Firefighters go from saving homes to building them
By ELIZABETH L. HARRISON for the Missoulian
Jeff Brandt grasped two wooden beams and swung his legs from the skeletal rooftop of one of Habitat for Humanity’s latest building projects.
Scaling the home’s roof in cargo shorts and tool belt, Brandt looked more like a confident construction worker than president of the firefighters union Local 271 in Missoula.
Instead of avoiding work on his time off, Brandt and his fellow firefighters took their off-duty time to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity this week.
“A lot of things we do for our fire department union is we give back to the community,” he said, after using his arms to swing down onto the bare porch below. “It’s a chance to really help out, rather than donating money as we do often. This is actually being able to donate some time and see your work, and see what it really does.”
A group of firefighters assemble a roof on a house Thursday at Windsor Park, a subdivision close to the airport, for Habitat for Humanity. It was many of the firefighters’ first time volunteering for the program. Photo by ASHLEY McKEE/Missoulian
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom house is one of three Habitat is working on in the Windsor Park Subdivision off Reserve Street and will house a woman and her teenage son.
The firefighters, some sporting navy blue “Missoula FIRE” T-shirts, worked to finish off the roof on Thursday.
“We’ve got a lot of great guys that have a lot of skills,” Brandt said. “And some that don’t.”
He laughed and explained that part of fire department training is building construction and how things are put together, such as wall framing.
“We need to know what’s underneath and what’s in the walls,” he said.
But not everyone goes through the same training, so building houses is good experience for firefighters like Nate Auge and Dick Wear.
“I’m a homeowner, so I have to learn these skills,” said Auge, who has worked as a firefighter for three years.
“I’ve got the time, not the experience,” Wear said, after helping slice a piece of wooden siding with a circular saw. He said a lot of the guys have built houses before, but this is his first time.
“You just have to be careful and conscientious, because it’s someone else’s house.” he said. “We build it like it’s ours.”
Auge said the firefighters enjoy working together as a team for a cause.
“It’s a good opportunity for Local 271 to give back to the community a little bit,” he said.
Mike Sehorn, Habitat site supervisor for the project, said he was glad to have the guys on board for a couple of days.
“They were very nice to have,” he said, observing the men scrambling on and off the rooftop from a corner of the gravel yard. “I wish we had them once a week.”
Gayle Knudsen, volunteer coordinator for Habitat, agreed. She said the crew got a lot more of the work finished than the average individual worker because they are generally fit and used to heavy lifting.
“That’s one of the wonderful things about Habitat,” she said in a phone interview. “All of the different groups that come out, they give us whatever they can in time and skills, and we really appreciate it.”
Brandt said he hoped to finish up the roof by the end of Thursday, which would be a feat considering the walls were just put up in June.
Sehorn said he was looking to have the house ready to live in by October.
But “with these guys around, it would only take a couple weeks!”
Elizabeth L. Harrison is a newsroom intern at the Missoulian. She is a graduate student in journalism at the University of Montana.
