The Brooklyn ex-con accused of starting a fire that killed five of his neighbors admitted causing the deadly blaze Saturday, but insists he was possessed by the devil at the time.

Speaking in Bellevue Hospital’s prison ward, Daniel Ignacio appeared tormented and remorseful as he recalled the smoke and flames that ripped through the Bensonhurst building Jan. 30, killing a mother and four men.

“It must have been the devil that possessed me to do it…..” he said, wearing a gray prison jumpsuit and referring to the hours leading up to the crime.

“Now I close my eyes and I hear screaming.”

Ignacio said he and three pals consumed six quarter-liter bottles of vodka the day of the fire, and he later drank two more on his own.

But he denies police reports he doused a toilet paper roll in paint thinner, lit it and threw it into a baby carriage by the front door.

Instead, Ignacio says the blaze was started by a cigarette butt he failed to stub out properly before he climbed the stairs to go to bed.

“What they said is exaggerations and lies,” he said.

Ignacio said he has no recollection of falling asleep, but was awakened a short while later as smoke and flames engulfed the property around 2:30 a.m.

He was first hailed as a hero for trying to save the Guatemalan immigrants trapped inside – until police realized he may be to blame.

Five people perished including Luisa Chan, 34, who helped her husband, Miguel, save their son Josias, 2, and 2-month-old daughter, Maria, before dying.

Ignacio has been charged with five counts of murder and one count of arson.

(Source: http://www.nydailynews.com/)