Lighting sparked a small wildfire over the weekend in the South Lake Tahoe area, which went on to kill one firefighter and injure another, the U.S. Forest Service said Sunday.
The Sierra Fire ignited Saturday afternoon in rugged terrain south of Echo Summit in the Eldorado National Forest. The lightning followed a thunderstorm in the area west of the Sierra Crest.
The blaze reached about one-tenth of an acre and was 75 percent contained as of Saturday night.
Michael Hallenbeck, a 21-year-old member of Organized Crew 36 on the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, was struck by a tree at approximately 5:30 p.m. during the initial attack on the Sierra Fire, the U.S. Forest Service said in a statement Sunday. Efforts to resuscitate Hallenbeck, who was from Shingle Springs, Calif., were not successful.
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