The children, ages 2 to 13, had been asleep in their third-floor apartment when the blaze erupted on the first floor.
UNION CITY, N. J. — Hundreds of friends, relatives, neighbors, police officers, firefighters and even strangers turned out on Wednesday to say goodbye to five children who were killed by a fire here.
“They’re little angels, they’re going straight to heaven,” Maria Santos, a neighbor, said in Spanish at the end of the burial service at Fairview Cemetery in Westfield, N. J. “A family’s pain is the pain of an entire community.”
The children — four siblings and their cousin — had been sleeping when the fire reached their third-floor apartment on 25th Street on July 13.
Brothers Jason González, 2, Christian Méndez, 7, and their cousin, Mayli Wood, 5, died the day of the fire. The siblings’ brother, José Felipe Tejada, 13, died two days later, and their sister, Shamira López, 4, died a day after that.
Another brother of the siblings was injured, but survived.
At a viewing on Tuesday, five white coffins lined St. Anthony of Padua Roman Catholic Church. Pictures of the children were surrounded by flowers. The children’s parents, protected by police officers, were inconsolable. Officers guided mourners past the coffins.
Brian Stack, the mayor of Union City, had invited the community to pay its respects and expected large crowds, which is why they had positioned officers to “assist and to try to facilitate and make this day as easy as possible for the family.”
“Union City is a very tight-knit community, we’re a one-square-mile town, and we had an outpouring of community support after the incident,” said Erin Knoedler, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office.
Gov. Philip D. Murphy and Mr. Stack attended the services, as did many firefighters and emergency medical workers, who offered condolences with tears in their eyes.
On 25th Street, flags from El Salvador and Honduras hung over a pile of toys, cards and balloons. The memorial, with candles dripping wax and helium balloons slowly deflating, celebrated the lives of the five children with pictures of them smiling, next to their parents, dressed in their Sunday best.
Analicia Rubi, a friend of Agustín Hernández, the 2-year-old boy’s father, and Gladiz Méndez, the mother of the four other children, remembered them as a charming bunch. She last saw them on June 30, at a party celebrating Christian’s birthday and baptism.
“They were so cute. They were so happy,” she said.
Ilsa de Santos, who lives nearby, choked up while remembering Shamira.
“She was so beautiful, so precious,” she said, in Spanish. “Losing her is so painful.”
Jason was remembered as a happy-go-lucky child while José Felipe was known for his love of soccer. Shamira and Mayli had just graduated preschool together and Christian — the quietest of the 5 — was in second grade.
Ms. Rubi said Mr. Hernández and Ms. Méndez, as well as Mayli’s mom, Lina Méndez, did not want to talk about their loss.
A spokesman for the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said investigators believe the fire started on the building’s first floor and spread to neighboring buildings. The house was demolished a week after the fire.
Though the investigation is continuing, Union City’s Fire Prevention Bureau and the city’s Building Department issued 11 citations and $60,000 in fines for code violations to the building’s owner, 416 25th Street LLC, according to Ms. Knoedler. The violations included failing to supply and maintain fire prevention equipment, such as smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, as well as failing to maintain the building’s fire escape. Ms. Knoedler said the building only had one working smoke detector.
The fatal fire has raised concerns among Union City residents, who fear for other families living in buildings with code violations.
“We’re very worried because there are a lot of families who can’t afford to live in comfortable buildings where all the laws and state rules are followed,” Ms. Santos said as she left the cemetery.
