Flames broke out Saturday afternoon at the mobile home on Ell and Lone Oak in northeast Houston. It only took a few minutes for the fire to race through and destroy the trailer.
"We saw them all up front, and from the way they looked, they didn't look too good," said neighbor Robert Gonzales.
Amazingly, the family inside was able to get outside to safety; a husband, wife and three small children, ages three years old, four years old and 22 months. They were all able to scramble outside the trailer before it collapsed from the fire.
Gonzales said in the few seconds it took him to run to the front of the trailer, the family had escaped.
"The wife had one of the babies, sort of burned, and then he ran and got the other two out," he said. "When I went up to him, he was in pain. He was in pain."
The family was taken by ambulance to Hermann Hospital. The husband and at least one child suffered burns.
Gonzales' own trailer was damaged. The heat from the flames melted his plastic siding.
"Preliminary investigation revealed that the area of origin is in the living room of the mobile home," said Steve Rasberry with the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office.
Arson investigators say it appears at this time, the cause of the fire is accidental.
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