Our condolences to the Oustad, DePaolo, and Self families and the U.S. Forest Service of Klamath National Forest in
California. FireFighter Steven Oustad, 51, FireFighter Heather DePaolo, 29, and FireFighter John Self, 19, died Sunday July
28, 2002. Their crew-cab pickup with a 500-gallon water tank left a narrow roadway and rolled 800 feet down a steep slope
into a ravine in Happy Camp, 20 miles south of the Oregon border in the Klamath National Forest. Two other firefighters in
the pickup were airlifted to a nearby hospital.
Their U.S. Forest Service unit is based in Lassen County. The incident occured at 2AM on a narrow roadway - 11 feet wide - in
billowing black smoke conditions. They were monitoring a 500-acre backfire for the Stanza Fire.
