FAIRFIELD — A Hill City man was killed Thursday afternoon in an avalanche through the Chimney Creek area, 12 miles northwest of Fairfield, according to Camas County Sheriff David Sanders.

Shannon Wolf, 44, was on a snowmobile when the avalanche trapped him in six feet of snow, Sanders said. Rescuers were unable to revive Wolf after finding him and attempting cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Wolf was in a group of five snowmobilers when the snow began to slide, according to Sanders. Seeing that Wolf had disappeared, the four others converged on the site, using their avalanche beacons to locate their friend.

“Thank goodness they had them on … or they would have never been able to find him,” Sanders said Friday. “Those friends did an outstanding job to find him.”

Sanders said one of the riders, Hill City resident Chris Gunder, who worked for Wolf, climbed to the top of a nearby ridge and made the cell phone call for help. About 20 minutes later, the friends made a second call, saying they had found Wolf and had attempted CPR. Sanders said the sheriff’s office was notified around 3:40 p.m. Thursday.

The group transported Wolf half a mile to the crest of a hill where an air ambulance met them to take Wolf to a medical clinic in Fairfield, the sheriff said.

Wolf was married with four children, living in Hill City, just a short distance west of Fairfield. He was well known in farming for producing organic hay and grain for organic dairies.

“He was a great partner, and we had a wonderful relationship,” said business partner Lou Anderson Friday. “He’ll be missed by a lot of people, but especially by the people in that business.”

The incident reminded many locals of another Camas County avalanche in 2004, when University of Washington dean Marsha Landolt and her husband, Robert Busch, were killed after snow slid off the hillside near their Soldier Mountain cabin.

Camas County dispatcher Relva McGinnis went in to work early the day after the 2004 avalanche. She was also the dispatcher on duty when the call about Wolf came in Thursday

“It resurfaced a lot of memories, I’ll tell you that,” she said. “You hate to hear this about anybody, but when it’s somebody you knew and your kids have grown up with, it’s hard.”

The Forest Service and Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center in Ketchum are assessing the possibility of further avalanches in the area, Mike Dettori, Forest Service district ranger, said Friday.

“We gathered information from the air (Friday) and had avalanche experts here (Thursday) looking at the other side of the peak,” Dettori said. “The whole area from Fairfield and Ketchum on up to Stanley has lots of areas of concern, and it’s been that way for some time.”

Those planning trips into the backcountry are advised to check the avalanche report at sawtoothavalanche.com or call 622-8027.