Triniti Halverson, who runs an animal shelter in Billings, Montana, was outside her office Wednesday when she noticed that “something smelled off.”
When she went inside, she found smoke billowing down the hallways and determined that something was burning in the incinerator at the city’s animal control office in the same building.
She and other workers at the shelter put on masks and started evacuating the 75 cats and dogs that were inside before some of the workers started feeling ill, Halverson said. At the hospital, doctors wanted to know what had been burning in the incinerator.
The answer, she said, was surprising: It was methamphetamine that the FBI was destroying.
Halverson, the shelter’s executive director, said she had never been told that federal agents burned drugs in the incinerator, which is typically used by the city’s animal control office to dispose of euthanized wild and domestic animals.
“We had heard through the grapevine that they burned what they called ‘evidence’ there,” Halverson said in an interview Monday. “It was never confirmed that they burn narcotics or dangerous drugs, until I was sitting in the hospital Wednesday.”
She said she and 13 workers at the Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter were treated for smoke inhalation from the burning meth.
Each worker spent three hours in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for treatment, she said. Three later returned for follow-up treatment for respiratory issues.
The burning methamphetamine smelled like bleach, Halverson said. Workers who were exposed to it for an hour while they evacuated animals were “sweaty and dizzy” and some have had residual headaches, she said.
Most of the cats and dogs were moved to foster homes and are doing well, she said. Four litters of kittens that were being treated for ringworm and were in the smokiest area of the shelter are being cared for by staff members in another building, she said.
“We’re keeping them under close watch, but they’re struggling with respiratory symptoms and goopy eyes,” Halverson said. “We will see how they fare. Animals are resilient, so hopefully we can get them to bounce back.”
Sgt. Brad Mansur of the Billings Police Department confirmed that the FBI had burned methamphetamine in the city-owned incinerator. In a statement, the Police Department said it and other agencies have long used the incinerator to destroy drugs.
The shelter had complained about smoke entering the building several times before, beginning in late 2023, Halverson said. And the city had tried to fix the issue, she said.
But on Wednesday, a “negative pressure issue” pushed smoke into the shelter, causing employees to become ill, the statement from the Police Department said. The department thanked the workers for their “quick actions” in evacuating the animals.
“The FBI and local law enforcement routinely use outside facilities to conduct controlled drug evidence burns,” Sandra Barker, an FBI spokesperson, said in a statement.
Halverson said that decontamination specialists have estimated that the shelter’s workers and animals will not be able to return to the building for two weeks to a month. She said the shelter was gathering donations to help it manage until then.
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