Fire on the Mountain

Fire on the Mountain

By John Norman Maclean

Book Review by Bryan J Christensen

Introduction to the author John Maclean

John Maclean was a writer, editor, and reporter for the Chicago Tribune for 30 years before he resigned his job there in 1995 to write Fire on the Mountain. Maclean was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1943, the second of two children. He attended the University of Chicago school system through high school, and then enrolled at Shimer College in Mt. Carroll, Illinois, then a satellite school for the U of C. He was an honor student at Shimer and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in humanities in 1964; he received the school’s distinguished alumni award in 1975. Maclean left the Tribune after the South Canyon Fire on Colorado's Storm King Mountain killed 14 firefighters. He spent the next several years researching and writing his first book, Fire on the Mountain, published in 1999. The book was the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association's best nonfiction title that year. He followed this with two more books on fatal wildfires; they were Esperanza Fire and The Thirty mile Fire. (Maclean)

It was the love and passion that Maclean has in his writing to tell the true story of what had taken place in these fatality fires. He has always had a passion along with his father who is Norman Maclean, he wrote the book Young Men and Fire. This is the reason that I have chosen to read and tell about this book.

Review of the Incident:

On July 2, 1994, seven miles west of Glenwood Springs, Colo., lightning ignites a Bureau of Land Management fire in pinion-pine juniper on a ridge at the base of Storm King Mountain. The fire, paralleled by two deep canyons, is initially believed to have “little chance” to spread. The past two days, lightning has started 40 new fires on this BLM District. The entire general area, in a one-year drought, is experiencing low humidity’s and record-high temperatures. Over the next two days, the South Canyon Fire increases in size. Visible from Interstate 70 and nearby residential areas, the public becomes concerned. Some initial attack resources are assigned. From July 3-6, the fire grows to approximately 2,000 acres. On July 6, a dry cold front moves into the fire area. As winds and fire activity increases, the fire makes several 100-foot flame-length rapid runs within the existing burn—in dense, highly flammable Gamble oak. Fourteen firefighters perish as they try to outrun the flames. The remaining 35 firefighters survive either by escaping down a deep drainage or by seeking a safety area and deploying their fire shelters. (South Canyon investigation)

Book review

As you read the book Maclean was able to help paint the picture needed before the fire even started. There were two fire centers located within seeing distance of each other. One was the Western Slope Coordination Center and the other was the Grand Junction Dispatch center. There had been some problems between the two centers communicating with each other. It has been an ongoing problem for years and neither side wanted to fix the issues.

After the crews began fire suppression they requested addition resources. There were 8 smoke jumpers that were dispatched and jumped the fire on July 5. They landed and made radio contact with the IC. They never were able to do a face to face briefing with the IC and he was leaving the fire with his crew for the night and left the fire to the jumpers. When the jumpers began to attack they fire they realized that the terrain was steeper than it appeared from air. They had to disengage several times and notified the dispatch center. While the firefighting activity was being done on the mountain there was a red flag warning issued for high winds and storm front moving into the area. This message was never passed onto the fire line. More crews were ordered but only one crew was filled with the Prineville Hotshots.

As the jumpers began building fire line down the west flank, there were several that felt it was not a good idea to build the line downhill with the fire below them. After talking with the jumper in charge they decided to go ahead and start the building the line.  Later nine members from the shot crew arrived and began helping constructing the line.

Again there was a red flag warning issued for strong winds and cold front moving in. The weather service sent out the notification and wanted to make sure that it was passed along so the proper actions could be taken. The message was lost and never passed on. It was predicted that the weather was going to impact the fire around 4pm. Cuoco was instant to make sure that his message was to be delivered to the people out on the line. The dispatchers were so over whelmed with the many fires that the message never was passed on.

As the fire progressed it still had the same incident command system in place. It was not adapting to the changing fire as it grew larger than the command system was able to handle at that time. At approximately 4 pm when the fire was supposed to see the cold front and the shifting winds. The fire then blew up and spotted across the drainage and made the push up the hill towards the firefighters. 35 firefighters scrambled for their lives. 14 lost their lives as they were not able to escape the fire. Don Mackey was able to escort several others to safety and then went back to help others get out. It was that time when Mackey was also taken over by the fire. They said that is how Mackey was every day. Always looking to make sure others were safe but this time it had cost Mackey the ultimate price, his live looking to safe others.

Conclusion:

The fourteen firefighters who tried to outrun the flames perish were: Kathi Beck, Tami Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Robert Browning, Doug Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso, Don Mackey, Roger Roth, James Thrash, and Richard Tyler.

With this incident we have learned several lessons and hope to use them to prevent any other tragic incidents. Some people think that the mentality and thinking of the smoke jumpers and shot crews had clouded the bigger picture of safety. They have always assumed that they were an elite group of firefighters and could handle anything.

Three major factors were identified that contributed to the blowup on the afternoon of July 6, 1994. First was the presence of fire in the bottom of a steep narrow canyon. Second, strong up canyon winds pushing the fire up the canyon and upslope. Third is the fire burning into the green gamble oak canopy.

Some of these points were readily apparent to firefighters. Others may be less evident. It was believed that all are important. They are:

• Topography can dramatically influence local wind patterns.
• Vegetation and topography can reduce firefighter’s ability to see a fire or other influencing factors.
• Current and past fire behavior often does not indicate the potential fire behavior that could occur.
• The longer a fire burns and the larger it gets the greater the likelihood of high-intensity fire behavior at some location around the perimeter.
• The transition from a slow-spreading, low-intensity fire to a fast-moving, high-intensity fire often occurs rapidly. This seems to surprise firefighters most often in live fuels.
• Escape route effectiveness should be considered in relation to potential maximum-intensity fire behavior rather than past or present fire behavior.
• The underburned gamble oak did not contribute to the blowup. It was significant in that it did not provide a safety zone.
• Smoke can significantly reduce the firefighter’s abilities to sense changes in fire behavior.

This was the first fatality incident involving jumpers since the Mann Gulch Fire in 1949.

Along with these points that was listed there was also the feeling from people doing the investigation that they were wanting to put the blame on the fire fighters and not on the numerous errors made by upper management and the bad blood between the dispatch centers.  

References:

Maclean, J (1999), Fire on the Mountain, The true story of the South Canyon Fire

South Canyon Fire Investigation. 1994.http://wildfirelessons.net/documents/S_Canyon_AIReport_1994.pdf

Young Men and Fire

Young Men and Fire

By: Norman Maclean 

Book Review by DeVan Lord

            The long history of firefighting in America is documented back to the late sixteen-hundreds. The earliest documented forest fire was recorded over two-hundred years ago in a journal entry dating back to October 1804. In the years following, fire groups, fire wardens, and fire towers were established to be watch outs for forest fires around the country. In the later years of 1886 the first Wildland Firefighter crews were created; considered more to be park rangers because they fought fires in their perspective areas of the national parks/forests.

            Fire history truly began after the first firefighting group was formed, along the way, new firefighting methods were created, ways of putting out fires, ways to survey fire behaviors, and the different types of fires to types of buildings. In nineteen-thirty four a man by the name of T.V. Pearson came up with the idea of Smokejumping for the fire service in 1934. He meant for it to provide a quick means of initial attack  by parachuting into a fire before it became too large, with the provisions to be self-sufficient for a minimum of forty eight hours with no outside resources or help. Even though the idea was proposed, it did not come into play until the mid-nineteen forty’s when two permanent air operations were set up, one in Winthrop, Washington and one in Ninemile camp, Montana; the first recorded jump was on July 12, 1940 into the Nez Pierce National Forrest. Soon after, the Montana air base moved to Missoula and the name change to the Missoula Smokejumper Base.

            The Mann Gulch fire incident was fought by an eighteen man crew out of the Missoula Smokejumpers base. The fire was discovered by a lookout by the name of James Harrison who was a fire prevention guard for Helena National Forrest. The fire was first spotted at 1225 hours on August 5, 1949. The area being very dry and dense, it consisted of a very mature fuel load of sixty to one hundred year old Ponderosa Pine mixed with fifteen to fifty year old Douglas Fir. The fuel load was very consistent. Because of the thickness and density of the fuels and the lack of accessibility to such a remote area, the Missoula Smokejumpers were called out.

            According to the crew foreman, R. Wagner Dodge, the jump was considered to be very regular, they flew over the fire doing some scouting and sizing up of the scene. The only thing that did not go according to plan is the supply drop into their landing zone. The cargo was scattered over a quarter mile, and the shoot for the crews radio did not deploy resulting in the radio breaking upon impact – which meant there was no communication with the outside world. Upon landing, the crew gathered all equipment and later that night R. Wagner Dodge met with the forest guard James Harrison to begin discussing tactics and the area where the fire was.

            When the actual attack began, winds were recorded from coming in from the north and east ranging from about six to eight miles per hour. At 1530 hours, the winds switched from north and east coming in from the south at about twenty four miles per hour and continued to blow at about the same speed for the remainder of the day. The topography of the area was mountainous, covered in ridges and canyons, the wind created a strong turbulence at the mouth of Mann Gulch which caused strong winds going towards the crews inside. (The way it was formed would be considered a chimney) As the day went on the crew was being led by one of its lead members. Dodge and Harrison were on top of the ridge scouting the fires behavior when they noticed the fire coming up the mouth of the canyon. At 1740 hours Dodge and Harrison took back control of the crew, they continued on the designated route they were on for about five minutes when they came to find the fire blocking their passage way out of the mouth of the canyon. Spot fires rapidly increased the area around them. Trees started crowning, gusts picked the fire up and started burning at a rate of around one hundred and twenty feet per minute. At 1735 hours the crew turned around to get out of the canyon, at 1735 hours they dropped their packs and tools and started making a run for it scattering in all directions, at 1755 hours the crew was all over the place, Foreman Dodge set an escape fire around himself and survived inside the burnt our zone. Crewmembers Sallee and Rumsey ran into a rock formation on the side of the mountain and survived inside of there. At about 1800 hours the rest of the crewmembers had perished from the fire.

            The events from above all happened in a very short time period. The crew had jumped at about 1610 hours, the scattered cargo had been gathered by about 1700 hours. At 1745 hours the crew had seen the fire coming towards them on the north slope when they turned to run. By around four minutes to 1800 hours the fire had swept over them. The time when the fire took over the men was determined by melted hands of a pocket watch found with Harrison frozen at 1756 hours by the intense heat. Studies estimate the fire covered over three-thousand acres in just ten minutes during the time of the blow-up, an hour and forty-five minutes after arrival, thirteen firefighters dies and three survived.

Those that were killed by the fire.

• Robert J. Bennett, age 22 from Paris, TN
• Eldon E. Diettert, age 19 from Moscow, ID, died on his 19th birthday
• James O. Harrison – Helena National Forest Fire Guard, age 20, Missoula, MT
• William J. Hellman, age 24 from Kalispell, MT
• Philip R. McVey, age 22 from Babb, MT
• David R. Navon, age 28 from Modesto CA
• Leonard L. Piper, age 23 from Blairsville, PA
• Stanley J. Reba, from Brooklyn NY
• Marvin L. Sherman, age 21 from Missoula, MT
• Joseph B. Sylvia, age 24 from Plymouth MA
• Henry J. Thol, age 19 from Kalispell MT
• Newton R. Thompson, age 23 from Alhambra CA
• Silas R. Thompson, age 21 from Charlotte NC

Those that survived:

•  R. Wagner (Wag) Dodge, Missoula SJ foreman, age 33, died 5 years later from Hodgkin ’s disease
• Walter B. Rumsey, age 21 from Larned KA, Rumsey died in a plane crash in 1980 at 52 years old
• Robert W. Sallee, age 17, Willow Creek MT (only surviving member today)

                If you notice, none of the men were even familiar with the area they were in, the only crew member who knew the area was Marvin L. Sherman, after the incident 450 men fought for five more days to get the fire, which had spread over 4500 acres under control. Thirteen crosses were made to mark the locations where the thirteen smokejumpers died in Mann Gulch. Many lessons were learned from the Mann Gulch incident, it would have a great impact on how firefighters would be trained. Though, some of the lessons were forgotten and the tragedy of Mann Gulch would be repeated in the 1994 South Canyon Fire when fourteen firefighters died.

                There are several lessons we can take from Mann Gulch, one we learn that fire spreads faster on slopes. Mann Gulch was about 75% incline, slope also made it difficult to run from the fire. We also learn that the crew had poor leadership, Dodge did not know most of the crew, and this led to them to not trusting their foreman. We learn how vital communication is to a crew; it could have possibly prevented the disaster or helped to get aid more quickly to the two men who died later.

                Mann Gulch was a sad incident for the Wildland firefighting world; we lost good firefighters for bad reasons. Though, we had many lessons come from the fire, the beginning of the watch out situations, and firefighting orders came from this incident, fire shelters began to develop, and the safety of our firefighters became a more important priority.