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Tag: Yarnell Fire

Yarnell Hill Fire families settle lawsuit

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 5 Comments on Yarnell Hill Fire families settle lawsuit

memory yarnell hill fireSome of the families of the deceased Granite Mountain Hotshots settled their lawsuit the day before the second anniversary of that tragic day. On June 29 the families of 12 of the crewmembers settled a wrongful-death suit for $50,000 each along with some reforms they hope will help to prevent similar catastrophes. Two years ago today 19 members of the crew were killed on the Yarnell Hill Fire south of Prescott, Arizona when they were entrapped and overrun by a wildfire that later burned into the community of Yarnell, destroying 127 structures.

The resolution was announced Monday at a news conference. In addition to the $50,000 for each of 12 families, the state of Arizona will give $10,000 to each of the seven families that did not participate in the lawsuit.

Granite Mountain
Granite Mountain Hotshots hiking to their assignment, June 30, 2013. Photo by Joy Collura.

The settlement also stipulates that the state will make a “good faith effort” to implement reforms suggested by the families of the hotshots, but their implementation is not binding and will be up to the sole discretion of the agency director.

  • The state Forestry Division will ask the National Wildfire Coordinating Group to do a question-and-answer session and a staff ride so that firefighters can better understand what happened that day two years ago.
  • The state will recommend additional training for initial attack of new fires.
  • State Forestry will volunteer to participate as a testing site for new wildfire technology, including radios and GPS tracking devices. One of the issues on the Yarnell Hill Fire was that it is possible that few if any other firefighters on the fire were aware of the location of the crew and the danger that they were in.

The $220 million lawsuit was settled for a total of $670,000, plus the “good faith” concessions.

The agreement occurred without any testimony from Brendan McDonough, the only survivor from the 20-person crew. Attorneys for State Forestry repeatedly sought his information about the fire under oath, but a deposition never occurred. Mr. McDonough has said he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder since the fire.

Brendan McDonough
Brendan McDonough. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

At the time of the fatalities he was in a different location serving as a lookout, providing intelligence to the crew about the location of the fire. The largest remaining question about the Yarnell Hill Fire is why the 19 firefighters left the safety of a previously burned area and hiked through unburned brush where they were overrun by the fire. Nothing in the two official reports shed any light on this important question.

An article in the April 3 edition of the Arizona Republic includes information that was previously unknown to the public. The newspaper reported that Mr. McDonough overheard a radio conversation between the Division Supervisor, Eric Marsh, and Jesse Steed who was temporarily serving as the Hotshots’ crew boss. Supposedly Mr. Marsh who normally was the Crew Boss or Superintendent of the crew, told Mr. Steed to have the crew leave the safety zone and to join him at a ranch.

The question of why the crew was in that location may never be answered, unless Mr. McDonough elaborates on the issue in the book he is working on. In April it was announced that he signed a deal with New York Times bestselling author Stephan Talty to write “the untold story from the lone survivor of the Yarnell Hill Fire”.

Below is an excerpt from a June 29, 2015 article in the Arizona Republic:

Attorney Pat McGroder said the goal of the 12 families was to prevent future tragedies and improve wildland-firefighting safety. He emphasized they were not out to make money and said the minimal compensation and promised firefighting improvements underscore that point.

McGroder had strong words for the federal government, which banned the Blue Ridge Hotshots from talking publicly about what they may have heard over the radios that day.

“At sometime, Mr. McDonough may or may not choose to publicly describe what he saw, what he heard that day,” McGroder said. “The idea that the federal government is withholding information … speaks to the lack of understanding and empathy that they should have for these families. So, we would publicly call for … the national Forest Service to let their people talk.”

Wildfire Briefs, June 1, 2015

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,

Students evacuated from Florida dorm

About 100 students at the University of Central Florida were told to evacuate Sunday evening when a wildfire was burning in the general area. It turned out that the fire was knocked down at one acre, and the students fairly quickly repopulated the dorm.

Animal rescue #1

Bobcat rescued wildfire

I don’t know that I’d call it “miraculous“, but here’s the story from WINK:

Firefighters in Lee County made a miraculous save during a brush fire [last week in southern Florida].

While fighting the fire, they rescued a two week old baby bobcat that was all alone. Florida Fish and Wildlife officials say the bobcat is lucky to be alive and only sustained minor injuries like bumps and a blister on his paw.

Officials also told WINK that they left the bobcat in a green area and believe his mother would find him, but will check the area later.

FWC says they the bobcat would not return to the wild if experts had raised him.

Animal rescue #2

Owl rescue

From the British Columbia Fire Info:

On Tuesday, May 26 the Sentinel Unit Crew from the Southeast Fire Centre discovered this baby owl on the Little Bobtail Lake fire. He had fallen from his nest and was too young to fly. He was rescued by a Wildfire Management Branch Falling Coordinator based out of the Cobble Hill Zone in the Coastal Fire Centre. A wildlife rehabilitation centre was consulted before the owl was rescued.

He was taken in by Second Chance Wildlife Recovery Centre in Quesnel. Today, he will be flown to the O.W.L. Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Delta, where he will be raised with an adult male and female owl. Once the rescued owl is able to survive on his own, he will be returned to where the crew members found him so he can continue life in his natural habitat.

He was found in the black, outside of his nest, unable to fly and vulnerable to prey. He was a little scared, but is now healthy and happy to have a second chance at life. Crews have named him Norman, after Norman Lake.

Memorial planned for Granite Mountain 19

Organizers in Prescott, Arizona are considering designs for one or more memorials to honor the 19 firefighters that were killed while working on the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013. The groups are discussing one or more of three possibilities:

  • Simple white crosses at the fatality site, with a sign and a low wall to define the area;
  • Something at the trailhead along Highway 89 in the Yarnell area;
  • A memorial on the southeast side of the Courthouse Plaza in Prescott.

Two movies in development about fatal wildfires

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , , 1 Comment on Two movies in development about fatal wildfires

Development is moving forward on two movies about wildfires on which multiple firefighters were killed.

In February, 2013 John N. Maclean announced that he had signed a deal to have his book about the 2006 Esperanza fire made into a movie. A screenplay is being written by Sean O’Keefe, and Jim Mickle, a well-regarded Indie director, has been signed to direct the project. Not too much is happening on it right now since Mr. Mickle is tied up making another movie.

But that could change since another wildfire film has been announced. Legendary Pictures, which bought the rights to Mr. Maclean’s book, may decide to move things along more quickly so that they can release it before a planned movie about the Yarnell Hill Fire hits theaters.

Below is an excerpt from a May 27, 2015 article in the Daily Courier:

A movie about Prescott’s fallen hotshot firefighters is still in the works, although some of the players have changed.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura of “Transformers” fame is in the development stage for the movie, planning the elements of the film, his publicist Arnold Robinson of Rogers and Cowan said.

Ken Nolan, screenwriter of “Black Hawk Down,” currently is writing the script, Robinson added.

“There are no actors attached to the project at this time, but discussions with talent are taking place,” Robinson said. Director Scott Cooper (“Crazy Heart” and “Out of the Furnace”) is no longer planning to work on the hotshot film, his spokesperson Jennifer Hillman of Creative Artists Agency said.

Hopefully production on the hotshots movie will begin late this year or early next year, Robinson said. There is no timeframe for when the film will be in theaters…

Five wildland firefighters were killed on the 2006 Esperanza Fire, and 19 died on the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Chris.

Kyle Dickman: “Stop expecting firefighters to save your homes”

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 3 Comments on Kyle Dickman: “Stop expecting firefighters to save your homes”

Kyle Dickman, a former wildland firefighter and author of a just released book about the Yarnell Hill Fire on which 19 firefighters were killed, has written an opinion piece for CNN titled Stop expecting firefighters to save your homes.

Below is an excerpt from the article on CNN:

…But asking firefighters to risk their lives to save unprepared homes from the most volatile blazes is like asking the National Guard to control a hurricane. It’s negligent. Even still, firefighters want to help people and put their training to use, and it can be hard for these brave men and women to recognize the limits of their abilities…
[…]
In the aftermath [of the Yarnell Hill Fire], some of the 127 homeowners who lost their houses during that blaze sued the State of Arizona for failing to protect the town. The judge threw out the lawsuit, and in doing so, gave active support to the rarely spoken truth that firefighters simply cannot stop the highest intensity fires. We’re witnessing that reality now more than ever…

Mr. Dickman’s book is titled On The Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It.

Errors in a review of a book about the Yarnell Hill Fire

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , , , 47 Comments on Errors in a review of a book about the Yarnell Hill Fire

The article below was written by John N. Maclean and Holly Neill.

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The Wall Street Journal and Fire

By John Maclean and Holly Neill

Kyle Dickman’s new book, On the Burning Edge, about hotshot culture and the Yarnell Hill Fire, has been reviewed in the Saturday, May 23, edition of the Wall Street Journal by Mark Yost, who is identified as a firefighter and paramedic from Highwood, Illinois. The review makes a number of errors and misleading assertions about fire policy and the Yarnell Hill Fire independent of the material in Dickman’s book. Journal reviews receive respectful attention, but the review is wrong on so many points that it should be answered in a timely fashion–Maclean is preparing a review of Dickman’s book for the Journal of Forestry, but that won’t appear for several months.

Yost writes: “The policy of letting low burns do their work was in place until the 1980s, when environmentalists began lobbying for letting underbrush and tracts of forest go uncut, unmanaged and uncleared by small fires. The result was denser forests and forest beds of virtual kindling.”

Response: As every student of wildfire knows, after the Big Burn of 1910 the Forest Service developed a policy, in force for many decades, to put out all fires by 10 AM the morning after they were spotted.

Yost writes: “The Yarnell assignment came on a Sunday, normally a day off for the crew. The fire, started by lightning the day before…”

Response: The fire was started Friday, June 28, 2013, two days before the fatalities occurred on Sunday.

Yost writes: “When the Granite Mountain crew arrived, the flames were closing in on the small town of Yarnell.”

Response: When the Granite Mountain crew arrived on Sunday morning, the flames, which were far from Yarnell, were headed north and away from the town, toward Peeples Valley.

Yost writes that the lookout, Brendan McDonough, was in his fourth season.

Response: McDonough was in the beginning of his third season.

Yost writes that when the fire turned toward Yarnell, in the afternoon, McDonough “was no longer in a position to see what was going on and warn his crewmates.”

Response: McDonough reported to Jesse Steed, acting Granite Mountain Superintendent (normally assistant superintendent) that he could see that the fire had reached his trigger point and he was departing, which he did. At that point, photo and other evidence proves that Steed and the other hotshots could see exactly what the fire was doing.

Yost writes that Eric Marsh, (normally the superintendent of the Granite Mountain Hotshots), was “attached to the command staff on the day of the Yarnell fire, he was at first stationed in a makeshift outpost along a highway.”

Response: Marsh was never stationed at a makeshift outpost. He led the crew to the fire by scouting ahead and flagging an upward route. As far as being “attached to the command staff,” Marsh was made division Alpha supervisor and performed that duty in the field.

Yost writes: “The Granite Mountain crew had left the black and were working on the side of a hill, a dangerous position, Mr. Dickman explains, because it put them in danger of the fire coming down on top of them.

Response: The hotshots were digging direct handline, with one foot in the black, on the side of the hill. There was risk of the fire coming up to them from below, not coming down on top of them from the black above.

Yost writes: “Some investigators have speculated that, when the wind reversed, sending flames speeding toward the firefighters, they made a desperate attempt to get to a nearby horse farm and just didn’t make it.”

Response: No serious investigator has made that charge. It is agreed, and supported by photo and recorded radio exchanges as well as interview accounts, that the hotshots deliberately left their position and headed toward the ranch, which was identified as a safety zone. The ranch is not a horse farm: it is owned by Lee and DJ Helm who keep pets, including miniature horses, donkeys and shelter animals.

Yost writes about the fatalities, “In the event, the fire moved so fast that rescuers were able to get to the team within minutes—but too late.”

Response: Firefighters work as crews, not as teams. It took an hour and 43 minutes, or 103 minutes, from the time Eric Marsh said over the radio that the crew was deploying until a medic reached the deployment site, according to official investigation records.

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The book review in the Wall Street Journal can be seen HERE, but you generally have to be a paid subscriber to view it. However, mobile phone users can sometimes read it without a subscription.

John N. Maclean has written several books about wildland fire, including “Fire on the Mountain”, “Fire and Ashes”, and “The Thirtymile Fire”. His most recent book, “The Esperanza Fire: Arson, Murder and the Agony of Engine 57”, is slated to be made into a movie. Currently he is working on a book about the Yarnell Hill Fire.