A Cal Fire engine rushing to a wildfire in Riverside County collided with a Mini Cooper in Hemet on Friday, killing the car’s driver and a 10-year-old boy. Three firefighters aboard the engine were hurt in the crash around 12:30 p.m., but all were later released from the hospital.
The engine was northbound on State Street with its emergency lights and siren on when it struck the sedan, which was headed west on Gibbel Road. The driver, a 43-year-old man from San Jacinto, died at the scene. The boy died later at Inland Valley Medical Center, while another young passenger in the back seat was hospitalized for a precautionary evaluation. Authorities did not identify the people in the Mini Cooper.
The engine was part of a strike team from the Tulare Unit in Visalia that had been sent to Southern California as several fires burned. It was responding to the Cranston fire, which had burned 2 acres in the Valle Vista community of Riverside County before being contained. The collision left the engine crew temporarily out of service at the same moment wildfire resources remained stretched across the region.
That the fire truck was using lights and siren and still ended in a fatal collision is now the central question for investigators, even as they say alcohol or drugs are not believed to have played a role. The crash remains under investigation, and the unanswered piece is what led the two vehicles into the same intersection at the same time.
For a crew sent to protect one community, the trip ended with two deaths and three firefighters needing medical care. For the families in the Mini Cooper, Friday’s crash turned a routine drive into the day’s most devastating scene in Hemet.
