Fire Toll in N. California Climbs to 9
The toll taken by blazes throughout Northern California climbed on Friday as officials announced a ninth firefighter had died while battling a fire in the Klamath National Forest.
Fire official Lee Poague said Freddie Pahnemah, 38, of the Snow Band Strike Team No. 2 from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho, died Thursday night after collapsing on a fire line.
Other firefighters administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation for approximately two hours before a doctor at a fire camp medical center advised them to stop, Poague said.
Pahnemah had been carried on a litter to a helicopter landing spot near the northeast flank of the Strause fire, but a rotorcraft was unable to land because of poor visibility and steep terrain, Poague added.
Another firefighter, D. Lee Cullins, 31, of Arcata, died Tuesday when a fire roared back over his five-man crew in the Lauder fire, 22 miles northeast of Ukiah.
The incident was filmed by an inmate correctional officer, who turned it over to an investigating officer. The video tape was stuffed in the officer’s sleeping bag to protect it from the heat, but the bag was stolen from the officer’s vehicle when he stopped at the Lake County coroner’s office en route to have the tape duplicated, said county spokesman Jim Wattenburger.
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