Foundation raises money for fire department

The Flathead Valley has been filled with smoke for several days, but on Friday, the community of Bigfork had fire on its mind for an entirely different reason.

Friends of Bigfork Fire hosted its fifth annual Brats, Burgers & Band fundraiser Friday evening at the pavilion in Harbor Village. The event also included a golf tournament hosted by Eagle Bend Golf Club and a tennis tournament hosted by the Montana Athletic Club earlier in the day.

In addition to money raised from the tournaments and dinner, the foundation also sold raffle tickets for $2,500 worth of services and merchandise donated by local businesses.

“This is our major fundraiser,” said Jim Sticka, the FOBF board president. “Over the course of the last five years, we’ve raised somewhere in the neighborhood of $150,000 to benefit our emergency services volunteers.”

This year’s event brought in a total of approximately $14,000. Sticka said the foundation will continue to receive donations for the rest of the year to add to that total.

The foundation’s main goal is to help provide local fire and ambulance volunteers with the training and safety equipment they need.

“The focus is the safety and training of our volunteers,” Sticka said. “That is paramount to us. We want to do what we can to help them out.”

According to Sticka, state and county funds are not enough to cover all of the department’s costs.

In past years, much of the money from the fundraiser has gone toward the construction of the department’s training facility at Echo Lake. In addition to helping the fire department purchase new safety equipment, funds generated by this year’s event will aid in the completion of that facility.

“It has three stories and a live burn room,” said Bigfork fire chief Wayne Loeffler. “We set fires in the room, and our people go in and learn how to look for victims and extinguish the fire. It allows them to see real fire behavior firsthand and experience what it’s like to be in a smoke-filled room.”

Although the building is mostly complete, Loeffler said the department would like to install a set of exterior stairs and line the burn room with metal panels to help protect the walls from water damage.

“Hopefully we’ll be done by November,” Loeffler said.

Sticka and the rest of the FOBF board consider it an honor to support such an invaluable organization.

“It’s a privilege to live in a small community like Bigfork,” Sticka said. “Emergency services are so critical to the people of our community. We know that if we can’t provide that locally, we would have to depend on the community of Kalispell, and we can’t afford to wait that long.”

Loeffler expressed great appreciation for the support provided by FOBF.

“The money they’ve raised and the effort they’ve put out has been tremendous,” Loeffler said. “We’re very fortunate to have that.”

Sticka said the foundation will begin a mail-in donation campaign later this fall, and plans for a spring fundraiser are also in the works.