Emergency officials in Quebec have discovered the bodies of three people they had been searching for after an overnight house fire.

The blaze began at about 4 a.m. Saturday in Ste-Sophie in Quebec's Laurentians region.

The fire ripped through a single family home.

Fire officials spent much of Saturday trying to determine if a woman in her fifties and a couple in their eighties were home at the time of the fire.

Three bodies were found in the ruins of the home in the afternoon. Authorities said autopsies will now be performed to determine the causes of death.

Investigators are still looking into the cause of the blaze.

With files from The Canadian Press