A female pilot died Wednesday afternoon after her plane crashed while she scooped up water for a nearby raging blaze in Helena, Montana.
The single-engine aircraft crashed shortly after noon on Hauser Reservoir on the Missouri River northeast of Helena.
The 45-year-old pilot did not survive the crash. Her identity is being withheld pending next-of-kin notification.
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“This is just coming in and flying and picking up water,” Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said.
“These are dangerous types of environments.
The aircraft was part of a crew battling the Horse Ridge Fire that ravaged nearly 450 acres of the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest since it started Tuesday.
