Wesley Patterson was in the bathroom just before 11 a.m. on Sunday when his girlfriend knocked on the door. to say that she saw flames coming out of anotherunit.

It took only moments for the apartment to become filled with smoke, said Mr. Patterson, who has lived in the building for 20 years.

“We were just trying to breathe,” Mr. Patterson, 28, said. He rushed with his girlfriend and her brother, who lives with the couple, to a back window.

He tried to open the window but the frame was so hot that he burned his hands. When he got the window open, he started screaming to firefightershelping a family in apartment 3M . The firefighters couldn’t get to them just yet, he said.

Mr. Patterson said he had to keep opening and shutting the window to keep smoke from pouring in as he called for help.

“I was yelling, ‘Please help me! Please come get us!’” he said.

The family tried to open the door, but the apartment flooded with even more smoke.

“I was thinking about my son, and I was wondering if I was ever going to see him again,” Mr. Patterson said.

It was around 11:20 a.m. that Mr. Patterson said he and his family were pulled out of the window by firefighters.

“I’m glad we made it out safe, but I still can’t believe it happened,” he said.

Dana Nicole Campbell, 47, was at a nearby park, working as a groundskeeper for the city, when one of her four teenage children called to say that smoke was coming into their apartment on the third floor. Ms. Campbell said she told them to put damp towels by the foot of the door, to prevent more smoke from entering the apartment, and to barricade themselves inside the apartment.

Then, she raced to the building and got there in time to see her children jump out of a third floor window. They landed on a mattress and garbage bags that people had put there as a makeshift landing pad. Later, Ms. Campbell said she was grateful her children were unharmed.

“You can be here tomorrow with broken legs,” she said. “You can’t be here tomorrow with smoke inhalation.”

Firefighters helped Cristal Diaz escape with her two aunts, aged 49 and 65, and three cousins from their smoke-filled apartment on the fifteenth floor. Ms. Diaz, who moved from the Dominican Republic two years, took only her phone and identification with her when she left. “We don’t know what to do right now, and tomorrow I’m supposed to work,” said Ms. Diaz, who works as a cashier. The family is currently staying with friends.

Ms. Diaz said she was drinking coffee, just like every morning, when the disaster struck.

“I thought: ‘Is this going to be the last time I enjoy coffee with my family?’ Ms. Daiz, 27, recalled, still in shock.

The Wague family stood on the corner of Tiebout Ave. and Folin St., huddled together, some under a blanket, after escaping their third floor apartment.

Mamadou Wague, the father, was woken up by one of his children. “I get up, and there’s smoke in the kid’s rooms,” Mr. Wague, 47, said.

As the family rushed out of the apartment, one of Mr. Wague’s children cried that their sister, Nafisha, 8, was missing. Mr. Wague sprinted to her room and found his daughter sitting on her bed screaming as the fire engulfed her mattress, he said. Mr. Wague grabbed her and later realized his lips and nose were burned by the flames. “I didn’t think about anything except getting her out.”

By 3:30 p.m., the fire was under control, and a faint smell of smoke lingered in the air. Several residents stood nearby. Some wore sneakers, others had winter coats, and a few had blankets wrapped around their shoulders. A few people were huddled under nearby scaffolding to escape the biting wind. Several held their phones close to their faces to assure concerned family members they were alive.