Helicopter crashes in Cascades

EASTON, Wash. – A helicopter with four people aboard crashed Thursday on the east slopes of the Cascades, and the resulting fire sparked a spreading wildfire in dry timber, authorities said.

All four were believed to have died, Kittitas County Undersheriff Clayton Myers said, but authorities could not confirm their fate because the fire was preventing them from reaching the helicopter.

Myers said the flight was believed to have originated from Boeing Field in Seattle.

The names of those on board were not immediately available.

“Fighting the fire is the priority right now,” Myers said.

Tom Little, of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the helicopter crashed shortly after 2 p.m.

By 7:30 p.m, the fire, burning three miles south of this Cascade foothills town, had grown to about 300 acres, according to Mark Grassel, a state Department of Natural Resources fire spokesman.

Crews in two helicopters and two tanker planes were fighting it Thursday night.

No homes were immediately threatened by the blaze, but Myers said an unoccupied cabin stood about a mile away.

Witnesses who heard the crash and climbed to a point where they could see the wreckage reported seeing the helicopter engulfed in flames and the fire spreading, Myers said.