A five-year-old child died in a house fire in Lenasia on Monday morning, the City of Johannesburg’s Emergency Management Services (EMS) say.

Firefighters were called to the scene on Albatross Street around 08:00 and found a double-storey house on fire, EMS spokesperson Nana Radebe said.

“Unfortunately a five-year-old died from smoke inhalation,” she said.

Radebe added that it had taken about an hour to extinguish the fire.

The cause of the fire is still unclear and fire safety officers were on scene conducting preliminary investigations.