The fatal Connecticut fire that killed a fashion-marketing exec’s three children and parents was possibly sparked by embers from disposed fireplace ashes, The Post has learned.
The ashes from the family’s Christmas Eve yule log may have been still smoldering when they were left outside the 100-year-old, $1.7 million, Long Island Sound-view Victorian, said a source.
The wind may have blown the embers into the old, wooden building, sparking the blaze.
The already tragic story took another heartbreaking twist today as details emerged about how the oldest victim, Lomer Johnson, of Southbury, Conn. — a retiree who worked as jolly St. Nick — tried in vain to save his granddaughter.
“He had the little girl with him,” Stamford Fire Chief Antonio Conte told reporters yesterday.
Johnson, 71, was outside, face down on a small, jutting roof. The child was just inside the window.
“I think he had his granddaughter and he tried to get her out,” the chief said.
It was not clear which of the three little girls who perished in the flames he’d been trying to rescue.
Johnson and his wife, Pauline, were staying in the turreted, under-renovation home visiting their daughter, former Calvin Klein art director Madonna Badger, and Badger’s three daughters, 10-year-old Lily and 7-year-old twins Sarah and Grace.
The other two girls were found on the second floor, one floor down from all their bedrooms, the chief told reporters.
Pauline, the grandmother, was found on a staircase hallway between the second and third floors.
Of the seven in the house, only Badger, a founding partner at the top-tier branding firm Badger & Winters, and her companion, contractor Michael Borcina, survived the 5 a.m. blaze.
Badger, in the early 1990s, became a top fashion marketer with her spicy Marky Mark underwear ads and sultry Kate Moss Obsession ads for Calvin Klein.
Borcina, who was doing the renovation work on the house , remains in stable condition at a local hospital.
Firefighters told the chief that Borcina and Badger were both trying desperately to re-enter the house when they arrived and had to be restrained.
Badger had moved to the mansion with her girls from Manhattan at Thanksgiving 2010 and is estranged from her husband, the girls’ father, Matthew Badger.
The mansion’s charred remains — deemed a safety hazard — were razed by the city today at the conclusion of an on-site investigation and the removal of the bodies.
Stanford officials are expected to reveal the cause of the fire and other details — including whether the family had working smoke detectors, or whether the on-going renovations somehow abetted the flames —at a press conference tomorrow.
At Saks, where Johnson played Santa, shocked friends shared fond memories.
“He was a great guy, always joking,” an eighth-floor Saks security guard told The Post.
He and his wife were to celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary the day after the fire.
As for the girls, they were “just incredibly sweet and really magical,” said Sam Badger, a nephew of their father.’
“Lily was a little more quite, a little more reserved than her sisters,” he remembered.
“The twins just kind of seemed to bounce off each other, I suppose. They just seemed to be like one person, almost,” he said. “It’s really so sad to see them all suffer this fate. This is the most tragic thing.”
Additional reporting by Christina Carrega, Yoav Gonen, Laurel BabcockDaniel Gold and Mitchel Maddux
The severely damaged home was torn dow today after building inspectors determined it was unsafe. (AP)
The mom was later released and transferred to an undisclosed location. She looked devastated as she briefly emerged from the hospital.
A relative of her estranged husband, Matthew Badger, said he is “absolutely distraught.”
He was at home in New York when the blaze broke out, and rushed to Stamford, according to cops.
“They were an amazing family,” the relative said.
Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia called it “a terrible, terrible day.”
With AP