FIREFIGHTING’S DEADLIEST

A look at some of the deadliest U.S. tragedies to have claimed the lives of wildland firefighters: Aug. 5, 2008: Nine people were killed when a helicopter crashed shortly after taking off with a load of firefighters heading back to camp in Northern California. Seven of the dead were firefighters. The crew was fighting a forest fire on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest outside Redding, Calif. Oct. 26, 2006: Five firefighters assigned to San Bernardino National Forest Engine 57 were fatally burned when fierce Santa Ana winds blew the Esperanza Fire over their structure-protection position in the San Jacinto Mountains. Aug. 24, 2003: Eight contract firefighters who had spent two weeks fighting an Idaho wildfire were killed on their way home when their van collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded into flames outside Vale, Ore.

July 6, 1994: A blaze near Glenwood Springs, Colo., killed 14 firefighters who were overtaken by a sudden explosion flames. The lightning-sparked Storm King Mountain blaze roared through shrubs as the firefighters scrambled uphill. June 26, 1990: The rapidly spreading Dude fire in the Tonto National Forest near Payson in eastern Arizona trapped 11 firefighters, killing six of them. July 9, 1953: The Rattlesnake fire in Northern California took the lives of 15 firefighters battling a blaze in Mendocino National Forest. Aug. 5, 1949: The Mann Gulch fire near Helena, Mont., killed 12 smokejumpers and a forest ranger after they were overrun by flames. Their story was memorialized in the book “Young Men and Fire” by Norman Maclean. Oct. 3, 1933: The Griffith Park wildfire in Los Angeles killed 29 firefighters.