PROVIDENCE –– A baker and his girlfriend “Butter” helped get people out of a burning apartment house in the city’s West End early yesterday afternoon.

David DeLuise, 31, said he and his girlfriend, Benita “Butter” Montgomery, were driving to visit her sister in the neighborhood when he noticed flames and smoke coming from a first-floor window of the three-story house at 38 Bridgham St.

As Montgomery called the Fire Department, DeLuise said, he ran to see if anyone was in the house. He kicked in the locked front door, DeLuise said, and then broke through the bolted door of the first-floor apartment. DeLuise said he pulled his shirt off to cover his mouth and crawled inside to search for people.

“I watch a lot of Rescue Me, you know, with Denis Leary. I love that show,” DeLuise said, referring to the FX show about New York City firefighters. “But I’ll tell you what, you can’t breathe in [the smoke].”

A mattress was burning, DeLuise said, but no one was inside. On the second floor, DeLuise said, he saw a man with a baby and a pregnant woman. He said he helped them out, but another woman didn’t want to leave.

Montgomery said she was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher, while trying to block the woman who wanted to go back inside for her belongings. “I told her, ‘It’s not worth it, honey. God is good. You’ll get it back’,” Montgomery said.

As the firefighters arrived, they saw some of the residents outside and fire engulfing the first floor and extending up through the house, said Battalion Fire Chief James Mirza. As the firefighters knocked down the fire, some were also searching the basement apartment, where they had heard a person had been trapped. But the house was empty, he said.

The fire was under control in about 20 minutes, Mirza said, and investigators were trying to determine its cause. The blaze extensively damaged the building and left at least 11 adults and 2 children homeless. Two women were transported to Rhode Island Hospital, one for smoke inhalation, Mirza said

This was the third fire in 12 hours yesterday to leave Rhode Islanders homeless, said Marisa Albanese, spokeswoman for the American Red Cross of Rhode Island. Along with helping the Bridgham Street residents, the Red Cross was also helping eight adults who lost their home on Gallup Street, in Providence, after a problem with an electrical box, and six adults whose apartment house on Clay Street, in Central Falls, burned after a workman’s blowtorch caused a fire. On Bridgham Street, onlookers pointed out DeLuise as the man they saw rescuing people. Some applauded. As he spoke with a reporter, two women asked to take his picture.

DeLuise, whose family owns the DeLuise Bakery in Mount Pleasant, said he hadn’t thought about his own safety when he ran into the burning house. “I’m not going to leave anybody to die.”

amilkovi@projo.com