Olney MT Fire Department Dwindles to Five Volunteer Firefighters

When the alarm sounds at the Olney Fire Department, just five local responders receive that call to action. The remote fire hall is in desperate need of additional volunteers to keep its operation running, serving the rural hamlet of 200 residents along with travelers on nearby U.S. 93.

It’s not the first time they’ve been short-handed.

About a year ago, the department shuttered its ambulance service due to a lack responders, and Fire Chief Jordan Carr said volunteer numbers on the fire side have plummeted to as low as two, begging the question — what’s next for the department’s future?

Carr, the fire chief of six months, hopes to get the department going in the right direction. Before the American Timber Co. mill closed in 2000, he said Olney Fire had around 40 volunteer responders, but he recalled only as many as 10 since he joined the department in 2016.

“I would like to have at least 20 — I think that would be a good number,” Carr said.

The department receives 40 to 50 calls annually, with most of those being car crashes.

Since the closure of the ambulance, the fire department has continued to respond to medical calls, but the aid firefighters can perform is limited.

“We still respond to everything that we get, even if it’s medical. We just help out,” Carr explained. “The only thing we can’t do is a touch a patient, because you can get into a lot of trouble for doing anything like that if you don’t have the right qualifications.”

While Olney volunteers can’t perform patient care, they can control traffic, use the Jaws of Life to begin extrication, and simply be there for the patients until responders from Whitefish Fire Department arrive on scene. Whitefish is the nearest source of emergency medical care to Olney, but being 18 miles out, can be up to 20 minutes behind the local volunteers.

Along with having to wait for outside resources, there are also certain types of calls Olney can’t take on due to safety. Carr said if a structure fire were to occur in Olney, they’d likely have to wait precious minutes until Whitefish crews arrived because “we probably can’t handle it ourselves — it’s just not safe.”

The five volunteers “do what [they] can” but they simply need more help.

LeAnn Libby, a former volunteer of 15 years with Olney Fire, said the department has struggled since former Fire Chief Ken Morehead embezzled more than $51,000 from the department’s coffers between January 2012 and July 2016, according to a previous Daily Inter Lake article. He was convicted of felony theft by common scheme and was ordered to pay $26,911 in restitution over a six-year period.

Libby said the results of Morehead’s actions have had an impact, fostering a sense of distrust among community members and the department.

“It’s going to take a lot of work now to get us back to where we were, to make it so people will trust the department again,” Libby said. “I think if we got a solid department going again with people that we could trust again, all those people would come back to the ambulance and the fire department — they’re still here. We all still see each other every day.”

She enjoyed her years of service, primarily on the medical side, because she was part of a team — a team that saved lives.

“There’s painful calls you have to go on …. but what keeps you going is all the ones you save,” Libby said. “Just being able to pull someone from that nightmare that they’re in and get them to a place where they’re getting help is worth it.”

Carr said those interested in becoming a volunteer don’t need to have any previous qualifications or experience to join — responders just need to be relatively close to Olney for the sake of response time.

“You can come in not knowing anything, you just learn as you go,” Carr said.

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