Jackson police Officer Brandon Cunningham didn’t think much about the danger he might have been in as he awoke three children early Monday while a fire raged on the deck outside their bedroom.

As he ushered the kids down the stairs in their blankets, their mother took them outside and Cunningham moved on to the next condominum at the building on Aspen Drive.

In all, he and Officer Brian Gardner evacuated about 15 people from six units as the fire spread from a deck at Unit 46 and into the roof of Units 46 and 45.

“It was kind of surreal,” Cunningham said. “You’ve got a bedroom where kids were sleeping and on the other side of that wall there’s this raging fire.”

After everyone was evacuated, Cunningham and Gardner stood on Pine Drive as firefighters arrived.

“We saw the windows explode and a big fireball roll through,” he said. “When you get a minute to stand back and look at it, you’re like, ‘Wow, that’s crazy.’ It just happens that fast.”

Cunningham noticed the fire at the end of his shift, as he headed to drop off his patrol car at the city shops on Snow King Avenue.

“At first I though maybe it was a barbecue, but then you realize it’s 3 in the morning. Who would be barbecuing?”

He drove up to Pine Drive to get a closer look. When he realized it was a roaring fire, he called it into dispatch and went to make sure no one was in the building.

The fire was caused by a clay chimenea that ignited the wooden deck outside Unit 46, Fire Inspector Brian Coe said. The device is an outdoor fireplace.

Jackson Hole Fire/EMS responded with an ambulance, three engines and a ladder truck, Coe said. The fire was burning the exterior deck on Unit 46 when firefighters arrived.

Firefighters used chainsaws to cut holes in the roof so they could extinguish the flames with water, Coe said. It took about two hours to put the fire out, and firefighters spent another hour checking to make sure it had been completely extinguished.

Coe said Wednesday that the four units that weren’t damaged by the fire have been habitable since firefighters concluded their investigation about 6:30 a.m. Monday.

Units 45 and 46 are expected to be repaired, he said.

It will be up to the owners of the units to decide when to let tenants move back in, he said.