Former Whitefish fire chief Dave Sipe dies

Former Whitefish fire chief Dave Sipe passed away on Sunday morning at his home in Kalispell after a long fight with cancer.

Sipe announced his retirement from the Whitefish fire department in July 2008 after three decades of emergency calls in the middle of the night, three decades of consoling distraught volunteer firefighters, and three decades of stretching a thin budget and a thin volunteer pool.

Upbeat to the very end, Sipe started his firefighting career as a volunteer in March 1978, later moving up to volunteer chief. He became the city's first full-time paid chief in 1995. During his 30 years on the force, he watched Whitefish's fire department grow to a full-time, 24/7 professional organization with a new emergency services center slated to open next month.

"It's a wonderful feeling knowing that you made a difference," he told the Pilot after he announced his retirement.

Sipe was honored as Government Worker of the Year by the Chamber of Commerce and the Whitefish Community Foundation in 2006. He was awarded Ambu-lance Attendant of the Year in 1987 and 1991.

One of seven brothers, Sipe's father died from a brain tumor when he was 10, and everyone in the family pitched in to help fill the financial void. That's when he acquired his strong work ethic.

"I felt like I wanted to do something for the community, and I thought being a firefighter was a good way," he said. "It worked out pretty good."

Sipe learned how seriously ill he was in November 2006 after he slipped on an alley stairwell while carrying a fan following a fire above the Great Northern Bar.

Instead of X-rays detecting broken bones, however, tests revealed a fist-sized tumor, and that was the beginning of the end of Sipe's firefighting career. At the height of his cancer treatments, he had lost 64 pounds.

"I loved fires," he said in 2008. "I loved kicking doors in. I miss sizing up a fire and going in. But the doctors said no firefighting from here on out."

Nearly 500 people showed up for a fundraiser at the Moose Lodge in June 2007 to assist in medical costs for Sipe's ongoing chemotherapy treatment for non-Hodgkins Stage 1 lymphoma. About $13,000 was raised before the benefit even began.

"I realized it wasn't about the money when I walked around the parking lot and saw a line wrapping around the building of people standing in the rain holding their umbrellas," said Molly Claridge, Sipe's daughter. "Money had nothing to do with it. It was the support from all of his friends."

Besides money, Sipe needed stem cell transfusions, and he had no trouble finding them.

"The doctors needed 5 million stem cells and have 6.2 million," Jill Evans said at the fundraiser.

Sipe was the kind of man who had to keep busy, and sometimes work came to him. Last year, when a motorcycle crashed at Fifth St. and Pine Ave. in Whitefish, near his home at the time, he hobbled out to the injured rider, immobilized the man's neck and calmed him down, Sipe's wife Jennifer said.

When Whitefish ambulance personnel arrived, they had to help Sipe to his feet because he was too weak. About a week later, the motorcycle rider came to Sipe's house and thanked him for the assistance. As it turned out, the man had suffered a fractured neck and could have been paralyzed without Sipe's help, Jennifer said.

A memorial service for Sipe will be held at the city's new emergency services center in Baker Commons on Saturday, May 1, at 1 p.m. Parking will be available on the street, at the Mountain Mall or in designated nearby parking lots. Bus transportation will be available from the Mountain Mall and from Baker Avenue and West 13th Street.

For a full obituary, see page A5.