Fire Prevention Week

Fire Prevention Week brought students from various schools in the Havre area to see the inner workings of the Havre Fire Department.

“We’re taking them around the grounds and the guys give them a little bit of a fire safety talk,” Have Fire Department Chief Dave Sheppard said Tuesday. “We have coffee mugs and cookies available, and we’re doing drawings for smoke detectors and coffee mugs.”

“We’ve had quite a few people come out for our open house from 3 to 7,” said Tim Hedges, a firefighter at the department. “It’s been going real well.”

Teachers from Fort Belknap School brought young students to watch presentations and learn about fire safety and the different tools firefighter use in their line of work.

Tyler Thompson, a firefighter at the fire department, gave tours of the fire trucks to eager onlookers Wednesday.

“I think (Fire Prevention Week) has been going pretty good,” Thompson said after showing the school children axes and tools used to break through walls and materials.

Thompson gave a presentation of the department’s three firefighting vehicles: a grass-firefighting truck for wildland fires, two standard fire trucks and an aerial truck complete with an extending ladder.

The tour moved on to the garage where the department’s three ambulances are kept. He showed the inside of one of the trucks to the kids but, despite earnest requests, could not turn the sirens on because of how loud they were. He was able to turn the lights on and the young students made up for the lack of sirens by imitating the sound in unison.

According to the fire department’s page on the Havre city website, the Havre Fire Department was begun by volunteers on Dec. 13, 1905, after a major fire that took out five city blocks on Jan. 14, 1904.

“In 1919, a new American LaFrance pumper was purchased, the first truly modern firefighting vehicle owned by the department,” the short history says. This pumper is now at the Railroad Museum.

The fire department became a paid department rather than volunteer-based in 1922 and now employs 17 firefighters and emergency medical technicians who cover approximately 38 square miles of Havre and Hill County’s Rural Fire District No. 1.

Tours of the facility are welcome any time. Fire department personnel ask that those bringing groups to the facility call ahead at 265-6511. The last day of the open house for Fire Prevention Week is today, from 3 to 7 p.m.

The Havre Fire Department is located at 520 4th Street in the west wing of the city complex.