Longtime fire chief Joe Nelson dead at 94

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

Joe Nelson, who served on Bigfork's volunteer fire department for more than 40 years and was the chief for 39, died at his home in the early morning of July 5.

Nelson was dressed in his Class A fire uniform and transported from Bigfork to Buffalo Hill's Funeral Home in Kalispell on the back of a Bigfork Fire truck as part of a dawn procession of firefighters from Bigfork and Ferndale.

"His longevity and dedication to the fire department and the community were amazing," said current Bigfork Fire Chief Chuck Harris.

"Some people retire and they shut the door and don't look back," he said. "Up until the day he died, he was interested in what we were doing."

Nelson worked at the hydropower station on the Swan River in Bigfork from 1945 to 1976, follwing in his father's footsteps.

In 1946 Nelson agreed to be the village's fire chief, a job he knew "absolutely nothing about" at the time, he told the Eagle in an interview last year.

"I just devoted myself to Bigfork," he said. "That fireman stuff just got into me and I couldn't leave it alone. I told Flo (his wife) it was like my church."

The Nelsons celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary last October, having lived all but five years of their lives in Bigfork.

Joe broke a leg when he fell off a horse in 1955. The damaged leg bothered him for the next five years until he asked to have it amputated in 1960, but health problems didn't keep him away from the firehouse.

"He never missed a fire except when he was in Spokane at the hospital," Flo said.