In-Depth: Wildfire War: Latest stories, photos, links & more

HEATHER CASEY and LON SLEPICKA
Firehouse.Com News

Since the wildfire season exploded this May seven career and contract firefighters have died. Six of the seven died in aircraft accidents. The total death toll for 2000 is 10 who have died as the result of fighting wildfires, according to statistics compiled by Firehouse.Com, the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. An eleventh firefighter, a smokejumper in Alaska, died in a training exercise in April.

The latest seasonal casualty occurred last Sunday with the death of pilot Lester Lee Shadrick, 53, of Lake Charles, Louisiana. Shadrick’s helicopter, a Bell 412, crashed while he was making water drops on the Twin Peaks Fire about 50 miles east of Fallon, Nevada. The blaze there had already charred 37,700 acres. Shadrick was the second Nevada-based firefighter killed in a helicopter crash within 10 days. He was an employee of Era Aviation, Inc., and had been flying for them since 1985.

The other firefighter killed in a Nevada helicopter crash was seasonal firefighter Phillip Conner, 29, of the National Park Service at Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Nevada. The Bell 206 helicopter crashed during take-off for a return trip to Conner’s command post August 3. Conner died from injuries sustained in the crash, and a second crew member was injured and transported to Magic Valley Medical Center in Twin Falls, Idaho.

The pilot, and a fuel truck driver who rushed to help, were injured and transported to Elko General Hospital. The helicopter was assigned to the "Charlie" fire burning in the Murdock Mountain Range, which has burned about 3,600 acres.

The third fatality in the last week occurred Friday, August 11, when James Burnett of the Department of Agriculture/Forestry Services in Oklahoma died while fighting a Wyoming wildfire. Firefighter Burnett, 51, had been cutting fire breaks and was attempting to get to a safety zone when he was overrun by a wind-fueled wildfire that engulfed his fire truck on the Wind River Reservation. He was killed at the scene, and a second firefighter was hospitalized for burns and smoke inhalation. They were the only crew members battling a portion of fires in the Owl Creek Mountains that have burned about 38,000 acres in the sparsely populated central Wyoming.

Other wildfire fatalities included firefighters from Florida, New Mexico and Texas, South Dakota and Missouri.

George Burton of the Florida Division of Forestry died on June 4th from internal trauma sustained in a helicopter crash in Lee County, Florida. Burton, 48 was a career firefighter and a rotor craft pilot.

Firefighters Leo Koponen and Sam Tobias of the U.S. Forest Service at Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico also died in an aircraft accident while suppressing the New Mexico wildfires on May 15th. Koponen, 49, was a contract pilot and Tobias, 47, was an air tactical group supervisor. They had been cutting fire breaks, and both died of internal trauma.

Pilot Carl Ray Payne, 66, of the Texas Forest Service, died May 7 while piloting an "Air Tractor" water tanker. The tanker had just dropped water on a portion of the Cook Branch Wildfire, and crashed while turning to make another drop. It struck a radio tower or it's supports.

Four firefighters died in the months January through April in wildfire fighting incidents, one of those in a training accident.

David J. Liston, 28, a smokejumper with the Bureau of Land Management Alaska Fire Service died April, 29. His parachute failed to open during a training exercise.

Lamar Y’Barbo, 55, of the Texas Forest Service, died as a result of burns received from a motor vehicle accident at a prescribed burn. The incident occurred March 13 and he died April 7.

Robert Buhler, 62, died March 6 from burns sustained while fighting a wildland fire in South Dakota. Buhler, of the Delmont, South Dakota Volunteer Fire Department was cutting fire breaks.

Robert Dale Pollard, 64, a volunteer of the Southern Stone County Fire Protection District in Missouri collapsed in a Dec. 31, 1999 incident while responding to a brush fire. He died the following day, Jan. 1, of cerebral bleeding.

From 1990 to 1998, 133 persons have died while involved in fighting wildland fires in the United States. A study, authored by Dick Mangan of the U.S. Forest Service's Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC), attributes burnovers as the leading cause of death, followed by aircraft accidents, heart attacks, and vehicle accidents