Residents of a Bronx apartment building where a deadly fire broke out are describing a chaotic scene.

The blaze Thursday night left 12 people dead including a child around a year old and four more people fighting for their lives.

Fifty-nine-year-old Thierno Diallo says he was asleep in his ground floor apartment when he heard banging on the door. Diallo says it took him a moment to realize what was happening. He says he heard people screaming, “There’s a fire in the building!” He ran out in his bathrobe, jacket and sandals.

Neighborhood resident Robert Gonzalez, who has a friend who lives in the building, says she got out on a fire escape.

Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro has called the fire, “historic in its magnitude,” because of the number of lives lost.