The Gunnison County Sheriff's Office named the pilot who died fighting the Gold Mountain Fire as Nicholas Dale, 56, of Sooke, British Columbia [1]. Dale was flying a Kaman K-1200 that went down Sunday in Silver Jack Reservoir in southwestern Colorado; divers recovered his body from the water. He was the only person aboard.

On Monday a procession of law enforcement vehicles carried Dale's body from Gunnison to Grand Junction, past residents who lined the route. Governor Jared Polis ordered state flags to half-staff for a memorial service still to be scheduled. Dale, a contract pilot, leaves a wife and two children. His employer, Georgia-based Helicopter Express, which operates a fleet of nearly four dozen aircraft, called him a colleague whose "dedication, professionalism, and commitment to protecting others will never be forgotten" [1].

What the procession does not settle is why the aircraft fell. The Federal Aviation Administration's preliminary report says the K-1200 "crashed under unknown circumstances, becoming inverted." The National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation. A cause could take a year or more.

The images of the convoy invite a frame of sacrifice and solidarity, and the loss is real: the Gold Mountain Fire had burned about 57 square miles and stood at 11 percent contained on Monday. But the memorial and the accident finding are not the same thing. Mourning a pilot and knowing what killed him are separate acts, and only the second can tell other firefighting crews whether the same Kaman airframe is safe to fly tomorrow.

-- NORA WHITFIELD, Chicago