A mother and her three children have died in a fire at a house in Wiltshire on the second night of the firefighter's strike.

The four were trapped in the building at Stert near Devizes in the early hours of Friday.

Seven people have now died in fires across the UK during the 48-hour strike.

The woman, believed to be 29, her two young sons, aged 13 and 14, and her nine-year-old daughter died when flames swept the property.

A man who escaped from the house was taken to the Princess Margaret Hospital in Swindon.

The period of industrial action has no bearing on this rather tragic fire

Andy Hargreaves Wiltshire Fire Service

The blaze was attended by retained - part-time - firefighters, some of whom are members of the Fire Brigades Union and broke their strike to help.

Retained crews would have been covering the area even if no industrial action had been taking place.

Six fire engines and a water carrier attended the scene after the emergency call at 0220 GMT.

A police spokesman said the tragedy had nothing to do with the dispute.

"Whether there had been a strike or not, it would have been the same crew who would have gone."

No Green Goddesses were deployed.

Police officers, scenes of crime officers and fire investigators are now looking into the causes of the fire, which is believed to have been extinguished.

Six fire engines tackled the blaze

Andy Hargreaves, from Wiltshire Fire Service, said the fire was well established by the time crews reached the farmhouse.

"The period of industrial action has no bearing on this rather tragic fire," he said.

The Reverend Paul Wilkinson, the local vicar, said the fire was a tremendous shock.

"It will be felt right through Devizes and will have a great effect on what is a close-knit community."

'Rescue teams'

Two elderly people have already died in separate house fires in the West Midlands and Lancashire since the strikes began on Wednesday night.

In the West Midlands, the armed forces responded to 72 incidents overnight.

Rescue teams also lead a 42-year-old man to safety from his smoke-filled home in Kingstanding, Birmingham.

Three Green Goddess crews, two breathing apparatus teams and retained firefighters put out a large fire at a carpet warehouse in Rugby in Warwickshire.

'Car crash'

Two teenagers arrested in connection with the incident were later released without charge.

In Staffordshire, three police officers are being considered for bravery awards after they broke into a burning flat on Friday morning and battled through thick smoke to drag a 58-year-old woman to safety.

Constables Mark Leighton, Dave Kelly and Ruth Shiel used a fire extinguisher to bring the blaze at Glascote under control before rescuing the victim.

Car crash

Firefighters in west Oxfordshire broke their strike in the early hours of Friday morning to help people trapped in wreckage after a car crash.

The Army scrambled a Green Goddess fire engine from Didcot and an emergency vehicle with special rescue equipment, but striking FBU members in Eynsham decided the crash was serious enough for them to attend.

Army crews damp down the fire in Manchester

A woman died in a car crash in west Cumbria.

The area would normally have been served by the retained fire station at Cockermouth, but it is one of only three in the county which is taking part in the fire fighters strike.

It is not known if this affected the response to the emergency.

A man died in a head-on collision at Tadcaster in North Yorkshire on Thursday night.

A Green Goddess fire engine and a military rescue team were sent to the accident in Wighill Lane in Tadcaster.

Engineers in Manchester will decide on Friday whether to demolish a fireworks warehouse ravaged by a fire on Thursday.

The building, in the Ancoats area of the city centre, was brought under control by 2000 GMT but army crews remained on the scene to damp down.