Rural recruits key in Missoula Fire Department’s new residency guidelines

MISSOULA — Kevin Straub moved house to Montana and utilized to work for the Missoula Fire Department in 2010. He had already been a profession firefighter for seven years in Gallatin County and eight years in Missouri, however he didn’t make Missoula’s lower.

It wasn’t for lack of means. Rather, it was due to his Polson handle: Straub lived too far outdoors of Missoula’s firefighter residency requirement to be thought of. He couldn’t simply transfer to Missoula – his spouse was a doctor in Polson and needed to adhere to the hospital’s coverage of residing inside 20 minutes of the medical heart.

“I was trying to stay in the career of being a paid firefighter, and unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get on because of the residential requirements,” he stated.

Thanks to a recent amendment handed by the Missoula City Council, folks like Straub who reside outdoors of Missoula might be eligible to be on the town’s hearth staff.

The Missoula Fire Department will enable firefighters to reside farther from metropolis limits in hopes of giving workers extra way of life flexibility and enhancing recruitment.

Missoula’s firefighters have been required to reside inside a 45-minute drive of Missoula metropolis limits. Starting Nov. 5, firefighters will be capable to reside 60 street miles from the fireplace station nearest to them, measured utilizing Google Maps.

Missoula Fire Chief Lonnie Rash stated the change is primarily pushed by the fireplace staff wanting extra way of life flexibility. Although the price of housing has gone up extra in Missoula than in different elements of the state, based on the 2025 Five Valleys Housing Report, Rash stated way of life freedom is the first driver.

“If they want to have some horses or other animals, that’s the number one driver,” he stated.

Although Missoula doesn’t have a recruitment scarcity now, a part of the explanation for the enlargement is to draw extra expertise.

“We have a small area where we can recruit from,” Rash stated. “This gives us the opportunity to recruit from a larger [area] and increase diversity in terms of us [being] able to get into the Polson, Ronan areas as well. It just expands that zone.”

The greatest concern from the Missoula City Council facilities round callbacks, the method of bringing off-duty firefighters again to a hearth station throughout main occasions that require extra fingers on deck.

Firefighters residing inside Half-hour of metropolis limits are known as again first, and if extra persons are wanted, all firefighters get known as again.

According to the newest knowledge from the Missoula Fire Department, 90% of Missoula’s 131 full-time firefighters reside inside quarter-hour of Missoula metropolis limits. Seven and a half % reside 15-Half-hour away, and solely 2.5% reside 30-45 minutes away.

The callback course of is the explanation why Missoula has a residency requirement when many hearth departments within the Mountain West don’t. The comparatively small workers for the town’s dimension means calling again firefighters is a vital a part of how Missoula’s hearth response operates.

Rash doesn’t foresee fulfilling callbacks being an issue, even when extra firefighters begin residing farther away.

Under the present coverage, firefighters will not be required to answer callback requests. Still, 98.3% of the 29 callbacks final 12 months had been fully stuffed, and the calls that weren’t totally stuffed nonetheless obtained responses.

The residency enlargement is sweet for the agricultural volunteer hearth division territories the brand new boundaries dip into, too.

Tayler Hayes commutes about 40 minutes to his profession lieutenant firefighter place in Big Fork and spends his days off as a lieutenant with the volunteer hearth division in his hometown of Polson.

Hayes stated that it’s not unusual for paid firefighters to additionally volunteer in rural communities.

“I wouldn’t be fulfilling my responsibilities as a firefighter as a whole by not volunteering with the department here,” he stated. “The reason why people are firefighters is because we love our jobs. If I have free time, and I live in a space where they need volunteers, then it just makes sense for me to be a volunteer.”

When Straub wasn’t eligible for the Missoula Fire Department, he joined Polson’s volunteer department. After many years as a volunteer, he got a paid position as the assistant chief.

Straub said that if the residency requirement hadn’t been an issue and he had been admitted to the Missoula Fire Department, there would be no question that he would still have volunteered in Polson.

“I love to give back to my community,” he said. “Most of my volunteers, the one thing they say is that they want to help their community, and that’s what I would have done. I’m confident I would have been a volunteer anyway.”

Straub believes Missoula’s residency change can only be a good thing for rural volunteer fire departments and said “there aren’t any negatives, all positives” to having extra skilled firefighters in rural communities.

Although the change might be applied in November of 2025, the complete influence of recruitment will doubtless not be felt till the 2026 recruitment season begins subsequent fall.