been released from the hospital after undergoing brain surgery.

"We tried to move him and the smoke was getting thicker and thicker and we were having a hard time to breathe," Dioquino said.

He said he told the woman to crouch down as he was doing, and they found the air closer to the floor easier to breathe.

Fire Battalion Chief Clinton Wong said quick thinking and decisive action by the Good Samaritan helped avert a tragedy after fire broke out at the Salt Lake home.

Wong told Dioquino he planned to submit his name for a Fire Department commendation.

"I just did what we are trained to do," Dioquino told Wong.

Dioquino, 38, said he is supposed to be in Iraq with his Army unit, but was allowed to stay behind because his wife is ill.

At the fire scene, Dioquino recalled, the woman was so scared that she hadn't even called the fire department.

"I told her call 911 and she did and I was asking her to get a garden hose or a bucket of water to throw on the fire. My focus was on the fire because we could not move the man."

Dioquino said he used a hose to keep the fire at bay until firefighters arrived at the home and took over.

Wong said the fire was confined to the kitchen of the older, one-story wooden home.

He said the woman resident told him she had gone out briefly to buy food and found smoke streaming out of the kitchen window when she returned.

No damage estimate was immediately available.

The two residents were taken to a hospital for treatment of minor smoke inhalation, Wong said.