ROCK ISLAND-- Neighbors on the block are stunned.
"It went up like a tinder box, just really fast," says neighbor Jackie Jones.
Unfortunately for Lester Lewis, it's his white house on the corner that needs putting out.
"I heard something upstairs go pop! So I go downstairs, open the door and boom! That smoke hit me. It was following me like a dog chasing a cat," says Lewis.
Neighbors called for help and then something close to a miracle happened.
"On the roof, on the right hand side there. My front room was right there. I hopped out of that damn window like a bat out of hell," says Lewis.
Cane in hand, Lewis went out the second story window onto the roof before crews arrived to get him down.
Lewis doesn't know what's left inside his home of fourteen years.
"It's all replaceable though, you know what I'm saying?" says Lewis.
That is, except for one thing that he couldn't live without.
"When I looked over there, he saved his saxophone," says James.
His saxophone is a gift from his daughter. He threw it out the window before getting himself out too. He's a proud dad even on the hardest of days.
"She's a veteran of the United States," says Lewis.
For her, he plays.
"I usually sit up there and fool with it for awhile, you know what I'm saying?" says Lewis.
It's a day, like a song, he now hopes to fast forward that could have had a much different ending.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation by the Rock Island Fire Department.