Colin Nathaniel Scott, 23, was seen by his sister on Tuesday slipping and plunging into the hot spring near Pork Chop Geyser in the Norris Geyser Basin after straying some 225 yards from a wooden boardwalk created to prevent such accidents, according to park spokesman Morgan Warthin.
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Officials at Yellowstone National Park have confirmed that an OR man reported to have fallen in a hot spring Tuesday was killed, the park said Wednesday.
It is illegal to leave the boardwalks at any time, as the geological features they traverse are not only often deadly, but extremely sensitive to physical intrusion.
The Norris basin area was closed pending the search.
Officials say they confirmed Scott’s death but were using extreme caution in their efforts to recover his body. Scott worked there for about 20 months fielding questions from visitors, and his stint ended past year, she said.
Springs in the national park can reach near boiling under the thin layer of rock – reaching temperatures of 93C.
Mr Scott himself was described as “a very nice young man, a bright spirit” by a former manager. Rangers are navigating a unsafe landscape where boiling water flows beneath a fragile rock crust as they search for a man who reportedly fell into a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park.
Yellowstone’s awe-inspiring hot springs have claimed 22 lives since 1890, park officials told the AP, but Scott’s was the first thermal-related death in 16 years.
The crust that makes up the ground in parts of Yellowstone is formed when underground minerals dissolved by the high-temperature water are redeposited on or near the surface.
The boy sustained burns around his ankle and foot after his father, who had been carrying him, slipped in the park’s Upper Geyser Basin on Saturday.
In May, a Canadian film crew was accused of leaving an established boardwalk and stepping onto a geothermal feature where they snapped photos and took video of themselves.
Also last month, park authorities revealed they had to put down a bison calf after a Canadian tourist put it in his vehicle boot because he thought it looked cold.
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The calf was rejected its herd due to contact with people.
