Firefighting pilot killed in tanker plane crash in Oregon
A tanker plane that disappeared in eastern Oregon while fighting one of the many wildfires spreading across several Western states has been found, and the pilot on board is dead, authorities said Friday.
A Grant County Search and Rescue team located the aircraft Friday morning and confirmed the death, said Lisa Clark, a Bureau of Land Management information officer for the Falls Fire. Clark said that the single-engine tanker, a small and nimble plane that looks like a crop duster, was located in steep, forested terrain on Friday morning after the search was suspended at nightfall the day before.
The plane contracted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management went missing Thursday. The Falls Fire, near the town of Seneca on the edge of the Malheur National Forest, has grown to 219 square miles and is 55% contained, the government website InciWeb shows.
Thomas Kyle-Milward, spokesperson for Northwest Incident Management Team 8, said authorities received a report of a missing aircraft around 6:50 p.m. Thursday. The pilot was the only person on board.
Climate change is increasing the frequency of lightning strikes as the region endures recording-breaking heat and bone-dry conditions. As of Friday, 111 active fires covering 2,800 square miles were burning in the U.S., according to the National Interagency Fire Center.
In Northern California, more than 130 structures have been destroyed and thousands more remain threatened by the state's largest active wildfire. The Park Fire started Wednesday when a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then calmly blended in with others fleeing the scene, authorities said.
Ronnie Dean Stout, 42, of Chico, was arrested early Thursday and held without bail pending a Monday arraignment, officials said.
By Friday, the fire was completely uncontained after burning more than 278 square miles across the Sierra Nevada foothills above the city of 100,000. About 4,000 residents in unincorporated areas of Butte County and 400 residents of Chico were ordered to evacuate, Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said late Thursday. Two minor injuries were reported, 134 structures were destroyed and some 4,200 were threatened.
Oregon still has the biggest active blaze in the U.S., the Durkee Fire, which was burning 451 square miles as of Friday afternoon. It remains unpredictable and was only 20% contained, according to the government website InciWeb.