OAKLAND >> One resident was injured and dozens of other residents were displaced in a fire Saturday morning at a downtown apartment complex, officials said.

The person injured, who was hospitalized with smoke inhalation, was one of eight residents rescued off balconies by firefighters.

The fire erupted just after 5 a.m. at the Alice Lake apartments, 1553 Alice St., a three-story building that has 96 units, officials said.

The fire started in a second-floor apartment on the 17th Street side of the building, apparently in the kitchen, fire Battalion Chief Anthony Sanders said.

Most of the residents were able to get out on their own, but eight had to be rescued off balconies by firefighters who used ladders to get to them. No firefighters were injured.

One of those rescued was Caitlin Reynolds, a second-floor resident who has lived in the building on the Alice Street side for more than two years.

Reynolds, a nurse, said she was awakened by a fire alarm going off in the hallway and when she looked out her peephole she “saw people running down the hallway with sweatshirts covering their mouths and noses.

“I opened the door a crack and I could see smoke coming from the stairwell area. I was scared when I saw the smoke. It was terrible.”

She called her best friend who lives across the hallway from her and woke her up. “I told her, ‘Wake up the building is on fire.’ She came over to my apartment and we climbed onto the balcony and I was yelling to firefighters, ‘Up here, help get us out.’ ”

After firefighters got her off the balcony she said she was extremely relieved. “I was just really ecstatic.”

More than 60 firefighters responded to the scene. The fire was declared under control at 5:45 a.m.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, Sanders said. An exact damage figure has not yet been determined, but it is easily in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, officials said.

Sanders said all of the residents would be temporarily displaced but it is not yet known what the long-term impact would be. Residents were being assisted by the Red Cross.