Firefighter Mourned as Blaze Spreads

As a fire continued to burn in the Stanislaus National Forest on Monday, a recovery team retrieved the body of the first female California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection firefighter to die in the line of duty.

Eva Schicke, 24, a college basketball player and member of an elite helicopter fire attack team, died Sunday afternoon, officials said, shortly after she and the six other members of her crew arrived to fight the blaze. The cause of death remained unknown.

“This is a very difficult day for our department,” Jim Wright, the agency’s chief of fire protection, told reporters in Sacramento.

“It is just a reminder of the danger our firefighters face on a daily basis.”

The other firefighters on the team were treated for minor injuries Sunday and released. On Monday, they were debriefed by investigators trying to determine what happened.

By late Monday, the blaze had burned more than 800 acres. A joint federal-state investigation team looking into Schicke’s death had provided few answers, though officials said a preliminary report could be ready by Wednesday.

A resident of the town of Arnold and student at Cal State Stanislaus, Schicke and her crew members were on call at the Columbia Air Attack Base in Columbia, Calif., when the fire was reported about 12:45 p.m.

The blaze was burning about 12 miles east of Groveland, officials said, in steep, rocky terrain along the Tuolumne River. The crew’s helicopter lifted off about 2 p.m. and reached the fire a short time later.

Their job, officials said, was to aid other firefighters already working the blaze by digging a firebreak using hand tools.

Schicke, who had fought fires part time for 4 1/2 years, and the rest of the crew were on the ground less than an hour when they were overtaken by flames in a deep canyon, officials said. About the same time, fire officials monitoring weather conditions recorded a shift in the winds.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered flags to be flown at half-staff Monday in honor of Schicke.

“In the face of danger,” Schwarzenegger said, “Eva acted with courage and commitment, giving her life for the protection of her fellow Californians.”