A large wildfire in Utah is preventing emergency responders from safely reaching the remote site of a helicopter crash that occurred on Friday, according to infohub.kz.
The crash of a Sikorsky Skycrane helicopter in Utah's Fishlake National Forest on Friday morning ignited a new fire that merged with an existing blaze, which has now scorched nearly 174 square miles (nearly 451 square kilometers).
Officials battling the fire said Saturday afternoon that they decided not to put additional lives at risk until the fire is more under control, so they have not been able to confirm the status of the two people aboard the helicopter. The National Interagency Fire Center reported that the pilot and crewmember were fatally injured in the crash, but they did not immediately respond to questions about the source of that information.
"The site is now inside the fire perimeter itself," the fire incident management team said Saturday afternoon. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) will investigate the crash once their team can examine the wreckage. Officials urged the public not to speculate or spread rumors about the cause at this early stage. It will likely take the NTSB a year or more to determine the cause.
In Washington state, the National Park Service closed access to the Sunrise and White River areas of Mount Rainier National Park after a new wildfire burned less than a third of a square mile (less than a square kilometer). Firefighters were working to gain control of that fire on Saturday.
The larger fires near Spokane have now burned more than 15.63 square miles (over 40 square kilometers), but firefighters have constructed more than 75 miles (over 120 kilometers) of containment lines to help control those flames.