The family was sharing an apartment with a friend who allowed them to stay temporarily in a third-floor unit at the Butler Houses on Webster Avenue in the Claremont Village section of the Bronx. Ms. Konte, pregnant with their third child, said her husband had tried to find a new place for the family to live; when he failed to do so, it became a point of contention in their marriage.

Ms. Konte said she remembers each detail from the day of the fire with raw clarity.

She was four months pregnant. That morning, she had walked across the street to Webster Laundromat with her two daughters. She filled the washing machines with clothes before returning to the apartment.

Once inside, Ms. Konte said Jainabu spotted an ice cream truck from the window. “Mommy, ice cream,” Ms. Konte recalled the little girl saying.

She looked out the window, but the truck had left.

That evening, a second ice cream truck pulled up in front of the building. Ms. Konte ran down to catch it, but she missed it, she said. Her husband, she said, was praying in a mosque.

She then returned to the laundromat to put her clothes in the dryer, leaving the girls inside. Her imam, Musa Kabba, of Masjid Ar Rahmah, said she was away from the apartment for up to 40 minutes before fire trucks arrived. She said she rushed out of the laundromat at the sound of sirens and fainted at the sight of one of her daughters being carried out of the building by firefighters.