A Fourth Firefighter Dies From the Colorado Burnover That Trapped a Helitack Crew in June

A fourth firefighter has died of injuries from the burnover that overtook a helitack crew in western Colorado nearly a month ago, the Interior Department said. Nathan Matthews, 43, of Lincoln, Nebraska, died Friday, four weeks after he was medically evacuated with burns from a fire in Mesa County, west of Grand Junction.

Matthews and his crew were fighting the Knowles Fire on June 27, one of several blazes that broke out along the Colorado-Utah border in late June and later merged into what firefighters have called the Snyder Fire. Helitack crews are dropped by helicopter into terrain that ground engines cannot reach, usually to catch new starts before they run. When the flames turned and closed off every escape route, the firefighters deployed their emergency fire shelters, the foil-and-fiberglass tents that are the last resort in wildland firefighting and are designed to buy minutes, not survival in a full burnover.

Three members of the crew died at the scene: Emily Barker, 38; Nick Hutcherson, 27; and Sydney Watson, 26. Matthews and one other firefighter, who has not been identified, were flown out for treatment. Matthews spent four weeks in a burn unit before he died.

Four deaths from a single burnover makes it among the deadliest wildland firefighting incidents in the United States in years, and the worst on federal land since the Yarnell Hill Fire killed 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots in Arizona in 2013. Federal investigators have not released findings on what happened to the crew's escape routes or safety zones on June 27, the questions that determine whether a burnover is judged an unforecastable wind event or a breakdown in the standard orders that govern where crews may engage a fire.

The deaths land in the middle of a punishing season across the West. Near Sisters, Oregon, the Bench Fire had burned roughly 40 square miles by Saturday and was 5% contained, with the town watching the fire's western edge. "It's going to take a while to put it out entirely," Sisters Mayor Jennifer Letz said. "But as long as it stops moving, I think that'll get people to relax a little bit." Crews are also working the Beachcomb Fire in Oregon and the remains of the Snyder Fire near Thompson Springs, Utah.

Federal wildland firefighting has been under strain for several years, with agencies struggling to fill seasonal crews at pay rates that have lagged behind state and municipal departments, and with fire seasons that now begin earlier and run later than the hiring calendar was built for. Helitack and hotshot crews, the most highly trained and most exposed of those forces, have been hardest to staff.

The Interior Department said it would provide support to the families of all four firefighters. Flags at Bureau of Land Management facilities in Colorado were lowered.