The white owner of a mobile home in north Warren County and the black tenant who lives there with his family say a fire Tuesday night was set and racially motivated.

“This could have been a death situation if the oldest kid hadn’t smelled the gasoline and went and put it out,” said John Hill, who rents the mobile home at 89 Sally Willis Road to Kenny Smith and his wife, Lawanda Smith, and five children.

Officials are being more hesitant about how to classify the case.

The fire is being investigated as arson by the Fire Marshal’s Office, Warren County Chief Deputy Jay McKenzie said. He said he did not know yet if it would be classified as a hate crime.

Hill’s mother, Doris Hill, who lives two doors from the Smith home, this morning pointed out where a bleach bottle of flammable liquid had been placed beneath the bedroom occupied by some of the Smiths’ children.

The Smiths are the only African American renters in the neighborhood of about eight homes on the road off Sherman Avenue near the Vicksburg National Military Park, Hill said.

Doris Hill said a neighbor, who was not identified, has said he believes the Smiths should not be in the neighborhood.

“He’s made his feelings well known,” she said.

Smith is “a hard-working man and should be left alone,” Doris Hill said.

Kenny Smith said he and his wife were not home with the children, ages 1 to 17, when the fire was reported at 10:15 p.m. Tuesday.

The oldest child, 17, smelled smoke and extinguished the fire, Kenny Smith said, before the Culkin Volunteer Fire Department and deputies arrived.

Deputies found the melted bottle, McKenzie said.

Kenny Smith, 30, said he had found another bleach bottle filled with gasoline in the same place earlier Tuesday. That bottle did not ignite, he said.

Smith said he has been taunted more than once by white children in the neighborhood who have “pulled down their pants” at him and made obscene gestures.

The home and the grass received minor damage, Culkin Assistant Fire Chief Trey Smith said.

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Contact Tish Butts at tbutts@vicksburgpost.com