A 35-year-old woman died and one of her roommates leapt to safety from a second-floor window as a fire swept through their southern Baltimore home yesterday morning.

The woman, Carla Milo, nearly escaped but was unable to squeeze through her bedroom window, where she screamed for help until she died.

"She was a girl with a big heart and would do anything for anyone," said her boyfriend, William Dorsey, who left for work before the fire started about 7:15 a.m.

Fire officials said they were investigating the cause of the blaze, which caused about $40,000 in damage to the rowhouse in the 3900 block of Brooklyn Ave.

Tony Conway, 29, who lived in the house with Milo and Dorsey, said he awoke about 7:20 a.m.

When he opened his bedroom door, he was confronted by a curtain of black smoke.

Conway slammed the door shut and ran to a window. He managed to open it enough to slip outside and leap to the ground.

Conway said he raced to the back of the house where he saw Milo, who suffered from a thyroid condition and weighed about 300 pounds, with her head and arms out a window screaming for help.

Conway told her to calm down and help was coming. But Milo's screams grew weaker and muffled. By the time firefighters arrived, Milo was dead.

"She was a fighter," Dorsey said. "The smoke overcame her."

The blaze took the life of a woman who wanted to get married and have children one day, friends said.

Milo was born and raised in New Jersey and moved to Maryland to attend college, Dorsey said. She graduated with a degree in physical therapy from Towson University, he said.

Dorsey said the couple planned to get married in a few years and were talking about having children.

Milo left her job at a local bank a few weeks ago and was looking for other work. Even after leaving her job, Milo never stopped offering to help people, her friends said.

"If she had only $5, she'd give you $2 or $3," Conway said.

A neighbor, Fermon Carr, 34, said that she talked to him for hours at her house about how to mend his marriage. "She listened," Carr said. "She was there for me to talk to."

Milo is the 11th person to die this year in a fire in Baltimore.