HIGGINS, Ark. – Pulaski County sheriff's deputies say a man and his 9-year-old son died Saturday afternoon in a fire in a trailer they padlocked shut to keep its door closed.
Deputies declined to release the names of the victims in the fire, though they said the man was 66. Family members later identified the dead as father James Lee Owens and son Bruce Owens.
The boy's mother told deputies that the man had asked her to padlock the door to keep it from swinging open in the strong wind. The mother rushed back to the trailer after seeing the fire, but the blaze forced her back.
The mother suffered a minor burn and was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Deputies say the trailer did have another door and it appeared the father and son tried to escape the fire.
The bodies of the two victims have been taken to the state Crime Laboratory. The cause of the fire is still under investigation but firefighters say the fire started at the opposite end of the trailer from where the bodies were found.
The fire broke out just before 2 p.m. at the trailer, located just east of the small town of Higgins in the outskirts of Little Rock.
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