Five teenage girls have died and one man was seriously injured when a fire broke out in a room where they were playing an escape game in the northern Polish city of Koszalin.
Poland's Interior Minister, Joachim Brudzinski, told the broadcaster TVN 24 that the victims of the tragedy were 15 year old girls who were celebrating a birthday.
A 25-year-old man with severe burns was taken to an intensive care unit.
In "escape rooms", participants are locked in a room and race against the clock to solve puzzles and challenges to open a way out.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
"The tragedy occurred primarily due to the lack of an effective evacuation route," said Leszek Suski, head of the state firefighting service, according to the PAP news agency.
A local prosecutor told reporters the fire had probably been caused by an escape of gas near the heating system boiler.
PAP said scores of escape rooms across Poland would now be inspected for safety.
Escape rooms first became popular in Asia, and have spread across North America and Europe.
Fire Brigade to inspect escape rooms in Dublin
Escape room operators in the capital are to be inspected by Dublin Fire Brigade.
Dublin's Acting Chief Fire Officer, Denis Keely, said while escape rooms have never come to their attention, the facilities will now be reviewed in the wake of the fatal fire in Poland.
Mr Keely said, like all places of public assembly, escape rooms are governed by fire safety legislation and require a fire certificate for operation.
He said Dublin Fire Brigade has never received any complaints from the public about escape rooms, of which there is approximately a dozen in the Dublin area.
A number of others operate in other parts of the country.
