President Sparky

Bob “Sparky” Hanson, chief of the Long Run Fire Department, is the new president of the Montana State Volunteer Firefighters Association. He took up his duties at the 61st annual MSVFFA convention held June 13-15 in Corvallis.

The Montana Training Symposium 2013 was attended by over 200 firefighters from throughout Montana.

Hanson replaces outgoing president Kraig Hansen from Chinook. Hanson will now represent the 420 fire departments and around 10,000 volunteer firefighters in the state of Montana. Other duties include going to Helena to speak with the legislators about issues that have an impact on fire services in Montana. He will represent the MSVFFA on the Montana Fire Chiefs Association board of directors.

Hanson will also be on the Montana State Fire Alliance board of directors representing the MSVFFA, Montana fire chiefs, Montana fire wardens, Montana fire educators and Montana fire districts.

For the past four years, Hanson has been a district vice president for MSVFFA, representing Valley, Garfield, McCone, Daniels, Sheridan, Roosevelt, Richland, Dawson and part of Prairie counties. The new vice president for the nine counties in District 7 is Mike Overton from Wolf Point.

There were over 24 hours of training available at the convention. Topics included basic fire fighting, fire fighter survival, wildlands fire leadership, vehicle extrication, incident command, pump operations, emergency medical training, propane fires, ropes and rappelling, helicopter landing zones and structural fire protection.