Ten monks, including one aged 100 years old, have been injured after a fire broke out at a Franciscan monastery in southern Germany early on Sunday, police said.

The centenarian was flown by helicopter to a specialist clinic suffering from serious burns from the blaze at the monastery in the Bavarian town of Fuessen near the Austrian border, they said.

A firefighter and a woman police officer were also hurt, police in the region said.

Emergency services managed to get all the residents -- aged between 42 and 100 -- out of the burning building, some of them by climbing down ladders.

The monastery sustained around 100,000 euros ($131,850) worth of damage and, according to police, numerous objects of art history were damaged.

Police are investigating the cause.