{"id":138872,"date":"2026-07-13T13:53:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crash-of-a-helicopter-helping-to-fight-a-colorado-wildfire-leaves-the-pilot-dead\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T13:53:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T19:53:16","slug":"crash-of-a-helicopter-helping-to-fight-a-colorado-wildfire-leaves-the-pilot-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/crash-of-a-helicopter-helping-to-fight-a-colorado-wildfire-leaves-the-pilot-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash of a helicopter helping to fight a Colorado wildfire leaves the pilot dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Firefighters
Firefighters drive along Highway 550 as they try to access the Gold Mountain Fire on the town line of Ouray and Ridgeway, Colo., on Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Michael Seamans\/The Gazette via AP)<\/span>(Michael Seamans\/The Gazette via AP)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GUNNISON, Colo. (AP) \u2014 A helicopter helping fight a Colorado wildfire<\/a> has crashed into a reservoir, killing the pilot, authorities said.<\/p>\n

The aircraft was reported down Sunday in the Silver Jack Reservoir and the pilot’s body was recovered by divers. The Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office identified the pilot as 56-year-old Nicholas Dale of Sooke, British Columbia.<\/p>\n

The Federal Aviation Administration said the aircraft was a Kaman Aerospace K-1200 helicopter that \u201ccrashed under unknown circumstances, becoming inverted,\u201d according to its preliminary report.<\/p>\n

The pilot, the only person on board, was assisting firefighters with the 2-week-old Gold Mountain Fire, which has grown to about 57 square miles (148 square kilometers) in southwestern Colorado. It was 13% contained as of early Monday.<\/p>\n

The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation, the FAA said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Last week, wildland firefighters in Colorado gathered to pay tribute<\/a> to three of their own who died after they were trapped by flames<\/a> on the Colorado-Utah border.<\/p>\n

Many large fires<\/a> are still going strong across the West. They are scattered around Colorado, Utah and New Mexico while there are wildfires in eight other states \u2014 from Alaska to Arizona.<\/p>\n

Prolonged hot and dry conditions this week will bring fire weather concerns, the National Weather Service said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Firefighters drive along Highway 550 as they try to access the Gold Mountain Fire on the town line of Ouray and Ridgeway, Colo., on Sunday, June 28, 2026. (Michael Seamans\/The Gazette via AP)(Michael Seamans\/The Gazette via AP) GUNNISON, Colo. (AP) \u2014 A helicopter helping fight a Colorado wildfire has crashed into a reservoir, killing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5734],"tags":[],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-138872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-associated-press"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138872"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=138872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}