She said she went outside after her grandson ran into her room and alerted her to the fire.

She screamed, fearful that the neighbors she knew so well were in peril, and that the blaze might spread to her own home. She said she held the wife of Ranjit Kainth, the owner of the house, who cried in her arms before being taken to the hospital for difficulty breathing. “She kept saying, ‘Paaji’ and ‘Biji’ are gone,” Ms. Ramnauth said.

Mr. Kainth’s parents, who perished in the fire, were known by the Punjabi nicknames, meaning “father” and “mother,” Ms. Ramnauth said. Neighbors said they were familiar faces who waved hello to everyone they passed on their daily morning walks.

She said Mr. Kainth’s son jumped from the attic window to escape the flames, and was in significant pain when firefighters brought him out on a stretcher. Ms. Kaur was his sister, she said.

Onlookers described the tree-lined residential block as a tight-knit community, where neighbors help raise each other’s children, and first-name basis is standard. The block’s older women were all “aunties” and older men were “uncle.”

Babzy Sukhdeo, 77, held Ms. Ramnauth as the two cried together later Sunday.

Ms. Sukhdeo, a neighbor of 30 years who lived around the corner, said the Kainth family had a house full of relatives during the weekend, like they usually did.

Their other daughter, who lives in North Carolina, was planning a summer wedding at a Hindu temple in Queens, Ms. Sukhdeo said. During the festivities, she said she had offered to house two or three of the Kainth’s relatives. “We always helped each other out like that,” she said, recalling how she would leave her keys with the Kainths when she visited her son in Florida, so they could feed her cat.

Another longtime resident, Phillip Dhanpaul, 56, said his neighbors watch over his house when he travels to Guyana. “We all look out for each other here,” he said. “We’re all good neighbors.”

Ms. Ramnauth, who has lived on the block for 32 years, waved her hand at the surrounding homes, and shook her head. “It’s so sad to lose someone in this neighborhood,” she said. “This block will never be the same.”