City of Prescott refuses to do the right thing

Yarnell Hill Fire, morning of June 30, 2013
Yarnell Hill Fire, morning of June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.

Paul Whitefield has written an editorial for the Los Angeles Times that criticizes the City of Prescott for giving full survivor benefits to the families of only 6 of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that died in the employ of the city while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30.

Below is an excerpt, but you should read the entire well-written editorial.

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“…As my Times colleague Cindy Carcamo writes:

It would cost the city an estimated $51 million over the next 60 years and would mean cuts to vital services to the people of Prescott, city spokesman Peter Wertheim said Thursday in a statement.

If the city were to make a one-time lump-sum payment of $24 million, it would be three times the entire budget of the Prescott Fire Department.

Excuse me, but when exactly did Prescott, Ariz., turn into Bangladesh? Brave young men die doing dangerous work protecting public and private property, and Prescott can’t “afford” to take care of their survivors? If that’s the case, then I’d say Prescott can’t “afford” to send such folks out to fight fires either.

And about that affordability explanation: If you’re so inclined, you can visit the city’s website and check out its financial position. For 2014, the city says it has about $230 million available; it’s budgeted about $173 million for expenditures. Hmmm. Is it just me, or does it appear the city could cough up a few bucks for some widows and their kids?”

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More information about this issue is in an article we published on August 15, 2013.

 

Thanks go out to Dick

Municipal issues still linger in Prescott after Yarnell Hill Fire

Granite Mountain Hotshots hike
Granite Mountain Hotshots hike to the Yarnell Hill fire June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.

The city of Prescott is being barraged with many questions about the different levels of compensation for the families of the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots that were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30. According to the Daily Courier, the city has hired the marketing consultant firm Up Agency for “pre-litigation strategic communications services to the City of Prescott.” The newspaper has a lengthy article that covers the financial issues, legislation being drafted to address some of the issues, and the reaction of Juliann Ashcraft, the widow of Hotshot Andrew Ashcraft.

The Daily Courier also has an article about a three-person fuels crew the city has hired that will be using grant money, some of which earlier went to fund the Granite Mountain Hotshots, to continue doing some of the fuels work in the city that the Hotshots had been conducting for years.

AZCentral has an article about the difficulty the city may face in continuing to obtain insurance coverage if they decide to rebuild the Hotshot crew. The city had been self-insured for years, but on June 1, less than a month before the fatalities, they obtained liability and workers’ compensation insurance through the Arizona Municipal Risk Retention Pool.

Wildfire briefing, August 9, 2013

Fire photos

We found two very impressive photos of smoke columns, on Instagram, here and here, plus a third one on Facebook.

A “row” over death benefits for families of Granite Mountain 19

As the UK-based Reuters news service reported, there is a “row” over the variable benefits that the Prescott Fire Department intends to give to the families of the 19 members of their department that were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire. The families of the six firefighters classified as full-time will receive additional financial benefits and lifetime health insurance from the city — much more than the 13 firefighters the department puts in the seasonal category.

Arizona House Speaker Andy Tobin is considering calling for a special session of the state legislature to debate a bill that would ensure that firefighters’ families, at least in this case, are fairly compensated when there are fatalities on state-protected land.

A video at Arizona Central describes the tense relationship between the families of the Granite Mountain 19 and the City of Prescott.

If you have not seen them yet, you need to view the video interviews with survivor Brendan McDonough that we posted earlier today.

Preparedness Level raised to 4

Today the National Interagency Fire Center raised the national Preparedness Level to 4, the criteria for which is:

Three or more Geographic Areas are experiencing incidents requiring Type 1 and 2 IMTs. Competition exists between Geographic Areas. Nationally, 60 percent of Type 1 and 2 IMTs and crews are committed.

Today, August 9, is later than last year for moving into PL 4. In 2012 we transitioned into PL 4 on June 27 and again on August 8.

Incident Management Team assigned to Elk Fire

Rich Harvey’s Type 1 Incident Management Team is mobilizing today to the Elk Fire on the Boise National Forest near Pine, Idaho. This morning there were four other Type 1 IMTeams and one NIMO team assigned to the following fires (Incident Commander’s name/Fire name):

  • Schulte/Big Windy Complex in Oregon
  • Kaslin/Silver Fire in California
  • Houseman (NIMO)/Lodgepole in Idaho
  • Poncin/Gold Pan Complex in Montana
  • McGowan/Salmon River Complex in California

There are also 14 Type 2 IMTeams committed.

Silver Fire grows to 16,000 acres in southern California

The Silver fire 60 miles east of Los Angeles has grown to 16,000 acres since it started August 7. The map below shows the fire’s location near Banning and Cabazon. More details about the fire.

Map of Silver Fire,
Map of Silver Fire, at 10:05 p.m. PDT, August 8, 2013. The squares represent heat detected on the fire. The red line is last month’s Mountain Fire which is contained. (click to enlarge)

Unfortunately another recent major fire in Arizona was also named “Silver”.

Smokey’s birthday

Smokey Bear is 69 years old today.

A quick glance at the image on the video below, before it starts, and you understand why some small children are scared when they see someone in a Smokey Bear costume.

Interview with Brendan McDonough, Granite Mountain Hotshots survivor

The Prescott Daily Courier spent about an hour talking with Brendan McDonough, the only member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to survive the Yarnell Hill Fire; 19 of them died on June 30 in Arizona when they were overrun by the fire.

In these two videos, each about eight minutes long, he seems to be dealing pretty well with the life-changing tragedy he is still experiencing. In them, and in the article at the Daily Courier, he provides a few more details than were previously known about the events that occurred before the entrapment. He talked about how he got to his lookout location (he was closer to the fire than the crew), his interaction with the Blue Ridge Hotshots, the warning they received about the weather changing, and moving the crew’s vehicles to a safe spot.

In the second video he said:

There was no bad decision made. No one’s at fault for what happened. And I’ll never forget that day… I was there. I know what happened. And there’s a lot of other people that were there that knew what happened — and it was just an accident. These things happen. It’s horrible that it happened, but it happened. This isn’t the first time a storm has come over and killed multiple firefighters.

The first video is about the fire. The other is more about his personal story.

In a related story, a video at Arizona Central describes the tense relationship between the families of the Granite Mountain 19 and the City of Prescott.

 

 

Thanks go out to Dick

Surviving Granite Mountain Hotshot interviewed by ABC

Brendan McDonough
Brendan McDonough, Photo courtesy of Brendan’s father, who placed the photo on his Facebook page.

The member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who survived the Yarnell Hill Fire after 19 other firefighters on the crew were killed, was recently interviewed by ABC. In one of the first times he has spoken in detail about the fatalities, Brendan McDonough talked with ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross. It was conducted in the Granite Mountain Hotshots station house and marked the first time Mr. McDonough had been inside it since the Yarnell Hill fire.

The interview will air today, August 7 on “Good Morning America” (7:00 a.m., ET), “World News with Diane Sawyer” (6:30 p.m., ET) and in late-night on “Nightline” (12:30 a.m., ET) on the ABC Television Network.

 

Thanks go out to Kari

Granite Mountain Hotshot widow Juliann Ashcraft fighting for denied benefits

The CBS Evening News on Monday ran this story about Juliann Ashcraft, the wife of one of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. She suddenly became the single mother of four children when her husband, Andrew, was killed along with 18 others from the crew June 30 on the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. Even though Mr. Ashcraft worked full time, the Prescott Fire Department said his wife is not entitled to the survivor benefits usually owed to a full time firefighter.

(The video may take a while to begin. If you can’t view it, visit the CBS site.)

In 2011 Andrew Ashcraft sent us some photos he took of the Las Conchas fire in northern New Mexico.

He also sent his wife some photos of the Yarnell Hill Fire an hour or two before the crew was overrun by the fire on June 30, 2013.

 

Thanks go out to Dick