30 Mile Fire Fatality Case Study

Case study of the 2001 30 Mile fatality fire in Washington.

[@ericadender4069]

The courage that woman had to share her shelter with two hikers who just walked up on it is amazing. She laid on top of them so she could take the heat with her clothing. They all three walked away.

[@disguy2003]

Not how that happend. They had a rig and they should have never passed the crew.

[@BushyHairedStranger]

“The afternoon of June 26, 1990, as I knelt beside a dead Perryville firefighter, I made a promise to the best of my ability to help end the needless fatalities, and alleviate the near misses, by focusing on training and operations pertinent to these goals.” Paul Gleason from LCES and Other Thoughts published June 1991.

[@jerzeydolphins]

After watching the Movie about Granite Mounain and watching these Vids, HUGE HUGE MAD RESPECT FOR ALL FORREST FIRE FIGHTERS AND THOSE HOTSHOTS,

[@kjensen900]

Hell yeah!!!

[@WildfirelessonsNet]

Our interest is learning. Blame is not learning. Tell us what you will do differently after watching this video.

[@corettaha7855]

WildlandFireLLC I would really try to know the area better. Knowing the area would have allowed them perhaps to avoid entrapment and avoid going back and forth along that dead end road while valuable time wasted. Also, when the discussion of reducing fuel sources around their location came up, I would take that opportunity gladly. The bigger the area around you with limited fuel in it the better in a big fire like this. Even extending it in some areas by a few yards might have been a life and death advantage. At least I’d feel like I’d done as much as I could, and wouldn’t feel frustrated in the meantime standing still watching the fire come closer and closer while doing nothing to fight it for my life. I think little decisions like that as much as the bigger mistakes are the reasons there was so much resentment in the fallout from this fatality situation. Nobody likes to feel powerless or do less than they can when they are just sitting there watching a wall of fire approach, even if it made no difference to outcome it would have felt productive psychologically, and given people a sense of purpose and hope. Those factors shouldn’t be discounted in a situation like this. Morale is an X factor often overlooked.

[@JPF941]

ALL Hotshot crews should have a pair of drone pilots as part of the team. They should be equipped with local drones to scout the area and fire before engaging or entering canyon type typography.

[@scottdixon6155]

WildlandFireLLC use concepts such as local rationality and sensemaking. Avoid hindsight bias and blame culture when investigating.

[@TimKaseyMythHealer]

Deflecting responsibility from mistakes made by incompetent leadership teaches nothing. The root cause of this tragedy is poor training, and incompetent leadership. Had these crews been training on best survival tactics during deployment, they would have deployed near the water's edge. Leaving an 18 year old in a vehicle when she should have been escorted to the waters edge, and helped with shelter deployment and/or doubling up with one of the smaller crew members would have saved her life. You learn by getting to the root cause of the deaths. Had everyone been brought together and been instructed to deploy near the waters edge, everyone would have survived. If you don't have "deploy near waters edge" in your training materials, your administrative controls need to be changed. If you have gone 20 years and never changed your training materials to include "Deploy near a waters edge if available" what have you done to save lives over the last 20 years? Administrative controls are what the NFS can modify to save lives, and if they never get to the root cause of these tragedies, nothing will improve, lives will continue to be lost, and it will never improve.

[@williamcap2236]

Umm not be there in the first place ! I'm not a firefighter so I'm not going to be anywhere near it. That being said you all are some brave mother****ers ! That keep getting thrown in front of some bad stuff. Please stop wasting lives for fires that there is no lives or property in danger it's pointless

[@TimKaseyMythHealer]

13:32 You can't expect the root cause of the disaster to have any insights that can save lives going forward. Here's what future NFS leaders can learn from the 30 mile fire: Determine that you are in a condition red. Don't be slow to comprehend this. If it is a condition red, acknowledge that it is a condition red. I stress this because the leader in this video was standing around smoking a cigarette, and not gathering the crew together to inform them of best survival tactics (deploy near water). When someone argued against deployment near the water, CORRECT THIS MORON and explain that the water is a best bet deployment option. Gather your crew together and inform them that the best chances for survival are near the waters edge, and that everyone needs to get near the water's edge to deploy. The young lady who was left in the van to die??? She should have double up with one of the smaller persons near the waters edge. You can fit two people in a single shelter, and if you have two people that are relatively small 120 to 150 lbs, they would be a good duo to survive in a single shelter. If you must sit it out in a vehicle, make sure you've parked the vehicle with side door right near the water's edge so you can fall into the water should the vehicle get too unbearably hot. It is my understanding that the young lady in the van (18 years of age) was burned so badly while in the vehicle, that she later died. Where was the crew leader helping her to get down to the waters edge? She was just out of HS, and this was her first job of that summer. None of these points I've raised were covered in this video, and that is inexcusable. Link to photos of the individuals who's lives were lost on the 30 mile fire: www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_053320.pdf

[@leu182]

It’s easy to Monday-quarterback when you weren’t there to see how it unfolded. I don’t think they realized they were in “condition red” until they were hit with that convective heat blast. The majority of them were on the road. The road is on the river edge. I don’t think anyone argued about where to deploy. I don’t think they had time to discuss it. They thought they were in a safety zone, and by definition of the term, they were. Safety zones aren’t considered an area where you should have to deploy a shelter. No one was left in the van to die. All the fatalities were up in the rocks about thirty feet up off the road. The two civilians shared a fire shelter with one of the firefighters on the road. One of the survivors who suffered the worst burns, (Emhoff), was deployed with those who died on the hill. He didn’t have his gloves with him and his hands were severely burned trying to hold his shelter down. A football sized chunk of burning debris flew under his shelter. He lifted his shelter to throw out the debris and observed no movement or sound from the shelters near him. At this point, the four firefighters had already perished. He abandoned his shelter, shielded himself from the heat behind a couple of boulders, then eventually dashed down to the van on the road were he remained until the rest of the survivors emerged from their shelters. There were a lot of mistakes that were made up until that point, yes, it’s a miracle any of the survived at all.

[@christinecortese9973]

Sounds like this operation was compromised at the beginning by many small errors but the most important thing is to ensure your escape route. Why didn't anyone know that was a dead -end road until too late? Well, because things were happening fast and maybe that kind of detail gets overlooked? Having read John Macleans's book about this, I feel that there was a general lack of respect for the topography and the fire behavior. Of course as a civilian I run as fast as I can in the other direction! But still, a narrow canyon with an erratic fire that you can't always see? No heroics on this one!

[@TimKaseyMythHealer]

12:49 This comment does nothing to determine the root cause of this tragedy. Here's what was done wrong: 1) The fire behavior changed and you responded by pulling everyone off the fire, I get this, but then you proceeded to moving vehicles from a point bellow the elevation of the fire to a point above the elevation of the fire? Is this your first fire as supervisor/boss? Keep vehicles below the elevation of the fire, work from the black. Use the water pumps and spray from the black into the head. The detail of why the pumps were abandoned? Why? They were your best bet, early on, for putting this fire out before the temperatures got to 80 degrees. If you must move vehicles and personnel above the elevation of the fire, check your map and be certain the road continues for at least 5 to 10 miles before a dead end. You had from 0900 to 1100 hours to check maps, and radio to dispatch/office to have them check road outlets. Leadership not onsite should have also done this check in support of your crew. 2) Not instructing individuals on exact points for shelter deployment placed them too close to the fuels, and this is why some didn't make it. No leadership to guide them while deploying? Taking pictures and not giving instructions on best deployment points? inexcusable, you should have been demoted from leadership. 3) Leadership was incompetent when an individual is in the van, and not instructed to go to the river and lay down in the water.

[@leu182]

What comment? The wind shift? To address your other questions: 1) There wasn't much elevation change from the point of origin to the area of entrapment: It increased 10 feet over about a mile and-a-half. They were working in the black and anchored in on the east side of the river and chasing spots before the fire jumped to the west side of the river and the road. The ground crew was disengaged until an engine asked for a squad for assistance. This is the group that ended up entrapped. The crew were having issues with the Mark 3 pumps since the night before. They kept breaking down and they struggled to keep them running. 2) They were in a safety zone. They didn't think it would be necessary to deploy, which is why they were taking pictures. These were 18 and 19 year old kids. Some of them were on their first fire. They were in what they thought was a safety zone. I was in that same spot the day after the fatalities and thought, this should have been ok. By definition, this is a safety zone. At the time, there wasn't a lot of urgency. They thought they were going to see the fire going up the hill right passed them. However, extreme fire behavior and convective heat made this a unique situation. A smoke column driven fire that gained an immense amount of energy in very little time. Mistakes were made, no doubt, but it's not as simple as you would think. It's easy to shift blame, especially when you weren't there. I can easily see myself ending up in the same situation. 3)There was no one in the van at the beginning of the event. Jason Emhoff ended up in the van after abandoning his shelter because he was getting burned. I believe the four firefighters who perished were already dead at this point. That decision probably saved his life. Everyone else (10 people) who deployed shelters on the road survived, including the Hagemeyers (two civilians), who shared a shelter with firefighter Rebecca Welch. 6 deployed on the rock scree. Thom Taylor was scouting for potential deployment spots up the hill. Six crew members were clustered on two large rocks about 30 feet up the hill from the road. It was reported that the IC tried to tell them to come down to the road several times. One of them, (Welch) did. The rest, (Emhoff, K. FitzPatrick, J. Johnson, D. Weaver, and T. Craven), remained on the rocks. Taylor had found no suitable deployment sites on the hill and was beginning to come back down when the convective heat wave hit. He deployed and told the 5 remaining below him that weren't on the road to deploy. With the conditions inside of his shelter, Taylor did not believe his shelter would hold out, so he left his shelter and ran to the river. Emhoff also left his shelter when he was unable to keep holding it down due to lack of gloves. He ran and sought shelter from the heat behind a large boulder before running down to seek shelter in the van. All of this info came out of the Thirtymile Investigation Report.

[@TwoGuns1891]

Like what I heard on the south canyon fire, you gotta speak up but back then it was frowned upon, and even in the fire world now (2010-on up) it is still frowned upon to turn down an assignment. I had the opportunity to fight fire in that area last season (2014 Carlton Complex), but when you turn down an assignment now days you get looked at like your useless. I put my trust in my engine boss but at the same time I put my trust in myself, I read the the sitrep and I go to the morning briefings even though I don't have to

[@mrdayyumyum3712]

I am on a volunteer fire dept. We go out on local wild land fires. Watching these videos is sobering. We seem to not realize the danger in wild land fire fighting. The South Canyon Storm King mountain fire in Colorado in it learning that well trained wild land fire fiighters died should send a message to us volunteers but it doesn't because of our culture of training on my department.

[@watchthe1369]

By the first break it looked like a 'walk away and let it burn' fire. It does not look like humans were threatened in anyway.

[@highcountrytimber]

One lesson to learn is to know the topography of the fire is one lesson pulled from this fire.

[@timfredrickson3889]

Smoke get to you too much?

[@nancygalloway9720]

Brave men. Thank you seems inadequate for the sacrifices you all have made. The Lord bless you.

[@daviddriscollservantofJesus]

not the smartest but brave

[@michaelsmith1229]

This is a powerful video which I have looked at for a second time before going to hike in that area and visit the memorial. It's the concatenation of small things that causes the disaster. To me, the first definable decision moment was when a spot fire up the canyon was attacked and firefighters left the lunch spot. The second definable decision moment was when the fire itself crossed the road to the west. "Unburned fuel between you and the fire" was an issue here and at Yarnell. As for water comments, the Pagami Creek Fire in 2011 in the Boundary Waters showed what happened when people were in a lake--hypothermia, high winds, and degradation of fire shelters with water. Thank you for posting this.

[@corettaha7855]

Michael Smith I cant imagine any situation where unburned fuel between you and the fire isn’t going to be a factor since it’s 100% necessary for the fire triangle. The unnecessariness of being in the fuel is the heartbreaking part. In the book it explains more about why those on the rocks died even though it was a scree slope, and those in the river did not. Do they train for that now, though? Seems like that information would be good to know. But maybe it’s rare enough to get in an entrapment that it’s not worthwhile to train for it.

[@gordstart1773]

It is concerning to hear the one fire fighter advise to ask for training, how the hell are people put into these jobs without every possible training course possible to help them remain safe? Also a lot of these videos show incidents in very remote areas with no development around them, does the US ever just let a fire burn with observation and just let the fire extinguish itself naturally?

[@jerzeydolphins]

thanks for sharing these vids, im way to beatdown to volunteer anytype of FD, but at least im learning ,and if im ever out in the Forrest and encounter such danger i will have a small bit of info to survive ,God Bless the Souls Lost being Heros trying to Fight this Fire

[@RobertoAHenderson]

May they rest in peace. Lets learn from this and be a part of the solution. We lost two fire fighters at Mount Gleason ( my camp) back in 2009.

[@independentrealist9299]

I am assuming attempting to run out thru the v would be to exhausting to maintain for time needed to get into a safe area I think like a soldier.... get better air attacks use helicopters to extract crew. I know that's of money for equipment etc get these people better fire shelters!

[@SirDrAdamB]

I know almost 0 about fighting fires, but while watching the video I couldn't help but think that the crew's boss could have done more. It's easy to armchair after the fact, but he seemed surprisingly complacent for their situation.

[@leesenger3094]

I'm just curious because I'm ignorant but why not get in the river 1st thing with your blanket as an air pocket? I know it happens in seconds but road to rocks? Or road to river?

[@leu182]

They simply didn't have enough time to recognize the severity of the situation. They didn't believe they'd need to deploy at all until it was apparently obvious. Then there was only time to deploy were they were. Most of those that survived were on the road, just above the water.

[@MissNebulosity]

Thank you for this video. I learned a lot.

[@Konabish]

Recognizing early into the fire that the potential to envelop the entire canyon is becoming a reality with the deteriorating weather. Get out before the fire can trap you. If you do get cut-off, get to the best safety zone, as a group, and stay there.

[@thesunsetreptiles]

it was the ICs fault

[@jimwattenburger4545]

Accidents are the end product of a series of events leading up to it happening. Break the chain, you stop the accident from happening. ITS ALL ABOUT SITUATIONAL AWARENESS !

[@spacequeenruby]

Fantastic video. Especially now in the 2020's where fire seems to be unavoided each summer, especially out here in Washington and the rest of the west. Thank you to all figh fighter's, and all law and wild life enforcement and volunteers, God bless.

[@jeffreydrowns5512]

I knew several of this crew members.

[@dacomazielsdorf7618]

It sounds like even though they had plan abcd but was to slow to transition to the next plan a big help would have been to start prepping the green area for deployment start burning the area around the green . You know it is coming you know it's gonna burn up anyway help your cause . That's one thing I always preached when teaching new guys especially structural . For instance a house fire ur apparatus is plan a and plan b support is 9 minutes away then you can't wait 9 minutes for the fire to develop to call for it you have to call at minute 1 to get there by ten minutes and if you anticipate needing apparatus c that takes 20 minutes at minute 14 you better be calling b and c to arrive before your even completing plan a that would take 5 minutes becuase you don't have that time for plan a to be finished and wait for plan b .

[@1copperfly]

Everybody yells "Respect", nobody says give them the money.

[@johnortmann3098]

The first link in the chain leading to the disaster was sending them up a dead-end road and not telling them. Had they known that going in they would have been much less likely to have gone further up the canyon. Their last-resort escape route then could have been the road back out and their safety zone somewhere in better terrain and vegetation lower down.

[@hawkeyepierce9794]

I'm not the smartest man in the room but I'm smart enough to know that fire don't burn water. I would have been in the river from the get go.

[@MrDrewmcdonald]

You can't breath under water. Without a shelter to hold in breathable air, the air at the surface of the water is too hot, too smokey and not enough oxygen to breath. It can take minutes to hours for the fire storm to pass over. asphyxiation would take you anyway.

[@wisp666]

Marien Thyme Maybe. But the guy who ran down to the river survived, the folk who stayed in their shelters on the rocks died. So the river was evidently the safer place to be. Under your shelter, for sure, but even so.

[@amandamaurer8310]

Hawkeye Pierce I’m not trying to be rude to you but yes fires can run over water or depends how tags and hot of fire is

[@corettaha7855]

Hawkeye Pierce it will boil you if it is downriver of the fire. The situation here was fortunately that the river ran from the other direction. The other thing is that flames can lay down in the wind and shoot across the water, so it can heat water to scalding temps, and unless you’ve got gills also burn your head right off. Fire don’t burn rocks either, but you notice everyone who stayed on the rocks died? Well, rocks like water heat up when subjected to fire conditions. They basically baked from the bottom up. It was only pure luck that the river was upstream instead of downstream of the fire, so when you’re in this situation being so proud of how clever you are versus these folks, make sure you don’t get poached like an egg.

[@amandamaurer8310]

Yes fires can jump water

[@mnpd3]

The graphics can't be perfect, but it appears the fire backtracked through the black. Apparently it was an underburned area instead. In any case, no one should have gone further down that road into unburned fuel without first ascertaining that the road itself was an escape route. If the road had continued from the area, escape by vehicle on an open road would have been a cinch.

[@martywhitehead9902]

Where was this fire at

[@leu182]

goo.gl/maps/mK84EHk2oyyaizvT9

[@BushyHairedStranger]

Washington State.

[@steverosema4026]

I surly would have been figuring out where , I would take cover before the fire got there ,when I knew I was trapped ,instead of watching it !!

[@tony.bickert]

The turning point was the "decision" to reengage the fire. I realize it's not that simple as to say, "once you disengage you should never reengage." Still that was the turning point. In retrospect it was the wrong decision. But let's back up. Was the disengagement ever official? If so, then why did crews not stop the two engines that had just come on scene from engaging the fire? My impression is there was no strong leadership on site to take charge of the disengagement and to make sure no reengagement occurred. To back up further, it seemed there was a question as to who was even in charge! So, make sure in the future there is strong, apparent, communicative and experienced leadership. That's a lot to ask for but these folks work in life or death situations. They deserve the best.

[@devins1195]

Do any experts want to speak out against the notion that "raking out state forests" under local state control would prevent larger, destructive fires? that this is a political problem rather than a natural phenomenon plus suburban expansion...Thank you for your bravery.

[@slackjawedyokel1]

there was a pilot program called the healthy forest initiative under president Bush - it was not funded under the next president

[@funshootin1]

Why wouldn't everyone just jump in the water ? Is there a reason not too ? To the layman it kinda seems a no brainer so perhaps a firefighter with forest fire experience can explain the pros n cons.

[@WildfirelessonsNet]

funshootin1 Thanks for the comment! One of the reasons that folks went up into the rock slide may have to do with the fact that firefighter training shows images of rock slides as areas for potential safety zone (where no fire shelter is needed) as well as deployment zones (those areas where a fire shelter is needed). www.fs.fed.us/t-d/lessons/documents/Avoid_Flames/page3.html , figure 4. Note: the image is strikingly similar to the rock slide where shelters were deployed on the 30 mile fire. So, although it's impossible to say, it might be that those who died in the rock slide were simply following their training.

[@dianebrewster3219]

+funshootin1 I'm no expert, but I do know that each firefighter has 50 lbs of gear including their fire protective clothing. I suspect that is why jumping into a river is not a good option when you don't have time to strip down to your skivvies. Drowning would be imminent.

[@manysticks]

+funshootin1 It seems like a no brainer to jump into the water but its not. The water is freezing and if you go into it you risk hypothermia. If it is water that your body can stay in for 1 to 1.5 hours then you are ok. Also water will steam as the fire front rolls over which can burn and asphyxiate.

[@funshootin1]

+manysticks thats what I was curious about..the body of water being heated to steam..or at least upper levels of it being unbearably hot.. I guess a small stream wouldn't provide the protection needed .

[@rgknowlton1]

+funshootin1 You can read the incident report here which might help answer your question. www.fs.fed.us/t-d/lessons/documents/Thirtymile_Reports/Thirtymile-Final-Report-2.pdf Search for the keywords "river" and "water". After the flame front passed, the surviving members of the crew did retreat to the river for a short period of time. Jason Emhoff--whose hands were severely burned--avoided the cold water because he was concerned about shock. According to the report, the crew was surprised and unprepared for how fast the flame front overtook them, which may explain why they didn't advance toward the river (which was also toward the fire front). The crew at the lower deployment site only had enough time to deploy their shelters (20-30 seconds) where they stood after the command to deploy was received. Also, while water can prevent burns to submerged skin, firefighters still need to breathe. A shelter is designed to protect crewmembers from superheated air by trapping a supply of good air inside the shelter. I'm guessing that would be more difficult while submerged in water and I'm not aware of any studies on the use of shelters in water.

[@leroygreen1877]

Why did the forest service only build one way or no exit service roads. Those people would have lived had the road been built through with exit!

[@REMIREZZ]

It was originally planned to go through in the 1950s but they decided to not fully connect it because of its close proximity to a wilderness area. But its also not the Forest Services long-term goal to create good escape routes for firefighters. Even though this would be really great its pretty cost prohibitive. Its also in a massive canyon so its impossible to have any roads extending laterally, so it would have to go through the end which wouldn't have been possible for the above reason.