Sugar Hill 3 Fire Vehicle Accident Fatality 1940

Tom Teston, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) enrollee at CCC Camp Hart Mountain (BF-4) was killed when the vehicle he was traveling in overturned. Teston and 22 others were enroute to the Sugar Hill #3 Fire, a large fire on the Modoc National Forest that had ignited August 1, 1940. The crew was traveling from their camp in Lakeview, Oregon, and was a short distance south of the California-Oregon border when the vehicle (likely a large uncovered flatbed truck) overturned, injuring 16 and killed Teston. Six of the injured required hospitalization.  Newspaper accounts list the cause of the crash as a missed turn in the road. According to California Historical Fire Perimeter Data maintained by CAL FIRE, the Sugar Hill #3 Fire was one of three large fires that summer in same area of the Fandango Valley in the Warner Mountains by Davis Creek. It burned a total of more than 20,000 acres.