A British Columbia family travelling to Vancouver to realize a dream of watching an international tennis match died when their SUV crossed the centre line, collided with a tractor trailer and burst into flames.

The Thursday morning crash that killed all five occupants of the SUV occurred near the B.C. community of McLeese Lake, between Quesnel and Williams Lake.

The victims are Matt Altizer, 40, a newspaper employee in Prince George, his wife Leah, their two children, Grade 8 student Jonathan and Emily, a Grade 6 student and an adult family member identified as Heather Kress.

The family's names were posted on the website of The Prince George Citizen, where Matt Altizer worked as an information-technology specialist.

Interim publisher Colleen Sparrow, who wrote the story releasing their names, said the community suffered a great loss.

"Our team is suffering and so is his family. They're a very tight-knit family. His family and Leah's family and friends are very close," Sparrow said in a separate interview.

Sparrow told her colleagues what happened and said the news was met with shock and disbelief.

The family was travelling to Vancouver to watch a Davis Cup match this weekend between France and Canada.

All five victims were killed on impact, police said.

"We do know that the SUV crossed the centre line and collided with the semi," RCMP Corp. Madonna Saunderson said.

"The crash resulted in a fire . . . we're not sure what sparked the fire. We do know that both vehicles were engulfed in flames."

The driver of the tractor trailer wasn't hurt, but was taken to hospital in Williams Lake as a precaution, police said.

The roads were clear at the time of the crash, under a cloudy and overcast sky, but police don't know why the SUV crossed the centre line.

A motorist following the SUV told police the driver wasn't driving erratically or irresponsibly prior to the collision.

A pub owner trying to organize a volunteer fire department in McLeese Lake said he heard about the crash on a police scanner.

Greg Foster said debris was spread over an area of about 60 metres, adding the SUV couldn't be seen by passersby from the highway.

"There would have been no way they could have gotten out of that situation," he said.

The BC Coroners Service is in McLeese Lake to investigate.

A spokeswoman said the fire was so hot and took so long to extinguish that there are "problems with the scene" and the service will meet with police to decide the next course of action.

Earlier this week, a crash between a passenger van and a flat-bed truck killed 11 in Hampstead, Ont.

- with files from The Canadian Press