RENO — Two federal firefighters returning from a wildfire patrol in remote northern Nevada were killed in a truck crash, as crews battled blazes across the West.

Federal fire managers on Monday reported active fires in at least nine states.

In Nevada, a truck carrying Bureau of Land Management firefighters overturned while heading back Sunday evening from looking for lightning-sparked wildfires, killing two of them and injuring another near the Oregon state line.

Their names and other details of the crash on State Route 140 weren’t immediately made public.

The injured firefighter was flown by helicopter to a Reno hospital.

In Colorado, two men were accused of igniting a wildfire that damaged five houses and forced the evacuation of 2,000 people. They talked to a reporter about the blaze before they were arrested.

Jimmy Andrew Suggs, 28, and Zackary Ryan Kuykendall, 26, of Vinemont, Ala., didn’t properly extinguish a campfire, causing flames to flare up and spread in hot, windy weather Saturday, authorities said.

Gusty winds also threatened to fan the flames Monday.

Suggs and Kuykendall were arrested Sunday at an evacuation shelter. The pair and a woman camping with them told the Daily Camera newspaper of Boulder that they saw the fire soon after it started.

The fire has burned about a square mile in the foothills 20 miles west of Boulder.

In Utah, crews spotted an unauthorized drone over a southern Utah wildfire for the fifth time since it ignited nearly a month ago, stirring fears that firefighting aircraft could be at risk of a collision.

Megan Saylors, a spokeswoman for a team of agencies fighting the 3.6-square-mile fire about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, said the firefighters’ aircraft are critical in the battle against the flames burning on a steep ridge above the town of Pine Valley because access on the ground is limited.

Associated Press