I missed it while watching the Phoenix NASCAR race Sunday, but according to ABC, driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. had a Granite Mountain Hotshots sticker on his car. I don’t know how long he has had the sticker, but maybe it brought him luck because he won the Daytona 500 the previous week and came in second yesterday. Last June, 19 members of the hotshot crew were entrapped and killed while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire 90 miles northwest of Phoenix.
Yarnell Hill Fire, June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.
The leader of the 54-person team that conducted the Serious Accident Investigation Team’s investigation into the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona that killed 19 firefighters was quoted as saying that individual firefighters should be able to attack wildfires alone. Florida State Forester Jim Karels’ reasoning seems to be that it is too expensive to send two firefighters to a fire.
Below is an excerpt from an article at WFSU explaining that the Florida state legislature is considering a recommendation from the Florida State Fire Service Association that firefighters should not be sent alone to a fire:
…Florida Forest Service Director Jim Karels says the increased staffing mandate is not necessary because the lowest-risk fires only require one firefighter—and if he sends two to one fire, it’s possible nobody will be available when the next one breaks out.
“Safety-wise, purely, if I can send two firefighters to every fire every time with no other decisions, I’m good with that. But we’ve got to look at it on effectiveness and efficiency too,” he says.
But Rep. Mike Clelland (D-Lake Mary) says his experience as a firefighter makes him question the department’s refusal.
“I just can’t imagine one person responding to a forest fire or a brush fire,” he says. “I spent my whole adult life in the fire service.”
The article also has a 50-second audio recording in which you can hear Mr. Karels actually speaking those words.
This helps to explain how Mr. Karels’ 54-person investigative team came up with their analysis of the fatal Yarnell Hill Fire:
The judgments and decisions of the incident management organizations managing this fire were reasonable. Firefighters performed within their scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The Team found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol.
Many people, including this writer, disagree with the conclusion reached by Mr. Karels and his team. The article we wrote on February 15 is an example of some, but not all, of the negligence, reckless actions, and violations of policy or protocol that have been documented about the fire, in spite of Mr. Karels’ analysis. Other examples surfaced after the release of the second official report on the fire which was issued by the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
Many people, after studying for weeks how 19 firefighters were killed on a fire, would be hyper-aware and sensitive to firefighter safety issues, but not in this case. Florida State Forest Service Director Jim Karels is a danger to firefighters and should get out of the business. We don’t use term idiot often at Wildfire Today, but it is well deserved in this case.
Granite Mountain Hotshots hike to the Yarnell Hill Fire, the morning of June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.
Written statements that members of the Blue Ridge Hotshots provided about the Yarnell Hill Fire have been released by the Industrial Commission of Arizona. The documents, even though they are heavily redacted, provide more information about what happened on June 30, 2013 before and after 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were overrun by flames and killed on the fire.
The statements from approximately 12 members of the crew provide more insight about what the Blue Ridge Hotshots were doing that day on the fire, including some of their communications with the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
The general atmosphere on the fire that day, according to how we interpreted some of the statements, was chaos and disorganization.
Neither of the two hotshot crews received a briefing that morning.
Blue Ridge never really had a significant assignment during their one shift on the fire, other than prepping a dozer line for 30 to 65 minutes, and one person from the crew who worked with a dozer that originally did not have a radio.
When Blue Ridge had to disengage and move to a safety zone, there were “still people milling about in town” (Yarnell). At about 1600 some of the residents, who had no information about the fire, asked crewmembers why they were leaving.
There was a “debate” on the radio about the border between two geographical divisions. (Other reports confirm this, and the fact that one of the Division Supervisors left the field and did not return.)
Firefighters working on the north side of the fire, far away from where the fatal entrapment occurred, were:
…burning around structures and having to use alternate escape route since some have been compromised.
As Blue Ridge was forced to leave the fire and was heading toward a safety zone they:
…find engine crews hiking out and we urge them to move as fast as they can.
The first of the statements mentions what appear to be communications with the Granite Mountain Hotshots at some time before 1615, telling them they are moving Granite Mountain’s crew carriers for them so that they would not be consumed by the fire, and informing them of the current fire behavior:
…I explain that we will keep their rigs with us too because things are very dynamic now, and [redacted] mentions that they are trying to come down off the hill, he mentions traveling through the black.
And later at 1655:
Radio traffic is overheard on A/G or TAC about Granite Mountain IHC needing to deploy shelters and they were in the process of cutting deployment site and trying to burn out around it. No other radio traffic is heard from Granite Mountain over TAC or A/G, we arrive at the Ranch House Restaurant staging area and I jump in Granite Mountain’s chase rig and try to listen on their crew channel and all I hear is a keyed mic, I try to raise them but with no success. I tell [redacted] to sit in the truck and monitor their crew channel for any traffic.
Comments that our readers leave about these statements will be allowed as long as our rules about commenting are respected. If there is a problem, we will close this article to comments.
Pioneer smokejumper laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
Gen. George W. Casey Jr., former chief of staff of the Army, talks to Lt. Col. Roger Walden during a recognition ceremony at the Pentagon on March 25, 2010. (U.S. Army photo)
During World War II, a time when segregation was still a part of everyday life, a group of 17 brave men took the plunge to serve their country and become the first all African-American paratrooper unit known as the Triple Nickles.
The battalion’s original goal – to join the fight in Europe – was thwarted when military leaders in Europe feared racial tensions would disrupt operations. At about the same time, the U.S. Forest Service asked the military for help to minimize damage caused by balloon bombs launched by the Japanese across the Pacific Ocean with the intent to start forest fires in the western U.S. during World War II.
In the end, few of the incendiary devices reached U.S. soil, but the Triple Nickles were instrumental in helping the Forest Service fight naturally-caused fires. They became history’s first military smokejumpers who answered 36 fire calls and made more than 1,200 jumps that summer of 1945.
On Jan. 6, Lt. Col. Roger S. Walden, who passed away on Sept. 17, 2013, was remembered and given full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
Walden holds a special place in U.S. Forest Service history. He will be remembered for his bravery, sacrifice and groundbreaking achievements in wildland firefighting. During a time of war and social prejudices, the commitment to serve his country through wildland firefighting was challenging and unique.
The body of Lt. Col. Roger Walden is unloaded from a caisson at Arlington National Cemetery. (Photo by Donna Sinclair)
California PUC approves new rules to reduce fire hazards from power poles
Yesterday the California Public Utilities Commission approved dozens of new rules aimed at strengthening overhead power and communications poles.
San Diego Gas and Electric, SDG&E, whose power lines started three huge fires in southern California in 2007, agreed in 2009 to pay $686 million to insurance companies that paid claims to their customers for the Witch Creek, Guejito and Rice Canyon fires.
Brendan McDonough is the lone surviving member of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew. He was serving as a lookout in another location when the other 19 men on the crew were killed as they were overrun by the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2014 in Arizona.
Brendan McDonough, surviving member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Photo courtesy of Brendan’s father, who placed the photo on his Facebook page.
Since that day he has been on a leave of absence from the Prescott Fire Department, but he now has a new job working for the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. He will be conducting fundraising and helping to raise awareness of how firefighters deal with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Below is an excerpt from KPHO:
McDonough says he is battling PTSD manifested in dreams.
Acting Prescott Fire Chief Eric Kriwer says McDonough left his city job in good standing, and McDonough says he still has strong bonds with department personnel and continues to live in Prescott.
Pete Wertheim, City of Prescott communications and public affairs manager, told CBS 5 News, “Brendan was a seasonal wildland firefighter and he left in good standing with the City. The City appreciates Brendan and his service to the community and we wish for him nothing but the best in his future endeavors.”
Below is an article written by Rowdy Muir, a Type 1 Incident Commander, that appeared in the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Smoke Signals publication this month:
What We Already Know
By Rowdy Muir, Agency Administrator Representative, National Interagency Hotshot Committee
Editor’s note: This article was written several months before the investigation report was completed and released.
On the evening of June 30, 2013, the news confirming that nineteen hotshots had died on the Yarnell Hill Fire shocked not only the fire community but the whole nation. I know there were others like myself who were wondering how something so tragic could happen to nineteen hotshots.
Rowdy Muir, a member of the Fire and Aviation Safety Team during the Beaver Creek fire near Sun Valley, Idaho, 2013.
In 1994, after the South Canyon fire fatalities, people were asking the same question. Many were convinced that the investigation report would tell a story of some unrealistic, freakish event that claimed the lives of fourteen wildland firefighters. Yet nothing came out in the report that was unusual, phenomenal or bizarre. It wasn’t an act of God. Instead, the reality is that as a culture we read about things we were familiar with—things we should have already known.
I anticipate the same realization when we find out what happened to the Granite Mountain 19 on the Yarnell Hill Fire once the investigative report is published. My bet is thereport won’t tell us anything new hashappened. We will once again find outsomething we already know.
Make no mistake, the investigation report is valid and essential to a learning culture—perhaps even more so if it is predictable. The content will likely focus on LCES, human factors, situational awareness, values, crew cohesion, bowls, chutes, chimneys, down drafts, column collapse, point protection, tactics, strategies, independent action, WUI, structure protection and downhill egress. All topics we’ve heard before and have had many discussions about. Yet for a small amount of time, topics that were not remembered.
Gordon Graham says this “there are no new ways to get into trouble.” This rings true for the wildland fire culture.
I don’t think there will be anything that will happen which is so new or different from what has happened in the past. Somewhere down the line, we’ll see that we’ve made the same mistakes as before.
I appreciate the honest openness of Darrell Willis (Cofounder Granite Mountain Hotshots) in his interview with the news media. What he shares gives me a lot of personal mental anguish. No one has all the answers to all the questions. But the following are some things we already know:
LCES
In the news conference with crew cofounder Darrell Willis he mentions that “one of the most emphasized things we do is to establish LCES.” Yet, in the same sentence he mentions that “there are points during the day that we didn’t have [LCES] in place.”
How many times have we heard that said? If we don’t have LCES in place then there is something wrong. Even if it’s only for a moment—one might bring to the attention of others the need to establish LCES. LCES needs to be continually monitored throughout the shift. If they are not in place, then we don’t engage until they are in place.
Tactics and Strategy
In the same interview, Darrell talks about the crew abandoning a tactic of anchor and flank to address some independent action (to do point protection on the structures). Most agree that independent action is critical to the success of catching many wildfires. What we need to learn from this is that when we change tactics and strategies that are working, we need to evaluate the risk vs. gain. We need to think things out before we engage in another tactic. Someone might ask, “Why are we leaving something that’s working to take the risk of something that may not work?”
Downhill through Bowls, Chutes, and Chimneys
Eric Hipke, the only survivor from the uphill run that proved fatal for others at South Canyon, may tell you that the there is only a 1 in 14 chance of out-running a fire burning up hill. Anytime we commit to any type of downhill egress, the option of successfully going back up the hill in an emergency is “slim to none.”
This is partly because it is so difficult to measure how long it takes to get back up, and then over or through these geographical barriers. We should reevaluate any type of downhill operation, knowing that the only way to safety is back up the hill.
The Value of Situational Awareness
In an interview with Juliann Ashcraft, she mentions the text she received from Andrew about how “things are getting wild,” and how “Yarnell was looking to burn.” She acknowledges that those words weren’t common language for Andrew. It was a different scenario which she hadn’t heard from him before. Her situational awareness told her that something was different.
Why is it that Andrew didn’t recognize the same awareness? Many of us recognize changes in our surroundings, and have “situational awareness.” However, even though we are aware of our surroundings, we sometimes fail to take intelligent action based on what we observe. We get caught up in the moment and sometimes our field of focus narrows, and we don’t rely on someone else to help us with our blind spots.
We need to recognize that when the slightest thing changes we need to adjust. When I first learned to ride bulls, I was taught that when a bull makes a move you need to make a counter move equal to the bull’s move. If you made a move that was too extreme or not equal to the bull’s move, it was much harder to react to the next move the bull made. In most cases, if you can’t make counter moves equal to the bull, the consequences are you got thrown off. It takes many years of practice to be able to compensate for either over-aggression or the lack of equal aggression.
I find this to be true with situational awareness. We need to be able to recognize the change and make decisions to equalize the change. Sometimes we either overreact to the change or ignore it; the consequences are the same. We become out of balance.
Weather and the Collapse of Columns
In discussions with personnel who were on the Dude Fire, I found out that no one really recognized the collapsing column that brought about what they thought was a weather event with rain, hail and strong down drafts.
I am currently the District Ranger on a district that had three fatalities related to a similar weather event. I was on an incident in Utah a few years ago in which a homeowner had me come look at his residence which had burned down. He wanted to know why.
He couldn’t understand why the front of the yard where he had parked a truck and tractor was still green and the vehicles untouched. The front of the residence would have been the head of the fire being pushed down valley from down drafts. One would have thought all his property would have been lost. In reality the weather event caused spotting way ahead and down valley of the main fire and when finished, the fire consumed the residence from the back side because the fire took a normal route of burning uphill.
The Yarnell Hill fire had experienced some of the same types of weather events throughout the day. Those events were broadcast by radio to those on the fireline.
Whether what happened was caused by a column collapsing, a frontal passage, or the buildup of clouds which resulted in down drafts, fires that experience these types of weather occurrences should make us mindful that there is really no main or head of the fire. An established fire can, and will come from all directions once down drafts occur.
WUI and the Values at Risk
The days of “anchor, flank and pinch” were the days of firefighters being out in the woods chasing fire that didn’t have much in the way of “values at risk.” The only “values” we were asked to watch out for were ourselves. It’s rare anymore to have a fire that doesn’t include many different “values at risk” that need protecting. The perception of these “values” takes away from the real mission, and that is again, to protect ourselves as we are the real and primary “value at risk.”
Our training curriculum is fairly narrow and focuses on the mission of wildland fire. Keep this in mind: you are truly the only “value at risk.” We are truly the only value that needs to be protected. And yes, I would say the protection of others falls into the category of “we.”
No one would ever downplay the value of other lives at risk. Somewhere in our culture, our perception changed and we took upon ourselves the responsibility of structure protection. This has never been our mission or our responsibility.
I believe when we get into a WUI situation, we really need to evaluate our thought process. This situation gets our adrenaline pumping, and blurs our ability to make sound and rational decisions. Especially if we are familiar with the community or know who lives in the houses. It’s much harder for us to disengage when we have an emotional attachment to the structures in addition to the people who inhabit them.
I know all too well the emotional aspect. When I was in Florida in 1998, working in and around various communities, I grew to know and like the people in those communities. As time moved on, the aspiration of trying to save every home in every community became a personal challenge and obligation. On one occasion, we were being run over by fire and doing the best we could to save structures. During the heat of the battle, I recognized my shortcoming and pulled everyone out of the situation. The need to reassess the situation is obvious now—yet for that small momen,t I was caught up in an unrealistic task. Pulling back was the best move I ever made. The perception is real. Don’t think for a moment you can’t get caught up in it.
Values and Crew Cohesion
All decisions are based on values. I believe we should share our personal values with our co-workers and team members. The more we share our values, the more cohesive we become. If we know and understand the values of our team members, we can appreciate and accept their decisions more easily. I find this to be critical in our quest to become better team players.
Teams, as a group, also have shared values. We make decisions based on what our team’s values are. If we accept the team values, then the team reaps the rewards or pays the consequences as a team. If we only navigate by our own values, then the rewards or consequences are only ours.
There are a lot of rewards from being on a team that succeeds or excels. We see this in the film story of the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team winning gold or Shackleton’s crew navigating their way home through the Antarctic. We see it in our modules, crews, sections, and staffs.
Each individual had to give up some personal values for the team to be successful; some personal and team values don’t mix. The reality is when decisions are made as a team—when there is a consensus that “this is what we are going to do, or not do”—a team owns the decision; and the team may lose. Our value system can compromise our situational awareness.
There are no new ways to get into trouble. Our culture has been here before and I’m quite certain we will be here again—an acknowledgment that may or may not help us heal depending on how we choose to process the information—the “what we know.”
If we take what we already know and put it to good use, it will help us come to the full understanding of the real, tangible, human values at risk.
Arizona: specialty license plate for honoring wildland firefighters
An effort is underway to create a specialty license plate in Arizona to honor fallen wildland firefighters. The cost of the plates will be $25 with $17 of that going to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation to help support injured firefighters and families of those firefighters we have lost.
There is only one thing holding this effort back — $32,000 has to be raised to get the program started. The group working on this said:
Our nonprofit is set up, Our account is set up, now we need donations to make this possible! We need your help to reach our goal..and our goal is to start a long lasting/revolving fundraiser that will support injured firefighters and families of those that have lost a firefighter! These plates will be to honor the memory of those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. Soon you will be able to buy these plates and show your support on your vehicles! But first, we need to raise the money to start them!…every amount helps folks!
You can make a donation at youcaring.com, and more information is on Facebook.
Safety Matters, Topic #1
The Safety Matters group has established their first forum topic:
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“HOW CAN 19 FIREFIGHTERS DIE WITHOUT SOMETHING GOING VERY WRONG?
The idea exists that the Granite Mountain Hotshots died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and sometimes bad things happen. We strongly disagree with this assessment of the situation.
In order to get a clearer view of firefighter fatalities due to entrapment and burnover, we examined wildland fires from 1990 through 2013 where journeyman firefighters have died.
We started with an analysis of all firefighter fatalities that were attributed to entrapment and burnover based on statistics from the NIFC website Historical Wildland Firefighter Fatality Reports. We expanded our analysis to determine the common factors on fires that took the lives of experienced firefighters on eight fires with a total of 44 fatalities.
Fire Escaped Initial Attack – 100%
Type III Incident – 75%
Mountainous w/steep drainages – 100%
Fire Danger Rating (Extreme or Very High) – 88%
Brush a Major Component of Fuel – 100%
Experienced an Exceptional Weather Event – 88%
Question for discussion: If firefighter safety is truly our Number One Priority, then how and why did 44 highly trained and experienced firefighters perish in this manner? (Especially in light of the fact that their actions did not directly result in saving lives or structures).
We will be exploring some of the more specific contributing reasons in the near future. We would now like to hear your thoughts on the question for discussion. Thank you for your participation in Safety Matters!
Mick Brown has written a long article for The Telegraph about the tragic fire that killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots on June 30, 2013 in Arizona. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but Mr. Brown did quite a bit of research, talking to quite a few people including yours truly.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to Hermione, Holly and David
