MANILA:  Three Americans and a South Korean man were among six people who died on Friday when a fire razed a small hotel near a former US naval base in the Philippines, police said.

Six bodies, also including those of two women, were recovered after a pre-dawn blaze swept through the Dryden hotel in the entertainment district of the northern port city of Olongapo, local police said.

In a short statement, police said three of the victims were American men, and another was a South Korean. The bodies of the two women were not immediately identified.

City civil defence chief Angelito Layug said the three Americans may have belonged to the "fairly large" population of retired American servicemen who live in and around Olongapo.

Many settled there after the US military pulled out of the nearby Subic Naval Base in 1991, Layug said.

Layug said the hotel was owned by a retired American serviceman.