Billings sober living home destroyed by explosion early Friday morning

A quiet city street below the Rimrocks was rocked by an explosion Friday morning leaving a neighborhood house in ruins.

Just after midnight, residents awoke and found their sober living house on Green Terrace Drive engulfed in flamesand thick smoke billowing from the windows.

The 13 men living in the house were not injured in the explosion; however, the loss of their home has upended their lives. For now they are staying in a hotel, a resident said.

“Everyone is OK, but we do not know what is next,” said a man who lived there. “I was able to get some of my stuff out, but anything that was upstairs is gone.”

Firefighters worked until about 2:45 a.m., preventing it from spreading to neighboring houses. The house was completely destroyed.

The fire was spotted outside of the house near the back deck, the Billings Fire Department said. The cause of the explosion is under investigation. Some in the neighborhood reported hearing multiple explosions.

“We were woken up by a boom,” said neighbors Barbara and Timothy Wagner. At first they thought the noise came from the snowfall, but after looking outside and seeing the smoke they realized the house next door was ablaze.

Despite being incredibly close to the explosion the Wagners’ house was not damaged. The only visible signs of a fire on their property was the ash on their roof and windows, the Wagners said.

After the fire, nothing stood between the blowing snow and the charred interior of the home with it’s blackened contents on full display.

“The men in that house were just trying to get their lives back in order,” said Mary Patterson, who lives across the street. “It’s sad, they were always gracious and even shoveled my driveway for me on a few occasions.”

This is not the first tragedy to hit the house.

In Jan. 2020, three men who lived in the house: Raymond Rumbold, Rusty Jungels and Mikel Peterson along with the then-owner of the house David Healow died in a plane crash. Healow, a pilot with 40 years experience, was flying the plane. The plane hit a radio tower guy-wire north of Billings on Dunn Mountain. The tower was shorter than 500-feet and was not required to be equipped with an aviation light.

Healow himself was in recovery and had devoted his time to helping other men find sobriety, according to his obituary.