GRANTS PASS, Ore. — An Oregon firefighter has died in a fall while on break from a wildfire in the southern Cascade Range.
Klamath County Sheriff Frank Skrah says 21-year-old Matthew David Goodnature of Phoenix, Oregon, was dead when another firefighter found him Tuesday evening near Four Mile Lake on the Fremont-Winema National Forest.
He had walked away from fire camp while on break. Skrah says Goodnature apparently lost his balance climbing over a rock and fell backward over a downed log, breaking his back.
He was working the Launch Fire, which is burning in lodgepole pine on the edge of the Sky Lakes Wilderness.
Fire spokesman Kevin Abel says it’s about 100 acres in size, and there was no estimate of containment. It’s considered a human-caused fire.
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