More than 200 campers were trapped near a boat dock on Shaver Lake in California’s Fresno County over the Labor Day weekend, encircled by flames and a blinding wall of wildfire smoke.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Joseph Rosamond, piloting a California Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook, had already made the decision to try to put his helicopter down close by the desperate campers on Sept. 5.
So had CWO 5 Kipp Goding, pilot of a California Guard UH-60 Black Hawk, who had linked up with Rosamond’s aircraft and was trailing him to the scene, weaving through peaks rising to 7,000 feet and then dropping down to a valley leading to the dock.
“We were quickly running out of time,” Rosamond said.
