NASHUA — As many as 10 children were asleep inside a Perham Street apartment building when an explosion just outside started a fire in the early morning hours yesterday. A car, parked in the driveway alongside the house, caught fire, threatening the nearby building.

One neighbor said another neighbor saw a person running up to the car with a flaming object in hand just before the explosion.

“A lady that lives right over here said that she was actually outside when the person was running up with it,” said Jessica Lemere, 23, who was in her boyfriend's father's home when the blast happened. “She saw something on fire running up the driveway, and then she said that they threw it through the back windshield and it just went up.”

Nashua Fire and Rescue Deputy Kevin Kerrigan said Nashua fire and police are investigating the incident, which happened at 1 a.m. at 64 Perham St.

While the downstairs residents were evacuated, Lemere and her two children, her boyfriend, and other residents of the building were trapped inside, blocked by the burning car.

“We just heard a big bang, a popping weird noise, it was very loud,” she said. “The flames were getting higher and everyone's saying 'it's gonna blow, it's gonna blow up, they need to get out.' And we're stuck.”

Rescue personnel extended a ladder to the apartment's rear window, allowing the family to escape unharmed as firefighters contained the blaze. The heat from the fire melted and curled some of the vinyl siding of the house.

Lemere said that three days earlier someone had smashed the back window of the car, which belonged to her boyfriend's stepmother.

“That's why we think it was obviously intentional,” she said. “From what I know, there's no enemies, no one has enemies. It's just this woman and her boyfriend and their kids come here. We don't know who would've done this.”

Downstairs resident Elizabeth Kuhns had four children in her house when the explosion happened.

“We were laying in bed and all of a sudden we heard this big bang,” she said. “We didn't think anything of it, then my husband came out to use the bathroom, so he automatically was trying to figure out what was going on. And when we came into the kitchen all we saw were flames through the window.”

srios@newstote.com