(CNN) A mother was outside her home in Bakersfield, California, with her daughter late Thursday when the house caught fire. Four of her children were upstairs.

Kristina Stratton ran into the two-story house to rescue her children, pastor and family friend Angelo Frazier said. One of her children woke up to discover the situation and realized she couldn't breathe or go downstairs, where Stratton was. So she and her siblings broke the window and escaped from the top floor.

The four children who escaped were left with minor to moderate injuries and treated at a local hospital, according to the Kern County Fire Department

But the 38-year-old mother of five didn't make it out alive. Firefighters found her dead inside the house during the rescue operation.

Stratton's five children are now left without a mother, and her three youngest children are now orphans. Four years ago, her husband and the father of three of her children died of cancer.

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