Two water tenders rolled over while working on wildfires in California and Oregon earlier this month. According to the very brief Rapid Lesson Sharing reports filed with the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, there were no serious injuries. No assumptions were made about the cause of either accident, and road conditions were not mentioned as being an issue.
The first occurred on the Ferguson Fire in California August 10, 2018. The brief report can be downloaded here.
The other rollover occurred two days later on August 12 on the Miles Fire in Oregon. (brief report)
This is one of 51 articles we have written on Wildfire Today about rollovers of vehicles on wildland fires. They occur far too often.
It is not always possible to point to a single cause of many of these sometimes fatal accidents. But challenges facing drivers of emergency vehicles on wildland fires include visibility due to smoke or dust, long hours leading to fatigue, low standard or inadequately maintained roads, distractions, skills needed to drive a large heavy vehicle, top-heavy vehicles, weights exceeding manufacturer’s GVW rating, and shifting of weight caused by partial loads of water in the tank.
Of the 440 fatalities on wildland fires from 1990 through 2014, 22 percent were related to vehicle accidents.
The Rapid Lesson Sharing report for the accident on the Miles Fire reached this conclusion:
Statistics show that the biggest risk to firefighters today is the mundane task of driving to and from the worksite. Often, the function of driving is accompanied by fatigue from the day’s events and thoughts of what is yet to come.
Water Tender operators are asked to drive large, heavy vehicles in variable conditions repeatedly for multiple operational shifts. Just like line firefighters, these professional drivers must fight fatigue and complacency from the beginning of an assignment to its end.
