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An example of a crew logo worn on hard hats and t-shirts. This is the logo of the Laguna Hotshots, created in 1974 by Kyle Rayon, wife of Howard Rayon, one of the Squad Bosses on the crew. The oak tree was chosen because it represented the trees most commonly found on the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California.

Like other wildland firefighter fatalities, the death of Captain Brian Hughes of the Arrowhead Hotshots last year during the felling of a hazardous tree has had an effect on many of the 15,000 wildland firefighters in the Federal government. As described in the report that was released last week, Captain Hughes and others on the crew did many things right while working to get the tree on the ground, but he ended up in an unfortunate location when the tree fell in an unexpected direction. Many firefighters can relate to that and may have been in similar situations, but had a better outcome.

Captain Kevin Mecham, a U.S. Forest Service employee and Captain on the Truckee Hotshots in Northern California, was motivated to put some of his ideas into a letter. It was intended to be read primarily by other Forest Service personnel, but we have his permission to publish it here. After the letter, below, we explain some of the acronyms, the names mentioned, and the issue regarding the “t-shirt mandate”.

My name is Kevin Mecham and I am a Captain on the Truckee Hotshots. I am writing this letter to provoke a larger discussion about wildfires and the Federal Employees whose lives are defined by them. I started fighting fire with the US Forest Service when I was 19. I was enrolled in a Natural Resources program and was aiming to have a career that was meaningful, conservation oriented, adventurous, in the great outdoors and contributed to something bigger than myself. I attended an employment outreach seminar where a Forest Service Firefighter spoke and I thought to myself “that sounds great, I’ll be outside, it sounds noble and it’ll be an adventure.” I didn’t know a single Firefighter. The thought of being a Firefighter had never crossed my mind; in fact when I was 12 my family almost lost our home in a wildfire and I remember driving through the flames with my Mom to escape and I was terrified. But, seven years later and I had become a passion driven, adventure seeking 19 year old and it sounded great.

15 fire seasons later a lot has changed. I am a husband, a father and my perception of the world has changed. Wildfires themselves have changed; size, severity and frequency have all increased. My career still parallels what I anticipated as a college student seeking a meaningful career. I am outside a lot, it is noble and it is definitely an adventure. I’ve worked on Engines, a Helitack module and two Hotshots Crews. It was Hotshoting that really resonated with me. I have enough pride and emotion about being a Hotshot that I could write more than anyone would ever want to read so I’ll keep it short. Just know that I have a lot of heart and a ton of pride in the people and places that developed me into the person that I am. But a lot has changed and what my younger self failed to foresee was the weight of the psychological toll of this profession and how unnecessarily exasperated it is by the Agency. Some of the psychological weight is part of the job. We work in the woods and the woods are an inherently dangerous place. Introduce fire, increased fuel loading, wilder deviations from weather norms, an ever expanding reach of the wildland urban interface, more state and local government working with a scale of fire and an environment they are unfamiliar with and we find ourselves in very dynamic and complex situations. But the single most vexing and compounding factor is that we are a conservation agency ran by politicians and science based academics that just happen to oversee the most effective and comprehensive wildland firefighting force in the world.

The catalyst of this letter is the line of duty death of friend and co-worker Daniel Laird and the WO and RO’s management of its Forestry Technicians. Our current management structure and its subsequent repercussions on our Firefighting workforce are not new problems. Line of Duty deaths are not new problems. But Dan’s death and the Agency’s structure have shone a glaring light on the implications of our current leadership organization. As these tragedies and issues hit closer and closer to home for the “boots on the ground” it makes the weight feel even heavier. The loss of Dan and the Agency’s proposed attempts at solving our problems: hiring / staffing, retention, fatigue management, work life balance and the aborted uniform t-shirt mandate illustrate our greatest obstacles. We are being managed by people that don’t have experience in our profession. There isn’t the necessary context to the commitment and sacrifice required to prepare for and work a tough fire season. Incident complexity has increased and demand has increased. When will the Agency embrace what we do on a daily basis? When will the Agency recognize what the public already expects of us? We invented wildland firefighting and yet the individuals making the decisions that impact us the gravest have never done our job. We have leadership attempting to manage fatigue when they don’t understand the complexities of our fatigue. I wouldn’t supervise a botany crew. I wouldn’t oversee a multi-million dollar budget. Ancient hunters wouldn’t select a gatherer to lead a hunt. How can we expect to succeed if we have people supervising in facets in which they have no experience? This is an illogical structure that would universally fail across all spectrums of humanity throughout time.

lodd prescribed fire Texas

Report released for tree strike fatality on the 2018 Ferguson Fire

The National Park Service has released the Serious Accident Investigation Factual Report for the accident in which Captain Brian Hughes of the Arrowhead Hotshots was killed last year. Captain Hughes died when a 105-foot tall Ponderosa Pine fell in an unexpected direction during a hazardous tree felling operation. It happened July 29, 2018 on the Ferguson Fire on the Sierra National Forest near Yosemite National Park in California.

Captain Hughes, number two in the chain of command on the crew, was in charge of the crew at the time since the Superintendent was at the Ferguson Fire Helibase at Mariposa Airport.

You can download the Factual Report and the Corrective Action Plan. Below are excerpts from both.

Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

…Brian returned to California in 2015 and became a captain of the Arrowhead Interagency Hotshot Crew. As a captain, Brian was a trusted leader and mentor who led by example, inspiring others to train hard and develop their skills. His crew looked up to him and loved him as a brother.

The Ferguson Fire was reported July 13.

[…]

The Arrowhead Hotshots arrived on scene July 16, having spent the previous month and a half working prescribed and wildland fires ranging from one to ten days long. The crew spent the next eight days working alongside other highly experienced hotshot crews to build and prepare a fire containment line for burnout operations designed to burn away the available fuel in a given area and keep the original fire from spreading.

By July 28, the day before the accident, the Ferguson Fire had grown to 53,657 acres and was burning across multiple jurisdictional boundaries. Hughes and IHC-1 Squad Leader were working along the edge of a spot fire on steep, rocky terrain in Division G and identified several hazard snags—dead trees that posed falling and fire risks. One stood out: a 57-inch wide, 105-foot tall ponderosa pine burning approximately 10 feet below its top and producing a steady stream of embers. With winds expected the next day, they agreed the snag posed a significant risk to keeping the fire contained and agreed it needed to come down.

The Arrowhead Hotshots lead sawyer started cutting the tree down on the morning of July 29 with help from Hughes, who temporarily stepped in for the sawyer’s less-experienced swamper. The rest of the crew staged in an area safely uphill.

Hughes and the sawyer intended for the tree to fall uphill into an opening between trees. Instead, the tree fell downhill, hitting the ground approximately 145 degrees from the intended lay. It grazed another standing dead snag as it fell and then rolled and/or bounced farther downhill, coming to rest against other snags and brush.

Hughes and the sawyer had discussed the felling operation in detail. Warnings were issued prior to cutting. They also identified two escape routes in case something went wrong.

As the tree began to fall, the sawyer saw which direction it was going and instinctively ran directly downhill, escaping injury.

Hughes however, had moved about 20 feet downhill before the tree fell and then ran into the primary escape route as the tree started falling and was fatally struck. He was found lying underneath the tree in a space between it and the ground.

Efforts to save Hughes’ life were made on scene by the sawyer, fellow firefighters, and paramedics on the ground and in the air. Despite these efforts, Hughes was pronounced dead as he was being flown to the Mariposa Helibase.

Excerpts (Actions) from the Corrective Action Plan: (The full plan includes responsible parties and due dates)

Propose to NWCG that beginning in Fiscal Year 19 the Hazard Tree and Tree Felling Subcommittee (HTTFSC) conduct an evaluation of the “Forest Service Chainsaw, Crosscut Saw and Axe Training-Developing a Thinking Sawyer” course for applicability within the interagency community as an updated NWCG S-212, Wildfire Chain Saws, course. Based on the evaluation NWCG could adopt the course as is or with modifications for S-212 and individual agencies could adopt and use as appropriate.
Propose to NWCG that beginning in Fiscal Year 19 the Hazard Tree and Tree Felling Subcommittee conduct an evaluation and gap analysis of tree falling options, felling procedures, training and current best practices and update applicable supervisory operations position training and position task books as appropriate, i.e. Single Resource Boss, Strike Team and Task Force Leader, and Division Supervisor.
Propose to NWCG the development of an Advanced Wildland Fire Chain Saws training course beginning in Fiscal Year 19 unless need negated by adoption of “Forest Service Chainsaw, Crosscut Saw, and Axe Training-Developing a Thinking Sawyer” course on interagency basis.
Propose to NWCG a Fiscal Year 19 review and revision, if necessary, to FAL3, FAL2, and FAL1 competency and currency evaluation processes managed by NWCG.
Propose USDA Forest Service National Technology and Development, in collaboration with the Western States Division of the National Institute For Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), conduct a study on effects of acute and cumulative fatigue on wildland firefighters and Incident Management personnel to include fatigue mitigation recommendations.
Complete assessment of effects of fatigue, stress, and sleep management on wildland firefighters and incident management personnel to include methods to prepare for and mitigate the effects of fatigue, cumulative stress, and traumatic stress.
Propose all wildland fire tree and chainsaw related accident reports since 2004 be reviewed, associated recommendations evaluated for redundancy or conflict, and the current implementation status of recommendations to assist in setting priority actions to reduce similar incidents.
Evaluate how changing environmental conditions, such as extensive tree mortality in the west, and more extreme wildfires, are being factored into procedural practices and implementation of wildland fire policy, strategies, and tactics by agency administrators and Incident Management Teams.
Assess and consider adoption of USDA, Forest Service Risk Informed Trade Off Analysis process incorporating geographically specific information on topography, fuels, and expected weather to inform decision makers during initial response and extended attack of wildfires.

Brian Hughes California Ferguson Fire hazardous tree lodd report

Plane crash kills three while mapping fires in B.C.

A small plane checking a fire that burned last year crashed in British Columbia Saturday May 4 killing three occupants. The pilot of the single engine Cessna 182 and two passengers died in the accident while one passenger survived and is being treated after being flown to a Vancouver hospital by a Joint Rescue Coordination Centre helicopter.

Precision Vectors was under contract to the British Columbia Wildfire Service to use airborne infrared equipment to check fires from 2018 for residual holdover heat that persisted through the winter. Two of the deceased have been identified, both affiliated with the company — Lorne Borgal the CEO and founder of Precision Vectors, and Amir Ilya Sedghi who provided data analysis.

The Transportation Safety Board confirmed that the aircraft went down about 57 miles north of Smithers, B.C.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families, friends, and coworkers.

British Columbia Canada lodd overwinter zombie fire

Three killed in plane crash while mapping fire in B.C.

The Transportation Safety Board confirmed that the aircraft went down about 57 miles north of Smithers, B.C.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families, friends, and coworkers.

British Columbia Canada lodd

Arkansas firefighter who had heart attack while responding, passes away

The U.S. Fire Administration has received notice of a firefighter fatality:

Michael Watkins
Driver/Engineer
Northeast Lakeside Fire Department
Mountain Home, Arkansas

On April 21, 2019, Driver/Engineer Michael Watkins was responding to a brush fire when he suffered a heart attack. He was immediately taken to the hospital where he passed away on April 24, 2019 at the age of 75. He had been a firefighter for 5 years.

A celebration of Mr. Watkins’ life will be held May 4 at First United Methodist Church, 605 W 6th St, Mountain Home, Arkansas.

Our sincere condolences go out to his family, friends, and co-workers.

lodd

Firefighter dies while responding to wildfire in South Dakota

A firefighter that was responding to the High Plains Fire five air miles south of Jewel Cave National Monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota has died.

Custer County Emergency Management reported that on April 17, 2019 Dwayne Hudson, a firefighter with the Argyle Fire Department, experienced a medical emergency while en route as a passenger in one of the vehicles. He was treated by fellow responders and the Custer Ambulance Service on scene and continued to be treated while being transported to Custer Regional Hospital. However, he did not survive.

The High Plains Fire started Wednesday afternoon from a lighting strike and as of Thursday morning had burned approximately 100 acres.

Our sincere condolences go out to Mr. Hudson’s family, friends, and coworkers.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Matt. Typos or errors, report them HERE.

High Plains Fire lodd South Dakota