Two helicopter pilots were killed on Sunday when their aircraft went down while conducting water-bucket drops on the Dome Fire near Yosemite National Park (a protected wilderness area in California's Sierra Nevada mountains). The Super Puma helicopter, operated by contract aviation company Precision, crashed southeast of Ostrander Lake — roughly nine miles south of Yosemite's El Capitan — while supporting a helitack rappelling crew fighting the blaze, which has burned approximately 4.7 square miles and remains only 15% contained. The crash is set to be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, and brings the total number of wildfire-related fatalities in the United States this year to at least 14, the highest annual toll since 2022.