The Battlement Creek Fire of 1976 began after severe lightning storms passed through the Parachute and Morrisania communities on July 11, 1976, with concentrated strikes around the Eames Orchard area of Morrisania Mesa. A fire reported there on July 12 was held to a half-acre by the Grand Valley Volunteer Fire Department and was declared under control, and a spotter plane later confirmed it was out. Another lightning storm that evening brought a new fire south of Eames Orchard, and firefighters worked into the early hours of July 13 to control it. After several days of monitoring for flare-ups, smoke was spotted again on July 15 in the Eames Orchard area, and rising winds drove the fire into sagebrush and cheatgrass until on-scene crews were overwhelmed. Before it was finally declared out, three air tankers, three helitack crews, several twenty-person crews, and other resources totaling 300 persons fought the blaze. The fire burned 880 acres of private and BLM land, threatened the community of Morrisania, posed a possible threat to oil and gas wells and the Rulison Project blast site, and spread rapidly through cheatgrass, sagebrush, mountain mahogany, serviceberry, pinyon pine, juniper, and especially Gambel's oak, much of whose foliage had been killed by a late June frost. The fire was contained on July 18 at 1800 hours with help from heavy rain, declared under control on July 19, and declared out on July 20, after which reclamation began. During the firefighting effort, T-56, a modified Douglas B-26 aerial firefighting aircraft owned and piloted by Donald Goodman of Missoula, Montana, was called from Denver and joined two other aircraft dropping retardant on the fire. On July 16, after departing Walker Field with 900 gallons of fire retardant and joining a lead aircraft over the fire, T-56 crashed into an 8400-foot ridge while lining up for a drop run, exploded on impact, and killed Goodman. On July 17, a twenty-man Mormon Lake Hotshot Crew from the Coconino National Forest worked on the fire's critical ridgetop, where a burnout operation in dense Gambel's oak created heavy smoke and separated a burnout squad from the safety zone. As fire-induced winds increased and smoke and flames blocked escape, four members of the squad used survival techniques and lay face down along the fire line without fire shelters, but the fire overran them at about 1440 to 1445 hours. Crew boss Anthony A. Czak, crewmen Scott L. Nelson and Stephen H. Furey were killed, and squad boss John C. Gibson was severely burned and later recovered.