HEBRON – An attempt to start an early model Ford resulted in a fire in a garage at 37 LaRoche Lane on Thursday night.

Firefighters were able to extinguish the flames before they spread through the garage, but the car was lost, Hebron Fire Chief Jim Trundy said.

Trundy said the Hebron Fire Department was called to the scene about 9 p.m.

“It came in by radio as a vehicle fire with a vehicle inside a garage, and the garage attached to the house,” he said.

In such situations, “it isn’t long before your concern becomes bigger than the vehicle,” Trundy said. PACE and fire departments from Paris, Buckfield and Minot were called to the scene in case the fire spread to the home.

When the firefighters arrived at LaRoche Lane, however, the LaRoche family had already pulled the burning car from the garage. Trundy said there was a small fire in the gables at the far end of the garage, away from the house.

“We were able to get it extinguished pretty quickly,” he said. Smoke damage was the primary problem afterward.

Cindy LaRoche said she was cleaning up and trying to air out her home Friday. The smoke smell was strong, she said, in part because the car’s body was fiberglass.

LaRoche thought the car was a 1932 Model-T or Model-A Ford. Her brother, who died of cancer Sept. 1, had been fixing it up for years.

“It was one of the last wishes my brother had, was to get the car running,” LaRoche said. “It was an old car that he’d done from scratch – that he’d built up.”

LaRoche said her husband and son were working on the car, making some minor repairs so that it could be given to her brother’s grandson.

But the car sparked when the pair started it, and the fiberglass went up in flames.

“Within minutes it was gone,” LaRoche said. Her husband was able to hook a tractor to the vehicle and pull it from the garage before the flames spread too far, she said.

Trundy said firefighters had cleared the fire scene by 10:30 p.m.

“From my standpoint, it was pretty quick. From (the LaRoches’) standpoint, it probably seemed like and eternity,” he said.