Tag: fatality

After reviewing the “Accident Investigation: Factual Report” of the tree falling accident on the Dutch Creek Fire in which Andrew Palmer was killed, Wildfire Today compiled these findings, causal factors, and contributing factors from the document.

Findings

• EM-CAPT was given a line assignment without adequate supervision for the assigned task. FC2 failed to exercise proper supervisory control by allowing EM-CAPT to cut trees above EM-CAPT’s level of certification.
• Excessive motivation for EM to obtain a line assignment led to a series of inadequate communications and assumptions which subsequently led to a mismatch between resource request and resource assignment.
• A class C tree was felled by an unqualified sawyer. Escape routes/safety zones were not effectively utilized by FC1.
• There was insufficient pre-planning to integrate incident personnel and resources into the local emergency management system, taking into account local factors, including environmental conditions, to effectively manage a serious injury and the subsequent medical evacuation.
• Inadequate leadership, communication, and risk management resulted in a lack of clarity in communicating the severity of the injury, resource availability, and a failure to evaluate the most appropriate method of evacuation relative to risk exposure, resources required, and timeliness.
• The incident was operating with inaccurate or incomplete IAPs.
• The National Park Service fleet management procedures for quality control are inadequate to ensure mission ready condition of new wildland fire engines and to appropriately handle maintenance and repair issues.
• Iron Complex Ground Support failed to take appropriate measures to red tag EM’s engine.

Tree falling findings

• Tree 1 was a class C tree. The stump measured 36.7” in diameter at the point the cut was made.
• The highest saw qualification of any of the crew members present was that of a faller B.
• The undercut of Tree 1 was not cleaned sufficiently as to provide an adequate “hinge” to direct Tree 1 during the felling process.
• The undercut of Tree 1 exhibits two distinct horizontal (gunning) cuts and two sloping cuts. Multiple Dutchmen that would have altered the holding wood were also present.
• Tree 1 fell away from its intended lay due to lean, possible limb weight, and an inadequately cleaned undercut.
• Tree 1 appeared to have been a sound, green tree with no readily apparent defects that would have required it to be felled as a hazard tree.

Medical Treatment

Causal Factor

• Failure to adequately control FC1’s arterial bleeding of the left femur injury received during a tree falling accident resulted in death due to excessive blood loss.

Contributing factors

• There was inadequate accident scene command and control which led to a failure to communicate the extent and severity of the injuries and to evaluate the most appropriate evacuation method.
• There was a delay in delivering FC1 to definitive medical care because personnel involved in the incident focused on the use of air resources, most of which were unavailable due to the smoky conditions.

The accident report is HERE.

The widow of John Curry, who was killed during tree felling training in Florida on November 27, 2007, is suing the Volusia County Fire Services. Kristen Curry is claiming a “lack of training, instruction, preparation and warning” led to her husband’s death.

Wildfire Today covered this accident on April 7, 2009 when the report was issued:

Curry was 30 years old and had been a member of Volusia County Fire Services  for 10 months. He was training to be a member of the elite Firewalker Wildland Team and left behind a wife and two children.

The incident occurred during a training class at the Volusia County Fire Training Center near Datona Beach, Florida.

According to the report the trainees watched only 2 hours of a 4 hour training video. Then during tree felling field training, the cuts on an [18-inch] pine tree were not completed properly, causing the tree to fall in an unexpected direction.  It fell onto Curry’s escape route, killing him.  The report said there was no one at the training site to keep him from running where the tree eventually fell.

The State Fire Marshal’s office issued a Notice of violation for:

• Failure to provide adequate training to meet “Trained Commensurate to Duty” requirements.
• Failure to provide a safe workplace.

The State Fire Marshal’s report is available on our Documents page.

Kristen Curry is seeking compensation for the loss of her husband’s future “support and services”, as well as compensatory damages for her and her son’s mental pain and suffering.

The U. S. Fire Administration has issued their annual report about firefighter fatalities. A sizeable portion of the report deals with wildland firefighters. The cover photo is from the memorial service for the nine firefighters and pilots that died in the Iron 44 fire helicopter crash in northern California.

Here are some excerpts.

Wildland Firefighting Deaths

In 2008, 26 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 (Figure 5).

• Two firefighters died when their brush truck was involved in a noncollision fall due to structural collapse of a bridge they were crossing that had been undermined by fire.
• One firefighter was killed when the Single Engine Air Tanker (SEAT) he was piloting crashed.
• One firefighter died of a heart attack while riding in a grass truck responding to an outdoor fire.
• One firefighter died of multiple blunt trauma when he was struck by a vehicle entering the scene of a multiple vehicle collision. A contributing cause was heavy smoke from an outdoor fire and fog obscuring vision along the roadway. A sheriff’s deputy was also struck and killed and another deputy was injured in the incident.
• One firefighter died from a nontraumatic brain hemorrhage several hours after returning with his Strike Team from the scene of a wildland fire.
• One firefighter died when the medical helicopter he was being transported in collided with another medical helicopter, killing the firefighter and six others. The firefighter had been battling a fire on the north rim of the Grand Canyon National Park when he was bitten by an insect and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. While in the hospital, he suffered anaphylactic shock from the antibiotics being used to treat the insect bite and it became necessary for the firefighter to be flown to a larger medical center.
• One firefighter assigned the position of lookout on a wildland fire was helping carry hose up a hill when he experienced extreme fatigue and respiratory distress. He was transported to the hospital where he died the following day from a massive heart attack.
• One firefighter working tree felling operations was struck and injured by a tree. Due to heavy smoke conditions, the firefighter had to be carried a distance before he could be evacuated by a U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) helicopter. While being transported aboard the helicopter, the firefighter went into cardiac arrest and died.
• One firefighter, in preparation to assume management responsibility for a wildland fire, was scouting the area of operations when the fire spread quickly and burned over his position.
• Nine firefighters, including two pilots assigned to the Iron Complex fire, were killed when their helicopter experienced a loss of power to the main rotor during takeoff, and subsequently impacted trees and terrain.
• One firefighter died from a heart attack a short time after he returned home from fighting lightning-caused wildland fires.
• One firefighter died from injuries sustained from a fall while scouting a fire in extremely rough terrain and dangerous rock cliffs.
• One firefighter died from injuries sustained when he fell from a piece of heavy machinery while clearing fire breaks.
• Three firefighters, two pilots, and the crew chief of an air tanker under contract with the USFS, crashed moments after take-off.
• One firefighter collapsed and died from a heart attack while supervising a prison firefighting crew.

Thanks Dick