``It looked like the grandmother was trying to cover up the young boy,'' said Washington Fire Chief Bill Hartsock.
Hartsock said a sharp wind from the west made fighting the fire difficult, as did the heat, which melted the headlights on a car and the siding on nearby mobile homes. Once the fire was extinguished, crews found the victims' bodies on a bed inside the front bedroom, he said.
The dead were identified as Sandra Harrill, 55, and Taylor Harrill, 9.
Mary Megan Harrill, 27, Taylor's mother, was injured and taken to University Hospitals in Iowa City. The hospital was not releasing her condition.
Neighbors said the mother escaped the older-model mobile home, along with James Lee Jenkins, 31, and Alex Lopez, 8, and Tijon Harrill, 4.
Mary Harrill then tired to break a window to rescue her mother and Taylor but couldn't get them out because of the smoke and heat.
``The heat was outrageous. You could feel it from my door,'' said John Osborn, who lives across the street.
The blaze started just before 6 a.m. in the living room of the mobile home in Parkside Estates, on Washington's west side.
Investigators from the state fire marshal's office Thursday afternoon had not determined what caused the fire.
