Two pilots die fighting Yosemite’s Dome Fire

Two helicopter pilots fighting the Dome Fire in Yosemite National Park were killed Sunday when their aircraft crashed during fire suppression work, federal officials said.

The pilots, whose names had not been publicly released, were the only people aboard the helicopter, U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Adrienne Freeman said. The Federal Aviation Administration said the crash happened around 3 p.m. and involved a Eurocopter AS32 helicopter.

The pilots were conducting water drops over the fire when the helicopter went down, according to the FAA. Benjamin Cossel, a spokesperson with the Federal Complex Incident Management Team overseeing the firefighting response, said the aircraft crashed southeast of Ostrander Lake. The Guardian reported the pilots were employed by Precision, an aerospace company, and were working with a wildland firefighting crew that specializes in helitack rappelling, a technique in which crews descend by rope from helicopters to reach terrain that is otherwise inaccessible.

Fly Precision said the pilots were members of its team.

“It is with unimaginable sadness and broken hearts that we share the loss of two beloved members of our team,” the company said in a statement Sunday. “We ask for privacy and compassion for their families and our team as we grieve this tremendous loss.”

Precision also wrote in a social media post, “We are devastated by this loss and are struggling to find the words.”

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. An NTSB spokesperson said investigators will go to the scene “when fire conditions allow” and that a preliminary report is expected within 30 days. Details about what led to the crash were not immediately released.

The Dome Fire started Sept. 15 in the Mariposa County area near Wawona, California, authorities said. By Monday, it had burned more than 3,000 acres and was 15% contained, according to wildfire officials. The National Interagency Fire Center said about 580 people were fighting the fire, which was burning across roughly 4.7 square miles, or 12.3 square kilometers.

Officials said the fire “continued to spread at a moderate rate of growth” and had moved farther into the footprint of the 2017 Empire Fire. Its cause remains under investigation.

The area where the helicopter went down is in rugged terrain where aircraft have played a significant role in the firefighting effort. The Guardian reported that Ostrander Lake is about 9 miles south of Yosemite’s El Capitan and about 7 miles northeast of Wawona.

The deaths add to a deadly year for wildfire crews in the United States. The Guardian, citing government reports, said at least 14 people have died while helping fight wildfires this year, the highest total since 2022, when 25 deaths were recorded. Among this year’s fatalities were three firefighters killed battling Colorado’s Knowles Fire; another member of that crew later died from injuries, in what The Guardian described as the deadliest entrapment in 13 years.