An early morning fire sent one woman to hospital and forced about 140 seniors out of their apartment building in Moncton on Saturday morning.

At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, the Moncton Fire department received a call from a newspaper deliveryman, who saw smoke in the hallway outside of a resident’s door on the eighth floor of the Cameron Arms seniors apartment building in downtown Moncton.

By the time the first fire crew arrived, some of the 140 Cameron Arms residents had already started evacuating the 10-storey building.

“They made their way up to the eighth floor where the fire was coming in, and when they entered eighth floor hallway, they met them with heavy smoke, it was almost at floor level by then” describes Moncton Fire platoon chief Robert Brine. “They found the apartment that was on fire, they made their way into the fire, and that apartment was fully engulfed.”

18 firefighters from four of the five Moncton fire stations climbed eight flights of stairs to put out the blaze.

The cause of the fire is still being investigated, but Chief Brine says it appears to have started in the resident’s kitchen.

The resident, who was asleep at the time, is currently in hospital being treated for minor smoke inhalation. She is expected to make a full recovery, but her unit sustained significant damage.

At 5:00 a.m., Canadian Red Cross members arrived at the Cameron Arms to assist the residents, after being called in by New Brunswick RCMP.

“What I see down there, probably 100 people, then the fire department cleared out the scene,” described Cosmin Dinu, a volunteer with the Canadian Red Cross.

As of Saturday evening, crews were still cleaning up the building, and anyone who lives above the sixth floor still hasn’t been able to access their unit.

While the Moncton Fire Department is used to seeing an increase in calls during the Holidays, they say they’ve had more than expected already in December.

“This time of year, just be careful,” warns Chief Robert Brine. “It’s just a bad time to have a fire, we’ve already our fourth one in the month of December.”

150 Cameron St. is a 40-year-old building, and a former resident said that at the time of its construction, it was the place to live. It was one of the only apartment buildings in Moncton in the 1970’s to have two elevators, a generator, a pool and concrete construction.

Now the building will be in clean-up mode for a little while.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Jessica Ng.