TWISP, Wash. — Like thousands of other college students in the West, Tom Zbyszewski relished summers on the fire lines — it was outdoor work that paid, that was important, that gave him a little swagger when he returned to school in the fall. His parents, who had fought wildfires themselves, weren’t even nervous about it.

One more week, and Zbyszewski, a 20-year-old physics major with an acting bent, would have been back at Whitman College, telling stories.

Instead, flames driven by shifting winds overtook his crew after they crashed a vehicle Wednesday while fighting a wildfire in Washington state. Zbyszewski and two others were killed and four were injured, one critically.

“It’s what everybody does up here. It’s part of the culture,” his sobbing father, Richard, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Thursday night. “I fought fires for years and years and years — I never even got burned. I wish it was me. I’m an old man.”