LEWISTON — A police officer with a fire extinguisher is credited with helping to snuff out a fire in a mattress that burned in a narrow alley between an apartment house and a garage Wednesday night.

Lewiston police officer Jason Nadeau, first on the scene, attacked the flames with an extinguisher from his cruiser. Firefighters arrived moments later and put out remaining hot spots.

The mattress was reported burning at the end of a driveway on Ash Street at about 8 p.m. It was leaning against a three-story apartment house that sits at 36½ Shawmut and a garage at 27-28 Howard St.

The mattress went up in flames in a space between the buildings. The side of the multi-family apartment house, owned by Joe Dunn, was singed. A first-floor apartment sustained smoke damage.

The back of the garage was also singed by fire. But Lewiston Fire Inspector Paul Ouellette said the flames could have spread out of control very quickly had Nadeau not been on the scene so fast with his extinguisher.

“It was a great stop,” Ouellette said. “If this had gone up, it would have been a bad one.”

Ouellette remained at the scene later Wednesday night investigating the cause of the blaze.