Montana Volunteer Firefighters Convention in Libby, MT

Rich and I got the chance to accompany our assistant fire chief to the Montana Volunteer Firefighters Convention in Libby, MT in June. Libby was pretty convenient for us because it is a little less than 2 hours drive for us (and it is a beautiful drive). Libby is up in the very Northwest corner of the state, a stone’s throw from both Idaho and Canada. Libby is a firefighter’s town. There are spots all over town that honor their firefighters and their department. I was really impressed. It is not a big town – less than 5,000 people – and yet the entire town came together to host this event. We arrived on Thursday afternoon and did a quick tour of the Libby Dam. That was pretty interesting. There was a kickoff BBQ on Thursday night and we were in classes either in a classroom or out on the cars or trains for hands on training all day Friday and Saturday. Friday night was another BBQ in a different location where we were down by the Kootenai River where there were scenes from the mountains, to the river, to the fields for corn hole games. (Rich and Ricky did quite well.) We met some really great firefighters from all over the state, although most of them were from our side of the state. Montana is a huge state and it takes a full day to drive across it. We had over 130 firefighters there and they were all good people. I will never forget talking with these two guys who were talking about a fire on the highway they fought near them. A refrigerated truck caught fire….it was filled with mozzarella cheese! He said it was an odd and very messy call. Can you imagine walking through melted cheese in your bunker gear? At least it smelled good….at first. We ended out convention with a big banquet on Saturday night and it was really nice. There was a keynote speaker that had flown in by the name of Jason Redman, who had been a Navy Seal and basically been blown to bits on an overseas tour and what it took for him to recover from all of that. It was very inspirational. They also had a bell ceremony to honor the fallen VFF in MT over the last year. There was a bagpiper…which was pretty hard for me because of the memories of Joe’s celebration of life. All in all, we had a great time and met some really awesome people. I am so glad we got the opportunity to attend.

By the way, the bowling pin on the side of the old fire truck….I was on a quest to find out what it was used for. I had a lot of people guess, but finally found out the truth behind the bowling pin from one of the Libby firefighters. They would pull it off the stand that went through it and before the time of using hose spanner wrenches, would use it to smack against the hose fittings to either tighten or loosen the hose connections. Huh. Go figure.

There was a vendor there with a wall hanging I wanted to take a photo of. I told him how it was so much like my Joe’s army infantry sign, along with his firefighter side, and then his birthday being the 13th of Nov….it just spoke to me. He gave it to me! Rich came home and used it as a centerpiece for a firefighter shadow box for Joe.