Reuters: U.S.: Idaho smokejumper dies in parachute training drill

Reuters: U.S. Reuters.com is your source for breaking news, business, financial and investing news, including personal finance and stocks. Reuters is the leading global provider of news, financial information and technology solutions to the world's media, financial institutions, businesses and individuals. // via fulltextrssfeed.com

Learn to create beautiful cakes from your kitchen. Whether you are doing this for fun or to start a new business, this course provides the simple techniques needed to decorate a cake like a pro. From our sponsors

Idaho smokejumper dies in parachute training drill Sep 29th 2013, 00:54 By Laura Zuckerman SALMON, Idaho | Sat Sep 28, 2013 8:54pm EDT SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - A veteran smokejumper for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has died after parachuting from a plane during a training exercise in Idaho, the first such accident in 13 years, an agency spokesman said on Saturday. It was unclear if an equipment flaw, medical emergency or weather conditions caused the death on Friday of Mark Urban, 40, of Boise, said Bureau of Land Management spokesman Ken Frederick. Urban was one of a team of highly skilled federal firefighters jumping from a plane about 45 miles east of Boise in an exercise designed to maintain their parachuting proficiency, Frederick said. Urban was the second firefighter to jump out of the aircraft during the practice "when something - we don't know what - went wrong," he said. An investigation of the incident by U.S. fire managers was under way, he said. A paramedic pronounced Urban dead near a landing site outside the agricultural community of Prairie, Idaho. It was the first fatal accident in 13 years involving a Bureau of Land Management smokejumper engaged in a proficiency drill. In 2000, an agency smokejumper leaped from a plane to his death in Alaska after his parachute malfunctioned, Frederick said. The incident on Friday brings to 33 the number of U.S. wildland firefighters who have died on the job so far this year. Urban was a 10-year veteran and trainer with a bureau base in Boise with roughly 80 smokejumpers, who parachute into remote and rugged terrain to fight fires. The 450 smokejumpers with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are seasonally required to parachute from planes at least once every two weeks to hone their skills. Urban had tallied 324 jumps, including 102 into fires, since joining the Great Basin Smokejumpers in 2003. "It's tragic. He was a very popular and well-respected member of the crew and everyone has been hit hard by his death," he said. (Reporting by Laura Zuckerman, Editing by Jane Sutton and Paul Simao) Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com. If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions