At a concert in Enumclaw benefitting the Wildland Firefighter Foundation Sunday, Director Burk Minor got a call about an Okanogan County fire chief that was badly burned in the Spring Coulee Fire.
"I was ready to go on stage with 10,000 people and a burn survivor right next to me and getting the call about another one, it took me back to ground zero with that," Minor said.
Christian Johnson suffered second- and third-degree burns to at least half of his body. He's the assistant chief of Okanogan County Fire District 3. Investigators don't yet know how he was burned. The fire was contained within 90 minutes and burned about 150 acres.
The burn survivor Minor was next to at the time of the call was Daniel Lyon, the Twisp River Fire survivor who recently carried the Wildland Firefighter Foundation to the top of Mount Rainier on the week that marked four years since his own tragedy.