Child killed in East Vancouver house fire

One child is dead and five other people are in hospital after a house fire in Vancouver Thursday afternoon.

The two-alarm blaze at East 15th Avenue and Nootka Street started on the home's main floor sometime after 3 p.m. PT. 

Vancouver Fire Chief John McKearney said the child was pronounced dead at the scene.

Officials have yet to identify the victim.

Fire officials say the other people in hospital include two children and three adults. They were treated for burns and smoke inhalation.

Danielle Ha, a Grade 7 student whose friend lives at the home, said she saw a man rush into the house to help his family inside.

"We saw one of our friend's father coming back from school ... he said it was his [house]," she said. "He was really shocked and pretty scared of how it all looked."

Ha said the father carried someone out of the house within 10 minutes, but she wasn't sure who. 

"​It was a pretty thick smoke on the top floor, and then it travelled through the floors in between and started to burst into flames on the bottom," she said.

"It was pretty scary."

McKearney said icy streets caused issues for fire trucks trying to get to the house, but said he was "very confident" that crews were still able to get to the scene "very quickly."

He said investigators will be working to determine the cause of the blaze.

With files from CBC's Kamil Karamali