Fire authorities in California found a corpse in a burned out section of
forest while assessing the damage done by a forest fire. The deceased male 
was dressed in a full wet suit, complete with scuba tanks on his back, 
flippers, and facemask. A post-mortem revealed that the person died not from 
burns, but from massive internal injuries.

Dental records provided a positive identification. Investigators then set 
about to determine how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest 
fire. It was revealed that on the day of the fire, the person went for a 
diving trip off the coast some 20 miles from the forest. The firefighters, 
seeking to control the fire as quickly as possible, called in a fleet of 
helicopters with very large dip buckets. Water was dipped from the ocean and 
then flown to the forest fire and emptied.

You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like Flipper in the
Pacific, the next he was doing the breaststroke in a fire dip bucket 300 
feet in the air. Apparently he extinguished exactly 5’10” of the
fire. Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed.

This article was taken from the California Examiner, March 20, 1998.