AL Firefighter Among 3 Killed Battling Western Wildfire

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Federal officials say a wildland firefighter from Warrior was among three firefighters killed Saturday while battling a wildfire along the Colorado-Utah border.

The U.S. Forest Service and the Department of the Interior said Sydney Watson, 26, died alongside Emily Barker, 38, of Clinton Township, Michigan, and Nick Hutcherson, 27, of Glendale, Arizona, after the crew was overtaken by flames while attempting to deploy emergency fire shelters,

The firefighters were members of a specialized Helitack crew trained to be transported by helicopter into remote areas to attack new and rapidly growing wildfires before they become larger incidents.

Two other firefighters who were with the crew suffered burn injuries and remained hospitalized in stable condition in the Denver area.

Officials said Watson worked for the newly created Wildland Fire Service, while Barker and Hutcherson were assigned to the U.S. Forest Service.

The crew was part of an interagency response to the Snyder Fire, which has burned about 44 square miles west of Grand Junction, Colorado.

Watson's death marks the first line-of-duty fatality within the Wildland Fire Service, which was established earlier this year within the Department of the Interior to coordinate firefighting efforts on public lands.

"The loss we experience here is not felt by just one agency. It is felt by an entire wildland fire community," U.S. Wildland Fire Service Chief Brian Fennessy said during a Monday news conference. "We grieve together, we support one another and we continue the mission together."

Fennessy declined to speculate on the circumstances that led the crew to become trapped but defended their actions.

"I will say the fact that they were there was, I'm 100% sure, based on good decision-making," he said. "They weren't being foolish. They weren't being careless. They were there because they thought they could do what needed to be done to suppress that fire."

Authorities said the firefighters attempted to protect themselves by deploying emergency fire shelters, which are designed as a last-resort survival tool when escape is no longer possible.

The tragedy occurred nearly 13 years after 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed while deploying similar shelters during the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona.

Federal investigators from the Forest Service and Wildland Fire Service are investigating the incident and are expected to make recommendations aimed at preventing similar tragedies.

To date, wildfires have burned more than 4,800 square miles nationwide, well above the 10-year average for this point in the season.

The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.