Arena fire may have been arson
<p class="p1"><strong>FIREFIGHTERS</strong> work to put out a blaze at the Majestic Valley Arena on U.S. 93 North early Saturday morning. (Philip Granrud photo)</p>
<p class="p1"><strong>CREWS</strong> from all over the valley worked to put out the fire, which happened around 6 a.m. Saturday. The cause is still under investigation, but Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry said it could have been arson. (Philip Granrud photo)</p>
The Majestic Valley Arena caught fire early Saturday morning, canceling a Wrangler TeamRoping Championships event that would have hosted 600 to 700 teams.
The cause of the fire was suspicious, said Flathead County Sheriff Chuck Curry, who has a county team investigating the fire as a possible arson.
The arena, which is 55,750 square feet, is located on U.S. 93 about six miles north of Kalispell.
Most of the damage was done to the front portion of the building, which is mostly office space, West Valley Fire Chief Russ Sappington said.
The West Valley Fire Department received the call at 5:37 a.m.
“The main fire itself was knocked down in about 20 minutes,” Sappington said. “But it got into some open gaps between the front of the building and the interior wall, so we had to get in there and get those hot spots out.”
The fire was completely out by 7 a.m., Sappington said. West Valley Fire was assisted by the Kalispell, South Kalispell, Smith Valley and Evergreen fire departments as well as the Sheriff’s Office.
There was extensive fire damage in the south office area while smoke damaged the north offices. Both are located near the front entrance to the building. There was also minor smoke damage throughout the arena, prompting the cancellation of the Wrangler TeamRoping Championships event.
The event began Friday night with about 100 teams competing and about 30 spectators, said Wrangler TeamRoping Championships producer Jed Jacobs. Saturday’s event would have been much larger with 600 or 700 teams competing. Instead, Jacobs and his team are headed back to their home base in Idaho with about 100 head of cattle and five horses.
“The hard part for us is that there’s so much expense to put the event on and it all comes to a screeching halt,” Jacobs said.
It was the first roping event of the season for the Wrangler TeamRoping Championships, which puts on events all over the western United States. With events scheduled months in advance, it will be hard to reschedule this one, Jacobs said. However, his crew is scheduled to hold a competition at Majestic Valley Arena in March and again in June.
Photographer Philip Granrud of Kalispell woke up early Saturday morning and was on his way to Whitefish to snap some shots of Christmas displays when he passed the arena, which was ablaze. Granrud said when he pulled into the parking lot, he could hear the sirens from the incoming fire trucks.
“The wind chill was really brutal out there,” Granrud said. “At first I thought it was really going to spread, but it stayed localized and the firefighters seemed to knock the main part of it out pretty quickly.”
Sappington said that since there wasn’t a simple determination for the cause of the fire, it was turned over to the county’s fire investigation team.