UPDATED: 3:22 P.M. MONDAY

ST. LOUIS --- A three-alarm fire at the Executive House, a high-rise apartment complex, broke out about 2 p.m. today in the Central West End.

St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said that three people were being treated at the scene for smoke inhalation. No one went to the hospital, fire officials said.

The fire started on the seventh floor of the 24-story structure. Firefighters had to take the stairs to fight the fire. The building is at 4466 West Pine Street.

Lorrie Bielicke, who lives on the 17th floor, suffers from multiple sclerosis and is in a wheelchair. Her niece, Kelly Cuellar, 24, lives on the 20th floor and rescued Bielicke with the assistance of another tenant, Kenny Powell. Powell, 32, lives on the 22nd floor. He stopped to help Cuellar get her aunt down the stairs and out of the building.

As the group was moving down the stairs, they met up with firefighters.

"When we got to the seventh floor, it was blazing," Powell said. "The smoke was black. The fireman got on his knees to crawl into the seventh floor door from the stairway."

When the firefighter opened the door, black smoke came billowing out into the stairwell.

Jenkerson said that the fire was contained in a single room of an apartment.

Firefighters brought in fans and busted out rear windows so that smoke could escape from the building. More than a dozen emergency vehicles responded to the blaze.

The tenant who lived in the apartment that caught fire was at work at the time.

At 3:17 p.m., firefighters allowed the tenants to go back in.

Fire Capt. Robert P. Keuss said that the cause was accidental, possibly a breakdown of an electrical power strip.