2 Neighbors Rescue 3rd From Burning Bedroom : Heroes: The Seal Beach men carry a woman to safety from a fire in her home. The Fire Department hails the pair’s actions.

Orange County firefighters call Stuart Ledsam and Jim Charland heroes. But the men say they were just doing a neighborly thing.

The pair pulled a neighbor from her burning home Sunday night.

“This fire could have easily been a fatality,” said Dennis Shell, a Fire Department spokesman who works out of Station 48 in Seal Beach. “These guys deserve a pat on the back. They got involved, which a lot of neighbors are reluctant to do in this day and age. . . . We’re calling them heroes.”

Ledsam, 43, a married father of four children, shrugged off the compliment.

“We went in and got her out, that’s all,” Ledsam said. “We couldn’t possibly allow this to happen to a neighbor, so we just did it.”

It began at 11 p.m. as Ledsam was watching television in his Stanford Lane home, about ready to go to bed. Then someone started banging on his front door.

“It was my neighbor, Shannon (Bruce), and she was pounding on the door, hysterical, saying there was a fire next door,” Ledsam said. “I ran and got my phone, a portable, and dialed 911.”

When Ledsam ran outside, he encountered his neighbor, Charland, who had heard a woman screaming.

“I didn’t know if it was a family fight or not, but it went on,” said Charland, 48. “I thought I should go out and see what was going on.”

Charland and Ledsam dashed next door to 177 Stanford Lane, where 19-year-old Bruce’s mother, Joan Bruce Gawlik, 60, was still inside. They were especially concerned because Gawlik has been undergoing therapy for cancer. The glow of the fire was visible from the bedroom window and smoke was billowing out the front door, Ledsam said.

“It was unbelievable, all the smoke,” Ledsam said. “I thought the whole house was on fire.”

Ledsam and Charland managed to crawl under the smoke through the single-story home. They found a dazed Gawlik in the front bedroom, trying in vain to put out a fire that had engulfed a mattress, some bedcovers and the carpet.

Ledsam and Charland carried Gawlik out of the house and grabbed a garden hose. For the next three minutes, they managed to douse the flames until the Fire Department arrived to finish the job, Shell said.

Because of the neighbors’ prompt efforts, the fire was limited to $1,500 damage to the bedroom and its contents, plus some smoke damage throughout the house, Shell said. Gawlik and her daughter were treated for smoke inhalation at Los Alamitos Medical Center and released.

Firefighters said the fire was caused by Bruce smoking in bed. She apparently awoke, choking on the smoke. The house had no smoke detector.

“From a fire department standpoint, we are shocked nowadays to come across a home without a smoke detector,” Shell said. “The smoke detectors could have easily given everyone some more advance warning.”

For their heroics, Ledsam and Charland will be getting a commendation from the Fire Department, Shell said. They deserve it, said Gawlik’s husband, Leon, 64, who was out of town and arrived home Monday morning to see the fire damage.

“They were a heck of a lot of help,” he said.