A garage and house caught fire near Creston Sunday afternoon, destroying the garage and part of the house, causing extensive smoke and heat damage to the house and sending three people to the hospital.

Ramona Hernandez said her husband Daniel, 60, had been working on his motorcycle in the garage at their rental home on Cayuse Lane about a mile north of Creston when a spark ignited the fuel line about 2 p.m.

He tried to push the bike outside into the driveway, she said, but the flames quickly jumped to the rest of the garage, the attached house and her nearby SUV that was parked outside.

She said she and her mother-in-law, Margaret Hernandez, 86, were inside the house. Her son, Josh, 27, also lives with them but was not home at the time.

When Hernandez realized the garage was on fire, she pushed her wheelchair-bound mother-in-law, Margaret Hernandez, to the front entryway of the house. But when she saw the garage in flames on one side and the car in flames on the other side, she rushed back into the house in search of a fire extinguisher before pushing her mother-in-law out the front door.

When she couldn’t find the fire extinguisher, she ran out the back door and around the opposite end of the house in an attempt to rescue Margaret Hernandez. As she rounded the house she heard a neighbor, Tracy Lost Bear, calling for others who had gathered on the property to help as he rushed toward the door to finish pushing the elderly woman outside.

Lost Bear slipped as he reached her, and both fell to the ground. Daniel Hernandez then reached the pair and, while trying to pick up his mother, the three of them slipped and fell again before getting her outside. Ramona Hernandez then wheeled her across the gravel drive to safety.

“He saved her from probably getting burnt more and from smoke inhalation,” Hernandez said of Lost Bear. “I couldn’t thank him enough. … He was the hero in the group to do what he did and risk his life.”

Creston fire paramedics and Evergreen ambulance took the three of them to Kalispell Regional Medical Center for treatment of smoke inhalation and minor injuries. All three were released by Sunday evening.

Ramona Hernandez said a family dog and cat were lost in the fire, but two other dogs in the yard survived and are being cared for by neighbors. The family rented a hotel room in Kalispell Sunday night.

Creston Deputy Chief for Fire Operations Lee Buller said that the garage and about a third of the single-story house were engulfed in flames when about 15 of his department’s volunteer firefighters reached the home at 405 Cayuse Lane.

Buller said the fire had spread into the main house and knocked out the back window of the nearby SUV, but a recreational vehicle parked about 30 feet away was unharmed. Mutual aid from surrounding departments arrived quickly.

“We had good response,” Buller said.

Bad Rock Fire Department sent a water tender and two firefighters, and Evergreen fire sent an engine with seven firefighters as well as two ambulances with two paramedics each.

Just before 6 p.m. Sunday, Buller’s crews still were on the scene using exhaust fans to clear carbon monoxide out of the basement.

The Hernandez family did not have renter’s insurance, Ramona Hernandez said. They were renting the house from Roger Olson.

Ramona Hernandez said she’s going to become a crusader for fire extinguishers.

“Every house and every car should have a fire extinguisher,” she said. “If we’d had ours handy it probably wouldn’t have gone up so fast. If could have probably prevented a lot of damage had we had it on hand when it started.”