North Valley cities named safest havens

Columbia Falls and Whitefish are among the safest places to live in Montana.

So says a study conducted by the online real estate company Movoto, which ranked the top 10 safest places in the state.

Columbia Falls ranked third, while Whitefish came in ninth place.

The California-based online company looked at statistics from a 2012 FBI report on towns in Montana with a population over 3,000. This data included murders, rapes, robberies, assault cases, burglary, theft and vehicle theft.

After eliminating any city that didn’t report crime data to the FBI in 2012, Movoto compared a total of 20 cities, towns, and census-designated places.

The company calculated the crime rate per 100,000 residents for each area.

Columbia Falls experienced 84 violent crimes in 2012, and all of these were assaults. There were no rapes, murders or robberies during the year. The town saw 2,847 crimes total, with the remaining 2,763 crimes being property-related crimes.

Whitefish reported 2,988 total crimes, which included 265 violent crimes. There were no murders in 2012.

Dillon was ranked the safest place to live in Montana, with 1,136 total crimes per 100,000 residents in 2012. Glasgow was in second place.

Other safe Montana towns in the top 10 list included Laurel, Miles City, Lewistown, Livingston, Belgrade and Sidney.

For more information on Movoto, or to see the complete report, visit http://www.movoto.com/mt/safest-places-in-montana/