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Armenia's Investigative Committee has revealed the details of Thursday's deadly fire in a military barracks, which killed 15 servicemen and severely injured three others.

The fire broke out in the barracks of an engineer and sapper company in a military unit in Azat, a village in Armenia's eastern Gegharkunik Province, early on Thursday.

In a statement on Friday, the law enforcement agency said the fire was caused by a gross violation of fire safety rules.

According to the investigators, an officer of the unit used a large amount of gasoline to fuel a wood stove used to heat the building, although its use is strictly banned.

The building consisted of a corridor and two rooms, one of which served as an armory and the other as a barracks with bunk beds for soldiers. The wood stove was installed in the corridor near the entrance door.

The investigators dealing with the case have revealed that at around 12:40am Thursday the majority of the military personnel were asleep in the barracks, while two conscript drivers went out to fetch water from the nearby spring. The duty officer was in the kitchen near the house and was talking on his cell phone. At the time, the company captain on duty asked the conscript on duty whether there was gasoline in the garage to fuel the stove. Then he tried to ignite the stove with gasoline from a 5-liter plastic container.

After the gasoline was poured into the furnace, a flame broke out, as a result of which the captain, having received burns, automatically threw the gasoline container away and it fell into the room. Then, he and another conscript on duty, who also suffered burns, somehow managed to get out of the room.

The flames quickly spread throughout the facility and the soldiers could not exit through the door, but those outside were able to help two soldiers out of the barracks.

One of the conscript drivers who was outside tried to pull down the wall of the house twice in order to get his fellow soldiers out, causing the wall to partially collapse. However, due to the rapid spread of fire, the rest of the soldiers inside the house were unable to get out. As a result, 15 servicemen were killed. Their bodies were removed after the fire was extinguished.

Senior military officers, including Vahram Grigoryan, the commander of the army’s 2nd Corps stationed in Gegharkunik, his three deputies and the chief of the Defense Ministry’s fire safety service, were sacked following the deadly incident.

The preliminary investigation is underway.