Mobile home fire kills 7

BETHPAGE, Mo. -- Seven people who died Thursday while trying to escape a fire in their mobile home were part of an extended family trying to eke out a living in a rural area of southwest Missouri.

Two adults and four children were able to run out the front door of the trailer as flames trapped the victims -- four adults and three children -- in a back bedroom. They were unable to reach the back door or crawl out a tiny window.

"They were trying to get out," said Dawayne Lasiter, an investigator with the state fire marshal's office. "The fire advanced too fast" and they couldn't get to the doors.

Authorities said an electric stove turned on to heat the trailer malfunctioned, causing the fire. Relatives said the family often heated the home with the stove and several space heaters.

Thirteen people were sleeping in nine beds in the two-bedroom mobile home because it had electricity, unlike a mobile home next door where other relatives lived.

The victims were identified as James Garner, 60; his wife, Mary Garner, 61; Shirley Luce, 58; Ruby Garner, 31, the ex-wife of Robert Garner, one of those who escaped; and three children, James, 9, Krisinda, 5, and April, 3.

Relatives said Ruby and Robert Garner were the biological parents of the three children, but James and Mary Garner had adopted them. Shirley Luce was a relative of Ruby Garner's.

'Fire in the kitchen'

McDonald County Deputy Mike Hall said he and a firefighter who were among the first to arrive tried to find a way in but "we couldn't get within 15 feet of the house because the flames were so hot." The blaze was fought by volunteer firefighters. The nearest fire station is six miles away.

"Mobile homes burn fast anyway, but with volunteer fire departments, they have to come from home and then get trucks and come out," said McDonald County Sheriff Robert Evenson, who added that he doubted a quicker response would have saved lives because the fire burned so fast.

Barbara Smith, James Garner's cousin, said the children told her Patricia Garner, one of those who escaped, woke up and yelled, "There's a fire in the kitchen."

James Garner came out of the back bedroom and got those in the front room out. He then returned to the back bedroom, where he was trapped with the others, Smith said.

Tonya Whitten, the Garners' daughter-in-law who lives in the other trailer, said her four children were among those who escaped. She said her daughters often slept at the Garners' home because of her work hours.

"I was up and getting ready to go to work" when her daughters came screaming through the door, Whitten said. "They said 'Grandma's trailer's on fire."'

Whitten, who does not own a phone, ran to the home of David Boylan, who called authorities and then ran to the scene. He found the roof already caved in.

The trailers sit next to each other at the end of a gravel road called Luck Lane near Highway 76 and Route V in eastern McDonald County, about 30 miles southeast of Joplin, Mo.

Goats, roosters, puppies and other farm animals wander the area, which is littered with abandoned cars.