B'klyn Mom dies saving kids in 'suspicious' inferno; five dead

By LORENA MONGELLI, BRANDON GUARNERI and JOHN DOYLE

NY Post: G.N. Miller

SHOCK: Josias Ordoñez (above), 2, was saved by his mother, Luisa, who died in the fire.

Screaming parents desperately tossed their children from the windows of a burning Brooklyn apartment building yesterday morning during a horrific blaze that killed five people and that investigators suspect was an arson.

The raging inferno appeared to have started just inside the front door of 2033 86th St. in Bensonhurst at around 2:30 a.m. Flames spread quickly up the stairs, trapping residents inside two crowded apartments, officials said.

As many as 20 Guatemalan immigrants lived on the two floors. While many were able to escape down the building's rear fire escape, several were left hanging out the front windows, panicked and screaming for help as the smoke and flames tore through the roof.

Neighbor Jorge Morales, 39, ran out and spotted Luisa Ordoñez, 33, and husband Miguel Chan, 40, hanging from a third-story window with their children -- 2-month-old Maria Maura, and a 2-year-old boy, Josias -- in their arms.

"I heard Luisa scream, 'I'm going to throw my baby,' " he said. "I tried to catch the baby, but she came down with so much force she went through my hands and hit the ground. We didn't have a chance. Everything happened so quickly. There was no time to think."

The infant suffered a fractured skull in the fall, but is expected to live. Her heroic mother was among those who perished.

Chan then tried to toss Josias to a neighbor hanging out of a second-story window, but the child landed on the awning. Firefighters arriving at the scene were able to pull Chan, the neighbor and the little boy down to safety.

Manuel Alvarez, 32, who lived in the back bedroom on the second floor, said the apartment had been divided into two bedrooms -- each for three people -- and his was cut off from the fire escape.

"We couldn't go out the door because there was just too much smoke," he said. "I had no time to put anything on, I just ran out. I escaped out the back window. Someone found a ladder and put it next to the window and I was able to run down. Thank God I am alive."

At first, firefighters were pushed back by the intensity of the three-alarm blaze, which ultimately caused the second floor to collapse into the restaurant below, officials said.

"The fire spread up through the staircase and right up through the roof," Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said. "It's a very unusual place for a fire to start. It's very likely to be incendiary. If the fire was started intentionally, it would be likely whoever did it was trying to kill."

Once firefighters were able to enter, they found four bodies on the third floor and one in the rubble of what had been the second floor. While firefighters believe everybody was accounted for last night, they plan on searching through the rubble today.

In addition to Ordoñez, neighbors identified Juan Boreno, a construction worker from Guatemala and a father of six, as one of the dead.

Officials said that 13 firefighters were hospitalized, including one who fell through the floor into the basement. It was not immediately clear if the building had been illegally subdivided, but records show the building had been cited for an illegal conversion in 2008.

That problem had been resolved in January 2009. The landlord could not be reached.