Tucson Region

Lightning hurts two firefighters

Lightning struck two firefighters on Mount Graham Thursday as they mopped up three small wildfires that are now fully contained. The firefighters, whose names and affiliations were unavailable, suffered minor injuries and were brought to Mount Graham Regional Hospital in nearby Safford. One was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and at least one of the firefighters had to be plucked off the mountain by an HH-60 Pavehawk helicopter that remained airborne in the military-style rescue. The helicopter, from the Air Force Reserve's 305th Rescue Squadron, launched from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base about 3:45 p.m. One firefighter had numbness in the lower extremities, while the other suffered first-degree burns on the chest and shin, said Pete Gordon, deputy fire management officer for the Coronado National Forest. One of the firefighters also may have a broken ankle, he said. Both injured firefighters are members of the Dalton Interagency Hotshot Crew, located on the Angeles National Forest in Glendora, Calif. It's standard procedure in wildfires to establish evacuation routes for serious injuries, and it was Gordon who scouted the area by helicopter Wednesday morning to plan for such a contingency. Usually fire officials establish landing zones for helicopters in clearings, saddles or ridgelines. "But this fire is in such rugged terrain that there was no decent ridgeline close enough," Gordon said. Of the 913 U.S. firefighters who have died on the job since 1910, only three suffered fatal lightning strikes, including one in 1989 in Arizona's Tonto National Forest, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. The three fires, known collectively as the Noon Complex, burned only 15 to 20 acres in the Pinaleno Mountains, 75 miles northeast of Tucson, before being surrounded by fire crews. The fires were named for Noon Creek, which plummets northeast from 10,022-foot Heliograph Peak. Crews worked at about 7,000 feet as the fire burned through mixed conifer forests on north-facing slopes and heavy brush with oak trees on drier south-facing terrain. Three helicopters, five elite hotshot crews and one so-called type-II fire crew took part in the initial attack after lightning sparked the fires Tuesday.