A large Utah wildfire kept emergency responders from safely reaching the remote site of a helicopter crash Saturday as other fires burned across several Western states, including one that closed part of Mount Rainier National Park.
The Friday morning crash of a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter in the Fishlake National Forest ignited a new fire that spread to connect with the existing blaze that has now scorched nearly 174 square miles.
Officials battling the fire said they decided not to place additional lives at risk until the fire is more under control, so they have not been able to confirm the status of the two people aboard the helicopter. The National Interagency Fire Center said the pilot and crew member were fatally injured in the crash but didn’t respond immediately to questions about the source of that information.
“The site is now inside the fire perimeter itself,” the fire incident management team said Saturday afternoon.
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the helicopter crash once its team can examine the wreckage. Officials urged the public not to speculate about the cause at this early stage; it will probably take the NTSB a year or more to determine that.
In Washington state, the National Park Service closed down access to the Sunrise and White River areas of Mount Rainier National Park after a new wildfire burned less than a third of a square mile. Firefighters were working to gain control of that fire Saturday.
The larger fires in the east of the state near Spokane have now burned more than 15.63 square miles, but firefighters constructed more than 75 miles of containment line to help control those flames.
Meanwhile in Oregon, hot and dry conditions helped an uncontrolled fire spread beyond 30 square miles.
Firefighters were still trying to identify the best places to set up containment lines around the Wrights Spring fire as they mourned the death of 47-year-old Jason Ensign, who was killed while operating a bulldozer for a timber company. The blaze grew rapidly Thursday and cut off Ensign’s escape route.
And north of the border in British Columbia, more than 20,000 people had to evacuate ahead of another fast-moving wildfire. The provincial premier has declared a state of emergency.
Funk writes for the Associated Press.
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