Fire helicopter crashes
Fire helicopter crashes
6 August 2008
published by www.redding.com
USA — A helicopter assigned to a Trinity County forest fire crashed and burned Tuesday night, leaving four fire personnel in critical condition.
The victims with burn injuries were flown to Mercy Medical Center in Redding, according to medical dispatchers.
“We don’t know the extent of those injuries at this time,” Shasta-Trinity National Forest spokesman Mike Odle said Tuesday night.
There was no word on the number of people on board the aircraft or what they were doing.The Sikorsky S-61 helicopter, which was assigned to the Iron Complex fires, went down at the north end of the 15,848-acre Buckhorn Fire, Odle said. The crash site is about 15 miles northwest of Junction City in Trinity County.
There were no known fatalities, Odle said.
U.S. Forest Service officials learned of the crash at 7:45 p.m., he said.
Forest Service officials at the Junction City fire command post refused to answer a reporter’s questions about the crash or say where the staging area was located other than to read a prepared statement.
