The west end of Helena was woken up by sirens on Monday morning as a fire broke out by the intersection of Brady and Joslyn.
According to the Helena Fire Department, a bystander saw heavy smoke coming from a storage unit and called it in around 5:45 a.m.
Helena Fire initially responded and called "first alarm" for assistance.
The VA fire department, Montana City, West Valley, and East Valley Volunteer Fire departments provided mutual aid. Helena police and St. Peter's Health also responded. Fire officials say the fire was put out around 7 a.m. Assistant Fire Chief Mike Chambers says the job was labor-intensive; firefighters had to hop the fence of the facility and cut doors and locks to gain access. Moving stuff out of the units paired with heavy smoke conditions made it a difficult task.
“It just took a lot of people, working in what we call the IDLH environment, which is immediately dangerous to life and health, so we had to be on SCBAs, breathing air, so there's a limitation on how much air you have in those bottles, so we had to continually rotate people in to keep them safe,” Chambers said.
There were no reported injuries, but multiple storage units had many belongings destroyed. The cause is still under investigation, but Helena Fire says they've narrowed down the unit it originated from.
