MILES CITY (AP) -- The neighborhood around North Garland Street was quiet Tuesday afternoon. On most any day this summer, Tiffany Spracklen, 9, and her younger brother Conner Crouch, 6, would be kicking up dust while riding their bikes up and down the gravel street.

The two children died after a house fire last Thursday, leaving the neighborhood and Miles City community reeling from shock and grief.

A cross made of wooden fence posts and adorned with teddy bears stands as a memorial in the front yard of the small, five-bedroom house on the 1600 block of North Garland Street that Tiffany and Conner shared with their mother, stepfather, sister and maternal grandfather.

The fire started at about 11 p.m. Thursday, when Tiffany and Conner were at home with their grandfather. All three were asleep in their bedrooms. Their mother, Hattie Bair, had left the house to pick up medicine with her daughter, Desiree Spracklen, who officials at the nearby elementary school said is about a year younger than Tiffany.

When firefighters arrived, fire was coming from the upstairs windows near the bedrooms, and the home was filled with heavy smoke, said Michael Preller, chief of the Custer County Volunteer Fire Company.

Three firefighters went into the burning house and carried the children out. First responders administered CPR at the scene. Conner was transported to Holy Rosary Healthcare in Miles City, where he died of smoke inhalation. Tiffany died Friday morning at a burn center in Salt Lake City.

The children's grandfather, Allen Wagner, escaped the fire uninjured.

A lamp cord sparked the fire in the living room on the main floor of the house, Preller said. Damage to the home and its contents is estimated at about $250,000. Preller said the home, which was jointly owned by Bair and Wagner, was insured.

The family is staying with relatives in Miles City, said Lee Akers, a spokesman for the fire company.

The area around North Garland Street is in an unincorporated area just outside the city limits. Most of the people who live in the neighborhood are older and many of them are retired, said Pauline Meyers, who lives across the street from the children's home. Tiffany and Conner were among the few children around.

''They were always in early. Real nice kids,'' Meyers said. ''I'll miss seeing them on the road on their bikes. They were always trying to catch butterflies and things like that.''

Last summer, when Meyers' grandson came to visit, he played with Conner and Tiffany. Earlier this summer, Conner knocked on her door hoping that the grandson was visiting again.

School starts next week at Garfield Elementary, where Tiffany would have started the fourth grade.

Tiffany was happy, engaging and always ready with a hug, said Laurie Huffman, the principal.

''Like most third-graders, she was happy-go-lucky with the world by the tail,'' she said.

Conner was getting ready to start the first grade at Highland Park Elementary across town, where he went to school with Desiree. Although she didn't have as much contact with Conner, Huffman said he was ''rowdy'' and ''all boy'' and a typically exuberant 6-year-old.

''It's a hard way to start the school year,'' Huffman said, adding that counselors and teachers will be prepared to handle students' questions on a one-on-one basis.

The school community plans to help the family in whatever way possible, Huffman said.

''Teachers are also parents, and you can't help thinking of how special your own kids are when something like this happens,'' she said.