Silver Plume Fire Entrapment Fatality 1940

Jay Vaughn Paris, an 18-year-old Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crewmember, was entrapped and killed on a 300-acre Silver Plume Fire on the Lincoln National Forest, New Mexico. Paris was mobilized with a CCC handcrew from the camp at Tularosa to attack this fire. He was with three fellow crewmembers involved in suppressing spot fires when the fire ran towards them. An alternate account blames a firing operation on their entrapment. While Paris' three companions were able to escape, Paris became cut off and perished. 

Newspaper accounts note that the Tularosa CCC camp was under the control of the U. S. Grazing Service. The Grazing Service was combined with the General Land Office in 1946 to form the Bureau of Land Management.  

Other official documents reference this fatality incident as a case of a firefighter sleeping near the line. No other documentation substantiating this is readily available.

Entrapment, Fatality, Hand Crews