2 dead in Queen Creek house fire; cause of fire unknown

QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. (KSAZ) - Two people are dead from a house fire in Queen Creek this afternoon.

The cause of the fire is unknown, and investigations are underway.

MCSO found two bodies inside on the second floor, one of whom was 12 year-old Joshua Arnett. The other person, presumably the mother, has not been identified yet. FOX 10's Marcy Jones and Steve Krafft spoke to the neighbors about the family, and they said the community is close.

"Yeah we saw it happening. Some of the neighbors, we went and got that ladder on the garage right there. Some of them went on the roof and tried breaking it open to try to get people out, but the smoke and the heat was too much," said Jeremiah Vigil, a neighbor.

Neighbor Scott Gifford attempted to help the father of the home save the two people trapped inside.

"I kind of smelled something that wasn't a barbeque, and I noticed smoke coming out of the house," said Gifford.

He noticed the father of the family run around the side of the house.

"I yelled, 'hey is everything ok?' and he didn't say anything. At that point, I saw the flames coming out more and I took off and ran around to the front," said Gifford. "I met him at the front door, the front door was open and the flames were too hot. We just couldn't get in."

Gifford said he knows the mother and the 12-year-old son lived in the house.

"She did everything she could to take care of Josh. He was a little autistic boy, so I know that everything she did and everything I saw, her world revolved around him," said Gifford.

MCSO does have an arson crew investigating as well.

While the investigation awaits, the emphasis is now on helping the family. Many people are doing their part in a variety of ways.

One of them is a T-shirt business in Queen Creek called TenCow.com. They use a silk screen process to produce T-shirts for local businesses and organizations, and they're friends of the family.

"It's tragic. It's a tragic thing to witness and see. And when it's someone that you know and someone within the community that you know, it's hard. It's hard on the community," said David Kovacs with tencow.com.

The company is doing what it knows best: producing shirts, selling them online for $25, and all of the proceeds will go to the family struggling with a terrible loss.

There's also a GoFundMe page set up, as well as other fundraising efforts.