Twist in 2011 Yule-blaze horror

A man who took the fall for a Christmas Day blaze that killed his then-girlfriend’s three daughters and parents now claims that she was the one who left a bag of hot ashes in the Connecticut home — and that he had accepted the blame to “protect” her.

Michael Borcina said in a lawsuit deposition that he lied to investigators when he told them he moved the fireplace ashes from the kitchen counter to the mudroom at his ex-girlfriend Madonna Badger’s Stamford house (above) just before the 2011 fire, according to documents obtained by the Hartford Courant.

Badger, an ad exec, told the same story in a piece she wrote for Vogue in 2013, saying Borcina put the bag down after making sure the ashes were cold.

Borcina (at right with Badger in 2012) says he misled authorities “to spare her from carrying the burden that maybe she had done something to hurt her family.”

Investigators have said they believe the ashes started the fire, which killed Badger’s parents, Lomer and Pauline Johnson, and her three girls — (top, from left) 7-year-old twins Grace and Sarah and 9-year-old Lily.

Borcina, a contractor, offered the new version of events in depositions taken for a wrongfuldeath suit filed by the girls’ father, Matthew Badger, in July 2012.

In the ongoing suit, he called his ex-wife’s $1.7 million threestory house, which Borcina was renovating, “a firetrap as a result of months of substandard and dangerous construction.”

In 2014, Borcina and his firm, Tiberias Construction, settled part of the suit, agreeing pay $5 million for his role in the tragedy.

In the depositions, Borcina also accused Madonna Badger of copying documents related to the renovation and e-mailing them to herself before deleting them.

“She had permission to be in my home, she had permission to be in my office. She did not have permission to wipe out all my documents and pictures and information,” Borcina said.

He claims he warned her that the house wasn’t fit to live in yet.

“The decision to move into the house was not mine. I suggested she not move into the home,” the contractor said.

Matthew Badger’s lawyer, Ilann M. Maazel, vowed to press on with the lawsuit.

“We will continue this case until we get the whole truth,” he said in a statement.

“Matthew Badger will not rest until he gets answers about why his precious girls died.”

Borcina, through his attorney, declined to comment.

Madonna Badger did not respond to a request for comment. She has blamed the blaze on an electrical problem.