Mobile home fire kills 5 in Texas

A couple and their three young children died early Monday when their mobile home caught fire in a dilapidated, rural trailer park south of Houston, authorities and neighbors said.

Brazoria County Fire Marshal Al Priselac said the fire appears to have started in a bedroom, but the exact cause was not immediately known.

The victims included a 33-year-old man, a 26-year-old woman and three children, ages 7, 4, 1, Priselac said, declining to release names.

Managers of the Ashley Oaks trailer park, where the fire occurred, did not immediately return a telephone call from The Associated Press.

Neighbor Maria Surr said her husband called the fire department at about midnight Monday after their dog woke them up by barking and scratching at the door. The fire was nearly extinguished on its own by the time two firefighters were able to enter the trailer, Priselac said, probably because the blaze ran out of oxygen.

The man and one of the children were found in a front bedroom, while the woman and the two other children were found in an attached bathroom, Priselac said. The adults and the 4-year-old were pronounced dead at the scene, he said. The other two children were airlifted to a hospital, where they died.

Mobile homes get extremely hot when they catch fire because they are made of metal, Priselac said. Most of the damage inside the home was caused by smoke rather than flames, he said.

Elsewhere, a house fire deemed suspicious in Sioux City, Iowa, killed two children Sunday, authorities said. Police spokesman Marti Reilly says authorities believe the children lived in the home, but he had no information on whether anyone else was in the house at the time.