Anne Tenning of Victoria told the newspaper she had a series of phone calls from her mother and aunt who live next door to the burned house on the Chemainus reservation on the southeastern coast, but hadn't had any official word.

"Apparently, a gas lamp downstairs got knocked over but the details are hazy," she said. "I've heard five people perished ... there were a lot of them in the house."

She said the house was near a bridge, which police and firefighters had closed to traffic.

Tenning said she was about to leave for the trip north to the reservation, where two fire departments were on the scene.

"I have heard that a lot of people in the house were taken to hospital," Tenning said. "The people whose house it was, they lost everything."