Two children, aged seven and 10, were killed in a house fire in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Shangla district on Friday, police said.

Station House Officer (SHO) Martung Mohammad Saeed Khan told Dawn.com that the two children were cousins.

The children had set fire to the grass in the cattle pen at their house, which later engulfed the entire residence, he said. The official shared that the pen was situated on the second floor of the two-storey house, which was built of wood.

The house was gutted in the fire, he said, adding that area residents had made hectic efforts to save the rest of the family and extinguish the blaze.

Khan further shared that the family was unaware of the children's deaths and had only found out after the fire was put out and their charred bodies were discovered.

Shangla has been fighting a wave of forest fires, which first started a week ago and has taken eight lives so far.