The Associated Press is reporting that a wildland firefighter died Wednesday night in Mississippi.
Evan Batson, 34, worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Colorado on the San Juan National Forest’s Columbine Wildland Fire Module. The crew was on an assignment in Mississippi assisting with prescribed fires.
Mr. Batson and his co-workers had gone to dinner in Natchez. They were walking to a casino when he jumped a fence to take a shortcut from the top of a bluff to a grassy area, but he jumped too far. Natchez Police Department Cmdr. Scott Frye said the drop was about 100 feet down.
His co-workers, some of whom are EMTs, administered first aid along with the Natchez Fire Department.
“There was no motor vehicle access where he was,” Police Chief Joseph Daughtry said.
Later Mr. Batson was pronounced dead.
“His death occurred outside of work hours and is still under investigation,” said Lawrence Lujan, a spokesman for the US Forest Service. “Evan worked on the Payette, Medicine Bow-Routt, Manti La Sal, and San Juan National Forests as a career wildland firefighter during his tenure. We share this profound loss with Evan’s family, friends, and crew members and hold them in our thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.”
“The Columbine Wildland Fire Module (WFM) is a ten-person crew based out of the Columbine Ranger District of the San Juan National Forest. Columbine WFM is a resource that responds to fires locally, regionally, and nationally, and provides self-sufficient, highly skilled fire professionals to assist with wildland and prescribed fire operations, fire behavior and fire effects monitoring, hazard fuels reduction, and a range of other fire and resource related missions. Columbine has existed as an “initial attack” module since the early 2000s. With support from Forest Leadership working to expand the San Juan National Forest’s managed and prescribed fire programs, Columbine was reborn as a Wildland Fire Module in 2013.”
File photo of the Columbine Wildland Fire Module. USFS photo.
Our sincere condolences go out to Mr. Batson’s family, friends, and co-workers.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Mike and Scott.
Between 2011 and 2019 five people were killed while taking the test
Taking the Work Capacity Test
The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center put together the following information about serious incidents and fatalities that occurred while taking the Work Capacity Test, or Pack Test. Many agencies involved in wildland fire in the United States are required to administer the test to employees who respond to wildfires. There are three levels depending on the amount of physical activity required for the job. On-the-line firefighters are required to take the Arduous Level, known as the Pack Test, carrying 45 pounds for three miles in less than 45 minutes.
Do you think the Pack Test version of the Work Capacity Test required for many wildland firefighters in the United States adequately measures the capacity of a person to work as a wildland firefighter? (the test is carrying 45 pounds for 3 miles in 45 minutes)
The arrow points to the approximate location of the March 4, 2021 fatality in Kansas.
A report has surfaced showing that a property owner died while conducting a controlled burn on their property in Kansas.
It occurred March 4, 2021 on the “1400 and Julinn Road Fire” in Linn County about 8 miles north-northwest of Mound City.
An Incident Status Summary, ICS-209, for the fire completed March 15, 2021 shows that a report from the local Fire Department did not indicate if the person was killed directly by the fire or if there was a medical incident that led to the fatality.
Preliminary information from the Office of the Kansas State Fire Marshal said, “The victim was badly burned in the fire, and it was believed that he was [conducting the controlled burn], and the fire over took him…When he started the burning, winds were calm. They then [increased] with gusts to 24 MPH.”
The victim was found about two feet away from a shovel.
The weather at the time, according to the ICS-209, was 69 degrees, relative humidity 25 percent, with winds out of the southwest at 15 to 20 mph. The fire was burning in grass.
The name of the victim has not been released and the autopsy report has not been completed.
The accident occurred July 7, 2020 on the Polles Fire west of Payson, Arizona
Bryan Jeffery “BJ” Boatman
On July 7, 2020 a UH-1H helicopter crashed while transporting supplies to firefighters who were spiked out (camping) while working on the Polles Fire about 10 miles west of Payson, Arizona. The only person on board, pilot Bryan Jeffery “BJ” Boatman, 37, of Litchfield Park, Arizona was killed. We send our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Boatman, and to the forestry technicians who were at the fire.
The brief preliminary report issued by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) did not mention any obvious causes for the crash, which happened while transporting firefighters’ equipment in an external sling load. Multiple personnel on the ground observed the helicopter flying erratically until finally “it entered a steep nose up attitude and then descended rapidly,” according to the report. Fire personnel saw no signs of fire before the crash and all major structural components of the helicopter were accounted for at the accident site.
Polles Fire vicinity map
BJ was born on June 8, 1983 in Provo, Utah. He was a third-generation pilot and worked alongside his parents to build their company, Airwest Helicopters of Glendale, Arizona.
3-D map of the Polles Fire from data at 10:36 p.m. July 7, 2020; looking north.
The helicopter, N623PB, serial number 64-13689, was manufactured in 1964. It is a UH-1H registered to Aero Leasing in Glendale, Arizona, the same city where Air West Helicopters is located.
Airwest Helicopters photo, N623PB.
In addition to the preliminary report released by the NTSB, a 23-page facilitated learning analysis (FLA) was commissioned by the U.S. Forest Service.
The FLA is solely devoted to analyzing the response to the accident — the Incident Within an Incident and the actions taken in the following days. It does not address what caused the helicopter to crash. The report found very little to criticize and praised most of the actions that were taken. It goes into quite a bit of detail about how the fire’s Incident Management Team handled the emergency response during the first few hours, as well as organizing over the next several days to care for BJ’s family and the forestry technicians that were witnesses to the crash or were otherwise affected.
Anyone who could in the future find themselves in a similar unfortunate situation would benefit from reading this FLA. Firefighting is dangerous, in the air and on the ground, and others will have to walk this same path.
During a 49-day period that began July 7, 2020 there were six crashes of firefighting aircraft — three helicopters and three air tankers. In addition, three members of the crew of a C-130 from the U.S. died when their air tanker crashed January 23, 2020 while fighting a bushfire in New South Wales, Australia.
Below is the text from the narrative portion of the three-page NTSB report. The complete report which will analyze the cause, might be released within the next year.
“On July 7, 2020, about 1213 mountain standard time, a Bell/Garlick UH-1H helicopter, N623PB, was destroyed when it was involved in an accident near Payson, Arizona. The pilot was fatally injured. The helicopter was operated as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 133 external load flight.
Figure 1: Depiction of helicopter flight path based on witness statements. From the NTSB preliminary report.
“The helicopter was owned by Airwest Helicopters LLC and operated by the United States Forest Service at the time of the accident. According to witnesses, the helicopter was transporting supplies using a long line for a hotshot firefighting crew that were repositioning on the ground. The pilot transported three loads to the new destination uneventfully prior to the accident and had been using an indirect route to the north to avoid a fire area (Figure 1). While transporting the fourth load, witnesses observed the helicopter begin to fly erratically while en route to its destination. During this time, a witness stated that he observed the helicopter enter a high nose-up pitch attitude and the external payload began to swing. The helicopter then displayed irregular movements for several seconds before the external payload settled and the helicopter appeared to stabilize. However, after about 3 seconds, multiple witnesses observed The witnesses did not observe the helicopter on fire during the accident flight, nor did the pilot report any anomalies over the helicopter crew’s common air-to-ground radio frequency or any other assigned frequencies for the fire.
“The helicopter wreckage came to rest about 0.5 nm north of its drop off destination, oriented on a heading of 074° magnetic and was mostly consumed by postcrash fire. All major structural components of the helicopter were accounted for at the accident site. The helicopter’s external payload was found 123 ft southeast of the main wreckage.
“The wreckage was retained for further examination.”
Smoke from the Polles Fire, posted July 6, 2020. InciWeb.
Map of the Zogg Fire. The red dots represent heat detected by a satellite at 3 a.m. PDT Sept. 29, 2020. The red line was mapped by a fixed wing aircraft at 1:30 a.m. PDT Sept. 29, 2020.
CAL FIRE reports that the Zogg Fire southwest of Redding, California has killed three people and destroyed 146 structures.
The fire has burned at least 40,317 acres.
To see all articles on Wildfire Today about the Zogg Fire, including the most recent, click here.
And unrelated, a firefighter died in a vehicle accident while commuting home
Four members of firefighter’s family killed in structure fire
The wife and three children of a wildland firefighter were killed in Washington while he was deployed on a wildfire.
Marcaria Garcia-Martinez, 32, her daughters Luz Garcia-Martinez, 17, and Michelle Garcia-Martinez, 6, and son Luis Garcia-Martinez, 15, died in the early morning blaze on August 27. They had just moved and were spending their first night in the single-wide trailer in Benton City, Washington. When sheriff deputies and firefighters arrived the home was almost completely consumed. The radiant heat from the fire was so intense that a nearby trailer also ignited, but deputies were able to rescue the residents of that home. Firefighters put out the fire and found the family members’ bodies while searching the trailer.
Raul Garcia-Santos, Garcia-Martinez’s husband and the children’s father, was assigned to the Palmer Fire in north-central Washington which has burned about 18,000 acres four miles south of the Canadian border. The fire has not been updated on InciWeb since September 30.
Firefighter dies in vehicle accident while commuting home
Sara Madsen. USFS photo.
A firefighter on the Helena Hotshot crew was killed in a vehicle accident in Idaho while commuting home after a fire assignment.
From the U. S. Forest Service, Caribou-Targhee National Forest September 3, 2020:
“Sara Madsen was an incredible person with a vivacious personality and a love for the outdoors. She began working in natural resources in our very own Teton Valley as a Youth Conservation Corp member, later moving into the fire program where she served as a crewmember on the Caribou-Targhee National Forest’s Centennial Type 2 Initial Attack Hand Crew from 2017 to 2019. 2020 was her first year as part of the Helena Hot Shot crew with the Helena-Lewis and Clark National Forest. Our firefighting community is heartbroken over this tragic loss and our condolences go out to Sara’s family, friends and coworkers.”
The Idaho State Police released the following information:
“On September 2, 2020, at approximately 12:21 a.m., Idaho State Police investigated a single-vehicle crash on SH32 near milepost 25 south of Ashton, in Fremont County.
Sara Madsen, 24, of Tetonia, was driving eastbound on SH32 in a 1999 Ford Ranger when her vehicle went off the right shoulder of the roadway and overturned.
Madsen was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle. She succumbed to her injuries at the scene. Next of kin has been notified.”
Rest in peace, Sara Madsen, and the family of Raul Garcia-Santos.
