BILLINGS - The police perimeter Wednesday was a big one with four city blocks cordoned off by police tape.
A CodeRED alert was not issued to residents and businesses in the area.
But for a fire outside the heights on Tuesday, residents did receive word of a potential evacuation in Yellowstone County.
Those alerts go out over an app called CodeRED.
If they didn't see the smoke, some read about it thanks to an alert on their phone, while others heard about evacuations in person.
"The fire had started about 20 minutes earlier," said Ian Somers, who lives just over the hill from the fire. "So when I opened the door, I had a good idea of what they were doing."
Somers, his wife and his two sons loaded their pets into their vehicles and headed east.
Residents in about 200 homes received CodeRED messages Tuesday about the fire near the heights.
"I'd like to think I handled it calmly," Somers said. "Hopefully my kids would say the same thing. But it's a little nerve-wracking because you're trying to make decisions really quick and you don't have enough information to make the best decision so you do the best you can.
Yellowstone County Disaster & Emergency Services (DES) sends an average of six code red alerts a year and also a monthly test alert.
K.C. Williams, the county's DES director says CodeRED alerts went out to 603 people, with 192 not receiving the message because they may have been landlines.
Williams says the messages went to what he calls a geo-fenced area, which included Highway 87 bitterroot drive and Polo Lane near the Bar 11 subdivision.
"If you're not in the area that we're sending the message to, you probably won't get the message," Williams said. "If your address is not within the area that we're sending the message you probably won't get the message."
And Wednesday saw another emergency scenario in Billings, a suspected shooter who police believed was barricaded inside a home.
But in this situation, no CodeRED alert was sent.
"If they have the situation contained and they don't anticipate it spilling out into a neighborhood or large group, it makes sense that they wouldn't want to alert a very large group that this is going on," Williams said. "Because it may instigate people coming to the scene as opposed to going away from it."
William says there's a lot that's considered before issuing a code read.
And it can be a life-saving tool, which is why the county is encouraging getting on to the DES website for a link to the CodeRED app, knowing the difference it could make in an emergency situation.
"Any information they can give you things to get help and you can make better decisions," said Somers, who plans on getting the app.
