Two teenagers who decided to celebrate the New Year with a group of friends died in Sverdlovsk Oblast.

      The Serov city prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into the deaths of two teenagers in a fire at a private house in the SNT “Yubileyny” in the settlement of Medyankino. This was reported by the press service of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Sverdlovsk Region. At the time of the incident there were 13 people in the building.

      According to the agency, the group had been celebrating New Year in the private house and everything went well. However, on the morning of January 1 the teenagers decided to heat the stove. It was established that a 17-year-old youth poured a flammable liquid into the firebox, which then led to intense combustion.

      — As a result of the fire two minors — born in 2011 and 2013 — died, and three others sustained injuries of varying severity. The prosecutor’s office has launched an inspection, at the conclusion of which compliance with legislation on the protection of the life and health of minors will be assessed, the agency clarified.

      Two teenagers, born in 2008 and 2011, were hospitalized with body burns and signs of poisoning from combustion products; their condition is assessed as satisfactory. The third victim, a 20-year-old man, is in serious condition.

      The regional Investigative Committee’s press service clarified that a criminal case has been opened under the article “Causing death by negligence to two persons.” A teenager who attempted to light the stove using a flammable liquid has also been detained. If found guilty, he could face up to four years in a penal colony.

      The press secretary of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Sverdlovsk Region, Valery Gorelykh, said that one of the teenagers at two o’clock in the morning, without asking, took the keys to the two-story garden house from his mother. He then invited a group of young people to the out-of-town house, and they began celebrating 2026 together.

      — The young people spent the night without incident, and at noon on January 1 the kids, probably cold, decided to light the stove. One of them poured a flammable liquid into the firebox (in what amount — investigators are now determining). The building quickly caught fire. Someone managed to run outside; two teenagers were unable to save themselves. A boy named Andrei and a girl named Polina, who had come to the party with her sister, who managed to escape, were killed. As a result of the emergency the wooden house was completely destroyed by fire. More detailed and precise circumstances of the tragedy are being determined by representatives of the Interior Ministry, the Investigative Committee and the Ministry of Emergency Situations, Colonel Gorelykh noted.