Fairgrounds Halloween events on, situation still unclear

The Hill County Commission, the remaining members of the Rural Fire 1 District Board and Hill County DES Coordinator Amanda Frickel held a public meeting Wednesday to discuss the future of events at the Great Northern Fairgrounds in the wake of recent complications regarding fire codes.

The legality of a number of Halloween events at the fairgrounds was called into question last week, and for a while it looked like many of these events were canceled.

Most have since been approved by the commission, but the ongoing enforcement of fire codes has made many events regularly held in buildings on the fairgrounds potentially unviable.

Frickel, who handles fire code enfacement for Rural Fire District 1, which the fairgrounds is in, said the recent signing of a fire suppression agreement with the city of Havre, which stipulated that fire codes must be enforced locally, is why this issue seemed to come out of nowhere.

The agreement requires the Havre Fire Department to respond to fires in RFD1, and also requires that fire codes be enforced locally, which they had not been for some time.

The commission and other public officials came under fire last week when it seemed likely that many of the Halloween fairgrounds events could be canceled, and many received threats of physical violence, along with a plethora of less threatening, but insulting messages.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean said the commission fully supports these events and wants buildings on the fairgrounds to be used for them, but, as county officials, they have to follow the law, and finding a way to do both must be the goal at this point.

“If there is anybody that doesn’t want the building to be used in the capacity it was created to be used in ... stand up and we’ll tar and feather you on the way out,” she said.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said, based on their current understanding of the fire codes, the buildings on the fairgrounds cannot be occupied by more than 99 people if food is being served unless sprinkler systems are installed.

This makes many of the regular events in the Bigger Better Barn, 4-H Chuckwagon and Commercial Building unviable unless fire suppression systems are installed, he said.

Peterson said there are aspects of the code they still don’t fully understand and Acting State Fire Marshal Dirk Johnson was invited to the meeting to help clear those up, but did not show up.

Peterson said he’s been told Johnson won’t comment on this matter until the Montana Department of Labor inspects the buildings and provides ratings his office can use to make determinations, and that has not happened yet.

Peterson said the evaluation of these buildings by Johnson may find them more viable than believed, but Frickel said getting the department to do these inspections would likely take four to six months.

She said she and the commission are looking into possible grants that could pay for the installation of sprinkler systems, but Peterson said projects like this take time and these grants are not a guarantee.

He said they are working as fast as they can, but the county is involved with a huge amount of projects at the moment, and there’s a lot to do, so it will take time.

The question of what to do in the meantime was a topic of significant discussion as well, with community Member Wally Duchscher saying it’s unlikely that the buildings would be granted a variance for every event between now and whenever these systems get installed.

Havre Mayor Tim Solomon, who also attended the meeting, said because responsibility for fire code enfacement is usually delegated locally, it seems unlikely that the state would even weigh in on the matter at all.

Solomon also clarified the city’s position on the fairground’s buildings, saying while they support the installation of sprinkler systems in the newer buildings like the Chuckwagon, the older ones are grandfathered in, as far as they know.

Community member Randy Cloninger asked how the sprinkler system requirement could have been missed during the construction of the Chuckwagon, and Solomon said it was an issue that was brought up before.

He said the fair was notified in 2018 prior to the the building being used in its first fair, but the city didn’t want to be the bad guys so they weren’t going to make a big deal out of it during the fair.

However, he said, nothing was done in the intervening time.

The meeting ended with no official action taken, but attendees appeared to have a clearer picture of what is being done to address the issue.

While the county and fairgrounds continue to work towards a solution the circumstances leading up to this affair remain unclear as local and officials provide increasingly contradictory accounts of what happened.

Peterson said last week that he was sent an email from Johnson saying many events at the fairgrounds had to shut down.

“According to an email I have seen, Mr. Johnson said the spook house and the escape room were a no-go, because the buildings they were in were not up to fire code,” he said last Thursday.

However, Peterson’s story regarding Johnson’s involvement in this situation was seemingly contradicted by Johnson himself in a statement sent to the Havre Daily News that afternoon.

“The State Fire Marshall’s Office would not issue a shutdown order without first doing an inspection — neither of which has occurred in this instance,” Johnson said in a statement to the Havre Daily News, “At the request of fairgrounds personnel, the State Fire Marshall’s Office did a walk through in March and pointed out potential issues should they want to hold large events and an inspection later be requested. To date, no such inspection has been requested.”

Peterson said he would send the Havre Daily News the correspondence he’s had with Johnson, but on Friday he said someone else has the email of Johnson telling him the fairgrounds events needed to be shut down and he needs to get it from them.

After Wednesday’s meeting Peterson’s story changed again with him saying that it was not an email, but a text sent to someone else’s private phone that he saw.

When asked who this person was he refused to answer.

Peterson also said it would be prudent to forget the past and move forward toward solving this problem and not stir things up any more.

Johnson has not responded to Havre Daily News requests for comments and documents.