Men playing rugby in Frances Weisbart Jacobs Park left their game Wednesday evening to help evacuate people from a burning building in the Spyglass Hill condo complex.

Denver fire spokesman Phil Champagne said the fire appears to have started in bushes on the exterior of one of the buildings at 7100 E. Mississippi Ave. Flames ran up the side of the building and through a window into one of the second-floor units and into the attic, which spans the entire building.

Firefighters attempted to fight the blaze from the roof, but it quickly became structurally compromised, so they began to work from inside the second floor.

“They managed to get a good stop in the midpoint of the building,” Champagne said. “If they hadn’t, it could have run the entire attic space of the whole building.”

Seven of the 16 units in building 30 were severely damaged. An estimated 34 residents are displaced and receiving assistance from the Red Cross, he said.

The fire took about 40 minutes to get under control and another 40 minutes to extinguish. Officials said the fire required a second alarm because of the number of people living in the large complex.

Champagne said the rugby players helped get people out of the building and tried to fight the blaze with fire extinguishers.

“We don’t recommend people going into a burning building but at the end of the day, it was a job well done,” he said.