One person is dead and at least four people were injured after a fire tore through a multi-storey apartment building in Connecticut early Wednesday morning.

The three-alarm fire started in a sixth-floor apartment in the 17-floor University Towers building in New Haven around 3:57 a.m. Wednesday, according to the Hartford Courant. It took firefighters about 45 minutes to get the blaze under control, the New Haven Register reported.

The fire department's Twitter account said it rescued some apartment dwellers from their balconies as the fire was "spreading laterally" on the sixth floor. The department also said there was "heavy smoke" on the 17th floor of the building and that it was "getting numerous calls [from] the building of people in apts with a smoke condition."

New Haven fire officials told the Courant that the dead person was a man who lived in the apartment where the fire is believed to have originated. Another resident reportedly suffered from smoke inhalation and burns while two firefighters were hospitalized -- one with chest pain and another with a foot injury.

Lydia Bornick, a neighbor of the dead man, described him as "very friendly" and said he "spent time talking to people," according to the Register.

The building has been evacuated and it may take hours before residents will be allowed back inside, NBC New York reported.

University Towers contains 238 apartments and is located near Yale-New Haven Hospital, according to the Courant.

The cause of the blaze was under investigation as of Wednesday morning, the Register reported.