Columbia Falls came in No. 3 in a recent ranking of the safest places in Montana for communities with at least 3,000 people. Whitefish came in ninth in the crime analysis. Kalispell didn’t make the top 10.

“The city is extremely proud of being ranked in the top 10 safest places to live in Montana,” Columbia Falls city manager Susan Nicosia said. “The city strives to provide a safe community that people want to live, work and play in. We will do our utmost to become the safest place to live in Montana.”

“I believe it is our approach,” Columbia Falls police chief Dave Perry said. “We focus and enforce the misdemeanor crimes which reduce your felony crimes.”

The survey was conducted by Movoto, an online real estate brokerage based in San Mateo, Calif. The company gathered data from the 2012 FBI Uniform Crime Report for murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary, theft and vehicle theft.

The data was separated into four categories — murders, violent crimes, property crimes and total crimes. Communities that didn’t report crime data to the FBI that year were eliminated, leaving a total of 20 cities, towns, villages and Census Designated Places.

To fairly compare places with differing populations, crime rate was calculated per 100,000 residents. The results were then weighted so murders, violent crimes and property crimes each comprised 30 percent of the overall score and total crimes made up 10 percent.

Finally, the results were averaged into an overall Big Deal Score. The top 10 Montana communities in order were Dillon, Glasgow, Columbia Falls, Laurel, Miles City, Lewistown, Livingston tied with Belgrade, Whitefish and Sidney.

With just 84 violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2012, Columbia Falls ranked safest in this important category. In fact, of those violent crimes, all 84 were assaults, meaning no murders, rapes or robberies for the year. Columbia Falls also saw 2,763 property crimes, giving it a total of 2,847 crimes per 100,000 people for the year.

Movoto’s agents were impressed by Columbia Falls.

“The city’s natural beauty is almost reason enough to live there on its own, but add in these low crime rates and it is no wonder residents are happy to call it home,” they said.