The U.S. Department of the Interior has honored four firefighters from the Bureau of Land Management in Montana for heroism with its departmental Valor Award.

Scott Meneely, Andrea Robinson, Steven Spellberg and Andrew Rishavy received Valor Awards for rescuing a pilot who had crashed in the path of a quickly advancing wildfire. They accepted their awards during a ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 13.

The four were members of a BLM engine crew that was working with two other crews to control a wildfire in Nevada on July 17, 2007. While creating a buffer between the Barrel Springs Fire and homes in Winnemucca, they saw a single-engine air tanker go down. The pilot, who had been attempting to make a retardant drop, became caught in a sudden crosswind and crashed.

They raced to the crash site and radioed for medical assistance but recognized that the pilot was in immediate danger from the fire. While some of the firefighters scrambled to slow the fire’s advance, others pulled the pilot to safety. The fire soon reached the plane and consumed it. Soaked in jet fuel, the pilot would not have survived without the quick action and bravery of the firefighters.

Meneely was the chief of the engine crew when the rescue occurred. He began working for BLM in 2006 but also worked for the Helena National Forest for several years previously. He lives in Lewistown, Mont.

Rishavy is from Alexandria, Minn., and coaches high-school cross-country skiing during the winter. He plans to return to the Zortman fire crew this year.

Spellberg’s home is in New England. He wil to return to Montana this summer for his second fire season with BLM.          

Robinson grew up in Zortman, Mont., and spent four seasons working for the Central Montana Fire Zone there. An employee of Air Methods, she flies the ambulance airplane for the Billings Clinic.