APEX, N.C. (WNCN) – Firefighters battled a two-alarm house fire Thursday in a neighborhood southeast of the U.S. Route 64 and N.C. Highway 55 interchange.

The second alarm was sounded around 11:45 a.m. for the fire in the 1100 block of Blackburn Road.

By 1:30 p.m., the flames had been extinguished but a CBS 17 crew on the scene reported heavy damage to the home.

An elderly couple who lives in the home made it out alive thanks to a neighbors.

“All I was thinking about was getting them out of there before they burn up because the flames were engulfing very very fast,” said Eldrice Murphy.

Murphy and his daughter April were headed to the store when she saw the smoke.

“I could tell that it was my neighbor’s house that were an older couple that move slow so my heart instantly sank to the bottom of my stomach,” April Murphy said.

The Murphys raced to the locked front door, then heard the garage door open an saw the man who lives there in the garage.

But he went back inside, likely to get his wife.

“Just adrenaline took over. We just ran into the house,” Eldrice Murhpy said.

They brought the couple’s dog out.

During all of this, an off-duty firefighter had also seen the smoke and drove over.

He broke a window to get in.

“They were low, sort of crawling along the floor and he helped to bring them out,” said Stacie Galloway with the Town of Apex.

The off-duty firefighter carried the wife out. An ambulance took the couple to the hospital.

“They were physically okay. There were no burn marks on them, but they were singed from the heat and the debris all over, covered in ash,” Eldrice Murphy said.

The cause of the fire is unknown at this time.