Long battle with cancer ends for retired fire chief

Dave Sipe, longtime Whitefish fire chief, died at his home in Kalispell on Sunday after a three-year battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

He was 61.

Sipe grew up in the Flathead Valley and attended schools in Evergreen and Kalispell. After graduating from Flathead High School, he went to work for Columbia Falls Aluminum Co. as a janitor.

Around the same time, he began volunteering with the Whitefish Fire Department after a firefighter recruiting volunteers stopped him on the street and asked him to sign up.

When Montana Aluminum Investors Corp. bought the aluminum plant in 1985, Sipe took a buyout and went to work as a car salesman at De Pratu Ford. His involvement with the Whitefish Fire Department increased during that time, until he became volunteer chief.

The city made it a paid position in 1995 and hired Sipe full time.

As the city’s population swelled, Sipe became busier. He hired two full-time firefighters not long after he became the paid chief and had hired eight more — and recruited a dozen more volunteers — a little more than a decade later.

Sipe also was there as calls to the department grew tenfold. During his first year as a volunteer, the fire department had about 260 calls. Ten years later, the department regularly received upwards of 3,000 calls a year.

Sipe was still at the helm at the fire department when his life changed on Nov. 19, 2006. While carrying a fan up an outdoor stairwell, Sipe slipped and fell against the railing. X-rays showed nothing was broken, but three nights later his right side was still painful.

Further testing showed a malignant tumor in his abdomen area, in front of his spine.

He endured chemotherapy, radiation and a stem-cell transplant. The treatments sapped his strength and body weight, but by August 2008 Sipe was back at work — albeit with strict new orders from the doctors to stay out of the middle of the action, the place he loved.

“I loved fires. I miss kicking doors in. I miss sizing up a fire and going in,” Sipe told the Inter Lake in August 2008. “But the doctors said no firefighting from here on out.”

It wasn’t an easy directive for a man who had dedicated years to the job. At one point he had loved the adrenaline rush, but later Sipe discovered he was an even bigger fan of the warm fuzzies he got fighting fires.

“It’s truly a lifesaving job,” he told the Inter Lake in 2006.

Sipe eventually retired after three decades with the department.

“Dave left quite a legacy to follow,” said Tom Kennelly, who replaced Sipe as chief 18 months ago. “He brought this department through the transition years of being strictly a volunteer department to a combination career and volunteer department.

“It’s been an honor to follow him.”

Sipe is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and his children, Rachel Williams of Lafayette, Ore., Eric Sipe of New Orleans, Molly Claridge of Kalispell and David “D.J.” Sipe of Whitefish.

Memorial services for Sipe will be held at 1 p.m. Saturday at the new fire station in Whitefish. An urn burial will follow services at C.E. Conrad Memorial Cemetery in Kalispell.