The bodies of three people were recovered from a Pennsylvania home Thursday, the day after it went up in flames during a gunfight that left two police officers wounded, authorities said.

Six members of the same family were missing and feared dead in the house.

As of Thursday morning, the house “has been burned down whole” and the search for the missing has turned into “a recovery operation,” Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer told NBC News correspondent George Solis on Thursday morning.

The district attorney’s office said the bodies of the shooter and two other people had been recovered as of Thursday afternoon. One is most likely a child.

Three adults and three children belonging to the Le family lived at the home and remained unaccounted-for, Stollsteimer said in an update Thursday afternoon.

Detectives had found a human torso and a rifle at the scene as of Thursday morning, he said.

The medical examiner will try to determine whether the people whose bodies were found died before or after the house fire, Stollsteimer said.

Investigators expect they will continue to find bodies inside the house, which was so damaged that authorities were worried the walls might cave in, he said.

“What we suspect,looks like it’s true, that the family has been killed inside the home,” Stollsteimer said. “We think there might be three other people in the home. That’s our expectation, frankly, our sad expectation.”

Going through the remains of the home will be a challenging operation that could take days, officials have warned.

The incident started when police responded to a report that an 11-year-old girl had been shot on Lewis Avenue, a suburban street in East Lansdowne, west of Philadelphia, at 3:47 p.m. Wednesday. Stollsteimer said Thursday that the call said someone was shooting the girl inside the home.

When the two officers — one from East Lansdowne police and the other from Lansdowne police — arrived at the house, they were both shot once by someone inside and immediately returned fire, police said.

It is not known whether the 11-year-old girl mentioned in the police call or the gunman were inside the house at the time of the fire.

Both officers were dragged to safety by officers from Upper Darby Police Department, using ballistic shields as cover while gunfire continued, police said.

The DA’s office identified the injured officers Thursday as Lansdowne Police Officer David Schiazza, 54, and East Lansdowne Police Officer John Meehan, 44. Both are 22-year veterans of their departments.

Schiazza suffered gunshot wound to his leg and was to be released at 3 p.m. Meehan suffered a gunshot wound to the left arm and required “a lengthy surgery,” the DA’s office said. He was still being treated.

At a news conference Wednesday night, Stollsteimer said: “We are aware that there are at least six to eight people who are unaccounted-for from that family. It is our terrible fear that they may be inside that house when it was burned,” he said, noting that children were known to live in the house.

Images from the scene show the almost total destruction of the house, with just its external walls remaining. It’s unclear when the fire began. Officials said that firefighters were unable to stop the blaze because of the active shooter situation.

“Officers were taking gunfire,” Stollsteimer said Wednesday. “Police officers and the fire department who were out there, there was still shots coming out at the beginning of this fire scene.”

Where the investigation stands now

As of Thursday morning, authorities were trying to safely enter the destroyed home to discover and recover any bodies, Stollsteimer said.

“There’s nobody alive in that house right now. Anybody who is in there is deceased. The question is how many people are in there and how long it’s going to take us to safely go in and recover the bodies,” he said Thursday. “It’s also a crime scene. We’re aware of that, as well. There may never be any charges filed if the person who was the shooter is also deceased.”

It’s unclear whether anyone other than the Le family was at the home at the time.

“They’re all unaccounted-for at this point. Our fear is that they were inside that home,” he said.

Huong V. Le, 74, told NBC News on Thursday that he is the owner of the burned home and that his two adult sons live there with a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren — a boy and two girls.

He said that he didn’t know what happened regarding the shooting and the fire and that he visits the home at times but lives in another area.

Asked whether there were any issues among the occupants, he said, “I don’t know.”

What’s left of the home is utter destruction: The roof collapsed, walls are gone, and there are multiple feet of water in the basement, Stollsteimer said.

“It’s really unstable,” he said.

The William Penn School District said in a statement Thursday: “We are at a loss regarding the horrific tragedy that happened in East Lansdowne yesterday and how that has affected our community. We are still awaiting additional information as this is an ongoing police investigation.”

It’s unclear whether any residents of the home attended school in the district, but the district said it was providing support to staff members and students.

Witnesses heard gunshots and ducked for safety

Sharon Johnson, a crossing guard who saw the police response, described the scene to NBC Philadelphia.

“I was there, a cop came flying around the corner. He got out, and then he’s in front of the house talking to two people. And then all of a sudden I heard six or seven gunshots. Cops got down on the ground, and I ran and took off,” she said.

Denise Williams, who lives in the area, said she was entering her car to head to work when she heard gunshots.

“I went into the car, and I had ducked a little bit because I was trying to protect myself because the shooting was going on,” she told NBC News on Thursday. “I see a cop on the left side on the next block. I see him got shot, actually.”

Williams said she didn’t see the shooter. She said that she believed up to eight people lived in the house and that most are kids she believes she had seen playing with neighbors’ children.

“I’m very emotional, because that’s horrible. It’s sad. It’s very sad. We never had this around our neighborhood at all,” she said. “I’ve been here almost, like, 14 years, and it’s never happened at all.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro thanked first responders.

“I’m thankful for every first responder who ran towards danger yesterday evening, including both officers who were wounded in the line of duty,” he said.

CORRECTION (Feb 8, 2024, 11:22 a.m. ET): A previous version of this article misspelled the names of two police departments. They are East Lansdowne police, not East Lansdown police, and Lansdowne police, not Lansdown police.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com