Much like the military special operations community, the aerial firefighting community is a tight-knit community, a family. Navy SEAL veteran and aerial firefighter Tim Sheehy joined us on the radio to pay his respects to the woman who gave her life fighting fire here in Montana this week.

In fact, Sheehy said he just ran into the pilot, who lost her life fighting the Horse Gulch Fire North of Helena, a few weeks ago and had a cup of coffee with her at the Denver airport.

Tim Sheehy: "We got a lot of brave pilots out there that put their lives on the line every single day to protect us, and this is a cost of it...great lady, great pilot, career pilot. It's a very hazardous environment that we operate in out there, and sometimes even the best pilots, you know- it's a tough world to fly in."

A while back, Sheehy started up the Montana Firefighter Fund to help Montana firefighters and families of wounded or fallen firefighters.

Tim Sheehy: Montana Firefighter Fund is a website. Also the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Both those organizations help aerial firefighters and their families in the wake of injuries and tragedies like this. If folks remember during the war, we had lots of great nonprofits that helped us warriors as we came home. The wars are over now, and now we have another group of young people out there doing the same thing- putting themselves between us and danger, so donate to protect them and help them out.

Click here if you'd like to support the Montana Firefighter Fund.

Full audio of our chat with Tim Sheehy is below. You can also find our update from Lewis & Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.

 

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