2008 wildland fire fatalities, entrapments, serious accidents

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s Safety and Health Working Team has issued a “2008 Safety Gram” which can be found HERE.

Below is the cover letter that was attached:

To: Chair, National Wildfire Coordinating Group

 

From: Chair, Safety and Health Working Team

Date: February 2, 2009

Subject: 2008 SAFETY GRAM

The 2008 SAFETY GRAM is attached. It summarizes reported wildland fire fatalities, burnovers/entrapments and other serious accidents for all wildland fire management organizations throughout the United States in 2008.

Twenty-five fatalities occurred in 2008 when employees were performing wildland fire management activities. This is a substantial increase from the nine fatalities that were reported in 2007. The 2008 fatalities are listed by category below:

  • Driving – 2: Two fatalities occurred while firefighters were responding to a wildland fire.
  • Entrapment/Burnover – 1: One fatality occurred while firefighter was doing fire reconnaissance.
  • Medical Emergencies – 3: Three fatalities have occurred; one responding to fire, two heart attacks while fighting fire.
  • Hazard Tree/Snag – 1: One fatality occurred; firefighter was struck by falling tree top.
  • Aviation – 14: One fatality occurred when a S.E.A.T. crashed. One fatality occurred in a medical helicopter mid-air collision. Nine fatalities occurred when an S-61N crashed and burned. Three fatalities occurred when a P2V retardant plane crashed and burned on take-off.
  • Other – 4: Two individuals (VFD and Deputy Sheriff) hit by semi while directing traffic near fire. One fatality occurred when firefighter fell from cliff while scouting fire. One fatality occurred when a grader operator jumped from equipment and sustained head injuries.

Accident prevention is enhanced when firefighters and fire managers are made aware of serious accidents that have occurred over the year and can identify where our future safety emphasis areas should be. Please provide wide distribution of the 2008 SAFETY GRAM to your respective agencies and organizations. The SHWT will also distribute the Safety Gram via NWCG Safety Alert System and post to the SHWT website.

 

Please feel free to contact me at (208) 387-5175 or michelle_ryerson at nifc.blm.gov if you have any questions or need additional information.

s/s Michelle G. Ryerson

Thanks Dick.

Another perspective of Engine 5 entrapment, Freeway fire

Wildfire Today previously reported on some of the details of the November 16 entrapment of Corona Fire Department’s Engine 5 on the Freeway Complex in southern California. The engine had a 4-person crew–three men and one woman. The woman, Anita Jackson, is originally from New Zealand and is a firefighter/paramedic for Corona. A New Zealand web site has her story. Here is an excerpt:

Anita’s mother, Barbara Bryan, described what happened in an email to the Hutt News.

Her daughter left Stokes Valley in 1999 to complete her paramedics degree at the University of California. She married and lives in Anaheim. She is a paramedic / fire fighter for the City of Corona (Los Angeles).

On November 16 (in the US, 9.23am on Saturday the 15th) the engine she was on fighting the wildfires was engulfed in flames when hurricane-force winds caused the blaze to change direction.

The engineer was able to climb up on the rig and use the master stream (a huge nozzle capable of releasing 1200 gallons per minute) to spray water around to try to buy them some time. With just 500 gallons in the tank it rapidly ran out, leaving them with no protection.

The heat was so intense that the hoses ignited and the tyres on the engine started to burn and melt. The captain radioed their position and all available helicopters with monsoon buckets and water-carrying aircraft were dispatched to the area.

A specialised bush fire engine was also sent to help.

The one protection hose they had been using was burnt rubber but Anita hadn’t realised it had melted and picked it up to move it. The rubber burnt through her gloves, leaving her with second-degree burns to her hands and no water to take away the heat. It was so hot that she couldn’t remove her glove to stop the burning and had to continue to work beyond the pain.

Even though she was wearing her specialised protective gear, her legs felt like they were on fire as the ground ignited around them. With no water left in the engine, they had to beat back the flames with shovels until help arrived. She said that although it was terrifying, no-one panicked they all stayed focused and in survival mode.

Barbara, husband Tony and Anita’s brother Paul in New Zealand were frantic when the news came through that Anita had been hurt.

But Barbara says Anita’s husband Jack reassured them that all four crew had got out and were being treated in hospital. Anita’s worst injury was burning to her throat, airway and lungs. She is healing well, but Barbara says her daughter has confided that the emotional scar will take a little longer.

“They all stayed totally positive throughout the ordeal but reality hit the following day when they realised just how lucky they were to survive,” she says.

Barbara is particularly proud that despite her own injuries, Anita wanted her crewmates one of whom had eye injuries checked out first.

“In her line of work Anita continually deals with injury and death and always says to her family that we can never be guaranteed of tomorrow,” Barbara says. “Although she is miles away she always remains in close contact with home.”

Anita’s husband told the family in New Zealand that despite the harrowing experience, she is anxious to get back to work as soon as she gets a medical clearance doing the job she loves, which is helping people.

Entrapped on Freeway Fire; Corona Engine 5

The Los Angeles times has the story about the engine crew that was entrapped on the Freeway Fire west of Corona, California. Here is an excerpt:

For the Corona Fire Department, that moment came at 9:23 a.m. Saturday, 22 minutes after the first 911 call reported a small brush fire in the vegetation off the 91 Freeway.

It was a distress call from Engine 5, the first truck to attack the blaze. Using a tactical frequency, the captain of the four-person crew — three men and a woman — cried out to battalion chief Mike Samuels, stationed on the freeway above:

“We’re completely surrounded. Send help.”

From his position, Samuels could see the flames tearing through the brush toward homes, pushed by 20 mph gusts of Santa Ana winds, the fire intensifying as it struck what he called “heavy fuels” — 8-foot-tall patches of oak and chaparral.

“I’ve been in the fire service 21 years, and I’ve never seen a fire move out that fast,” Samuels would say later.

Other trucks were attacking the fire and one of them, Brush One, was heading to protect homes. Samuels decided to divert it to rescue the crew of Engine 5.

As Brush One fought its way through black smoke and heat toward the encircled firefighters, Engine 5 stayed on the radio, awaiting help and using its training to survive. A common tactic in such a situation is for firefighters to “get in the black” — position themselves and their truck in an area that has already burned. To help, Samuels called in helicopter water drops.

The extrication of Engine 5 took 15 to 20 minutes, by Samuels’ estimate, and soon the four crew members were heading to hospitals for treatment of minor burns and smoke inhalation. They were all released that day.

LA City engine crews survive entrapment

Two engine crews from Los Angeles City Fire Department had a very close call on the Sesnon fire Monday morning. From the LA Times:

In an instant, flames surround L.A. fire crew

The captain of the trapped engine company faces life-and-death decisions as erratic winds fan canyon blaze. ‘The fire exploded and started raining embers . . . It was incredible,’ he says.

By Robert J. Lopez, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 15, 2008

It was one of those moments firefighters fear most.

Los Angeles Fire Capt. Scott Gould was riding inside Engine 228 as it maneuvered along a winding canyon above Porter Ranch. He was talking on the radio with Capt. Richard Brunson, who was just ahead in Engine 8.

Commanding the first two units to arrive at the Sesnon fire Monday morning, the captains were coordinating their assault on the wind-whipped blaze. What had been a half-acre fire only a few minutes earlier was now 20 acres and growing.

As Brunson reached the flames along Limekiln Canyon, Gould could see that a spot fire had broken out several hundred yards below. If the new fire got going, he recalled thinking, Brunson would be trapped. Gould and his crew pulled a hose from their engine and began trying to knock down the blaze.

In what seemed like only an instant, the two captains later recalled, flames were everywhere.

“The fire exploded and started raining embers all around that canyon,” Gould said Tuesday. “It was incredible. All the ridge lines were going up in flames.”

Brunson, meanwhile, faced another wall of fire, fanned by winds in excess of 30 mph. He decided to try pulling back a couple miles down the road, where he and his crew could join other units to protect structures and help with evacuations.

“We went into defensive mode,” he said.

But as he headed down the canyon, he saw that flames were beginning to devour brush all around Gould and his crew. Brunson jumped out of his engine and ran toward Gould.

“Drop your hose and leave!” he recalled shouting. “Get the hell out of here!”

Brunson’s engine led the way down the road as Gould and his crew jumped in the cab of their truck. But it was too late. It was as if incendiary bombs were exploding everywhere, Gould said.

“It just started spotting all around,” he said of the flames.

Gould weighed his options and knew they weren’t good. “Engine 228 is trapped,” he barked into his radio. “We’re surrounded.”

Firefighter Paul Clark, who was with Gould, said that the flames were on both sides of the road.

“It was safer to stay where we were,” he said.

Looking at his map book, Gould radioed in his coordinates and asked for a “priority” water drop. He and his three-man crew hunkered down in the cab of their engine as flames raced around them.

The smoke was so thick the crew could see only a few feet in front of them, and the water-dropping helicopter overhead couldn’t see them either.

“Can you spot the copter so we can get a drop on you?” Gould recalled the dispatcher asking.

For the next 15 minutes, Gould and his crew kept shifting their fire engine into small areas that were partially burned — offering a bit of protection — as the wind fanned the flames back and forth across the canyon.

“We were lucky because of the winds,” Clark said. “It didn’t light everything off at the same time.”

In the end, Gould said, it was the erratic winds that allowed his crew to escape.

They received word from the helicopter that the road was clear. He and his men made it out and spent the rest of the day fighting the Sesnon fire.
Photo by Louie

Injured firefighters tell others about the lessons learned

An excerpt from the Bismark Tribune, North Dakota

“Apr 13, 2008
By JAMES MacPHERSON
Associated Press Writer

As if the scarred flesh over a third of his body weren’t enough, Mark Keller got a tattoo to mark the day he and two other volunteer firefighters were burned while battling a grass fire in central North Dakota.

“It’s just a reminder to myself that I made it out alive,” said Keller, who is marking the third anniversary of the blaze that also injured firefighters Geremy Olson and James Meyer near Wilton, north of Bismarck.

The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, spokeswoman Jennifer Smith says 111 firefighters have died battling wildfires between 2003 and 2006, the most recent numbers available. The group does not keep injury statistics.

Those who survived the blazes, like Keller, Olson and Meyer, use their scars to teach others.

Keller’s tattoo above his right ankle depicts a fire department logo capped with flames, along with his name and those of his burned buddies. The tattoo, like his surgeries, is unfinished.

“I’ll add smoke to it later,” said Keller, 36, who also is a Burleigh County deputy.

The 2005 grass fire that injured Keller blackened a 6-mile-long swath near Wilton. It was traced to a pile of trees that had been smoldering undetected for nearly a month.

Meyer had been hired to burn the tree piles on his neighbor’s farm. He said he torched the dozen or so massive tree piles when the ground was covered with snow in March. When the ground dried out a month later, embers from the still-burning woodpile ignited grass, and the fire spread, he said.

The firefighters were hurt after the wind-driven fire engulfed them and the heat from the blaze sucked oxygen out of the air, killing the engine in the fire truck in which they were riding.

“I tried starting it three or four times and it wouldn’t kick over,” Keller recalled. “From there, it just got hotter and hotter and hotter. My brain told me to flee.”

Fire officials estimated that heat from the blaze topped 2,000 degrees – near the melting point of steel.

Keller was on fire when other firefighters rescued him, dousing him with water. He was the only one of the three who was not wearing full bunker gear – and he was the most seriously injured, suffering second- and third-degree burns to about 30 percent of his body.”

Additional details

Facing very large medical bills, Mark Keller sued the owner of the land where the fire started from the brush piles. After investigations, consultations with a wildland fire expert in a neighboring state, and negotiations, the lawsuit was settled out of court on January 18, 2007.