A three-year-old boy with a history of playing with stoves -- is believed to have ignited a huge fire which ripped through an apartment block in New York.

At least 12 people are dead, New York's deadliest residential fire in 25 years, including four children, after flames engulfed the building.

New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the toddler's mother made a deadly mistake when she failed to close the door to her apartment while fleeing the blaze.

"If unfortunately, you do have a fire in your apartment you must close the door when you exit, because the results if you don't are what happened here last night."

Nigro said the inferno was so fierce it didn't leave victims much time to escape.

"Fire travels up, the stairway acted like a chimney. It took the fire so quickly upstairs that people had very little time to react, they couldn't get back down the stairs and those that tried, a few of them perished."