Fiery Van Crash Kills 8 Ore. Firefighters
Posted on: Sunday, 24 August 2003, 06:00 CDT
A van full of firefighters collided with a tractor-trailer and exploded in flames Sunday, killing all eight inside and injuring the two people in the truck.
The firefighters, all under the age of 23, were returning home to Oregon late Sunday afternoon when the van crashed on a remote eastern Oregon highway about 15 miles west of Vale, Malheur County Sheriff Andy Bentz said.
The firefighters worked for First Strike Environmental, a Roseburg-based contract firefighting company. Their names were not immediately available.
Fire coordinators said the van was coming back from a wildfire in the Boise National Forest about 25 miles northeast of the town of Cascade, Idaho. Wildfires have erupted in many parts of the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest this summer, but recent rains have helped firefighters gain ground on many of the blazes.
In June 2002, five firefighters in an Oregon-based contract crew were killed when their van overturned in Colorado near Parachute on the way to a fire near Denver. Nine Oregon firefighters were among the 14 killed in 1994 when fast-moving flames overtook them on Storm King Mountain in western Colorado.
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