Eleven people, including eight children, die in house fire

A father has lost his wife and five children, aged seven to 18, after a fire engulfed their home in the Australian city of Brisbane, and killed eleven people.

Jeremiah Lale had smashed windows and thrown mattresses down to the ground from their two-storey house and jumped down, holding out his arms to catch his family – but they never appeared.

Heartbreaking scenes of grief filled the street in the suburb of at Slacks Creek, south of Brisbane, in the state of Queensland, where 150 Tongan and Samoan mourners gathered to sing prayers for those lost.

Three men from two Pacific Islander families, including Lale, managed to escape the blaze, but face grief of enormous proportions, Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Faimalotoa John Pale, the chief and president of the local group, Voice of the Samoan People, sat with Lale today as he struggled to comprehend his loss.

"He said it happened so fast, apparently it was a gas bottle that exploded," Mr Pale told reporters.

"It was like a bomb, there was fire everywhere. He said he was running side to side and fire was everywhere.

"He called to his children while the fire was burning really fiercely.

"He broke the window and threw down some of the mattresses, because it's a two-storey house, so his family could jump on them."

Pale said the terror of those moments, when no faces appeared at the window, must have been an unspeakable thing, SMH reports.

"He has lost his whole family, five children three boys and two girls and his wife."

Misi Matauaina had also leapt from the blazing home, believing his partner and their two daughters, aged three and six, had fled before him.

But when he reached the ground, he realized they were still inside and there was nothing he could do to save them.

The family patriarch, who is a religious minister, also escaped but without his beloved wife, 47, who perished alongside so many members of the family they'd raised together.

Family and friends said they would stay at the house until the last body was taken away, Australian Associated Press reports.

Investigators have a painstaking job ahead of them, with identification experts from the Bali bombing called in to assist.

Prayers were held with the family earlier today in Samoan, Tongan and English, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said she could not "imagine the pain" experienced by Lale, The Australian reports.

"I've spoken to (Mr Lale) whose wife and five children are unaccounted for," she said.

"I don't think anyone could imagine the pain that that would involve."

Ms Bligh said it was an enormous tragedy for the tight-knit community in Logan City, which would rally around the two families who had lost loved ones.

"We are talking about a number of very young children. This is a community in shock today," she said.