His condition has been upgraded from critical to fair, allowing him to be moved from Bridgeport Hospital's burn center to a medical-surgical room Thursday, hospital spokesman John Cappiello said.

He can even talk some, according to Dan Tang, a family friend.

But when Thach talks, he asks about his wife and children. He doesn't know they are dead.

"Every time someone comes to visit him, he wants to know about his wife and children," Tang said. "We have been avoiding the issue. But I think we are going to have to tell him this week or next."

Thach's wife, Thi Luong Thach, 35; their son, Hoang Anh, 14; and their two daughters, Thi My Trinh, 11, and Daisey, 3, died in a June 13 fire that gutted a three-family home at 1647-49 Iranistan Ave., where they lived.

Fire officials believe the blaze started when a pot was left on a stove in the family's apartment. The former third-floor resident, Jacqueline Gonzalez, said there were no smoke detectors in the apartments.

Rinh Thach's life was saved by Gonzalez, 28, who bumped into him on the second floor of the smoke-filled stairway.

"He was trying to get back into his apartment," Gonzalez said. "We had to hold him from going back in."

Burned on the face and arms, Thach finally "just threw himself in the middle of the street and cried," Gonzalez said.

Tang said family and friends deliberately kept the tragic news from Thach in hopes of speeding his recovery.

"He's going to have to be told soon," Tang said. "We are putting a plan in place where his close friends, his pastor [the Venerable Thich Minh Duc of the Phuoc Long Buddhist Temple] and his relatives will be present to comfort him when he is told."

Both the family's plight and Gonzalez's heroics touched the hearts of Connecticut Post readers.

About $42,000 was raised to help with the Thach family's funeral and Rinh Thach's medical expenses. The family had no medical insurance.

Additionally, readers provided Gonzalez with money to secure another rental apartment, and they donated furnishings for her, her boyfriend and their three children. So much was donated that Gonzalez used some to help her sister Jessica and her family, who lived on the first floor of the destroyed home.

Now Tang said the family is working to bring Thach's mother from Vietnam to the United States to care for him as he recuperates.

"The process will take at least four weeks," Tang said. "We have letters from his doctors and his family explaining the need for her to be here. We're very hopeful she'll get approval to come here and care for her son."

Tang said the hope is that she will be able to stay at least six months. Once Thach is released from the hospital and any rehabilitation facility, the plan is for him to recuperate at his brother-in-law's apartment on Success Avenue.

Thach worked as a generator assembler at Fermont Corp. in Bridgeport.

Michael P. Mayko, who covers legal issues, can be reached at 330-6286.