Five people, including four children, were killed in an apartment fire in Redmond in the U.S. state of Washington, local authorities said, Xinhua reported.
The fire began in a unit on the first floor of the Sammamish Ridge Apartments building at about 2:30 a.m., local KOMO TV channel quoted Redmond police spokesman Tim Gately as saying.
The four children who died in the fire were all under the age of 10. A 32-year-old man was also killed and another 30-year-old woman was taken to a local hospital, where her condition was unknown.
The fire spread to all three floors of the apartment building, damaging three apartment units and 12 units were evacuated.
The relationship between the victims was not immediately known and the cause of the fire is under investigation, authorities said.
According to Gately, the apartment building where the fire broke out was not equipped with a sprinkler system.