09/11/2026
🔥 THE HISTORY OF CORONADO NATIONAL FOREST — BURNOVERS & WILDFIRE FATALITIES 🔥
Updated September 10, 2026
The Coronado National Forest encompasses approximately 1.78 million acres across southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. Unlike a single continuous forest, the Coronado is divided among isolated “sky island” mountain ranges—including the Santa Catalinas, Rincons, Santa Ritas, Huachucas, Chiricahuas, Pinaleños and several smaller ranges.
These steep mountains, broken access routes, rapidly changing winds and abrupt transitions from desert vegetation to timber have challenged generations of firefighters.
After an extensive review of federal accident records, Forest Service documents, aviation histories, newspaper archives, memorial records, lessons-learned reports, historical bibliographies and firsthand recollections, we have not yet verified a fatal ground-firefighter burnover occurring on Coronado National Forest land.
That finding must remain carefully worded. It does not prove that no historical burnover, entrapment or shelter deployment occurred. It means the records examined so far have not provided enough evidence to document one responsibly.
✈️ JUNE 27, 1974 — LINDSEY FIRE AIR TANKER CRASH
The most significant confirmed wildfire fatality event uncovered during this research occurred on the Lindsey Fire in the Pinaleño Mountains near Safford, Arizona.
The fire began as two lightning fires on the western side of the mountains. On June 26, dry winds estimated at 15 to 25 miles per hour pushed the fires together. Relative humidity was approximately six percent, and initial-attack forces were unable to contain either fire.
By the following morning, the merged fire had burned approximately 2,000 acres and was threatening 18 summer residences and a recreation area.
At approximately 7:25 a.m. on June 27, Tanker C50—a four-engine Convair P4Y-2 Privateer, registration N7237C—was conducting a low-level retardant run when it struck trees on a mountain slope near West Peak.
The aircraft was destroyed by impact and post-crash fire.
Pilot George H. Stell, 50, and his son, Gregory A. Stell, 22, were killed.
A newly recovered one-page National Transportation Safety Board accident brief identifies the case as LAX74FUJ73. The NTSB classified the flight as a fire-control slurry run and determined that the pilot in command misjudged terrain clearance. High terrain obstructions were listed as a contributing factor.
The brief records pilot information for a 50-year-old commercial pilot with approximately 12,000 total flight hours. It does not name the pilot in command or establish which man was manipulating the controls at impact.
A later crash-site account states that Gregory was flying. Because that statement is not confirmed by the available federal record, it should remain an attributed recollection—not a documented fact.
Later eyewitness and aviation accounts describe smoke-obscured terrain or a possible downdraft during the retardant run. Those details are plausible in the mountain-fire environment, but they were not included in the NTSB’s formal probable-cause finding.
Historical records identify the operator as SS&T Aerial Contractors. The aircraft was a former Navy PB4Y-2 Privateer, Bureau Number 59763, converted for aerial firefighting operations.
🔥 FIRE GROWTH AND SUPPRESSION
The aircraft fire burned into the main Lindsey Fire.
By late afternoon on June 27, the incident had grown to approximately 3,500 acres and reached the main east-west ridge. It subsequently moved from grass and chaparral into ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir above 8,000 feet.
By July 1, approximately 1,672 firefighters were working two 12-hour shifts. The Forest Service reported the fire controlled at 7:00 p.m. on July 2.
Contemporary reporting placed the final size at approximately 5,500 acres. The Forest Service reported suppression costs of $758,381 and estimated resource damage at approximately $11.1 million in 1974 dollars.
The accident is classified as a fatal wildfire aviation accident occurring on the Coronado National Forest—not as a ground-firefighter burnover.
🔥 LINDSEY OR LINDSAY?
Historical sources spell the incident name both ways.
The contemporary Forest Service account, newspaper coverage and several later references use “Lindsey Fire.” The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center uses “Lindsay Fire.”
Anyone researching this incident should search under both spellings.
The verified year is 1974. One later planning document identifies a “1975 Lindsay Fire scar,” but the NTSB record, Forest Service account, obituary and other supporting documents establish June 27, 1974, as the accident date.
✈️ JULY 10, 2021 — CEDAR BASIN FIRE AIRCRAFT ACCIDENT
A second aviation tragedy belongs in this history because it involved a Coronado National Forest employee, although the accident did not occur on the Coronado.
Air Tactical Group Supervisor Jeff Piechura, 62, and contract pilot Matthew Robert Miller, 48, were conducting fire reconnaissance and aviation command-and-control work over the Cedar Basin Fire near Wikieup, Arizona.
Their Beechcraft King Air C90, registration N3688P, broke apart in flight and crashed approximately one-half mile south of the fire. Both men were killed.
Jeff Piechura was an employee of the Coronado National Forest and a respected fire-service leader. Matthew Miller was an experienced contract fire pilot employed by Falcon Executive Aviation.
The NTSB determined that the left wing’s outboard section failed and separated after a fatigue crack developed in the lower spar cap. Contributing factors included the operator’s decision to repair the spar rather than replace it as recommended and an inspection that failed to detect the crack.
Because the Cedar Basin Fire occurred near Wikieup and not on the Coronado, this event is recorded separately as a Coronado personnel loss on assignment elsewhere.
🔥 MAJOR CORONADO FIRES REVIEWED
The research also examined several of the forest’s most significant modern fires:
• 1977 Carr Canyon Fire
• 1994 Rattlesnake Fire
• 2003 Aspen Fire
• 2004 Nuttall–Gibson Complex
• 2011 Horseshoe Two Fire
• 2017 Sawmill Fire
• 2017 Frye Fire
• 2018 Cumero Fire
• 2020 Bighorn Fire
None has yet produced documentation establishing a fatal ground-firefighter burnover for this history.
The Bighorn Fire reportedly involved seven injuries, but additional medical and safety documentation is needed before any injury can be classified as a burnover, entrapment or fire-shelter event.
🔥 NEW HISTORICAL LEADS
The latest research identified several Coronado-specific records that are not readily available online.
The most promising is a Forest Service document titled “Fire Control Activities from 1961–1972.” Although reportedly only two pages long, it could contain information about earlier accidents, entrapments or near misses.
Other newly identified records include:
• A 1942 history of the Coronado National Forest
• Charles R. Ames’s undated “Coronado History”
• Clyde W. Doran’s 1972 inventory of Coronado historical records
• Harry G. Little’s 1972 history of the Willcox Ranger District
• Ellen Predmore’s 1983 summary of Coronado history
• A 1964 oral-history interview with former Coronado Forest Supervisor Clyde W. Doran
• A Flight Test Museum photograph of Tanker 50, N7237C, taken in 1972
These records represent the next phase of the investigation.
🔥 LESSONS PRESERVED
The 1974 Lindsey Fire accident reinforces lessons that remain relevant to today’s aerial firefighting operations:
• Terrain clearance is a nonnegotiable safety margin.
• Smoke, rising terrain and mountain winds can rapidly eliminate escape options.
• Operational urgency must never outrun aircraft performance or crew safety.
• A drop can—and should—be declined or discontinued whenever conditions remove the necessary margin for survival.
• Eyewitness accounts can preserve important history, but recollections must be distinguished from formally documented findings.
• Aviation fatalities, ground burnovers, vehicle accidents and personnel losses occurring elsewhere must remain separately classified to protect the accuracy of the historical record.
This history remains open.
We will continue searching Forest Service files, historical newspapers, aviation records, oral histories, ranger-district reports and firsthand accounts for undocumented Coronado burnovers, entrapments, shelter deployments and wildfire fatalities.
If you know of an incident connected to the Coronado National Forest, please provide the incident name, year, location, ranger district, crew or agency, number of personnel involved and any supporting report, photograph, newspaper clipping or firsthand account.
Every verified story preserves a lesson. Every correction protects the integrity of the record. Every lesson carried forward may help the next firefighter recognize danger sooner and come home safely.
Stay alert, maintain situational awareness, keep your escape routes and safety zones current, and never allow the pressure of the mission to outrun the margin for survival.
Everyone goes home.
— Will Spyrison
Retired Division Chief, Angeles National Forest
InciNotes Administrator
