“I have three little kids, so we are making sure to be careful,” Ms. Fried said.

Mr. Abeckaser, the father who led his family through the fire drill on Tuesday, said he tried to prepare them for different situations: what to do if a fire starts in the kitchen, in the basement, in the middle of the night.

He replaced the batteries in his smoke detectors on Sunday and was planning to put fire extinguishers in every room, plus thick towels that could be shoved at the base of doors to keep out smoke.

“The first thing you do is get out — don’t wait for Mommy, don’t wait for Daddy, get out,” he said he told his children, who range in age from 9 to 15. Of the eight Sassoon children, only one had jumped out the window and survived; the rest died in their rooms. Their mother also survived by leaping from the second floor.

Throughout the community, mothers and children, in particular, were reporting having trouble sleeping, said Dr. Norman Blumenthal, who leads trauma response for OHEL Children’s Home and Family services and has been helping community members cope.

“A lot of mothers are identifying very strongly with Mrs. Sassoon, and are having some very intense post-traumatic reactions,” Dr. Blumenthal said. “Many claim to be haunted by hearing the children crying for their mother from their burning house, or when the mother came to the neighbor and said, ‘My babies, my babies.’ They claim to hear that refrain in their brains.”

Shmuley Kresch, the manager of the Buzz electronics store, said his 6-year-old daughter was hysterical and woke up several times Saturday night, after hearing about the fire and then learning that her own family’s smoke detectors were not working. When the store opened on Sunday, Mr. Kresch got replacements.

At his store, customers were going in to ask if the hot plates — smooth metal devices large enough to fit several pots of food on top — were “UL-rated,” a safety designation provided by Underwriters Laboratories.