ARKOMA, Okla. -- Three children died in a fire early Wednesday that destroyed the mobile home where they were living.
The three children, whom authorities would not name or identify by gender, were asleep in a bedroom at the east end of the mobile home at 318 Lowery St. when the fire broke out. The fire was reported at 4:18 a.m., Arkoma Police Chief Thomas Lenard said.
Arkoma Fire Chief Jesse Little said he believed one of the three children was of school age.
An email from the Oklahoma chief medical examiner's office in Oklahoma City on Wednesday afternoon said the three children remained unidentified.
Arkoma, population about 1,950, is in LeFlore County, Okla., just across the state line from Fort Smith.
Lenard said the children's mother and another woman, a family friend, were in the west end of the home and escaped out that end, possibly through a door.
Lenard said he spoke with the children's aunt, who had spoken with her sister at the hospital after the fire. He said the aunt told him that after her sister got out of the house, she ran to the east end of the house and broke out the bedroom window to try to get to her children.
She suffered cuts and scrapes on her arms and was taken to Sparks Regional Medical Center in Fort Smith for treatment, Lenard said.
The fire is believed to have started in the center of the house, Little said, but the specific area had not been determined Wednesday morning.
The cause of the fire also was under investigation.
Lowery Street at 318 was blocked off with crime scene tape, but observers could see that walls from the central portion of the mobile home were missing and the wood frame was charred. The walls and roof on the east end of the home, where the children's bedroom was located, were intact.
Little wouldn't say if the children were in their beds or if they were out of bed and trying to escape the fire and smoke.
A state fire marshal and a representative from the state medical examiner's office arrived on the scene Wednesday morning to begin their investigations.
The children's bodies were removed from the home and taken to the medical examiner's office in Tulsa for autopsy, Lenard said.
About 25 firefighters from three volunteer departments -- Arkoma; Pocola, Okla.; and Murry Spur, which covers the area between Pocola and Spiro, Okla. -- responded to the alarm. Little said the Pocola and Murry Spur fire departments have automatic response agreements with Arkoma.
The central and eastern portions of the house were engulfed in fire when firefighters arrived. Little said it took about 20 minutes to extinguish the fire, but longer to douse burning embers.
The only difficulty firefighters faced in fighting the fire was having to breach a wall to get to the children's bedroom, he said.
No firefighters were injured fighting the fire, and there was no equipment damaged.
State Desk on 10/20/2016