Incident Name: Strause Fire on the Klamath National Forest
Date: 10/1/87
Personnel: Freddie Pahnemah
Age: 38
Agency/Organization: BIA, Snow Band Strike Team 2 from the Fort Hall Indian Reservation in Idaho
Position: firefighter
Summary: On October 1, 1987, Freddie Pahnemah of the Snow Band Strike Team 2 died after collapsing on the fireline at the border of the Klamath and Shasta-Trinity Forests. He suffered a fatal heart attack.
Maps
Part of the lightning-created firestorm of 1987 and a closeup of the Strause Fire boundaries, on the Shasta National Forest where it borders the Trinity and Klamath National Forests.
Reports, Documentation, Lessons Learned
- NWCG Safetygram for 1987 (single page excerpt)
- From a 10/3/87 Modesto Bee Article: 9th firefighter dies in state blazes
Other firefighters administered CPR for approximately 2 hours before a doctor at a fire camp medical center advised them to stop, spokesman Lee Pogue said.
Pahnemah had been carried on a litter to a helicopter landing spot near the northeast flank of the Strause Fire, but a helicopter was unable to land because of poor visibility and steep terrain, Pogue added.
- USFA Memorial Database: Freddie Pahnemah
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Wildlandfire.com Links:
- Hotlist: Facilities Bill has 1987 records.
Media Articles and Reports
- The Klamath Fire Siege began August 30 when 187 lightning fires occurred in the Klamath National Forest. Throughout September, 33 major fires were burning in the forest at the same time and were fought by as many as 8,530 firefighters from across the United States.
Photos, Videos, & Tributes
Contributors to this article: facilities bill, Mellie
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I was on this incident. I was a Redding Smokejumper sawyer on a 20 person smokejumper handcrew. We helicoptered in and cut line downhil. The BIA crews came in the next day. We started a firing operation at night and the BIA crews were to hold line uphill, behind the jumper firing teams. They didn’t have saws with them so I was detailed to go back and hold line with them. The backfire took off and ran uphill through a large patch of unburned brush and back over our line where we were. Our only escape route was uphill to an old airtanker drop from the afternoon before. When the crew bosses counted heads. they knew this fellow was missing. His buddies carried him back to helispot in a stokes litter, doing CPR the wqhole while until the fire camp doctor told them to stop.I never knew his name until I looked it up today. RIP, comrade.
Thank you for the account of what happened Joe, and glad we could tell you more about the person. We don’t have good location for this incident, perhaps you could also tell us where exactly the Strause fire was.
I’m sorry but I just don’t remember. Maybe I’ll get an FS map of the KNF and try to find it again. 1987 was a crazy year – the busiest fire year I ever experienced in 22 years on the job. I did remember flying over the Strause firelines later in the fall, on our way to jump another fire on the Klamath. I remember how things were already starting to green up inside the fireline.
Hi Joe, I found the fire, made a screen capture, and entered it. Thanks so much for the reply. It looks like the fire might have been on the Trinity National Forest (SHF) not the Klamath (KNF)? Freddie was carried by litter to a LZ on the north side of the fire. Extremely rugged country for that kind of extraction and iffy helicopter pickup due to regular smoke inversion.
thanks for the map, Mellie. I remember flying over the firelines later on that year, on our way to jump another fire north of their. Steep, rugged, forsaken.