08/30/2026
🔥Wildland Fire🚨
Last night at 5:44pm, Havre Fire was dispatched for a report of hay bales on fire off of County Road 836 NW. First arriving engine found three hay bales on fire with no immediate structures threatened by the bales. The high winds caused the fire to spread quickly to trees and light fuels which moved to open land and start spreading rapidly. Due to high winds and active fire behavior, immediate mutual aid was requested and an all-department callback for all off-duty fire personnel to assist was initiated. Thanks to the coordinated structure protection and aggressive fire attack efforts from HFD alongside multiple neighboring departments we were able to stop the forward spread at 115 total acres. The fire did come within feet of multiple structures, but was stopped before reaching any primary residences. The fire did however burn a vehicle and a couple out buildings. A total of 15 engines, 3 water tenders, and 6 support vehicles responded to the fire.
A huge thank you to our mutual aid agencies including Bear Paw Volunteer Fire Department, Kremlin Volunteer Fire Department , Chinook Volunteer Fire Department, Wildhorse Volunteer Fire Department, and Montana DNRC. We would also like to thank our dispatchers at Havre Police Department, Montana Highway Patrol, Hill County Sheriff's Office, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks for traffic control and evacuations. Also on scene was NorthWestern Energy and Hill County Electric.
A big thank you to DNRC for bringing in a strike team of 6 apparatus out of Lewistown consisting of wildland engines and support vehicles to assist with mop up and monitoring the fire overnight. All Havre Fire apparatus were clear at 3:05am while DNRC remained on scene until 1030am when fire was turned back over to HFD.
We would also like to thank Pizza Hut of Havre for your generous donation of pizza for all personnel on scene assisting with the fire. We really appreciate you and everyone else who helped on the fire.
Cause of the fire is under investigation at this time.