With help from her mother and sister, Trish Vaughan gathered up possessions from her car Monday as the remnants of a Perryville condominium building on the Susquehanna River waterfront — the former home for Vaughan and 23 other people — smoldered behind her.

“I have nothing,” said Vaughan, a registered nurse at Perry Point VA Medical Center who has lived at Owens Landing since October 2016.

Both the origin and the cause of the three-alarm fire that destroyed the building at Owens Landing I early Easter morning remained under investigation Monday, according to Senior Deputy State Fire Marshal Oliver Alkire.

All 24 people who lived in the building’s 18 units were displaced. Four people, including a 93-year-old woman who was rescued by firefighters, were injured and taken to area hospitals, according to the Fire Marshal’s Office. No information was available Monday on the conditions of those injured.

The fire was reported at 2:54 a.m. Sunday, according to the fire marshal. Vaughan said she had been sleeping when she was awakened by a “crackling noise,” followed by a neighbor pounding on her door at 3:28 a.m. She said she did not hear a fire alarm.

She said she shut her door to get dressed. When she reopened her front door, she could not breathe because of the smoke. Vaughan said she went to her bathroom and grabbed some towels.

“I wet them, put them on my face so I could get out,” she said.

She said she was able to get down a stairwell to the parking lot, and found it filled with fire crews.

“The whole roof was on fire,” she said.

About 100 firefighters from Cecil and Harford counties responded to the scene. It took three hours to get the blaze under control, Alkire said.

He credited operators of two fireboats from the Susquehanna Hose Company of Havre de Grace and the Charlestown Fire Department in Cecil County for keeping the fire from spreading to neighboring buildings. Two buildings on either side of the wreckage had melted vinyl siding.

“Without a doubt, those two fireboats saved these two buildings,” Alkire said.

He said the building that was destroyed met fire codes, but its suppression system could not withstand the fast-moving blaze.

“The fire was just so devastating, it overwhelmed the system,” Alkire said.

He said the fire systems, such as smoke alarms, fire alarms and sprinklers, allowed most residents to get out safely and gave firefighters enough time to rescue the 93-year-old woman, who was airlifted to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center in Baltimore.

Owens Landing I, an 87-unit community, was built in 1994, according to Howard Stevens, president of the condominium association. He and his wife, Diane, who have been full-time residents since 2011, live in a neighboring building where part of the siding melted. They did not have any damage to their unit.

The community’s management group declined comment Monday, but Stevens said there has been an “outpouring of support” from Owens Landing condominium owners to help displaced neighbors, including offers of shelter in units they own in other communities. Some who own units in Owens Landing but only live there on weekends also have offered theirs as temporary shelter, he said.

The Town of Perryville has been working with the American Red Cross and fire companies to provide support to residents affected by the disaster, according to Mayor James Eberhardt.

He called the fire “just a devastating loss” for a town of about 4,700 residents.

“Eighteen homes have just burned to the ground in a few hours, and that’s pretty devastating to people,” Eberhardt said.

daanderson@baltsun.com