1363 Chapel on Tuesday (left); firefighters rescuing a resident on Monday (right). Firefighters rescued three women and 16 cats from a three-family house that caught on fire Monday afternoon.The fire appeared to start in the basement — where, according to the landlord, a contractor had been working to solder a leaky pipe.Assistant Fire Chief Danny Coughlin told the Independent that the call came in at around 2:07 p.m. Monday for a fire at 1363 Chapel St.“Crews arrived on scene to find heavy smoke from the building,” he said. There were also ​“a couple occupants in the windows screaming for help.”Firefighters wound up rescuing a total of three women from the property — one via ladder and two via the interior stairs.Two of those occupants were transported to Yale’s St. Raphael’s hospital campus to be treated for smoke inhalation. As of Tuesday morning, Coughlin said the fire department is still waiting to hear back from the hospital with an update on those patients’ conditions.Coughlin said firefighters also rescued 16 cats that were in one of the apartments belonging to one of the women who were rescued. Firefighters called animal control to house those cats until their owner is discharged from the hospital.Coughlin said it took the firefighters only a minute and a half to rescue the building’s occupants. It took a total of 45 minutes to suppress the fire.Coughlin said the cause of the fire is still under investigation. ​“All the signs pointed to a basement fire,” he said. ​“It traveled up the wall. It was kind of cooking in on a closet on the first floor.” Firefighters were able to stop the blaze from spreading to the second floor.The building is owned by Chapel and W River LLC, a holding company controlled by local landlords Steve and Julie Bernblum.In a Tuesday phone interview, Steve Bernblum told the Independent that a contractor was soldering a leaky pipe in the basement Monday before the fire started. He said that, based on what he’s been told by the contractor, there was some foam insulation near where the contractor was soldering. ​“That caught on fire,” resulting in the larger blaze.Bernblum said he’s still gathering information and reaching out to contractors and insurance companies. He said he wasn’t on scene at the time of the fire, and right now is working only off of information he’s been told by others. ​“I’m really sorry it happened,” he said about the fire.Bernblum also said he had no idea that there were 16 cats in the building. ...read more read less