The Associated Press
HAPPY CAMP, Calif. — A 77-year-old contract firefighter has died from injuries he suffered while battling a blaze in a Northern California forest last month.
The U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday that Curtis Hillman, of Happy Camp, died on Sept. 11 at Mercy Medical Center in Redding.
Forest Service spokesman Mike Ferris says Hillman sustained head injuries on Aug. 25 when he jumped or fell off a road grader in the Six Rivers National Forest near the Oregon border.
Hillman, a member of the Karuk Indian tribe, is the 15th firefighter to die from job-related causes in California this summer. Eleven were killed in a helicopter crash last month and three died in July—one of a heart attack, one after being struck by a falling tree and another of burns.