Six engines and two ladder trucks responded to a fire that may have started in a house on Mariposa Drive in Wilhemina Rise this morning. NICOLE SEU | Special to The Advertiser

The fire was reported at 8:09 a.m. Six engines and two ladder trucks got to the scene five minutes later. The blaze was under control at 8:52 a.m.

Three individuals escaped without injury from 3802 Mariposa Drive, where the fire may have started. No one was home in the two-story house above on Monterey Drive.

Both homes were destroyed.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated.

Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Seelig said damage estimates won't be released until tomorrow.

Kelly and Jaime Ferreira had moved into 3802 Mariposa Drive just a month ago. They were sleeping when the fire alarms in the three-bedroom home went off.

"I'm just so thankful," said Kelly Ferreira, 29, who runs Mad Science of Hawaii, a science-based education program for kids, with her 23-year-old sister. "I just feel so guilty that the house burned down and it affected another house."

She said when she opened her bedroom door, she could see flames as high as the ceiling in the living room.

Ferreira exited through the front door and suffered minor smoke inhalation, she said.

Her sister and a friend, Anthony Moore, escaped through the back door.

Andrew Mitchell, 24, of Albany, N.Y., was watching TV in the living room of a friend's house when he spotted the fire next door.

He quickly called 911 from his cell phone and ran outside to help.

By the time he got up the driveway of the first house, he saw the occupants fleeing the burning house.

"I saw the flames, but I didn't smell smoke at first," Mitchell said. "By the time I got out, the top floor was engulfed in flames."

Burrell and Charlotte Kingsley live next door.

They were just getting out of bed when firefighters told them to evacuate their home.

"We were making the beds," said Charlotte Kingsley, 77. "We didn't even get dressed."

The fire had spread to their back yard and may have damaged some trees and injured two lovebirds left in their cage on the back porch.

The Kingsleys escaped with their 2-year-old Shih Tzu, Clyde.

"You could see the flames coming up on the side of the house there," said Burrell Kingsley, 83, wearing a blue bathrobe.

Added his wife: "You know it's upsetting to think you could lose everything you own."