A mother and her two children died in a fire in a house in Troyeville early on Tuesday morning, Johannesburg emergency services said.
Spokesperson Malcolm Midgley said the father, suffering from serious smoke inhalation, was taken to a local hospital.
The fire apparently started in a television room in the double-storey house in Bezuidenhout Street.
The father tried in vain to open the security door, but collapsed before he succeeded.
After the fire had been extinguished, firefighters found the bodies of the mother and the children, estimated to have been five years old and five months old, in bedrooms in the top storey of the house. They had died of smoke inhalation.
Midgley said the fire was contained in the room where it started, but the house was ”heavy with smoke”. — Sapa