Twisp River Fire Archives - Page 2 of 2

More information released about the three firefighter fatalities near Twisp, Washington

Bill GabbertAugust 23, 2015August 24, 2015UncategorizedTwisp River Fire3 Comments

twisp river fire fatalities — The general area of the fatalities, August 19 on the Twisp River Fire in Washington. The deceased firefighters were found 40 feet off Woods Canyon Road. The 3-D map is looking north. (click to enlarge)

On Sunday afternoon the U.S. Forest Service released additional information about the fatalities of the three wildland firefighters that occurred in the Twisp River Fire August 19 near Twisp, Washington.

The fire was reported at 12:30 p.m. PT, August 19, 2015. Between 2:45 and 3 p.m. the wind direction changed and the fire activity increased. At about 3 p.m. firefighters were entrapped by the fire, and around 4 p.m. fatalities and injuries were reported and one injured firefighter was airlifted to a hospital.

Engine 642, from the Okanogan/Wenatchee National Forest, was found upright 40 feet below Woods Canyon Road. It had been burned over and three deceased firefighters were inside. Two deployed fire shelters were in the general area, but at a press conference, the leader of the USFS investigation team, John Phipps, who currently serves as Station Director of the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado, said he did not know where they were found in relation to the firefighters.

The deceased have been identified as Tom Zbyszewki, 20, Andrew Zajac, 26 and Richard Wheeler, 31. One firefighter, Daniel Lyon, 25, of Puyallup, Washington, is in critical condition with third degree burns over over 60 to 65 percent of his body. Three other injured firefighters were treated at a hospital and released.

The investigation team is using the Coordinated Response Protocol which was developed in 2014. Part of that process is a Learning Review which, according to a four-page document released by the USFS last year, “is designed to produce at least two learning products, one for the field and one for organizational leadership”. When asked about the process during the news conference, Mr. Phipps appeared to be unfamiliar with the “learning products”, and said he did not know if they would both be released to the public.

At least six investigations are going on concurrently:

Coordinated Response Protocol/Learning Review;
Office of Inspector General ( as required by the Cantwell-Hastings legislation, Public Law Public Law 107-203);
OSHA;
Washington DNR investigation into injuries to two of their employees;
Forest Service law enforcement;
County Sheriff.

Firefighters killed in Twisp River Fire identified

Bill GabbertAugust 21, 2015Uncategorizedlodd, Twisp River Fire, Washington

The three U.S. Forest Service firefighters that were overrun by fire and killed on the Twisp River Fire in Washington August 19 have been identified as Tom Zbyszewki, 20, Andrew Zajac, 26 and Richard Wheeler, 31.

Their vehicle crashed while fighting a fire west of Twisp, Washington. Fox News reported “Authorities gave few details, shedding no light, for example, on the crash, other than to say that it was not the accident itself that killed the victims, but the fire.”

On Thursday, after a team of investigators assessed the accident site, the bodies of the three firefighters were removed in separate ambulances and transported from the scene in a procession of fire engines and other emergency vehicles.

Four other firefighters were injured, one very seriously. King5 had additional information about the serious injury:

Daniel Lyon, 25, of Puyallup [Washington], was airlifted to Harborview Wednesday in critical condition. Doctors say he suffered third degree burns to over 50 to 75 percent of his body.

Doctors said he was in the resuscitation phase, receiving a lot of fluids, and doctors were trying to stabilize his condition. If his condition improves, doctors hope to move him to the operation phase, where they will remove some of the burns from his body.

Lyon had only been a firefighter for a few months with the U.S. Forest Service before heading to Central Washington to battle the Okanogan Complex Fire.

Q13 reported that the other three injured firefighters were treated at a hospital and released.

The investigation into the accident is being conducted by a team led by John Phipps who currently serves as Station Director of the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Investigation into the three fatalities in Washington begins

Bill GabbertAugust 20, 2015January 22, 2017Uncategorizedlodd, Twisp River Fire11 Comments

A team that will be investigating the August 19 fatalities of three U.S. Forest Service firefighters on the Twisp River Fire in Washington is being assembled. According to an article at OregonLive they will be using a fairly new protocol that we covered in August of 2014, called the Coordinated Response Protocol, or CRP. The controversial process minimizes traumatic impacts on witnesses, coworkers and others close to the tragedy, but strives to avoid developing causes and conclusions. As we reported last August, Ivan Pupulidy, one of the developers of the CRP, called causes and conclusions “traditional nonsense”.

Aside from the controversial nature of the CRP, OregonLive has a very informative article about the investigation into the Twisp River Fire, and how the team will be organized. Below is an excerpt:

…A team of investigators is arriving Thursday to begin the recently adopted Coordinated Response Protocol. The new rules seek to eliminate missteps on fatal investigations of the past.

“My heart breaks over the loss of life,” Gov. Jay Inslee said in a statement. “They gave their lives to protect others. It was their calling, but the loss for their families is immense.”

Officials often found that people assigned to investigate deaths or serious accidents were so focused on the task at hand they were insensitive to the victims involved during the interview process. The goal is to learn from what happened and take steps to prevent mistakes from happening again.

“It’s a smoother way to help the people involved because they are obviously traumatized,” said Mike Ferris, a spokesman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise. Ferris’ colleague, Jennifer Jones, will join the investigation Thursday as the information coordinator.

“It means the people affected by the incident don’t have to sit through 12 interviews by five or six different people,” Ferris said during a phone interview Thursday morning with The Oregonian/OregonLive.

The process were implemented with the July 30 death of David Ruhl, a U.S. Forest Service captain from South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest. He died in a wildfire in the Modoc National Forest of Northern California.

A learning review replaces the serious accident investigation process with hope to “minimize the impact that reviews can have on the personnel who were involved in the incident while simultaneously meeting organizational and ethical requirements,” according to Forest Service documents.

Officials also hope briefing victims’ families during the new process relieves tensions that occurred in the past.

The goal is to provide “as clear a picture of what influenced actions and decisions as possible” even if it results in “uncovering hard truths that might appear contrary to protecting the agency,” the documents say…

The graphic below (of strangely faceless people) is from the USFS’ description of the CRP process.

Washington Governor and FS Chief discuss the firefighter fatalities

Bill GabbertAugust 20, 2015August 25, 2019UncategorizedTidwell, Twisp River Fire, Washington

This morning at 11 a.m. PT Washington Governor Jay Inslee and U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell conducted a news conference at the fire station in Chelan, Washington. They discussed the general fire situation in the Northwest, and mentioned the three USFS firefighters who were killed near Twisp, Washington the day before, on August 19.

Three firefighters killed in Washington wildfire

Bill GabbertAugust 19, 2015August 25, 2019Uncategorizedfatality, lodd, Twisp River Fire, Washington8 Comments

(Originally published at 6:12 p.m. PT, August 19, 2015; updated at 8:12 a.m. PT, August 20, 2015)

Three U.S. Forest Service firefighters were killed Wednesday, August 19, while they were fighting the Twisp River fire west of Twisp, Washington. The agency confirmed that they were “engaged in initial attack operations and were involved in a vehicle accident when it is believed that the fire overtook the vehicle.”

According to Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers, the three Forest Service deaths occurred in a fire on Washington Department of Natural Resources land.

Four additional firefighters were injured: one USFS, two DNR, and one DNR contractor.

Evacuations of the 3,000 residents of two nearby towns were ordered, Twisp and Winthrop.

The names have not been released, pending notification of next of kin.

“We are devastated by the tragic loss of three of our Forest Service firefighters,” said Mike Williams, Forest Supervisor on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. “We are working with County and State partners to notify the families of those lost. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families and fellow crewmembers of these brave firefighters.”

The Forest Service said a national incident management team has been ordered.

Q13 Fox reported that the county “sheriff said the wind suddenly shifted and the firefighters became trapped as the fire was turned back on them”.

The rapidly spreading new fire that caused the evacuations is represented by the six red dots in the map below, 6 miles northwest of Twisp. Heat from the fire was detected by a satellite at 1:05 p.m. PT, August 19. Click on the map to see a larger version.

Map fires near Twisp — Fires near Twisp, Washington. The dots represent heat detected by a satellite, with the red ones being the most recent, recorded at 1:05 p.m. PT on August 19, 2015. (click to enlarge)

Evacuation information can be found at the Okanogan County Emergency Management Facebook page.

The first articles to report the fatalities were time-stamped shortly before 6 p.m. PT, August 19. The reports say shifting winds may have contributed to the entrapment of the firefighters. The weather station between Twisp and Winthrop, NCSW1, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Wednesday recorded winds from all directions, starting from the north at 8 a.m., the wind direction changed going clockwise until they were from the north-northwest at 5 p.m. The wind speeds were light, at 1 to 6 mph until 5 p.m. when they increased to 10 with gusts to 20 mph. The relative humidity was in the mid-teens and the high temperature was 95 degrees.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families of the injured and deceased firefighters.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: