CURLEW, WA -- While Ferry County fire officials are saying three people are missing and unaccounted for, neighbors who lived in a Curlew apartment building say three people died in the building fire that displaced more than 30 people early Tuesday morning.

The fire began at about 12:30 a.m. Tuesday morning. Early reports indicated that three people were sent to the hospital with unspecified injuries but early Tuesday afternoon officials confirmed that two people had been hospitalized and an additional three people were unaccounted for.

Neighbors who lived in an apartment in the building said that the fire was started in an adjacent unit where a family was using an oven to heat their room because the former school building was old and not well insulated. A neighbor went into the apartment and saw that the oven was on fire and yelled for the residents inside.

One woman was reportedly on fire and jumped out a window covered in flames.

The neighbor then tried to get into the room where a grandmother and her two kids were sleeping, even going so far as trying to kick the wall in to reach them, but flames surrounded him. That neighbor along with another individual made one more attempt to reach the three people trapped inside the burning apartment but were unsuccessful.

Fire Chief Foster Fanning of Ferry Okanogan Fire Protection District #14 says that during the attack, District #13, along with neighboring district #13, brought in 25 firefighters and 10 firefighting apparatus to bear against the blaze. The crews were unable to stop the spread of the blaze but were able to hold it at an internal firewall. Chief Fanning reports that a number of the apartments were saved from the fire.

As of 7:45 Tuesday evening Fanning said that an engine company from District #13 remained on the scene to insure that firewall held.

Meanwhile the woman who was burned in the fire and had to flee by jumping out of a window has been taken to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment of her injuries. She is reportedly in critical condition with burns over 50-percent of her body.

While several eyewitnesses and people who lived in the apartment building have said that the three people died in the fire, officials refused to confirm there were any fatalities, saying only that three people were missing.

The 32 people who lived in the apartments are being assisted by the Red Cross with finding shelter which may be a hard thing to come by in this remote community in northeastern Washington. In Curlew, a town of about 300 people, 18 families that represent more than 10-percent of its population was made homeless by this single overnight blaze which burned their shared home to the ground.

SLIDESHOW: Curlew Apartment Fire

KXLY4's McKay Allen in Curlew contributed to this report