By Greg Kendall-Ball
The Abilene Reporter-News
BOISE, Idaho — Funeral services were held in Boise, Idaho, on Thursday for a firefighter who died last week while battling a wildfire near Mineral Wells. Caleb Hamm, 24, was a member of the Bureau of Land Management’s Bonneville Interagency Hotshot crew, based in Salt Lake City.
He lived in the Boise area when not fighting fires. His crew was working on the fire in triple-digit temperatures July 7 when Hamm collapsed. He died while being flown to a nearby hospital. The exact cause of death is not known, but it is believed extreme heat played a part.
Paul Ries, spokesman for theTexasForestService,said firefighters at the command post in Merkel were asked to remember Hamm at noon, the time the funeral was scheduled to begin.
Ries said Les Rogers, operations section chief with the Texas Lonestar Incident Management Team, flew to Boise for the funeral to represent the Texas Forest Service.
More than 200 wildland firefighters attended Hamm’s funeral, according to the Idaho Statesman newspaper.
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