30 mile fire book report
Tom Craven, Karen FitzPatrick, Jessica Johnson and Devin Weaver were all adventurous souls whose jobs as wildland firefighters allowed them to play outdoors while still imposing the discipline and order they craved. Initially believed to be a simple mop-up job, the fire exploded, trapping 14 firefighters and two hikers in the Chewuch River Canyon on July 10, When it was over, four firefighters were dead: Craven, 30, Weaver, 21, Johnson, 19, and FitzPatrick, 18, all from central Washington. Forest Service and their deadly last day.
THE THIRTYMILE FIRE
This Day in History is a brief summary of a powerful learning opportunity and is not intended to second guess or be judgmental of decisions and actions. Put yourself in the following situation as if you do not know what the outcome will be. What are the conditions? What are you thinking? What are YOU doing? The SW to NE orientation of the canyon aligns with afternoon ridge and upcanyon winds. Ladder fuels are abundant on the canyon floor and riparian fuels are dry enough to support surface fire and torching throughout the night of July 9th and into the morning of July 10th, Crown fuels are dense and drought stressed.
The fire is about five acres with two spots ahead of it. An engine with 3 firefighters arrives just after 11 pm. One engine arrives just before midnight. An IHC arrives at am after working another fire all day and having had only 30 minutes of sleep.
The engine departs the fire around am. A local Type 2 crew is called up just after midnight. A majority of the crew has had only one or two hours of sleep. By am July 10th there are seven spots covering about five to six acres. Two spots are about an acre each. At am the Type 2 crew gets a briefing at a ranger station prior to heading to the fire and is informed that they will be doing mop-up.
They arrive at the fire at am. The IHC leaves the fire for rest at am. Mid-morning fire intensity increases with more frequent torching and increasingly longer spotting distances. By about noon the crew is experiencing difficulties with the pumps and multiple broken handtools. Just after noon the IC requests additional resources including a helicopter. The IHC returns to the fire around pm with less than 3 hours of rest.
The fire has been burning through hoses and spotting over the line. The IC pulls the crew back to the road and accepts the fact that the fire was lost. At pm the Type 2 crew is joined by the IHC at the "safety zone" on the west side of the river. The helicopter makes water drops on small spots on the south edge of the fire until having to refuel.
The fire had spread up the east canyon walls and soon after had moved back to the canyon floor with spotting on the west wall of the canyon.
At pm, the fire is 50 acres, crowning and going to the ridge. At pm the fire is acres. Two engines are ordered and arrive around pm neither checking in with the IC nor receiving a tactical briefing.
One engine crew radios for help with a spot. One, then eventually all of the squads of the Type II crew are sent to assist the engines with spots along the road. Minutes later the fire is actively spotting and is burning right up to the east side of the road.
A call is made to the other firefighters to get everyone out of the area. The fire makes a strong upcanyon run. Cut off from their only escape route, back down the road, 8 firefighters and 2 civilians deploy on the road and 6 firefighters on the talus slope.
Skip to main content. View Navigation. Discussion Points: Local firefighters considered it unusual for green foliage to be burning like it was for this time of year. If you are not familiar with local conditions of a fire you are being dispatched to, what are some quick and effective tools you can use to gain an understanding of that area?
If this was your crew, what would you be doing to identify and mitigate them? Though water was readily available, relatively little was applied to the fire during the night and morning. This was largely due to operational problems with pumps and hoses, as well as delays in availability of a helicopter.
In this situation, how would you and your crew adapt your tactics and develop your trigger points? Records indicate that firefighters on the Thirtymile Fire had very little sleep prior to their assignments, and mental fatigue affected situational awareness and decision-making.
Discuss what you WILL do about it? Using pages in your IRPG , discuss the features of an optimal and survivable deployment site. Practice looking for them on PT hikes, patrolling the fireline, and while prepping prescribed burn units.
Chewuch River Canyon, about 30 miles north of Winthrop, Washington. The fire No fire situation analysis was done on the Thirtymile Fire on. To me, that's the heart of the story." An unattended campfire sparked the Thirtymile Fire in north-central Washington's Okanogan National Forest. Initially.
A richly descriptive chronicle of disaster from an expert on the subject. Maclean begins with a nod to one of his previous books on the subject of firefighting. A number of new safety measures were instituted after 14 firefighters perished in the South Canyon tragedy analyzed in Fire on the Mountain , but few could have predicted that the measures would be tested so soon.
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In their green U. Forest Service van, Kampen and a few comrades barreled down the narrow canyon. Fingers of flame raced them to their escape route.
The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal
As investigators swarm the former gold-mining town of Yarnell, Ariz. More than a decade ago, a similar blaze whipped through a canyon 20 miles north of Winthrop, Okanogan County. Four firefighters died in circumstances eerily similar to those at Yarnell, killed in their emergency shelters as a fast-moving fire burned over them. By the time investigators had finished their work, a unit commander was facing federal criminal charges and supervisors in firehouses nationwide found themselves on the hunt for liability insurance. The next time federal investigators began such an inquiry, firefighters started lawyering up. Nobody seems happy with the outcome of the years-long investigation into that blaze, known as the Thirtymile fire.
Thirtymile Fire
Through his screen, Arten saw all the tanks leap back up to the air, to combat the enemy thirty miles away and closing quick. Within about forty-five seconds, the two sides were less than a mile away. Within less than a second of entering effective range, they fired a massed salvo at the first tank. It fell quickly. Within a few more seconds, the next had. Although black sexuality is dominated by slavery, he chooses his own woman and controls his own destiny. In an attempt to free himself from the restraints of slavery, Sixo sets forth to find his own self, family. The fire surges through my body, I feel so powerful, so unstoppable. The sweat drips down my face but I hardly notice.
This Day in History is a brief summary of a powerful learning opportunity and is not intended to second guess or be judgmental of decisions and actions.
Each had brought order and meaning to their lives by joining the firefighting world. Then the very flames they pursued turned on them, extinguishing their lives. Weaving together the astonishing stories told by the fire's witnesses and, later, the victims' family members and the response to the official reports, John N. Maclean creates a riveting account of the deadly Thirtymile Fire and the controversy and recriminations that raged in its aftermath.
Firefighters who were there tell the story of the deadly Thirty Mile blaze: 'It's snowing fire'
The wildfire had been caused by an unattended campfire that spread rapidly in the hot and dry weather in the Pacific Northwest. Four firefighters were killed when the fire cut off their only escape route out of the narrow canyon. More than a thousand firefighters were involved in suppressing the fire, which was declared contained on July 23, A Forest Service investigation found that numerous safety procedures were violated leading up to the fatal entrapment: fire managers repeatedly underestimated the potential danger of the situation and failed to establish and maintain escape routes and safety zones. Incident commander Ellreese Daniels was later charged with involuntary manslaughter and making false statements to investigators. Daniels pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of making false statements to investigators as part of a plea deal; he was sentenced to three months of work release. Fuels in the canyon included spruce , Douglas-fir , lodgepole pine and cottonwood trees at the canyon floor and Doug-fir, lodgepole, and ponderosa pine on the canyon slopes. High temperatures, low humidity , and extended drought conditions combined to create the potential for extreme fire behavior. At around midnight, the incident commander requested additional firefighters and resources, stating that the fire must "be taken care of tonight because if it hits that slope it is going to the ridge top. Officials believed that due to the severe fire conditions, the Thirtymile Fire could quickly grow out of control and spread to popular recreation areas and private land.
Thirtymile fire left bitter lessons
When I picked up a copy of the Missoulian newspaper to read with breakfast, I was startled to see virtually the same headline from seven years earlier, almost to the day: Wildland Firefighters Killed in Blowup. The earlier time was July 6, , the day of the South Canyon Fire, when flames blew up below a fire crew on Storm King Mountain in Colorado and outraced fourteen firefighters clambering along a precipitous slope. In the intervening years, those fourteen deaths had become an icon of wildland fire, a caution to future generations to avoid high risk in situations where little of value was at stake. This time, four firefighters were killed in a remote canyon in north central Washington when the Thirtymile Fire blew up and trapped them - on July 10, The History Channel crew and I were planning that morning to interview Bob and Nadine Mackey, the parents of Don Mackey, the smokejumper in charge who was one of the fourteen killed on the earlier fire on Storm King Mountain. We drove to the Mackey home in the Bitterroot Valley, taking along a copy of the newspaper. When we showed it to Bob and Nadine, there were no tears - just a hard realization that a new generation of families would bear a familiar burden of sorrow. And then she added, "Are you going to write about this one, too, John?
