Quinn Wilson
San Bernardino County Sun, Calif.
SAN BERNADINO, Calif. — The U.S. Forest Service is mourning the loss of a San Bernardino National Forest firefighter who died of a work-related illness in November, the agency said Tuesday.
Edward Godinez, 32, the acting air tanker base manager with the national forest, died on Nov. 13, the agency said. The Forest Service declined to release further details about his cause of death.
Godinez started in 2013 with the Forest Service as a contracted firefighter on the Angeles’ Roadrunner Crew before working in New Mexico with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency said. Godinez joined the San Bernardino National Forest as the air tanker base engineer in 2019 before being selected for the Air Tanker Base Manager duties.
https://www.facebook.com/SanBernardinoNF/posts/268755661942419
“He was loved and it will not be easy to summarize the impact he had on us all,” said Leslie Casavan, the National Airtanker Program Manager.
“He was a son, a brother, an uncle, a fiancé, a firefighter, a man of God ... and now he’s our angel,” Godinez’s family wrote in a statement to the National Forest.
A memorial service in Yucaipa was planned for Wednesday, Dec. 8, that will be livestreamed on the National Forest’s Facebook page at about 11 a.m., the agency said.
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