Fire destroys cabin on Echo Lake

Fire personnel from both the Bigfork and Creston Fire Departments responded to a fire on Echo Cabin Loop Road on Friday afternoon.

By the time responders arrived at the scene, an unoccupied cabin on the shore of Echo Lake was fully engulfed in flames.

“It was pretty much gone by the time we got here,” said Wayne Loeffler, who is the chief of the Bigfork Fire Department.

Loeffler said the crew immediately went into “defensive mode,” which meant attacking the fire from the outside.

Protecting a small camping trailer on the edge of the property from heat damage was “our No. 1 top priority,” Loeffler said.

The trailer was also empty when firefighters arrived. There was a for-sale sign nailed to a tree at the top of the property.

“It appeared that there hadn’t been any activity in the cabin for four to five months,” Loeffler said.

Officials have not yet determined the cause of the fire.

“It’s under investigation, but there wasn’t much left for us to go on,” Loeffler said.

A total of 16 personnel responded to the call, which came in a little before 1 p.m. The Creston department sent two trucks, and the Bigfork department sent three trucks and an ambulance.

Once the flames had been extinguished, the crew used fire hoses to blast a stone chimney with high-powered streams of water. Although the chimney was still standing, firefighters wanted to test its structural integrity before venturing into the ashes to begin the clean-up process.

After shooting the hoses from two different angles, the chimney finally toppled over, leaving only a stone base standing in the middle of the charred remains of the cabin.

The crew responded to a similar fire on the same road about six months ago.

Car accident

The Bigfork Fire Department also responded to a single vehicle accident that occurred around 1:30 a.m. on the morning of June 3.

A white SUV traveling south on Montana Highway 35 went off the road just beyond the stoplight at the intersection of Highway 35 and Holt Drive.

After skidding along the guardrail in front of the old bowling alley building, the vehicle crashed into a large Ponderosa pine tree.

By the time emergency responders arrived at the crash site, the driver of the vehicle had fled the scene.

Montana Highway Patrol is handling the investigation of the accident.