The victim, identified by family members as 60-year-old Abdul Sattar Tahir, could not escape from the two-story home on Metropolitan Avenue in Kew Gardens when the blaze broke out at 12:30 a.m.
Everyone else in the house escaped - five suffered minor injuries.
"I was inside my house and I started to smell smoke gushing from the windows, and called 911," said neighbor Norman Jarrett.
Tahir's son was shouting, "Fire! Get out!" Jarrett said. The dead man's uncle, Mohammed Arain, 72, said the family emigrated from Pakistan in 1990.
He described Tahir as "a family man."
"I hope God should give him a good place," Arain said. One of those who escaped was the victim's pregnant daughter-in-law, Jannan Abdeen, who jumped from the second floor, family members said.
"She was only 21 and pregnant and she just jumped out," said a neighbor. "Thank God She's OK," Arain said.
