A fire broke out today in a building belonging to Russia's FSB domestic intelligence service, a successor to the Soviet-era KGB, and news reports said at least one fire-fighter had been hurt.
Interfax news agency said the fire started in a sauna in the basement of a building adjacent to the FSB's Lubyanka Square headquarters in central Moscow and that Moscow fire chief General Leonid Korotchik was in charge of the operation. It suggested a wiring short circuit was to blame.
Up to 40 fire-fighting units were drafted in to fight the blaze, which Itar-Tass news agency said had spread to the first and second floors.
Tass quoted fire-fighting officials as saying the building, a few hundred metres from Red Square, housed secret information. It said one fire-fighter had been injured.
An FSB spokesman reached by telephone said the fire was still burning and confirmed that the building belonged to the agency once headed by President Vladimir Putin.
NTV television showed clouds of smoke billowing through the area and fire-fighters positioning equipment near the building.
The blaze was not the first at the FSB's headquarters.
A fire in November 1999 damaged several rooms in the Lubyanka building.