LEWISTON – A screeching parrot alerted Angelo Giberti to the first fire, a puzzling blaze that singed the kitchen ceiling and the stove-top.

“Charlie was two flaps ahead of the smoke detectors,” Giberti said Wednesday.

For the second fire – only a few minutes later – there was less warning.

No one was badly hurt in the fire. Investigators believe it started near a kitchen stove in Giberti’s apartment but the exact cause remained unknown.

Believing that they’d extinguished the original blaze, Giberti and a friend, Robert Chavira, left to buy cigarettes at a nearby store.

When they returned 10 minutes later, the three-story apartment building at 213 Webster St. was filled with smoke.

“There were flames behind the stove,” said Giberti, who lives in a first floor apartment, one of six units in the building. “The smoke detector in the basement was just screaming.”

He called 9-1-1 at about 10:50 a.m. and began alerting the other six people who live in the building.

Meanwhile, Chavira worked on getting the animals out.

Charlie flew away. Giberti’s cat, Elmo, scooted, as did Buttons, his 14-year-old greyhound.

Chavira managed to pull Giberti’s rabbit, Bunny, from the apartment before the smoke got too thick. He worried that a second cat, Buddy, was still inside.

“I tried to go back and get her but I couldn’t breathe,” Chavira said.

Paramedics administered oxygen to Giberti at the scene for a few minutes, but he said he’d be all right.

He wept when a firefighter brought him his dog, though.

“This is my best buddy,” Giberti said, hugging the greyhound he’d adopted at two years old. “He’s gotten me through so much.”

Kimberly Doucette, who co-owns the building with her mother, said she was relieved that no one was badly hurt.

An insurance worker, Doucette said the property was well-insured. Tenants in five other apartments inside the building were able to return to their homes. Giberti was not so lucky.

“His was the only apartment that sustained major damage,” said fire Inspector Pete Morrell, who was investigating the blaze.