SANFORD, Fla. -- A man was burned when he tried to put out a fire at his Sanford home on Palmetto Avenue early Monday morning.

Firefighters had to break through the front window. The window leads to one of the bedrooms in the home. Firefighters believe the man sleeping in the room may have been smoking a cigarette when his mattress caught fire.

Sanford firefighters say they arrived within two minutes of getting the call. The man tried to put out the fire himself, but he burned himself trying to put out the flames.

Firefighters said most of the damage was inside the one room where the fire started and that it was caused by smoke and the water used to put out the flames. Investigators said the fire could've been much worse.

"He went ahead and tried to put it out with some buckets of water and got some minor damage, burn marks," said Orlando Nunez of the Sanford Fire Department. "It could've been pretty bad if it had gone a few minutes it could've, of course, gone to other areas of the house."

Firefighters were investigating the scene to discover exactly how the fire started.