The Magic Valley Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho has recently run a series of articles about wildland fire. One of them published this week is about the Yarnell Hill Fire and is very critical of the investigations and the reports produced by the 60 people assigned to uncover what went wrong and why. The reporters interviewed many current and retired firefighters in developing the lengthy article.
Ted Putnam, a U.S. Forest Service retiree who participated in several fire investigations, in the article had a suggestion for firefighters that he thought would improve their chances of survival if they are entrapped in a wildfire — two firefighters get under two fire shelters that are layered, one shelter on top of the other.
The other articles in the series at the Times-News include an editorial about wildfire fatalities, an article about aging aviation resources (which has one or two factual errors), and a piece devoted to fire shelters, their history, development, and ideas for improvement.
Bill I went to there forum and they had a good video on the Storm king mountain and Yarnell fatality fires. I don’t know if they are going to release copies of it or not. I’ll let you know.