MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. A fire in a flat of a dwelling house in Volokolamsk, Moscow Region, has killed five people, a source in the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Main Directorate for the Moscow Region told TASS on Monday.

"Five people, including four children, have been killed in a fire in a flat on the first floor of a house on Lazurnaya Street. Three more people were injured," the directorate said.

The directorate specified that a 30-year-old woman and her three-year-old child were killed: they were trying to leave the burning house but choked to death after breathing in smoke on the stairway. The bodies of three more children were found in one of the burning flats. Three more people were injured but rejected hospitalization. Fire fighters evacuated 12 residents.

Service 02 received the report on a fire in a three-storey apartment block in the village of Chismeno in the Volokolamsk town district at 02:24 Moscow time. The first fire fighters arrived there at 02:44; by this time two flats on the first floor on a total are of 40 square meters had burned. The fire was put out at 04:22. Seventeen people lived in the house. The causes of the fire will be determined.