A San Bernardino County probation officer and two children were found dead inside a home in Ontario, California, early on Saturday morning.

The woman was involved in a shootout with police and barricaded herself inside, authorities said.

The woman's husband, who had earlier managed to escape, was also critically injured with gunshot wounds.

There was a five-hour hostage standoff with police before a SWAT team forced their way into the home on East F Street just after dawn.

There they found the bodies of the woman, an elementary school-age boy and a teenage girl.

Ontario is a city outside Los Angeles, in southern California.

A woman identified as a San Bernardino County probation officer and two children were found dead inside an Ontario home Saturday morning after the woman was involved in a shootout with police and barricaded herself inside, authorities said.

The incident was preceded by officers arriving at the scene to find the suspect's husband shot and critically wounded, authorities said.

According to a spokesman for the Ontario Police Department, the woman retreated into the residence after the shootout. The wounded man was rushed to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said.

Officers later entered the house and discovered the suspect and the children deceased. Their identities and causes of death were not immediately disclosed.