Daniel and Darnell Stewart didn't have time to think.

When their mom smelled smoke, and realized it was coming from the house across the street, they bolted out of their living room toward the burning home on Sanford Avenue South Wednesday afternoon.

They knew their neighbours, a 93-year-old woman and her adult son, could have been in there. As they yelled through the thick haze of smoke, they spotted the woman standing in the front foyer, crouched over her cane.

Darnell, 20, spotted her first and ran farther in to check for her son, who was out back, seemingly hypnotized by the growing flames coming from the garage around 2:30 p.m.

Daniel, 31, was worried about his younger brother but knew he had to get that woman out of there.

He crouched down and hoisted her up over his shoulder.

Daniel carried the woman down the steps and across the street into his own home, away from the smoke.

"She's warm; she's good," he said around 4:30 p.m. as crews continued to blast the house with water.

Her son, too, is safe and uninjured.

"I feel sad because look at their home," Darnell said, nodding toward their neighbour's house, the collapsed roof visible through a broken upstairs window.

Their mom, Shirley Stewart, was shaken up, but beaming over her sons' quick selfless thinking.

"I'm so proud of my sons ... so very proud."

Police officers and firefighters at the scene also commended their bravery. The brothers said they were told they were the "heroes of the hour."

Fire department spokesperson Claudio Mostacci said arriving crews encountered a well-involved house fire which had extended into the attic. The two-and-a-half storey brick home at 156 Sanford Avenue South is between Delaware Avenue and Rutherford Avenue, south of Main Street East.

Mostacci said crews entered the home, but were forced to withdraw due to the structural instability of the roof. Shortly after fire crews withdrew from the house, a portion of the roof collapsed. Huge plumes of black smoke poured from the house as firefighters poured water on the blaze.

Mostacci said fire crews then launched a "defensive attack" on the blaze to protect the homes on either side.

"Firefighters were able to affect a successful knockdown and extinguishment of the fire with no fire spread to neighbouring homes," he said.

Damage has been estimated at about $500,000.

Mostacci said due to the extensive damage and a partial collapse of the house, the cause remains undetermined. The Ontario Fire Marshal has been contacted to assist Hamilton firefighters in their investigation.

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Homes on either side of the Sanford South home were evacuated during the height of the fire for precautionary reasons.