MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. The three children who were killed in a fire in a dwelling house in the village of Chismeno in the Volokolamsk town district, Moscow Region, had been left alone in the flat, a law enforcement source told TASS.
A total of five people were killed in the fire. A 30-year-old woman and her three-year-old child tried 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 two burning flats on the first floor.
"The children were alone at home when the fire broke out. Their father had died recently. Their mother had gone out and left the children with their grandfather, but he went to his friends leaving the children unattended," the source said. As a result the children got carbon monoxide poisoning. The youngest child was one, the middle child was three and the eldest child was five years old.
The reasons behind the fire are to be determined. "Two versions are being studied - short failure and a home appliance problem," the source specified.
There were 17 people in the house; 12 of them were evacuated. Three needed medical care but they rejected hospitalization.
The press service of the Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Main Directorate for the Moscow Region reported that 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; at this time two flats on the first floor on a total are of 40 square meters were burning. The fire was put out at 04:22.