AUBURN – People fled a burning home Monday afternoon when flames spread from a porch to a house in an afternoon blaze on Carlton Street.

Nobody was hurt in the 3 p.m. fire, but the porch at 43 Carlton St. was destroyed and the side of the house damaged by flames and heat.

Fire crews knocked down the worst of the flames and saved most of the single-story house owned by Mike Morency, who lives there with his children.

Fire investigator Lt. Gary Simard said the blaze started after a man smoking on the porch tossed an extinguished match toward a bucket and missed.

The match, Simard said, slipped into a crack between the porch floor and the siding, landing on insulation. The man poured water into the crack and believed that it was no longer a threat.

Simard said the insulation smoldered for roughly a half hour before bursting into flames on a section of the porch. From there, it took just seconds for the flames to burn through items on the porch, including fuel for a lantern.

“It’s an open porch and there is a lot of air moving through it,” Simard said. “The fire was really going when our guys got there. Another minute or two and we would have lost the house.”

Witnesses said the flames rolled quickly up the porch and the side of the house before fire crews arrived moments later.

“It was just one quick ball of flame,” said a man who lives nearby and who did not want to provide his name. “The porch was pretty much engulfed and it was blowing toward the house. I ran down here just to make sure everyone got out.”

Simard said part of the kitchen, close to the source of the fire, sustained heat damage. However, the rest of the living area was unscathed.

“Basically, everything in the house was saved,” Simard said. “It was another good stop by the firefighters.”

Carlton Street runs parallel to Poland Road off Pride Road.