&Uncle Tyson is a super hero,& Tyson Hampton&s niece said over a long-distance phone call from his brother, Rod Hampton, in Virginia.

Tyson Hampton, a junior sociology major at Sacramento State student, jumped a fence last Wednesday to save two women from a burning building.

Rod Hampton said he found out about his brother&s courageous act an hour after it happened, and he&s been telling his friends about it ever since.

&I was so excited,& Rod Hampton said. &He&s a great person and does a lot to help people.&

Tyson Hampton said everything happened very quickly and that he didn&t really think about what he was going to do when the fire started.

&I just wanted to do what I could,& he said.

Hampton just got home from the gym and was getting out of the shower when the screaming started.

He said he ignored the sounds at first since he&s used to hearing people scream in the apartment complex next to him, which usually involves domestic disturbances.

Then the shouts for someone to call 911 started.

After looking out the window and seeing a woman hanging from an apartment balcony in front of two windows billowing with black smoke, Hampton said he suddenly found himself throwing clothes on and jumping a 12-foot fence that separated him from the burning building.

The fire had blocked off the front door and the kitchen, so the people in the apartment couldn&t get out, Hampton said.

That&s when he told the first woman to jump; he would catch her.

Since she was taller than the other woman, Hampton said, he was able to grab her foot and have her drop into his arms.

The second woman was a little more difficult to rescue, he said.

&She was hesitant, saying she had surgery that day, and as she was lowering herself, I couldn&t really grab her, so she ended up free-falling into my arms,& Hampton said.

Seconds after the two women were safe, one of them started shouting that a baby was inside the burning apartment.

Hampton said as soon as he heard that, he took off the lower window&s screen, jumped inside and began searching for the baby.

Luckily, he soon found that the baby had already been taken out and the rescue mission was finished.

&Everything happened in the matter of only five minutes 8211; from the time I heard the shouts to the moment I found out the baby was safe,& he said.

Looking back on the whole incident, Hampton said he was a lot cooler and calmer than he would&ve expected himself to be in such a life-threatening situation.

&I&ve never really helped anyone in a bad situation like that 8211; it must have just been instinct and my natural reaction,& he said.

His friend, Kevin Watkins, said he laughed when he heard that Hampton had jumped a 12-foot fence.

Watkins said he and Hampton used to joke all the time about how Hampton was getting old and could no longer do things like jump a fence.

&It was all kind of a surprise to me,& Watkins said.

He said he thought his friend was joking when Hampton first told him.

&I didn&t think it was a big deal until I saw the burned apartment building and how thankful the ladies were,& Watkins said.

Captain Steve Turner with the Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District said that the fire left $300,000 in property damage and another $100,000 in personal loss, which could not be recovered since the two women did not have renter&s insurance.

&Their stuff is gone,& Turner said. &There&s nothing.&

The fire started after a fryer pan was left unattended on a stove.

The pan&s grease had caught on fire, which soon turned the whole building into flames, Turner said.

Six apartments in the complex on Wright Street, between Arden Way and Alta Arden Expressway, were damaged, three of which were completely destroyed inside.

&It was massive,& Turner said.

Turner said that it&s important for people to pay attention while cooking because according to the station&s statistics, about 46 percent of fires start in the kitchen while items being cooked are left unattended.

The American Red Cross has on-call volunteers helping the fire victims find temporary housing.

Seven adults and six children are now homeless because of that fire, Turner said.

For Hampton, he said he&s just glad everyone is OK.

&The fire hasn&t really changed my life,& Hampton said. &(Although) I have had to turn down the fire and police departments, which were asking me if I wanted a job.&