The Queens mother killed in a blaze that left her husband and three children horribly burned was hailed as a hero yesterday for risking her life to save her loved ones from the inferno.
“Flor de Maria Pineda had the opportunity to escape death. She could’ve saved her own life but as a loving mother [she] . . . returned to the fire and did save her children,” the Rev. Brian Jordan told mourners at a heart-wrenching funeral service at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Manhattan.
“She is a hero. She is an angel . . . most of all she is a loving mother,” he said as two dozen relatives and friends wept and huddled together as they said their final farewell to the 36-year-old El Salvador native.
The plaintive moaning of Pineda’s mom, Gloria, filled the air as her daughter’s casket was carried into the garland-adorned church.
The fire that claimed Pineda’s life started shortly before 3 a.m. Dec. 15 when a candle in a neighbor’s apartment set curtains ablaze – and a door left open by the fleeing occupants sent flames roaring through the Jackson Heights building.
The sense of loss at the moving service was heightened by the absence of Pineda’s husband, Alex Sandoval, and their three children – Naomi, 7, Alexandra, 4, and Carolina, 3 – all still hospitalized in critical condition.
Relatives said Sandoval, 30, is the most seriously injured, with burns covering 70 percent of his body.
Attempting to console the mourners, Jordan told them, “Flor is living with the angels right now, she is smiling and praying for her children and her husband.”