John Maclean and a panel of firefighters talk about the Esperanza Fire

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Bill Gabbert

At the Rustic Theater in Idyllwild, California on March 8, not far from where the Esperanza Fire killed the five-member crew of U.S. Forest Service engine 57, John N. Maclean talked about his new book, The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder, and the Agony of Engine 57. A video recording of the presentation is on the C-SPAN web site. It is an hour and 21 minutes long, but if you are interested in the fire, it will be worth your while.

The video, which can’t be embedded here, includes Mr. Maclean’s talk which is followed by a brief statement from Norm Walker, a former Division Chief on the San Bernardino National Forest, who discussed the three investigations of the fire and how they all fit together, and didn’t in some ways. Then there is a period for questions from the audience, all of which generated very interesting answers from Mr. Maclean and a panel of firefighters who were on the fire.

If you are put off by the first speaker’s remarks, jump to 3:40 when Mr. Maclean’s presentation begins.

Mr. Maclean allowed us to publish an excerpt from his book in January.

Thanks go out to Kelly

USFS Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation talks about pyroterrorism

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Bill Gabbert

Robert Baird

The U.S. Forest Service’s Deputy Director of Fire and Aviation Management spoke about pyroterrorism in a keynote address at the Firehouse World conference in San Diego this week.

After serving in the Marine Corps for 25 years, mostly as a planner, Mr. Baird was appointed to his position in the Forest Service in November of 2011. While attending Marine Corps University he wrote a paper titled Pyroterrorism: The Threat of Arson Induced Forest Fires as a Terrorist Weapon, and an article on the same subject, Profiles in Pyroterrorism: Convergence of crime, terrorism and wildfire unleash as a weapon on population.

At the conference this week, according to Firehouse, Mr. Baird mentioned several incidents that could be classified as pyroterrorism, including the Japanese fire balloons during the second World War, the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the arson fires set by Raymond Lee Oyler, one of them being the Esperanza Fire that killed a 5-person USFS engine crew. He also referred to an article in an al Qaeda magazine that called for Western Muslims to wage war within the United States, urging them to engage in lone wolf attacks, including setting forest fires.

Below is an excerpt from the Firehouse article:

In 2004, the FBI came upon intelligence and issued an alert to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) suggesting that Al Queda had plans to start wildland fires in Montana, Wyoming, Utah and Colorado, Baird said, noting that all the material he was presenting was unclassified information and his interpretations and analysis were his own.

“I am not going to be some suit out of Washington, D.C., coming out here and telling you how to fight wildland fires,” said Baird, who added that his family in California was evacuated during the Camp Pendleton fire.

Esperanza Fire to become a movie

Posted on February 8, 2013 by Bill Gabbert

John N. Maclean announced on his Facebook page that his book The Esperanza Fire is slated to be adapted for a movie. He provided a link to an article in Variety which disclosed that Legendary Pictures has closed a deal to adapt it.

We talked with Mr. Maclean, who told us that while the deal has been signed, including the stipulation that he will serve as a consultant, there are many steps that have to be completed before it appears on the big screen. The producers must arrange for someone to write the screenplay, financing has to be arranged, and actors have to be signed — just to name a few.

The book is about the 2006 wildfire that Raymond Oyler lit which raced up a canyon in southern California and overran the five-person crew of U.S. Forest Service engine 57. All five crewmembers, who were protecting an unoccupied house, were killed. Oyler was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of arson, and 17 counts of using an incendiary device to start fires. He was sentenced to death.

We have an excerpt from the book in our January 21 article. It will be officially published on February 12, but is already available from Mr. Maclean’s web site, and each book will be personally autographed by him. It is also available at Amazon, but without the autograph.

Book published about Esperanza Fire

Posted on January 21, 2013 by Bill Gabbert

The book that John N. Maclean has been working on for years about the Esperanza Fire has been published. Titled The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57, it covers the 2006 wildfire that Raymond Oyler lit which raced up a canyon in southern California and overran the five-person crew of U.S. Forest Service engine 57. All five crewmembers, who were protecting an unoccupied house, were killed. Oyler was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder, 20 counts of arson, and 17 counts of using an incendiary device to start fires. He was sentenced to death.

The firefighters who died were engine Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild; engine operator Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; assistant engine operator Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; firefighter Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto; and firefighter Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley.

This extraordinary event, and the trial that followed, had a significant impact on many of us in the fire service.

Mr. Maclean’s other books about wildland fire, include Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal, and Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire (out of print but may be available at your local book store or at Mr. Maclean’s web site).

The new book, The Esperanza Fire, can be purchased now directly from Mr. Maclean’s web site, and each book will be personally autographed by him. It is also available at Amazon, but without the autograph. It may not be at your local book store until February 12.

If Mr. Maclean’s other books and the excerpt below are any indication, this new one will be difficult to put down.

With the permission of Mr. Maclean and the publisher, Counterpoint Press, we have an excerpt from the book below.

****

Introduction to the excerpt, written by John N. Maclean:

Just after midnight on October 26, 2006, an arsonist set a bundle of matches and a Marlboro cigarette, held together by a rubber band, into a patch of grass along a remote roadway in the Banning Pass, which connects Los Angeles with the desert communities to the east. The arsonist drove away, the cigarette burned down and ignited the matches, and the grass caught fire. That was the start of the Esperanza Fire, which eventually burned over 40,000 acres and destroyed over 30 homes and other structures. It also claimed the lives of the five-man crew of Forest Service Engine 57. The arson investigation led to the capital murder trial of Raymond Oyler, who was found guilty of arson and murder and sentenced to death.
Continue reading →

Google Earth shows air tanker over Esperanza Fire

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

A satellite photo of a P2V air tanker working on the Esperanza Fire, October 26, 2006. Google Earth. (click to enlarge)

One of our loyal readers, Lone Ranger, has alerted us to something he found on Google Earth while researching the Esperanza Fire — a satellite photo of a P2V air tanker flying over the fire, perhaps about to make a drop along a dozer line. Or, maybe it’s just orbiting. I was not able to find a shadow of the aircraft so it’s difficult to determine how far he was above the ground.

To check it out yourself, in Google Earth search for 33.844446 -116.845768

At the bottom-left, click on the year. That will cause a slider to appear at the upper left. Drag the slider over to 10/26/2006, then zoom in.

Esperanza fire, six years ago

Posted on October 27, 2012 by Bill Gabbert

It was six years ago that five U.S. Forest Service wildland firefighters died on the Esperanza fire near Cabazon, California on October 26, 2006. Killed were engine Capt. Mark Loutzenhiser, 44, of Idyllwild; engine operator Jess McLean, 27, of Beaumont; assistant engine operator Jason McKay, 27, of Phelan; and firefighter Daniel Hoover-Najera, 20, of San Jacinto. A fifth firefighter Pablo Cerda, 23, of Fountain Valley, who was injured along with the other four, passed away on October 31. The five firefighters comprised the crew of a wildland engine, Engine 57, from the San Bernardino National Forest. They were assigned to a state managed fire approximately 60 miles east of Los Angeles and were entrapped while protecting a structure.

Tim Walton of Photo 1 Productions has put together a video of some nighttime firefighting on the Esperanza fire.

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