Fire department working for citizens

As the new Fire Chief, I am excited to be in this new position. I have a great paid staff and volunteers. They are truly dedicated individuals. I will be writing a monthly column to let the community know what we are doing at the Bigfork Fire Department.

This week we have broken ground for a new training facility thanks to the help of "Friends of Bigfork Fire." The facility will be three stories, which will allow us to practice rescue at different levels with ladders and our new ladder truck. We will have a "live burn room" which will allow our firefighters to be exposed to heat, smoke and flames. We are still short of money to complete the project, so if you would like to donate to the "Friends of Bigfork Fire", please call our office at 837-4590. Friends of Bigfork Fire will be having a fund-raiser Friday, Sept. 11.

This past fiscal year our firefighters put in 2212.95 training hours. This is an average of 80 hours per firefighter. We responded to 181 incidents. Top officer responders were Katie Edwards and Wayne Loeffler (87 and 90, respectively). The top firefighter responder was Chad Oster with 79.

For the month of July, we responded to thirty-four (34) incidents. As we enter our hot month of August, wind land fire danger will increase. Please be careful.

Wayne Loeffler is the chief of the Bigfork Fire Department.