2 women, 2 girls die in suspicious fire in Snohomish

SNOHOMISH — The trailer-park fire that killed two women and two little girls this morning in their mobile home is being called suspicious by police.

A King County fire dog determined that accelerants had been found in the wreckage, said Ron Simmons, deputy fire chief for the Snohomish Fire Department. He said the type of accelerant and whether it was used to start the fire would be determined by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

During a news conference this afternoon, police retracted an earlier statement indicating the fire was arson, saying only that it was suspicious.

The Washington State Patrol and the Snohomish County Medical Examiner are also involved in the investigation. Police have collected 30 witness statements and are in the process of getting a search warrant for the property.

At 6:57 a.m., passers-by called 911 to report flames and smoke were shooting out near the main entrance of the Snohomish Mobile Home and RV Park in the 1300 block of Avenue D, said Firefighter Chad Waters.

Firefighters entered the trailer, and found the four victims in their bedrooms, Simmons said. It's unclear how they died, but the fire was not set to cover up homicide, he said. The fire was extinguished at 7:23 a.m.

"There was no obvious trauma wounds to the bodies," Simmons said.

The two women, ages 25 and 28, who lived there were sisters, said Michaela Villa Señor, a cousin. The two children, ages 4 and 7, belonged to one of the sisters, she said.

The father of the children died years ago, authorities said.

The mother of the two children had worked at the Tampico restaurant in Everett for about three or four months, according to employee Maria Contreras. She said she didn't know much about the dead woman because she was a relatively new employee.

Before that, the woman worked at the El Tapatio restaurant in Snohomish, Contreras said.

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. Authorities did not find a smoke detector inside the trailer.

"Mobile homes are notorious for being big ovens," Simmons said. Villa Señor said her cousins — who arrived in the U.S. from Guadalajara, Mexico, four years ago — had been living in an apartment building in Snohomish before moving to the mobile-home park.

Despite the fact that the park is tightly packed with trailers — "You can reach out from one and touch the one next to it," Waters said — there were no other reports of injuries.

Sherree Simpson, who manages the park of 44 trailers, said the occupants had just bought their mobile home and moved in on Friday.

"They were brand new to the park," she said, her voice breaking.

The fire is believed to be the deadliest in Snohomish County since April 27, 1998, when eight people were killed in a blaze at the Arlington Manor boarding home in Arlington.

In Kirkland on July 17, 2006, the remains of 28-year-old Olga Milkin and her sister, Lyubov Botvina, 24, and Milkin's two children, Justin, 5, and Andrew, 3, were found in the burned-out wreckage of the family's home. Authorities initially believed the fire may have been an accident, but neighbor Conner Schierman, 27, was later arrested and charged with killing the four before setting fire to the house.

Schierman's trial is set to begin April 1 in King County Superior Court.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times news researcher Miyoko Wolf and staff reporter Jennifer Sullivan contributed to this report.