Area Fire Crews Respond to Three Gas Line Breaks in One Day

It was a very busy Tuesday morning for Missoula Rural Fire crews as they responded to not one, but two separate gas line ruptures within about two hours.

Assistant Chief Brent Christopherson detailed the first call which came in at 10:22 a.m.

“There was a hit and blowing gas line at 7700 Old Grant Creek Road,” began Christopherson. “The dispatcher informed us that the caller could see people running around in the field that were fairly frantic. The firefighters did arrive and did find the gas line that turned out to be a two inch gas line that had been severed.”

Just a few minutes later, Christopherson said a second call came in for another gas line rupture.

“We did have a second gas line rupture,” he said. “This call came in at 10:31 a.m. “We responded to 2870 St. Michael Drive up in the Miller Creek area. That turned out to be an excavator that had hit and ruptured a one inch gas line and it was leaking gas right close to the house.”

Christopherson said Northwestern Energy crews were at the first gas line rupture, but his crews had to wait for them to arrive at the St. Michael Drive incident.

“The Northwestern Energy crews had to respond from the Florence area for another gas leak that they were on at the time that we called them, as well as the Old Grant Creek Road incident. Missoula Emergency services stood by on the scene while we mitigated that incident.”

Christopherson said all the crews were extremely fortunate that none of the ruptured gas lines resulted in a fire, with the dry conditions and the temperatures getting into the 90’s in western Montana.