Rampant fireworks occupy deputies
Flathead County Sheriff's deputies responded to 28 calls concerning fireworks over the Fourth of July. They ranged from the more routine reports of people using illegal or unsafe fireworks to people shooting them at cars to people shooting them at horses.
Sheriffs also received reports of 39 fires between midnight on July 4 and 5 a.m. on July 5. The vast majority were reports of trees, grass or Dumpsters on fire, most probably from fireworks, and none were too serious.
A 42-year-old man was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend on Tally Lake Road.
A car was found in a creek on U.S. 2 near mile marker 199. There was nobody around when police got there.
People were cited on Echo Lake for driving their jet skis too close to boats.
A 7-year-old girl thought to missing near Blankenship Bridge was found less than nine minutes later.
A group of kids were drinking and setting off fireworks in Hungry Horse.
Someone grew concerned after they saw a man setting off fireworks too close to a propane tank on U.S. 93. Deputies told him to stop.
A man flagged down a car and asked for a flashlight so he could look for his keys, which he said he had thrown in a ditch. He was gone when deputies arrived.
Someone living in the Appleway Apartments became concerned after a huge amount of water started leaking from upstairs. They called deputies, thinking someone may have been incapacitated. Everyone was fine.
A woman claimed she was assaulted at Bitterroot Lake, but she was gone when deputies arrived and she later decided not to pursue charges.
Deputies responded to a verbal disagreement on Montana 206 and Wellington Place.
The residents of a Branch Road home told deputies cash had been stolen from their house.
Deputies broke up a disturbance on Mountain Drive in Hungry Horse. No one was arrested.
A group of kids in Bigfork were disrupting traffic by jumping off the Bridge Street bridge into the river, until deputies made them stop.
A mailbox was blown up on Whitefish Stage Road, probably by a firework.