Two young elk hunters found dead a week after they went missing were killed by lightning, despite the lack of signs of trauma, a Colorado coroner said.

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The determination came several days after the bodies were discovered in the national forest near the Colorado-New Mexico border.

Andrew Porter, 25, of Asheville, North Carolina, and Ian Stasko, 25, of Salt Lake City, were reported missing when they failed to check in with family members on Sept. 12. An extensive search found the pair dead on Sept. 18 about two miles from the trailhead where their vehicle was parked, the Conejos County sheriff’s office reported.

In a preliminary statement, Conejos County Coroner Richard Martin said the men had no significant injuries, including burn marks.

But the full examination turned up a clue: a few slight burns — “like if you take a match and stick it on your arm,” Martin told the Colorado Sun.

That led him to believe that the men had been killed by lightning, though it had not directly struck them. Martin said the lightning probably struck a tree and continued into them.

He did not specify a cause of death, but said it was probably instantaneous.

An electrical charge entering the body can cause internal injury including cardiac arrest or arrhythmia. A victim could also be knocked forcefully to the ground, potentially causing head trauma.

The deaths of Porter and Stasko were the 15th and 16th lightning fatalities this year in the United States, according to the National Lightning Safety Council. They were the year’s second double fatality: Two teens were killed by lightning in July while fishing at a Georgia pond.

The southeastern states see the most lightning deaths, led by Florida, with 51 since 2015. Colorado has had 10 in that period.

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CALIFORNIA DEATHS

Since 2006, California has recorded nine deaths by lightning. They are:

2009: Tina Marie Bond, 40, walking to a bus in Fontana (San Bernardino County); MaryAnn Heald, 70, in her yard in Portola (Plumas County)

2012: Frank Baeta, 71, camping in Nevada County

2013: Christine Adrian, 66, camping near Dardanelle (Tuolumne County)

2014: Nick Fagnano, 20, swimming at Venice Beach

2015: Stephen Ermigarat, 62, checking on his mother’s Bakersfield house during a storm

2020: Eugene Arao, 47, jetskiing at Stampede Reservoir, north of Truckee

2021: Nicholas Torchia, 37, backpacking on the John Muir Trail near Florence Lake, in Fresno County

2022: Antonia Mendoza Chavez, 52, walking her dogs on a trail near the San Gabriel River in Pico Rivera (Los Angeles County). The pets died, too.