Dozens of neighbors rushed to the scene of a massive late-night fire that injured nearly 30 people at a Pennsylvania senior living community, wrapping the elderly in blankets and carrying them to ambulances in makeshift gurneys.

Larry Kingsland, 62, said Friday he and scores of people who live around the Barclay Friends Senior Living Community ferried elderly residents to medics as firefighters rescued them from the blaze.

"Everyone saw how devastating the fire was and we all had the same reaction: that people needed help," he said of the Thursday night inferno in West Chester, west of Philadelphia. "The whole neighborhood was helping."

Town officials said some of the more than 130 residents were still unaccounted for Friday afternoon, and that there was the possibility someone could have died in the fire.

"We're hoping for the best obviously here," said Mayor Jordan Norley, who put the number taken to hospitals at 29.

Emergency management officials said there were still hot spots more than 12 hours after the fire was declared under control, and that much of the burned-out complex was too unstable for investigators to enter.

The fire spread to multiple buildings, engulfing sections within minutes as more than 400 emergency personnel responded. The heat was so intense that one firefighter battling the blaze discovered his helmet was melting, said county emergency services director Robert Kagel.

A spokeswoman for the senior center said about 132 residents were present when the blaze broke out. Emergency officials put the number of staff at about 20; they were all accounted for.

More than a dozen remained hospitalized late Friday, the mayor said, and officials told a news conference they were in good condition. Patients at Paoli Hospital were admitted with issues related to smoke inhalation, a spokeswoman said.

Many of the residents were pushed in wheelchairs or rolled on beds to safety, said Dina Ciccarone, another neighbor who helped move people away from the fire and into safety. In some cases, she said, people used blankets as makeshift gurneys to assist in the rescue effort.

"Most of them could not walk," the 37-year-old Ciccarone said. "Some were lying on the ground, we were just bundling them up."

As the complex went up in flames, news helicopter coverage showed dozens of residents on the lawn or along the street, wrapped in blankets as overnight temperatures dipped into the low 40s. Some of the residents were taken from the scene by school bus.

Mike Lentz, a 60-year-old accountant who lives across the street from the facility, said neighbors also helped to comfort seniors as they were led away from the flames.

"I would try to wrap them in a blanket and kept telling them 'you're safe now,'" he said. "Some were crying. Some were disoriented and crying."

Barclay Friends offers various levels of care including memory care, skilled nursing and post-acute rehab.

Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were at the scene.