PIERRE, (KCCR) — The name of a Murdo firefighter has been released by the South Dakota Highway Patrol. The South Dakota Local And State Team or S-D LAST has also confirmed 37 year-old Nicholas Van Dam was killed July 26th while responding to the War Creek Fire in rural Jones County north of Draper. Van Dam served eight years with the Murdo Volunteer Fire Department where he held the Captain position for the last six years. Van Dam was driving a Murdo Fire Department apparatus north toward the fire around 6:50 Saturday night when the 1989 Ford Fire Tender he was driving left 279th Street and rolled over. Van Dam was not using a seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Services for Van Dam are set for Friday at one-pm at the Harold Thune Auditorium with burial at Murdo City Cemetery. South Dakota LAST is a volunteer organization to help rural fire departments cope with line-of-duty firefighter deaths. The War Creek fire has burned as of Tuesday over 26-hundred acres. According to the Great Plains Fire Information Center lists the cause of the fire as by a human.
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