Waterford — A car fire spread to a home at 23 Miner Ave. Wednesday morning.

Firefighters and police Sgt. Patrick Flanagan and Officer Peter Barrows, with help from a neighbor, helped two residents get out of the house safely, according to police and fire officials. A third person also was extricated from the house.

Waterford Director of Fire Services Bruce Miller said a daughter, mother and father were helped from the home. The elderly mother and father were transported to Lawrence + Memorial Hospital in New London for evaluation due to smoke inhalation and some scrapes and bruises they suffered due to escaping the home by being pulled out of windows.

Miller said the car that caught on fire was parked under a carport off the side of the home. “The car caught on fire, the flames went up, hit the ceiling of the carport, and went right into the house,” he said.

“The way everything is arranged, the back door is at the back of the carport," he said, and anyone coming out the front door of the house has to come around the corner by the carport, "so the occupants were trapped inside because they couldn’t come out past the burning car.”

Miller said neighbors were yelling to one of the people trapped inside to come out the window because it would be difficult to get past the fire through the front or back doors.

The local and state fire marshals were on scene looking into the cause. Miller said the investigation is ongoing but it looked to be some sort of problem in the engine compartment of the vehicle.

s.spinella@theday.com