The Bigfork Fire Department broke ground Monday night on the highly anticipated new Fire Station 31, which will be the future headquarters for the department.

In an empty field on Chapman Hill Road, framed by a fire engine and the Swan Mountains, Bigfork Fire District's five trustees drove golden shovels into the hard-packed soil as firefighters and their families applauded. 

The ceremony marked the beginning of construction on the 24,000-sqaure-foot, two-story fire station that will replace the current station on Grand Drive, a volunteer garage constructed in 1980 that was never meant to serve a staff of professional firefighters.  

The new station — funded by a $15 million bond — is anticipated to be operational by late September or early October 2027. Jackson Contractor Group of Missoula is taking the lead on the project.  

“Four years ago, we took a hard look at ourselves and our operations. We’ve been so used to doing so much with so little for so long with so little pay that we just got used to it," Bigfork Fire Department Public Information Officer Al Benitez said during the ceremony. "We thought it was time to really take a hard look at ourselves and make sure that we were prepared not only for today but into the future to make sure we protect this community to the best of our ability for any number of things that can happen here.” 

The new station will include five pull-through apparatus bays, a decontamination wash bay, new offices, a wing for firefighter barracks, a medical aid room and an emergency helicopter pad. The facility is designed to last 50 years, longer than the current station has been in operation. 

The new station is a major upgrade for the fire department. In the current station, because the building was originally designed as a garage only, the sleeping quarters and offices are not sealed off from the engine bays, allowing exhaust, fumes from gear and other potentially hazardous substances to contaminate living spaces.  

What was initially used as a meeting hall in the 1980s is now the living space for three staff firefighters. The bathrooms and showers are on the main floor, but the living spaces are on the second floors, so firefighters must walk through the garage to shower or use the restroom.  

The Bigfork Fire Department also conducts most of its training in-house, including a volunteer academy in the spring, in a piecemeal gym in the building's basement. 

"Last year, we asked our community to do something that pretty much goes against the heart and soul of every Montanan: raise taxes on themselves," Benitez said.  

In September 2025, Bigfork Fire District voters approved a 30-year, $15 million bond to fund the new fire station, as well as a new mill levy to increase salaries for firefighters and upgrade aging equipment.  

"This project wouldn't even be possible today if it wasn't for the confidence and support of the community. Every taxpayer who voted in favor of this project made an investment in public safety and placed their trust in us to be responsible stewards of those resources. That's a responsibility that we do not take lightly," Fire Chief Jeremy Patton said standing on the site of the future station. "We're honored by the confidence this community has placed in us, and we look forward to watching this project take shape in the coming months." 

The new station comes at a time when the Bigfork Fire Department has seen demand for its services increase exponentially. In 2010, when the volunteer fire department merged with the volunteer ambulance service to form Bigfork Fire Department, the organization only responded to around 300 calls a year, less than one per day.  

This July, though, the fire department saw its busiest month ever, with 187 calls for an average of six calls per day, according to Benitez. The department is on track to respond to more than 1,400 calls this year as it serves a 75-sqaure mile district that stretches from Creston to Yellow Bay. The ambulance district is even larger — 186-square miles — and serves residents as far away as Condon.  

The Bigfork Fire Department is the only full-time, paid fire department in the area and is often called in to assist volunteer fire departments.  

Reporter Elsa Ericksen can be reached at 406-758-4459 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support.

    Bigfork Fire District trustees symbolically shovel dirt at the site of the future Bigfork Fire Station during a groundbreaking ceremony on Aug. 3. (Elsa Ericksen/Bigfork Eagle)
  

    A rendering of the north east view of the proposed Bigfork Fire Department building. (Courtesy/Bigfork Fire Department, ThinkOne Architects)