Carson City firefighter Perry Carlson watches as the Cannon Fire burns up to a fire break that is protecting homes in Walker, Calif. 90 miles south of Reno, Nev. Carson City firefighters responded to the fire sunday morning at around 2 a.m. and are expeccted to work a shift well into this morning. Photo by Brian Corley
An air tanker fighting a wildfire in the Sierra Nevada south of Carson City crashed Monday afternoon in a fireball, the Associated Press reported.
"An air tanker did go down in the Walker area east of Highway 395," said Laura Williams, spokeswoman for the Sierra Front Interagency Dispatch Center in Minden.
Firefighting air tankers typically have a crew of three, but there was no information yet on injuries or deaths.
The airplane was part of the effort to try to contain the fire that forced about 400 people to be evacuated from Walker, a Sierra resort town in a remote section of the Humbolt-Toiyabe National Forest about 60 miles south of Carson City.