Al Jazeera: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pilot and one crew member have been confirmed dead after their firefighting helicopter crashed while battling a massive wildfire in central Utah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Sikorsky S-64 \u2018Skycrane\u2019, operated by Helicopter Transport Services under contract with the United States Forest Service, went down about 10am local time on Friday (16:00 GMT) near Richfield, in the Three Creeks Reservoir area southwest of the city, close to the southeastern edge of the Widemouth 2 fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) confirmed the deaths on Saturday, more than 24 hours after the crash, saying the two crew members were \u201cfatally injured\u201d and extended its \u201ccondolences to the friends and family of the deceased\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a situation report, the NIFC said extreme fire conditions and steep terrain had kept rescue teams from reaching the wreckage. The bodies were recovered on Saturday, but the names of the deceased have not been released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The NIFC has issued evacuations for residents in the area and imposed road closures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Deputy incident commander Tyler Hecht said on Friday that crews took a \u201ctactical pause\u201d to regroup after the crash before resuming their firefighting work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not going to change how we operate,\u201d Hecht said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to fight fire and utilize aircraft to support our firefighters on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Utah Governor Spencer Cox called wildland firefighting \u201camong the most dangerous jobs in the world\u201d and asked residents to keep the crew \u201cin your prayers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Utah Highway Patrol organised a procession Saturday evening to escort the remains of the \u201cfallen heroes\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Al Jazeera: A pilot and one crew member have been confirmed dead after their firefighting helicopter crashed while battling a massive wildfire in central Utah. The Sikorsky S-64 \u2018Skycrane\u2019, operated by Helicopter Transport Services under contract with the United States Forest Service, went down about 10am local time on Friday (16:00 GMT) near Richfield, in the Three Creeks Reservoir area southwest of the city, close to the southeastern edge of the Widemouth 2 fire. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) confirmed the deaths on Saturday, more than 24 hours after the crash, saying the two crew members were \u201cfatally injured\u201d… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-in-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60314,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60312\/revisions\/60314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/60313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gyalchisarshog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}