Two children have inadvertently become a meme after a clip of them playing on swings while a fire rages in a building just yards from them went viral.

The latest video with the innocent scene contrasted with the devastation of the fire is being compared with the ‘Disaster Girl’ meme of the little girl smiling devilishly in front of a blaze, which recently sold for a small fortune as an NFT.

The latest incident involved a fire that broke out on the third floor of a four-floor building in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg on Tuesday, 3rd August.

In a video taken of the incident, two children are seen playing on swings in a playground just yards from where the fire rages.

Despite the fire appearing extremely serious with smoke billowing from the windows, the two children continue to play as normal while a woman, reportedly their mother, simply stands by.

The video, filmed by a local resident, was posted to the group ‘Accidents and Emergencies Saint Petersburg’ on the Russian social network VKontakte.

Artyom Yakovlev, who filmed the video, said it reminded him of the ‘disaster girl’ meme, which shows a girl smiling mischievously in front of a burning house, implying she had caused the fire.

The image, which shows a fire brigade training exercise, dates from 2005 and was titled ‘Firestarter’ by Dave Roth of North Carolina, who posted it to platform Zooomr two years later.

Roth’s daughter Zoe, who is now at university, made USD 495,000 (GBP 355,477) off the meme, which shows her as a four-year-old, after it sold for that amount in April this year.

There were no reports of casualties in the Saint Petersburg fire, which was extinguished by a team of 16 firemen.

Yakovlev said: “I work not far from the courtyard where a non-residential building…caught fire. Seeing the fire, I began to film everything on camera. Suddenly I saw two children playing on a swing as if nothing had happened, and their mother was standing next to them.

“I immediately remembered a similar picture from the internet, ‘Disaster Girl’… We stayed in the courtyard for 10 to 15 minutes, the fire was strong and smelled strongly of burning and smoke. I left there, and the children continued to play on the swing.”