Police have confirmed that two adults and two young girls died in a house fire in Winnipeg Tuesday night, while an infant -- the only survivor -- remains in critical condition.

Neighbours reported seeing smoke billowing from the home on Tuesday night around 8:30 p.m., and firefighters quickly arrived and removed all five people from the home.

The victims were treated on the scene and then taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. The victims have not been formally identified, but it's believed the two girls were aged nine and four.

Neighbour Shalla Dorey said she spotted the aftermath of the emergency as officials had came to the scene.

"There was two adults in the snow in the front, and then I spotted (the girl) who was nine and played with my daughter off-and-on through the several years they'd lived here," she said, adding that the older girl's name was Fizza.

"I saw her in the back of the emergency response truck, and they were working on her."

She added that the young girl was outgoing and very well-known in the neighbourhood.

"We're shell-shocked. We're stunned. We want to know how this happened, why did this fire start."

Neighbours called emergency officials at around 8:30 p.m. when they spotted smoke. The fire was extinguished by firefighters just before 9:30 p.m. local time.

While the six-month-old survivor is in hospital, her mother and grandmother are believed to be the two other victims.

Platoon Chief Don Shellrude, from the Winnipeg Fire Service, said the call wasn't expected to be fatal, since the call came in during the evening hours.

"Especially early in the evening like this, you don't expect it to be as bad as it was. To have people inside, it's tough. You don't like to lose people."

According to neighbours, the family is originally from Pakistan, and the grandmother was visiting at the time.

It's believed that the father of the family was at work at the time of the fire. The blaze started in the basement of the home, but the cause of the fire isn't yet known. Investigators are already at work on the fire's remains.

The only visible damage on the outside of the home is a boarded up basement window, and some smoke damage on the second storey.

Tony Viveiros, who lives across the street, saw emergency crews pulling bodies from the home.

"They were all limp," he said. "All the firemen were trying to resuscitate them all."

Meanwhile, the local Islamic community is trying to comfort the father of the family, who has lost two children, his wife and his mother.

"When it truly hits him, that's the time when he will need someone to be there for him, arranging for funerals, making prayers at the mosque. The community has been praying non-stop," said Shahina Siddiqui, from the Islamic Social Services Association.

With a report from CTV Winnipeg's Jill Macyshon