Wildland firefighters are mourning the loss of a dedicated colleague.
J. Hank Hester, 70, of Priest River, Idaho, was removing hazardous trees when he suffered a cardiac emergency.
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him, but they couldn't revive him. Hester was pronounced dead at the scene, KUTV reported.
"Hank is a member of our wildfire family and will be deeply missed," Incident Command Matt Rau said.
Bobbi Scopa, a retired firefighter and incident manager who serves as an advocate with the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters group, said that losses like this add to the difficulty of the job.
"The impacts of these kinds of fire seasons on everyone's mental health is severe. Our folks are suffering," she said.
With fire seasons growing in length and firefighters working long shifts for several weeks, they aren't getting time to recover.
The fire has burned more than 145,000 acres and is now 80% contained. Nearly 600 personnel are assigned to the incident.
