Yarnell Fire Chief resigns

Jim Koile, Chief of the Yarnell Fire Department announced his resignation Tuesday, two years after being selected for the position.

Just a few days after the Chief of the Prescott Fire Department was forced out of his job, another Fire Chief with ties to the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona is leaving his job. Jim Koile, Chief of the Yarnell Fire Department announced his resignation Tuesday, two years after being selected for the position. According to the Daily Courier, some members of the community applauded when the resignation was disclosed at a Fire District Board meeting.

Some residents pointed out that on the day the Yarnell Hill Fire was discovered, which later killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, no firefighters on the department took any action on the fire, and Chief Koile turned down an offer from the nearby Peeples Fire Department for assistance.

The chief had also been criticized for not spending a $15,000 grant in 2012 for removing flammable vegetation around homes in the community. The report on the fire noted about the town, “overgrown yards and indefensible houses, and … limited options for a protection strategy”, as well as “…many structures were not defendable…. The fire destroyed over one hundred structures”.

But perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back was a story about his manslaughter conviction.

Below is an excerpt from an October 8, 2013 article in the Daily Courier:

In 1974, a Maricopa County jury convicted Koile of manslaughter in the death of 3-year-old Carla Kay Dahlstedt. Koile was a Mesa firefighter at the time.

According to court records, on Dec. 12, 1973, Koile said he spanked and pushed Carla, daughter of his live-in girlfriend, Alys Dahlstedt. The little girl hit her head on the edge of her crib and was knocked unconscious. Koile said he was disciplining Carla for lying.

Koile said he attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and cardiac massage, but he thought Carla was dead. Panicking, Koile drove the toddler to the desert, near the Mesa dump, where he buried her.

When Dahlstedt came home, Koile told her that Carla had been abducted or wandered away, court records stated.

Six hours after he buried the toddler’s body, Koile recanted his story to police and led them to the burial site.

As police dug up the little girl, they discovered she was still alive and transported her to the hospital, court records read. Carla died a day later from brain damage.

Superior Court Judge Charles Roush reduced Koile’s conviction to involuntary manslaughter after Dahlstedt pleaded for leniency.

 

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Author: Bill Gabbert

After working full time in wildland fire for 33 years, he continues to learn, and strives to be a Student of Fire.

11 thoughts on “Yarnell Fire Chief resigns”

  1. Just my opinion…. I think all of the white shirts in this incident, know a whole lot more than they are telling….

    Betcha Willis is next to tumble….

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  2. Wow that is chilling. In terms of people wanting to know whether ALL cell communications have been or will be examined to see whether GM got some communication that led to the decision to descend as they did, among other things, the skeleton in the closet of the Yarnell chief is a good reminder that people don’t always have angels on their shoulders when they make decisions.

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  3. The felony aside, it is unfair to lay the lack of defensible space around PRIVATE homes on the shoulders of the chief. He did fail to act, it appears, in being responsible enough to at least work on a mitigation and response plan for the community he was hire to protect. But, if we fired every chef that failed to do this, we would be down a lot of chiefs nationwide.

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    1. So is “being down a lot of Chiefs nationwide” all bad if we force the others to take the actions necessary to make fighting wildland fires safer in the WUI??

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      1. Not at all. It just doesn’t seem to be something important that even the IAFC is willing to advocate for.

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      2. In many areas, perhaps the majority, a fire chief or fire department has no right or authority to force compliance with codes on private, residential property. Some communities have been proactive and enacted WUI building and fire codes, but I think it’s pretty safe to say the vast majority have not. It’s not overly difficult to pass codes for public buildings or businesses open to the public, but very difficult to get anything passed requiring code compliance on private residences.

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        1. There’s definitely a need tor CA’s approach to defensible space to be applied across the West.

          Whether the chief was slack or not in that regard is a minor issue, though. What we do also know is that, as an adult already a firefighter, when faced in the past with a big mess, he not just panicked but lied to authorities and literally buried a still-breathing three year old girl. So cover-up has been a pattern he has displayed in the past. So, everything he may have possibly involved with in the case of the Yarnell fire has to be re-examined with this knowledge in mind. The official report on the Yarnell fire, for instance, did implicitly take the view that everyone was a person of goodwill. We need to go back and admit that it’s possible people may have lied, people may have covered up. That does not mean that DID happen, but it needs to be born in mind.

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    1. what does clearing brush from one’s property have to do with anything? This was originally EVEN on Sunday a containable fire that turned into a fierce one that if you eye-witnessed it like I did- this fire took down homes that were fire resistant made of stone and tin with a good defensible space yet the old home made of all wood with much brush around it still stands- the clearing had zip to do with the oddity of how this fire took down homes and kept some standing- sure it is good to have a good clearing and some believe their home is gone because a neighbor’s place was not cleared and that is facts in some parts to Glen Ilah yet how does one reach a private owner of land when all these years they assumed it was BLM or state land- This fire began on state land and ended on state land- and it should of never even reached ANY homes had it been handled correctly—that is facts-

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  4. The article doesnt state whether the Chief of the Yarnell Fire Department lost his job with the Mesa Fire Department after his manslaughter conviction.

    Emotions are still running high and from the comments some citizens dont understand how a large fire is mananged.

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  5. Someone failed to do their homework when they hired/appointed Kolie to be fire chief. Even happening 40 years ago this is not an acceptable event to overlook or ignor for such a position. Being a felony, it should be an immediate screen out factor for such a position of trust and responsibility.

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