One person died and three were injured in a fire that broke out in a home for the elderly in the center of Bankya. There is a risk to the life of one of the injured who received burns of the upper respiratory tract.

The home is illegal as it operates without a license, the executive director of the Agency for Social Assistance, Veselin Kozhuharov, said. According to him, this was established during an inspection by the Agency for the Quality of Social Services at the end of June this year and the prosecutor's office and the Ministry of the Interior were immediately alerted.

Caretaker Minister of Interior Kalin Stoyanov stated that the file from the prosecutor's office arrived at the ministry's structures about two weeks ago. "The file that we have is still within the deadline, i.e. we have a two-month deadline, during which we should fulfil everything they have instructed us," the minister said.

The mayor of Bankya, Rangel Markov, has told bTV that he found out about the existence of the home after the fire broke out. He added that the law does not require the local authority to be notified about the opening of such homes and that the Ministry of Social Affairs is responsible for the licensing regime and it should exercise control.

The woman who ran the illegal home for the elderly has been detained, BNT reported, quoting information from the Ministry of the Interior.