At least three people were killed and two others seriously injured in a house fire in Angkor Ban commune’s Angkor Ban village of Kang Meas district. The house caught fire at 4:45am on February 7, according to the police report.

Yorn Din, director of the provincial fire prevention, extinguishing and rescue buerau, identified the deceased as El Noro Channak, 17, El Faritas, 15, and El Fital, 10. They were the children of 44-year-old Ya El and 40-year-old El Rothiyah, Cambodian-Muslim residents of the commune.

Ya El was seriously injured while his wife sustained minor injuries. Both are receiving treatment at the provincial referral hospital.

The authorities were still determining the cause of the fire. The size of the damage is limited to the couple’s house measuring 6mx8m, made of wood and roof-tiles. The rooms below were divided by zinc walls and much of the property was completely damaged.

It took the police about two hours to extinguish the fire, using six water trucks and more than 40 cubic metres of water.

This was the first fatal fire of 2023. The last fire with fatalities occurred on January 31, 2022, at an eatery in Phnom Penh’s Tuol Kork district. In that incident, two of the victims died at the scene and a third succumbed to injuries while being treated at Preah Kosamak Hospital.