A grandmother and her 5-year-old granddaughter died in a mobile home fire Wednesday afternoon in the Plum Grove community, near the Lowndes County and Noxubee County line.
Emergency officials responded to reports of a fire at 173 West Brewer Lane, a narrow, one-lane road with houses and mobile homes on either side. The road is a dead end, and the trailer was at the end of the road.
Anna Brewer, 87, and her granddaughter, Daminia Collins, 5, were in the mobile home at the time of the fire. The 911 call was placed by Brewer’s son at 2:24 p.m., according to County Fire Administrator Sammy Fondren, and by the time the son returned, the home was fully engulfed in flames. The first responding unit was en route at 2:26 p.m. and arrived on the scene at 2:49 p.m., Fondren said.
Lowndes County Coroner Greg Merchant pronounced the grandmother and grandchild dead on the scene at 3:55 p.m. Columbus Fire and Rescue, Lowndes County Volunteer Fire Department District 4, Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office and an ambulance from Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle responded.
The fire was extinguished by 5 p.m., though smoke could still be seen. The front of the house was gone, and the inside framework of the home was easily visible.
Autopsies for Brewer and Collins will be conducted today at the state crime lab in Jackson. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
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