The Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Fire Administration have released their annual report about the number of firefighter fatalities for 2012. This year their numbers for those killed on wildland fires are the same as those provided by the National Wildfire Coordination Group, which is not always the case.
According to the report:
In 2012, 15 firefighters were killed during activities involving brush, grass or wildland firefighting. This total includes part-time and seasonal wildland firefighters, full-time wildland firefighters, and municipal or volunteer firefighters whose deaths are related to a wildland fire.
Below are some graphics from the report:
As usual, for all firefighter deaths, wildland and other, the two leading causes, by far, were “stress/overexertion” and “vehicle collision”, accounting for 78 percent of all fatalities.
Granite Mountain Hotshots hike to the Yarnell Hill Fire, June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.
Outside Magazine has a lengthy article in their November issue about the last days of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who were killed when they were overrun by the Yarnell Hill Fire southeast of Prescott, Arizona on June 30, 2013.
Author Kyle Dickman obviously spent a lot of time interviewing Brendan “Donut” McDonough, the sole survivor from the crew, and several family members of the 19 hotshots. The article not only provides some personal information about some crew members and their spouses, but also has a few details about the fire suppression activities that has not yet been made public.
One of the devices used by the author was to tell us what some of the hotshots were thinking, or how they made decisions at key times. It was sometimes preceded by phrases such as “they would have been thinking…”, but it was distracting as I read it, since those firefighters died before they could tell anyone what they were thinking, or why they made certain decisions. Usually Mr. Dickman’s assumptions seemed logical, but he took a bold step by using that writing trick.
For the article, Mr. McDonough apparently provided some information about his actions on the fire as well as his conversations with the Granite Mountain crew leadership and the superintendent of the nearby Blue Ridge Hotshots the afternoon of the entrapment
Surprisingly the article includes a progression map, showing the spread of the fire at 10 to 20 minute intervals before the crew was trapped. It would be interesting to know the source of that very detailed information, or if Mr. McDonough was able to see all of the fire and remembered or recorded the data.
In the excerpt from the article below, “Eric” is Eric Marsh, the superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who during the Yarnell Hill Fire was serving as Division Supervisor for the geographic division which included the Granite Mountain Hotshots. “Donut”, Mr. McDonough, was away from the crew serving as a lookout, adding an element of safety for the crew by observing the location of the fire and taking hourly weather observations. The article explained that one of the reasons he was selected for that task was that he had just recovered from an illness, and the relatively light duty would give him another day to recover. The sad thing is, any firefighter would have trouble recovering from what was supposed to have been “light duty” that June 30 afternoon.
From Outside Magazine:
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“THE GRANITE MOUNTAIN crew could see Donut on the UTV racing across the flats. They could see the helicopters and air tankers pivoting from Peeples Valley to Yarnell and dozens of emergency vehicles, lights flashing, speeding down Highway 89 toward Glen Ilah, the subdivision where Truman lived. It would have been difficult for the hotshots, who had been trained to help however they can, to sit idly by and watch houses burn. They would have been thinking of their fellow firefighters placing themselves in harm’s way.
With conditions changing so dramatically, Eric and the crew’s leadership—[acting crew superintendent Captain Jesse] Steed, Clayton [Whitted], Travis [Carter], Robert [Caldwell]—would have gathered for a moment on the ridge to discuss their options while the other hotshots sat perched on white granite boulders watching the drama unfold.
Do we hunker down in the black and do nothing but watch Yarnell burn? Or do we head down there, do some point protection, and try to save a couple of homes? Eric would have made the decision. He couldn’t have imagined that, by heading for town, he was leading his crew toward a series of increasingly compromised circumstances, each more desperate than the last.
He radioed out that Granite Mountain was moving back toward Yarnell.”
After it was revealed that there was a large discrepancy between the survivor benefits for the families of full time and temporary firefighters on the Granite Mountain Hotshots, some members of Arizona’s legislature have been considering what, if any, action should be taken for the families of the 19 firefighters that were killed June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire, and for future fatalities.
A committee in the state’s House of Representatives is taking up the issue today. Alia Rau, a reporter for the Arizona Republic, will be live tweeting about the hearing Tuesday afternoon. You can follow her at @aliarau.
According to AZCentral, the bills the legislature is considering could cover an array of issues, including:
Who reimburses fire departments that helped fight the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Who helps pay for Yarnell infrastructure repairs.
Who pays death benefits in wildfire situations.
Whether seasonal first responders can participate in state retirement systems.
Whether there is a way to retroactively provide benefits to the 13 seasonal hotshots.
“Before the Yarnell fire, nobody thought we were doing anything wrong. We didn’t hear fire coming in saying ‘Our hotshots aren’t covered if something happens.’ We didn’t have cities saying, ‘If something happens, we’ll be in deep trouble,’ ” House Speaker Andy Tobin said. “This has been a punch in the gut. Now it’s time to talk about what we’ve learned from it and what our policy should be going forward.”
The 72-hour Preliminary Information Report for the fatality of Engine Captain Token Adams has been released. If you followed the search for Mr. Adams, who was missing for a week before his body was found on September 6, there is not much new in the report except for the mechanism of injury.
Preliminary analysis indicates Captain Adams was thrown from his ATV as he negotiated over a slight rise and then the ATV flipped onto Captain Adams resulting in fatal injuries.
When the search began, he was last seen on an all terrain vehicle attempting to find a reported fire.
The report below was issued by the Washington office of the U.S. Forest Service.
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“Date: September 13, 2013
Subject: 72 Hour Preliminary Information Report, Schoolhouse Mesa Fire Accident
Number and Type of Injuries: One fatality Name: Token Adams
On the afternoon of August 30th, 41 year old US Forest Service Engine Captain Token Adams was killed in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident while searching for a lightning caused fire. A Learning Review Team has been assigned to the incident and the review is underway.
Narrative:
Late in the afternoon of August 29th a crew member aboard a military aircraft reported a possible wildland fire. The location of the reported fire was estimated to be in Cebolitta Canyon on the Jemez Ranger district, Santa Fe National Forest, in the vicinity of an older fire that crews had believed to be no longer active.
At approximately 0900 on August 30th, three firefighters (Token Adams among them) responded to the general location of the reported smoke. Each of the firefighters brought an ATV. After a briefing concerning the search strategy they each separately began scouting the area. Their first mission was to confirm that the older fire was no longer active and a possible source of the smoke report. This mission was completed and the three met back at their trucks around 1030. Their second mission was to broaden their search area to locate the new fire. They discussed the broader search area and each left separately on their ATVs. Each communicated with each other periodically by two way radio to coordinate the search. Communications were also made with a lookout who was working on a nearby lookout tower and the Santa Fe Interagency Dispatch office.
At 1344, Captain Adams communicated by radio with other firefighters concerning the status of the search. After this time, calls to Captain Adams went unanswered. At about 1500 the new fire was located by one of the firefighters and he called, via radio, to Captain Adams and the third firefighter to respond to the new fire. With no response from Captain Adams, suppression on the new fire was halted and all efforts were then directed towards contacting and locating Captain Adams. Within three hours a formal Search and Rescue operation was ordered which involved numerous, volunteers, state, federal and local government personnel. His body and the ATV were found on September 6th.
Preliminary analysis indicates Captain Adams was thrown from his ATV as he negotiated over a slight rise and then the ATV flipped onto Captain Adams resulting in fatal injuries. Captain Adams was known to be a skilled ATV rider, he was properly trained and certified as an ATV operator, and he was wearing all appropriate personal protective equipment.
Flooding in Jamestown, Colorado. Photo by Boulder County Government.
Large numbers of firefighters and other emergency services personnel have been mobilized to assist with the severe flooding in Colorado. Two Type 2 Incident Management Teams in the Rocky Mountain Geographic Area, under Incident Commanders Dallas and Del Grosso, are working in Boulder and Larimer Counties, respectively. The IMTs reported Sunday evening they are working with 4 Type 1 crews, 5 Type 2 crews, caterers, miscellaneous overhead, and a total of 1,505 personnel which includes 245 responders from FEMA. The National Interagency Coordination Center Monday morning said 12 Type 1 crews have been dispatched.
When the weather allows, a massive evacuation effort using 15 helicopters is taking place, which is necessary because many roads and bridges have been washed out. Some of the helicopter evacuations were conducted at night by the Colorado National Guard using night vision equipment.
The weather over the weekend allowed only intermittent air operations but after 10 a.m. today improving conditions should allow hundreds of people to be brought out of areas isolated by damaged roads.
Helicopter service charging for rescues?
We can’t vouch for the validity of this video that was posted September 15, 2013, but the title is, “Colorado Flood Chopper Pilots Charging $1200 For Rescue”. Anyone know more about this?
This video from National Geographic’s site shows the interior of a forest fire that was shot in Canada’s Northwest Territory during the International Crown Fire Modelling Experiment. I would not want to depend on a fire shelter to protect me during conditions like this.
On the National Geographic site, one of the comments asked, “Can someone tell why the heck they are burning this forest in the first place?”
Franco Nogarin replied: “We burn this forest so that we can know exactly how fire behaves under certain conditions. Nature burned the forest regularly as a natural occurrence before we (humans) settled everywhere, So its not hurting anything to burn these sections of forest in the name of Science. The benefits are that we we have very precise information about how wildfire works, We know what prevention measures work and which dont under specific conditions. These are not things we want to learn by trial and error in out of control wildfires 😉 ”
In addition to fire behavior experiments, quite a bit of other research is conducted during these fires, including measuring the effects on personal protective equipment, fire shelters, and various types of building materials.
Below is a still photo from the experiment.
Northwest Crown Fire Modelling Experiment. USFS photo.
As usual, for all firefighter deaths, wildland and other, the two leading causes, by far, were “stress/overexertion” and “vehicle collision”, accounting for 78 percent of all fatalities.
