ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Fire engulfed a residential building in the city of Erbil's Kurdistan neighborhood on Thursday, killing a Syrian Kurdish refugee.

"The fire has now been controlled, but thick black smoke has filled the interiors of the apartment," Erbil mayor Nabaz Abdulhamid told Rudaw of the incident on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, someone has died in the fire," Abdulhamid added.

He reports that the Erbil Civil Defense teams managed to rescue all but one of the apartment building's residents who had been stuck in their flats.

"The majority of those rescued were women and children," he explained.

"The person killed is from Afrin in Syrian Kurdistan," Major Sarkawt, an officer from Erbil's Civil Defense Department told Rudaw.

According to Rudaw's Mahdi Faraj, who was on the scene, the building was a four-story apartment building with a number of shops at street-level selling household appliances.

An eyewitness claimed to Rudaw that "the source of the fire was two to three air conditioners that had been put on the doorsteps of one of the shops."

Rudaw