by XANA O'NEILL, TANANGACHI MFUNI and MICHAEL WHITE
Horror nearly struck again.
Fourteen people were injured in a fire in a Bronx flat Wednesday - in a building next-door to where nine children and a woman died in an inferno last year.
As in the 2007 blaze, the man who lived in the Highbridge apartment that caught fire didn't close the door, officials said.
The blunder helped spread the flames, but luckily the second time around the mistake wasn't fatal.
"The same problem with the door being left open, that was critical," said FDNY Capt. John Mack. "We didn't find any smoke detectors and they said it started with candles. These are common problems that keep happening."
The fire, which started about 6a.m. on the first floor in the Woodycrest Ave. building, quickly spread into the lobby and hallways, trapping people on upper floors.
Firefighters used ladders to rescue some of the residents, found one person trapped on a fire escape and led three others to safety from the blacked-out lobby, Mack said.
None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.
The landlord said the tenant whose home caught fire had drug problems and never paid rent or electric bills.
"He didn't have electricity," said one neighbor, Francisco Serrano, 39. "He was using candles."
The tenant, Celestino Narvaez, 48, insisted he remembered closing his door before running to safety.
He said he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if there were more deaths on the block. "That's all I thought about. The children and grandparents, and how they feel if one of them died. It would be on my conscience," he said.
Mack, of Engine Co. 68, said fire safety officers were at the block last month for the anniversary of the city's worst house fire in four decades.
He said the firefighters were preaching safety and handing out batteries and smoke detectors.
"It doesn't sink in, I guess."
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