09/25/2026
Butte-Silver Bow residents should take the time to listen to this discussion and understand what your local Volunteer Fire Departments are up against. Many folks feel under informed about the ballot issue, and the larger issues underlying.
Make no mistake, this vote is a vote for survival. The recent revelations described in the podcast show collusion and a campaign to dissolve your local VFDs, despite their lies to the contrary.
Your local volunteer firefighters come from every walk of life, all from within our local neighborhoods. We have moms and dads, retired and working, and both brand-new and third-generation members. What we all share is that we want to be good neighbors to our neighbors.
We also want to be well trained and well equipped. We have sought immersive training alongside the career fire department. When your local VFD goes to work on a distant forest fire, any resulting revenue should be appropriated to and by the department that earned it.
That's a major means of how departments fund their own equipment. There is no reason it should have to wait for a budget submission and approval or denial. The core of this issue is unfortunately the money. It's also why you won't find it discussed by the career fire department posts.
Incident command structure for all departments in the county currently follows the ICS standard. The first crew on scene has command until and unless they announce a change in command to another individual or unit. Plain and simple. If anyone has too big of an ego to organize leadership at an emergency scene for the sake of incident command, they don't belong on the fire ground.
By neglecting to call for volunteers, and having a policy of discretionary calling rather than priority of proximity, the fire department can order staffing that costs the residents 48 hours of overtime while volunteers are in every neighborhood, ready to respond to our neighbor's worst nightmare at no extra cost.
When that day comes, we are all neighbors, no matter if we're from the Boulevard neighborhood or up in Walkerville. Your neighbors want to come and help, and we should be allowed to continue to do so.
We hope our neighbors will take the time to educate themselves and vote:
FOR changing the charter;
FOR changing it with regard to the fire department. (Subquestion 4); and
FOR returning volunteer department Independence. (Subquestion 5)
Thank you.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5DPBlchznmsck6Iguvburw?si=aS8WKXhcR_iQTUYfaikVeA&utm_source=copy-link&fbclid=IwdGRjcAUip3djbGNrBSKncWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEegN4ePCJfWVptM_oIlxkk7tq7PxXisL0B6uGYOL6RqTKwpaLljUOtAxoBF9I_aem_ZPd4d8GZ90Ex6z0T-a4WSQ&nd=1&utm_medium=organic&product=open&%24full_url=https%3A%2F%2Fopen.spotify.com%2Fepisode%2F5DPBlchznmsck6Iguvburw%3Fsi%3DaS8WKXhcR_iQTUYfaikVeA%26utm_source%3Dcopy-link%26fbclid%3DIwY2xjawUip3FleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mBXNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHoDeHjwiX1labTP6CJcZJO7auz8V4rC9AerhmDi-kakysKWi5Y1DrQMaARfS_aem_ZPd4d8GZ90Ex6z0T-a4WSQ&%24android_redirect_timeout=3000&~channel=facebook&feature=organic&_branch_match_id=1517212443179072141&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA%2B2Q0W6iQBhGn2a8U3GgrG5CGugsahtaUazgDRmGH5kyMGRginjRZ9%2B42d7vA%2Bz1953k5JR933Y%2F5%2FOulT0vxhlt25ngTTV%2FbJXMNesd2UIzQdgqtBCpVsIp7wgyXYR9hP37PPummawR9qHlncwBYf%2BB7DzByltTd6yytxf9mWk1INPvODIJPSxPL3HJ9ikPo2NSUF69g4uwrfs67aRWDJBJmGzH6V0JYbvImOA5Msl2SPD1gw5H3pq%2BgM1eu9gXWbi9BqE3nNer2otfx3wdrJPYG2IsKkKCRUAS6zU63oKIjW%2Bu620kgc3HwOOFoFm0s5%2Be2fn57QfVt%2BW7pZ5WLqiyJnxa0WrsXk78IVkQFQbU3ReHlEKdnne5lS%2FX55Xx62rfjGhKrdMh%2FFOLCpFRVv0v9i%2FFELabu%2BTino42uZI8TxXkXAHr057XIHXvmIZhTL5YSZsGhFNQBpmU1aQA2msFjlQX2nA2%2BVJQgFK8uaSZkkMHyvH%2Ffn8DXrpSeO4CAAA%3D
Mad About Montana Podcast · Episode
