Former Smokejumper and Family Killed in Flash Floods
Posted: July 24, 2026
Former smokejumper Spencer Long (GAC-07) and four family members were killed on Friday, July 17, after flash floods barreled through a scenic Utah canyon where they’d been hiking. Long, his wife, Katrina, and their three sons, Reid, Thayne, and Gage, had arrived at the popular Sunglow Campground near the town of Bicknell around 11:30 a.m., and within hours were swept away by flooding caused by heavy rainfall.
Officials were called to the area at around 5 p.m. Friday, when a body was discovered in a flooded wash near the campground. The next day, authorities announced that search and rescue teams had recovered all five individuals.
The Longs lived in Provo, UT, where Spencer Long was a captain with the city’s fire department.
“We are absolutely heartbroken by the death of Captain Spencer Long and his family,” read a statement released by Provo Fire & Rescue. “Our thoughts are with his family, friends, and colleagues during this difficult time.”
A daughter, Lydia, was not on the hiking trip. Friends quickly set up a GoFundMe page to help support her through the tragedy’s aftermath.
The National Weather Service had issued a flash-flood watch for the area, emphasizing the potential for life-threatening dangers in slot canyons and washes. But friends of the family noted that the Longs may not have been aware that the threat applied to the area around Sunglow Campground.
Spencer Long enjoyed outdoor adventure and was drawn to the excitement and risk of smokejumping.
“For me, anything in my life and my personality, whatever the top is, that’s where I want to go, whatever’s the most extreme,” Long said in a YouTube video posted in 2021. “That’s just my nature. I saw [smokejumping], and I thought, that’s what I want to do.”
Long was a hotshot for two years before applying to the smokejumper program at several bases. Determined to get in, he drove hundreds of miles to each one so he could personally introduce himself.
It was during a break from a fire class in Provo that he got a phone call inviting him to join the smokejumper program in Grangeville. When class resumed, an elated Long stood up to tell the classroom what had just happened.
Long arrived in Grangeville for the fire season of 2007. He called rookie training in Missoula “the best time of my life and the hardest as well.” He had a total of three fire jumps, breaking his shoulder on a rock at the end of the final one.
He left the smokejumper program after that, returning to Utah, where he earned a degree in public emergency service management and built a career in fire. After further training as a paramedic, he was accepted into the Provo Fire Department.
He remained proud of his smokejumper service.
“To this day, if there’s one thing I could say about smokejumping…I would say it was one of the greatest achievements in my life, hands down,” he said in the YouTube video. “Besides being married and having kids.” –Jill Leger
