Ten people, including three children, were left homeless today when fire gutted their second-floor apartment in a densely populated Punchbowl neighborhood.

Firefighters responded to the alarm at 1445 Lusitana St. at 7:50 a.m. and found the apartment fully engulfed in flames, according to Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Seelig.

All 10 people were home when the fire started. Seelig said they all escaped without injury.

Salome Pisaram, 30, said she has lived in the rental apartment for two years with her 3-year-old son.

She said she was sleeping about 7:30 a.m. when her family woke her to get out of the house. She said one bedroom was already in flames. As she was leaving the apartment she noticed a lighter on the floor of the bedroom, she said.

Three other women, three men, a 5-year-old girl, and a 3-month-old boy also live in the apartment, officials said. The Red Cross was called to assist the family.

Residents of the three other apartments in the building also escaped without injury. No other apartments were burned, but some sustained smoke and water damage, Seelig said.

The building is makai of the H-1 freeway near the Punchbowl onramp to the Waianae-bound lanes of the H-1 freeway.

Police closed the onramp at Vineyard Boulevard as firefighters battled the fire, backing up traffic in the area.

The fire was extinguished by 8:27 a.m. Fire investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire. Damage estimates were not available.

“Now everything is gone,” Pisaram said. “I don’t know what to do.”