How Are the July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire Morman Lake Hot Shot Crew Fatalities and Other Fatality Fires Tied Into the Overall Fire Shelter Movement and Concealing those Truths?

Oct 27
67 min read

Restating the post title due to Wix space constraints: How are the July 1976 Battlement Creek Fire (CO) Morman Lake Hot Shot Crew Fatalities Tied Into the Overall Fire Shelter Movement to Conceal the Truth, Which Also Includes the 1966 Loop Fire (CA), 1985 Lake Mountain (ID), 1985 Butte Fire (ID), 1990 Dude Fire (AZ), 1994 South Canyon Fire (CO), and the renowned 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire?

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" is from the poet and artist William Blake and appears in his work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Also quoted by Aldous Huxley, in his book titled: The Doors of Perception.

"Throughout history, the concept of truth and perception has been a central theme in philosophy, science, and art, often leading individuals and societies to grapple with the notion that their understanding of reality may not be as straightforward as it appears. This struggle is exemplified by famous figures and movements that have challenged conventional wisdom and revealed uncomfortable truths, often leading to profound shifts in understanding and belief." Plato and Galileo

Here are the relevant Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WLF LLC) links for each of these fatal wildfires utilized in this post. Mann Gulch (MT, 1949), Loop (CA, 1966), Battlement Creek (CO, 1976), Mack Lake (MI, 1980), Lake Mountain (ID, 1985), Butte (ID, 1985), Dude (AZ, 1990), South Canyon (CO, 1994), and the historical (AZ, 2013) Yarnell Hill debacle. Here are several little, to virtually unknown, yet germane, shelter deployments that will also be addressed. On the ID, Salmon NF, July 1985 Lake Mountain Fire, four Crews and two Fallers deployed fire shelters in two locations. And here are three other, little-known, obscure shelter deployments (CO, 1994): Hourglass 3 on the Arapaho and Roosevelt NFs. Two deployment incidents and one near entrapment occurred. Moreover, the fatal 1980 MI Mack Lake Escaped RX Fire will be addressed in relation to its extreme fire behavior and WF fatality significance. The unfortunate dozer operator was entrapped by fire in a dense jack pine stand. After first turning the tractor to the north away from the advancing fire, he left the tractor and attempted escape on foot. His position was overrun by fire and he perished.

Authors Fred J. Schoeffler, Gary L. Olson, and other contributing authors

Views expressed to "the public at large” and "of public concern"

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Abbreviations used: Wildland Firefighters (WFs), Firefighters (FFs), Escape Routes (ER). and Safety Zones (SZ).

All emphasis is added unless otherwise noted.

oral disclaimer: https://youtube.com/live/uVIvSrEwP4E?feature=share

Let the wise hear

and increase in learning,

and the one who understands obtain guidance

Proverbs 1:5 (NKJV)

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends

than that good men should look on and do nothing.

John Stuart Mill

1867 British philosopher - inaugural address at the Univ. of St Andrews

This is yet another compelling wildland fire story that deserves to be told. It will come from two former Hot Shots and/or Crew Bosses and/or Superintendents; the former Happy Jack Hot Shots Second Saw Gary Olson and Payson Hot Shot Crew Boss and/or Superintendents Fred Schoeffler (FJS) themselves, primarily from the renowned Happy Jack Second Saw Gary Olson himself. Jeff Denempont was the Happy Jack Hot Shots Crew Boss. A stew of hypertoxic rhetoric has cumulatively and progressively surged forth from these events since the 1966 Loop Fire! This is in addition to their respective relevant "official" Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT) - Serious Accident Investigation Reports (SAIR), Staff Rides, Human Factors, psychological revelations, archive wildland fire weather, fire behavior records, etc. This post is about several wildland fires that most knowledgeable FFs and WFs consider historical near-death wildland fires, several skirting near Biblical proportions. The time has finally come to reveal more of the facts and truths about them and their respective collective threads after all these years, toward our chosen goal of revealing truthful and accurate lessons learned. From our individual and collective professional opinions with Olson’s at times seemingly more personal, please consider now our respective emails, Facebook threads, and archived data and links, etc., on the subject(s) at hand. Consider looking into thecomprehensiv Hot Shot History Guide (link) for the relatively current and mostly former Hot Shot Crews information.

"Good morning Gary, sharing my FB comments on your post. Best regards, FJS ... Good morning Gary, once again, thank you for sharing. Among other things, in my professional opinion, (restating your quotes) I agree that you are "absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God truly loves me and I am one of his chosen people. ... Or at least he loves all Wildland Firefighters.' The same is true for those of us exposing the truth and lies about the June 30, 2013, Yarnell Hill Fire & GMHS debacle, which is and will hopefully remain as the biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history!" Researchers Gleason & Robinson warn that: “... failing to learn the lessons of the past dooms us to reliving those lessons, then we must either impress indelibly into the minds of firefighters the lessons of the South Canyon Fire or we will again experience its tragic outcome” (Close, 2005). Ironically, Student of Fire commenter No. 19 Matt bravely and accurately noted: “It is unforgivable that we allow sentiment and tradition [to] prevent us from learning anything from ... Yarnell because we continue to be blinkered ... in our eagerness to ‘not speak ill’ of the dead. It is nothing short of astonishing that the official conclusion was that everybody involved in the YH Fire did everything right. ... Covering up facts because they make us uncomfortable dishonors the dead, and ensures the same mistakes will be made in the future” (Woodbridge, 2014)

(In)Complete and (Un)True Lessons Learned - Which One? False, contrived defensive claims thrive. Their [Honor the Fallen] goal was to make sure Yarnell Hill, the most publicized event in wildland firefighting history, forced some much-needed changes to the job’s outdated culture. “We could see ourselves making the same decision they’d made …” Dickman Outside online (2018). “Lessons from Yarnell continue to echo throughout the wildland [FF] community.” and “The [YHF] remains part of an ongoing discussion on wildland firefighting safety” Prescott FD FF (Lingle, 2020)

"I found this original version in a trash can in the Kaibab NF Dispatch office in 1976, and this was one of the many others I submitted to the nascent WLF LLC, which was originally in Marana, AZ. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the opportunity to share. Fred Schoeffler, Payson HS (1981-2007)"

Everyone searches for opportunities while running from problems, missing that they're the same thing. Problems are far from being obstacles to opportunity; they are the opportunity.

Figure 1. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire Serious Accident Investigation Report Cover Sheet Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 1a. July 1976, Happy Jack Hot Shots image Source: Olson

Figure 1b. Battlement Creek Fire access map Source: Olson, YouTube

Pay close attention to the "Bastard Steep" terrain and deadly bowls, e.g., topographical contour line causal factors in Figs. 1b., 1c., 2h., and 2i. below.

Figure 1c. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire contour with deadly fire behavior. Source: Wild Fire Today

Figure 1d. Battlement Creek Fire Perimeter, site locations, and deadly topographical features. Source: CFC

Consider this linked Accident Report BATTLEMENT CREEK FIRE Fatalities & Injury, July 17, 1976, version from the undated Colorado Fire Camp (CFC) website. It includes a worthy PowerPoint presentation titled "1976-2006: Thirty Years of Lessons Learned" as well.

Consider now the Wildland Fire Orders & Watch Outs listed on the back page of the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG).

Figure 1e. Wildland Fire Orders & Watch Outs Source: NWCG IRPG

Figure 1e1. Fire Orders Original Intent Source: Brauneis, FMT

Please consider this research to better understand Fig.1e1. Ziegler, J. A. (2007). The Story Behind an Organizational List: A Genealogy of Wildland Firefighters' 10 Standard Fire Orders. Communication Monographs, 74(4).

Regarding the Ten Standard Fire Orders and Rules of Engagement and Entrapment Avoidance principles, this author has a strong preference for this well-respected, former, somewhat controversial USFS Fire Director's viewpoints. In 2002, Jerry Williams, the former Director of Fire and Aviation Management, USDA Forest Service, Washington Office, Washington, DC, wrote an article for Fire Management Today (FMT Issue 62, pp. 31-25) that specifically addresses the value of the Fire Orders. What follows is based on remarks made by him at the National Fire and Aviation Management Meeting from February 25 to March 1, 2002, in Scottsdale, AZ. 2002 Fire Management Today: "Firm Rules of Engagement "The Ten Standard Firefighting Orders must be firm rules of engagement. They cannot be simple guidelines, and they cannot be “bargained.” They are the result of hard-learned lessons. Compromising one or more of them is a common denominator of all tragedy fires. On the Dude, South Canyon, and Thirtymile Fires, the Fire Orders were ignored, overlooked, or otherwise compromised. ... The Fire Orders mean little after we are in trouble. That is why we must routinely observe them and rely on them before we get into trouble. We know that no fire shelter can ensure survival all of the time under all circumstances. Entrapment avoidance must be our primary emphasis and our measure of professional operational success. ... We must embrace the Fire Orders because we owe it to one another. In that sense, the Fire Orders must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. Borrowing from the aviation community’s model of Cockpit / Crew Resource Management, we must focus fireline operations more on what is right than on who is right." However, we must not adhere to the Fire Orders for fear of punishment. We must embrace the Fire Orders because we owe it to one another. In that sense, the Fire Orders must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. Borrowing from the aviation community’s model of Cockpit / Crew Resource Management [CRM], we must focus fireline operations more on what is right than on who is right." It is most unfortunate that so many in the wildland firefighting culture have strayed far and wide from this sage counsel. In other words, this germane wildland fire information and these valued lessons learned that Mr. Williams offered in 2002 were clearly available to ALL FFs and WFs engaged in wildland firefighting in 2013, including the GMHS. Apparently, all others on the YH Fire that day followed Mr. William's sage advice. And literally tens of thousands of FFs and WFs engaged in wildland firefighting effectively and safely utilize them every single fire season. This is factual, far from hindsight bias!

Oct. 2013 SWA Hot Shot Crew After Action Review, YH Fire Site Visit

Integration Phase: “This was the final, fatal link in a long chain of bad decisions with good outcomes, we saw this coming for years” (Schoeffler, 2016). Or “just one of those things that happened, you can call it an accident" ... Structures first – WF safety as a “last resort,” they picked the best possible place in this bowl to deploy shelters.” Former PFD Wildland BC Darrell Willis, July 2013 GMHS Deployment Zone News Conference (YouTube, Dougherty - 2013).

WLF LLC YouTube - Honor the Fallen Group – Nov. 2014 - Former USFS Apprenticeship Project Manager Heath Cota "And the truth is that we try to put it into these little boxes and these rules of the 10 and 18s that cannot ... they're not going to keep us safe. ... you know, these rules, whatever they are ... this environment is way too complex ... the whole luck decision conversation ... It was good until it wasn’t.” He would also tell a former LP Hot Shot and at-the-time Engine Captain teaching about the YH Fire extreme fire behavior in an Apprentice Academy S-290 Course that he needed to get “prior Regional and Washington Office approval.”

Figure 1f. June 30, 2013, GMHS actions, radio txs. AZ Rule 803 Source: FJS

In this same FMT (FMT Issue 62, 4) issue is Human Factors Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, School of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. Karl E. Weicks’ highly insightful article titled: Human Factors in Fire Behavior Analysis: Reconstructing the Dude Fire"Naked Truths here are no easy answers. One thing we can be pretty sure of is that moments of learning are short-lived. A perfect example comes from battlefields. According to Cohen and Gooch (1990), “In the chaos of the battlefield, there is the tendency of all ranks to combine and recast the story of their achievements into a shape which shall satisfy the susceptibilities of national and regimental vainglory. … On the actual day of battle, naked truths may be picked up for the asking; by the following morning,g they have already begun to get into their uniforms.” If all goes well on the staff ride, we’ll be able to recapture enough of the actual day of the tragedy to learn some naked truths. In doing so, hopefully we’ll get scared enough to have the lessons stick, but not so scared that we miss details. In those details lie the truths that belie the simplistic conclusion, “The entrapment was caused by the downburst.”

"On the actual day of battle naked truths may be picked up for the asking; by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms.”

Sometimes, the answers we need are far from being hidden - they're just waiting for those of us learning and seeking the truths to look a little closer. According to Human Factors Nerd Stephen Crockett, in his proposed paper titled: Human Factors Loss of Situational Awareness, decision makers are constantly faced with balancing safety with the effectiveness of carrying out their mission. It is a common belief that if one were to adhere to all the 18 and 10, LCES, FIRE ORDERS, and other SOGs, effectiveness would be greatly compromised. Consequently, in the mind of decision makers, trying to balance safety with effectiveness often creates Cognitive Dissonance: “The psychological tension that occurs when one holds mutually exclusive beliefs or attitudes and that often motivates people to modify their thoughts or behaviors in order to reduce the tension.”

The inherent risks of wildland firefighting conflict with the belief that safety protocols will prevent all tragedies. The YH Fire disaster forced many within and outside the fire service to confront this dissonance. One commentator noted that "the mistakes made are nothing new," indicating a conflict between what is known about fire behavior and the outcomes that can occur. In all workgroups, there is no way to prevent all fatalities for a variety of reasons, so in reality, all we can do is our best to reduce them.

Figure 1f. 1977 Standard Fire Fighting Orders Source: NMFSH

Regarding Fig. 1f. above and comparing it to Fig. 1e., you should readily note that in 1977, Fire Order No. 4. listed only Escape Routes and no Safety Zones!

“Escape Routes are the path the firefighter takes from their current locations, exposed to the danger, to an area free from danger. Notice that escape routes is used instead of escape route(s). Unlike the other components, there always must be more than one escape route available to the firefighter. Battlement Creek 1976 is a good example of why another route is needed between the firefighter's location and a safety zone.” Paul Gleason (RiP) 1991 Original LCES quote post-1990 Dude Fire

Because our first Fire Order deals with weather, it requires that we delve into that first, ey. First, consider looking into how to interpret these Skew-T soundings at the NOAA website here for the germane images that follow: Read the temperature (red line) and dew point (green line) to understand the atmospheric profile, with pressure on the vertical axis and temperature on the skewed horizontal axis. Wind barbs on the right indicate knots, with the barbs' direction showing the wind's origin, with each full barb representing 10 knots and a half-barb representing 5 knots. The length of the barb, including any pennants (for speeds over 50 knots), indicates the wind speed, while the staff points in the direction from which the wind is blowing. An hourglass or Inverted-V shape )( indicates Downdrafts. Named Inverted-V since the dewpoint depression decreases significantly with height. Most common in the interior Southwest. Dry air in the lower troposphere with nearly saturated air (high RH) in the middle troposphere. Convection tends to be high-based. Most commonly: Strong winds > 58 mph; Gust fronts from inverted-V storms can have a large temperature gradient from one side to the other due to evaporational cooling. The numbers and horizontal blue lines are pressure levels in millibars, and also elevation levels in meters, with 5,550 meters (m) approx. 18,000 ft., 500 mb. is mid-atmosphere, with the winds at this altitude generally a fairly decent indicator of surface winds. The 300 MB level is the jet stream. Isobars are lines of equal pressure. They run horizontally from left to right and are labeled on the left side of the diagram. On the left is the pressure given in increments of 100 mb and ranges from 1050 to 100 mb. Notice the spacing between isobars increases in the vertical. Isotherms are lines of equal temperature. They run from the southwest to the northeast (thus the name skew) across the diagram and are solid. Increments are given for every 10 degrees in units of Celsius. They are labeled at the bottom of the diagram.

Figure 2. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Grand Jct., CO (KGJT) 12Z Skew-T soundings Source: Plymouth State Weather

Figure 2a. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire Grand Jct., CO (KGJT) 00Z Skew-T soundings Source: Plymouth State Weather

Figure 2b. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Colorado 12Z Skew-T soundings Source: Univ. of WY

Figure 2c. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Colorado 00Z Skew-T soundings Source: Univ. of WY

Figure 2c1. Classic inverted-V Skew-T soundings, Dude & YH Fires Source: FJS

Figure 2d. Grand Junction, CO, July 1976 temps Source: Brotak, FMT

Please note the Fig. 2d. Grand Junction, CO, July 1976, especially consistently high critical nighttime temperatures, indicating Critical to Blow-up condition thresholds based on former TNF PRD Ranger Robert Bates' informative and instructive 1962 research paper titled: A Key to Blow-up Conditions in the Southwest? This author has found that the midnight to 0800 nighttime temperatures are critical, as indicated by the previous several days leading up to July 17th, in Fig. 2d. above. (Fire Management. Today, 63, 3 Wildland Fire Case Studies and Analyses (Summer, 2003). “This study seems to indicate that a deadly one-two combination of an unusually warm night followed by a warm day may be key. Nighttime temperatures above 45º F are critical, and with those above 55º F, blow-up conditions exist.” [0800 ] High nighttime temperatures are necessary but not sufficient for aggressive fire behavior potential. The day following the highest nighttime temperature, followed by warm to hot days have the most aggressive to extreme fire behavior potential. Once solar heating begins, the lifting is already in place because the dry ground provides no heat sink."

Figure 2d. Staff Ride Stand 3 fire behavior increasing image Source: CFS

Consider viewing the following SAMatters Master Instructor Mike Richardson Interview, linked video regarding human factors, even though it deals mostly with the structural fire aspects of critical thinking, critical decision making, human factors, psychology, situational awareness, and stress that are the same across the board, no matter what the field of experience or work group. This author takes umbrage with their mythical, unrealistic, and unsafe "luck" notion. YouTube video (link).

Scientists say the human body has a 'hidden' SIXTH sense. UK Daily Mail (2025). "Scientists from Scripps Research say the human body has a 'hidden sixth sense', called 'interoception'. Interoception is an 'understudied process', by which your nervous system continuously receives and interprets your body's physiological signals to keep vital functions running smoothly." Jennifer Murphy from Royal Holloway, University of London, and Freya Prentice, from UCL, explained how interoception is also important for mental health. 'It contributes to many psychological processes – including decision making, social ability and emotional wellbeing,' the pair explained."

Consider now several of the fuels, weather, topography, and human factors quoted excerpts from the "official" July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire (CO) SAIT-SAIR and the the Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride that noted: "The Battlement Creek Fire [BCF] of 1976 was located on Bureau of Land Management [BLM] lands just outside of Grand Valley (now Parachute), Colorado on Morrisania Mesa. Battlement Creek is approximately 8 miles long and flows in a northwesterly direction to the Colorado River. The fire burned the east side of Battlement Creek. Elevations on the fire range from 6,200 feet to 8,400 feet. Slope percentage varies from 10 percent above County Road 302 (Battlement Road) to 75 percent in the chute just below the ridgeline. A severe frost occurred a month earlier in this same location, which killed a high percentage of the leaves on the Gambel's oak. [See Fig. 3c. below regarding the dense frost-killed Gamble's oak leaves on the brush crowns]. The fire started on July 11th from a lightning storm that went through the area. On July 15th, the fire escaped containment, and a Class II Overhead Team (now known as a Type 2 Incident Management Team) [IMT] was ordered. On July 15th, there were 198 fires reported on the daily Situation Report from the Boise Interagency Fire Center (now known as NIFC, the National Interagency Fire Center) [In reality, it was actually the Boise Interagency Fire Center (BIFC) and in this author's opinion, highly influenced by the LDS]. The majority of the fires were in California, Nevada, and Utah. During this fire, the Forest Service [USFS] was working with the [BLM] to establish a national plan to exchange and utilize manpower and equipment. The Grand Junction District of the [BLM] was responsible for suppression of the fire. Approximately 13 crews totaling 270 people and approximately 20 overhead were assigned to the fire."

Per Figs. 1b. & 1c. above, the Battlement Creek Fire had numerous deadly bowls per the Staff Ride Stand information portion. Below are what are referred to as Bowls 16 & 17 in the Stand 3 portion. Stand 3 is located up the ridge from a prominent juniper tree between the 16th and 17th Bowls. The two bowls have been named to reference the fire behavior that occurred on those days in each bowl. The bowl to the north is referred to as the 16th Bowl, and the bowl to the south is referred to as the 17th Bowl. Fire behavior in the 16th Bowl was extreme, characterized by intense surface and crown fire, hooking uphill runs, and fire whirls late in the day. Most of the 16th Bowl was burned by nightfall.

Figure 2h. (left) View looking north into the base of the 16th Bowl. County Road 302 can be seen along the bottom of the slope. In the distance is Morrisania Mesa and Parachute. Source: CFS

Figure 2i. (right) Looking east from Stand 3, up the 16th Bowl. Re-growth vegetation is 3-4 feet high in most places, with some unburned pockets still almost 10 feet high. Vegetation is primarily a mix of Gambel's oak, mountain mahogany, and serviceberry.

Figure 2j. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 2j1. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part II) Source: Olson, YouTube

Fire Environment - Weather

"The most basic meteorological conclusion that can be drawn from available meteorological data and extensive interviews with personnel assigned on the Battlement Creek fire, Saturday, July 17, is that the accident was not directly weather related; i.e., there were no thunderstorms in the " immediate fire vicinity between 1400 and 1500 m.d.t. that could have produced downdrafts to affect the fire, no unusual or abnormal winds occurred attributable to accepted meteorological causes such as fronts, low level jet stream, or locally induced dust devils, etc. At the time of the accident, the atmosphere was unstable, normal up-slope winds were occurring, winds aloft were generally light SW and ranged from 5-15 m.p.h. from 6,600 feet to 31,000 feet m.s.l.

Observers on the fire at the time of the accident reported high winds at ground level 25-35 m.p.h. and above." [So then, from this author's professional opinion, based on this "official" conclusive statement: "not directly weather related" assessment, it should readily appear then, that this alleged "official" assessment determined, or at least insinuated, that the wildland fire weather was a non-causal factor, which would then clearly presuppose human factors].

Figure 2j2. Introduction To Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) image Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 3. Betrayed By Our Fire Gods Battlement Creek Fire Disaster book cover Source: Gary Olson

The Whole Armor of God

Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, ... above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Ephesians 6:10-18 (NKJV)phesians 6:10-18 (NKJV)

Consider the mostly unembellished former Happy Jack Hot Shot Olson comments from his Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Blog - Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Blog Excerpt of the Day. "Mr. Stupid Fuck Bob Mutch"

Figure 3a. Prepare to Be Challenged Emotion Wheel Source: FJS

Olson continues: "And just as a reminder, this isn't just me trash-talking Czak and others as I covered this somewhat way back downstream, but that was exactly what I was starting to think at the time during my own personal revelations once I started thinking about what had happened. Which is something I had never done before, shocking, I know. ... And then I ended up in a short email exchange with one of the Battlement Creek Disaster actual "investigators" who was on the "Accident" Investigation Team who went to Flagstaff to interview [Coconino NF Fire Control Officer (FCO)] Bill [Buck] about the entrapment. Bill calls him into his office, closes the door, and then confesses it was the "reckless" Hot Shot culture on the Coconino that was responsible for the entrapment of the Mormon Lake Hot Shots because of the extreme effect the culture had on [Mormon Lake Crew Boss Tony] Czak. ... And then that stupid fuck sends me an email confessing what Bill had confessed to him. And I thought, wow, out of all of the people in this world who you could have chosen to confess your sins to, you picked me, and you do it in writing? That's when I became absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that God truly loves me and I am one of his chosen people.

"Or at least he loves all [WFs] because the first thing I thought was...okay, now you are mine bitch, and I am going to skull fuck you and I didn't even have to go hunting. Well, meaning I want to skull fuck Bob Mutch metaphorically speaking in order to make an example out of him for other stupid fucks like him literally speaking. The guy died a couple of years ago and I just don't want anyone to think I would actually go and dig him up...I mean c'mon, that wouldn't be right. Would it?"

Figure 3b. Bob Mutch photo Source: Olson

"And I do want to do everything I can to destroy Bob Mutch's reputation as an honest man who made a significant contribution to wildland firefighting during his lifetime. Fuck him. Does this make me a bad person? Or does this make me a reformer who is seeking a major course adjustment, or perhaps correction is a better word in the wildland firefighting community, because of a shocking number of systemic failures by not asking anymore, because lots of people, including lots of Hot Shot Crew Bosses, have been asking for years for reform without making any measurable progress. I just want to make an example out of Bob Mutch so that all of his Good Old Boy buddies who are still above ground will quit fuckin' around with those fire investigations and reports.

Figure 3c. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) screenshot image Source: Olson, YouTube

"And now I am demanding reform in a system that only respects boldness and aggressiveness, not to mention strength and power. Not in their names or anyone else's, I am demanding reform in my name only. I have standing in this matter as an aggrieved party. So... I mean...my prey emailed me his confession without me even asking for it. Wow. I thought right then and there that I might be some kind of investigative savant. Don't laugh, can it be? I mean...the proof is in the pudding, right? It's probably some kind of telepathic connection I can make with assholes to get them to do the right thing. ... And just FYI, none of that exchange made it into the official report, and so that means that Mr. Stupid Fuck Bob Mutch and Bill [Buck] committed a whole bunch of federal felonies. That also means anybody else who was on the team that they told those facts to and who also failed to disclose them, well, they're guilty of the same felonies. You aren't allowed by federal law to just make stuff up as you go along. "Smokey, this isn't 'Nam...there are rules. ... Oh...and you can bet on one thing; Good Old Boy Bob Mutch told all of the other Good Old Boys on the Battlement Creek "Accident" Investigation Team everything that Bill [Buck] confessed to him about the toxic and reckless Hot Shot culture on the Coconino that was responsible for the Battlement Creek Disaster. What the fuck did they think was going to happen? The only thing that surprises me is that it didn't happen more often to more Coconino Hot Shots. ... And no, I haven't forgotten about my three primary sins that I committed that very easily could have gotten Hot Shots that I was responsible for burned. And I give a full account of them in my book because I think all three of them are really good examples of exactly what not to do. And of course I don't know how many kinda, sorta, close calls I was responsible for because we didn't even remark on, much less keep track of, the really close calls at the time. It was the system. Things are much better now. ... Author's Note. Bob Mutch didn't have any idea who I was when he was emailing me other than I was the Coconino Hot Shot who had ignited the Battlement Creek Disaster burn out and a Subject Matter Expert on the Battlement Creek Disaster. Whoops. ... Author's Note. I'm pretty sure that Bob Mutch never connected the dots between the former Hot Shot he thought he was communicating with and the pissed off, highly trained, and experienced Supervisory Criminal Investigator (Sr. Special Agent) GS-1811 that he was actually communicating with until it was too late...know what I mean."

Please consider the following Battlement Creek Fire content links below.

(https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/115418)

(https://smokejumpers.com/obits/robert-bob-mutch/}

(https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/bob-mutch/)

(https://www.fs.usda.gov/.../pubs.../rmrs_2011_smith_j001.pdf)

Figure 3d. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 7. Dense frost-killed Gamble's oak leaves on the brush crowns at the time of the fire. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Normal fire season, Gambel Oak is a highly volatile wildland fire fuel due to its dense dead-to-live fuel content volume; therefore, the frost-killed fuel would have been explosively to extremely volatile!

Figure 3d1. Dense Gamble's oak at the time of the fire. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3d3. Photo of smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire dramatically gained momentum. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3d4. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 16. smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire dramatically gained momentum. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

"2nd Excerpt of the Day...Please Enjoy. ... Author's Note. Okay, just one more quick one in case there’s a disaster fire before my book gets published. There's a really easy way for the NWCG to fix their fake, false, fictitious, and fraudulent wildfire investigations and reports problem. Well, I guess technically the first thing they need to do is to even admit they have a problem. ... So anyway...they must stop using the "Good Old Boy Network" to investigate the "Good Old Boy Network." And it doesn't matter how many Good Old Boys (and their co-conspirators, the few and far between Good Old Girls) that are packed onto those teams (I think the Yarnell Hill Disaster team bragged they had more than 50), you are still going to get pre-determined outcomes because they are situationally honest people and incompetent investigators. ... Just look at the Yarnell Hill Disaster Report, for example, does it say anything in there about not taking a drunk Hot Shot Crew straight from the bars to the fire line? No? Well, that might have been the problem right from the very beginning of that particular misadventure. I mean...I don't know about you, but I believe that act was the foundational basis for everything that followed, and if that act had not occurred, the GMIHC would have woken up in their own beds after their choir practice was finished sometime on June 30, 2013. Well, probably most of them would have...sooner or later. I wonder how the Yarnell Hill Fire "Accident" Investigation Team managed to miss that one...and everything else. [This author takes umbrage with the “drunk” assertion mentioned above instead of the more accurate “hungover” based on the GMHS Autopsy Reports in the December 9, 2015 InvestigativeMEDIA article titled: "After years of delay, the Granite Mountain Hotshot autopsy records are released" (link). This also includes a link to ALL the GMHS autopsy reports, which should be required reading for all FFs, WFs, and others engaged in wildland fires to straightforwardly reveal the dire consequences of failing to adhere to the tried-and-trued Rules of Engagement and the Entrapment Avoidance Principles. And you should know that the GMHS “Lookout” was assigned that position because he was the most hungover of the bunch. And he was never tested for his Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) as a control.] I guess we can close the investigation on that one. And it should be a short staff ride. Anyway, get some professional investigators...think NTSB and not Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau wearing White's and different colors of earth tone uniforms, your basic greens, your browns, your greys, and your other shades of green, brown, and grey from our assorted alphabet soup of county, state, and federal land management agencies who have wildland firefighting responsibilities, but there are mostly different shades of brown uniforms. I have read that sarcasm is a form of anger, do you think that's true?" NWCG Staff Ride link (link). A Staff Ride should avoid being a recital of a single investigation report, as it rarely addresses the human factors that affect individual decision-making.

Fig. 3e. Photo of smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire engulfed the top of the mountain. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3f. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 17. Battlement Creek Fire photo hindering burnout squad's escape Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 3g. Group photo (1976) Mormon Lake HS Crew Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

"Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Blog Favorite Fire Photo of the Day. “Hardy on the Battlement Creek Disaster Scar.” I have also included a photo that I took of Hardy while we were leading the crew cutting line as sawyers. Please note Hardy isn't wearing a fire shelter, and so this would have been in 1976, just prior to the Battlement Creek Disaster. ... "Author's Note. Hardy is the best Hot Shot I have ever worked with, and I worked with some great Hot Shots. I was the secondary sawyer; Hardy was a master faller and sawyer. Oh…and he jumped out of West Yellowstone for thirty (30) years, the man was a great Wildland Firefighter and a good friend."So here is a bonus photo of my dear old friend and fellow Happy Jack Hot Shot Sawyer Hardy standing on the slope of Battlement Mesa, about where the Mormon Lake Hot Shots were burned over.

Figure 3h. Happy Jack Hot Shot Lead Sawyer Hardy photo Source: Olson

"I wrote way downstream that I don’t know exactly why they still pulled out all of the stops to get me to attend the Battlement Creek Disaster Staff Ride as a Subject Matter Expert even after I became so angry at their lies and obstinance to tell the Battlement Creek Disaster story for future generations based on lies and not the facts of what actually happened, that I resigned from the Battlement Creek Disaster Staff Ride Development Committee in anger."

Figure 3i. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) Staff Ride screenshot image Source: Olson, YouTube

"Now I realize that if you don’t know all of the facts to the story, it would be an obvious assumption to think that they went to so much trouble and expense because I was one of the two WFs who ignited the deadly burn out that overran the Mormon Lake Hot Shot Burn Out Team. But I don’t think that is why, because those fuckin’ people just don’t usually give a fuck about doing the right thing. ... But here is what I think happened. I think my former best FIRE friend for several decades and the father of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hot Shot Crew [GMHS], Ed Hollenshead, called in some favors from his fellow Regional Directors of Fire & Aviation Management to make sure I was there because Ed was trying to do me a buddy favor by helping me to find some closure because of my role in that disaster. I am at peace with my role in that event so that was not needed, but it was a very sweet thing to do. ... And that was because Ed and I met for lunch in Phoenix shortly after I resigned from the committee and of course Ed is carrying around his own baggage because he was the Incident Commander on the Dude Disaster of 1990, and we have discussed those things in the past, as you probably can imagine. I think Ed is the reason they worked so hard to get me on that staff ride, and it cost him some juice because I was not well-liked by them at that point, if I ever was."

Figure 3j. Battlement Creek Fire Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) Crown Streets Source: Olson, YouTube

Consider this Figure 3j. revealing HRV Crown Streets, until now unrecognized and undervalued, for what extreme fire behavior this represents by the SAIT. Fire Weather Researcher Donald Haines (USDA, USFS, 1982), (AMS, 1987) concluded: "Observational evidence from nine crown fires suggests that horizontal roll vortices are a major mechanism in crown-fire spread. Post-burn aerial photography indicates that unburned tree-crown streets are common with crown fire. Investigation of the understory of these crown streets after two fires showed uncharred tree trunks along a center line. This evidence supports a hypothesis of vortex action causing strong downward motion of air along the streets. Additionally, photographs of two ongoing crown fires show apparent horizontal roll vortices. Discussion also includes laboratory and numerical studies in fluid dynamics that may apply to crown fires." (Physics Today, 2019).

Consider the linked Colorado Fire Camp (CFC) post titled: LCES—a Key to Safety in the Wildland Fire Environment. So then, please seriously ask yourselves and consider what, if any of the alleged and factual 1966 Loop Fire (CA), 1985 Lake Mountain (ID), 1985 Butte Fire (ID), 1990 Dude Fire (AZ), 1994 South Canyon Fire (CO), and the renowned 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire fuels, weather, topography, wildland fire behavior, human factors, decision-making, leadership, psychological, situational awareness, and lessons learned were considered and/or even applied 18 years later on the South Canyon, Storm King Mountain Fire.

Figure 3j1. GMHS's steady drift into failure Source: FJS

To put matters into perspective that the 1994 South Canyon, Storm King Mountain Fire, near Glenwood Springs, CO, was 40 West of the 1976 Battlement Creek Fire on BLM lands near the town of Parachute, CO. This author discovered early on, after the facts of the disaster became more evident; the Mormon Lake HS Crew Boss had relinquished his supervisory role to take part in their firing operation, reluctantly and fatally, without assigning someone to take on his crucial supervisory duties.

Figure 3j2. Mack Lake Fire (HRV) Crown Streets Source: Haines, NRS

Consider now the linked 1980 Mack Lake Fire Escaped RX Fatality WLF LLC Incident Review.

Figure 3j3. Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) Crown Streets Source: WLF LLC

"Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) have been thought to form in some spreading wildfires because of the observation of tree-crown streets behind a spreading fire front, consisting of alternating regions of more and less-burned fuels." (Haines, 1982). Consider also this May 2013 Conference: 8th U.S. National Combustion Meeting. University of Utah Buoyant Instabilities in Steady and Propagating Flames. (Researchgate.net/).

Figure 3j4. Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) image Source: Research Gate

Figure 3j5. 1977 NJ Bass River Fire Horizontal Rolls Vortices Source: Cook

ALL the FFs shown in these two Fig. 3j5. & 3j6. photos died that day!

"It is not clear why, but this unit mistakenly proceeded into the fire area." ... Those Eagleswood Fire Company firefighters lost on the Bass River fire were: Eagleswood Volunteer Fire Department John "Reds" Baker, Herbert Blackwell, Harold "Skip" Cranmer, and Marcus Cullen." (RiP) New Jersey Pine Barrens, July 22, 1977, Bass River Fire (WLF LLC).

Figure 3j6. Annotated 1977 Bass River Fire HRV image Source: WLF LLC

Figure 3j7. Bass River Fire HRV Crown Streets image Source: WLF LLC

Figure 3j8. Hourly observations at Atlantic City Source: Fire Mgmt. Today

"In order to avert such tragedies in the future, the possible causes of

blow-ups must be determined and understood. Obviously, very heavy

fuel loads and tinder dry conditions are contributing factors. Topographic effects, in this case, have been ruled out, since there was only a very slight slope to this basically flat land. Where the terrain is steeper this could have a major impact. Weather conditions play a key role and are extremely complex. Fire managers must know and understand local patterns and variance to maximize the efficiency and safety of the suppression job."

E.A. Brotak (2003). The Bass River Fire: Weather Conditions Associated With a Fatal Fire. Fire Management Today (2003). And more than merely to be understood, but more so, never forgotten.

Figure 3k. NJ 1977 Bass River Fire Memorial Plaque Source: Facebook

According to the NWCG Staff Ride to the Battlement Creek Fire: "The 1976 Battlement Creek Fire was located on Bureau of Land Management lands just outside of Grand Valley (now Parachute), Colorado, on Morrisania Mesa. Battlement Creek is approximately 8 miles long and flows in a northwesterly direction to the Colorado River. The fire burned the east side of Battlement Creek. Elevations on the fire range from 6,200 feet to 8,400 feet. Slope percentage varies from 10 percent above County Road 302 (Battlement Road) to 75 percent in the chute just below the ridgeline."

On June 14th, there was an extensive frost in the area, which killed more than 50% of the leaves on the Gambel's oak. At the time of the fire, many of the dead leaves were found to be still hanging in the canopy, while others had fallen, creating a 1 to 2 inch litter layer. There was a warning issued prior to this fire concerning this extreme fire behavior condition, but the firefighters were not aware of it. Fire Orders and Watch Outs

Figure 3k1. Frost-killed dead leaves in the oak canopy. Source: CFS

"Fuel moistures of the dead leaves in the oak canopy and other fine fuels were estimated to be between 7% and 8% at the time of the fire.

Figure 3l. Mann Gulch, Battlement Creek, South Cyn., Butte Fires rule of thumb, burn injury limits image Source: NWCG

"On July 15th, there were 198 fires reported on the daily Situation Report from the Boise Interagency Fire Center (now known as the National Interagency Fire Center [NIFC]). The majority of the fires were in California, Nevada, and Utah. During this time, the Forest Service was working with the Bureau of Land Management to establish a national plan to exchange and utilize manpower and equipment. ... On Friday, July 16th, a B-26 air tanker crashed on a retardant dropping mission on the Battlement Creek Fire. The accident occurred at 0856 hrs, approximately 1 mile south of the fire. The pilot was killed."

Figures 3m. B-26 Air Tanker T-56 Source: CFS

"During the winter of 1997, the Parachute/Battlement Mesa Volunteer Fire Department decided to develop a memorial for those killed during the Battlement Creek Fire. The project started by placing memorial markers at the locations where the pilot and firefighters died. Not knowing whether the people who died were religious, it was decided that drip torch cans would make the perfect markers for those that died while performing the burnout operation, and a simple flagpole and plaque at the location of the T56 air tanker crash would be appropriate. A flagpole was also erected at the site of the burnover to mark the site and make the location more visible to those who could only view the area from the county road below.

During the summer of 2000, it was decided to have a formal memorial placed where more people could learn what happened during the summer of 1976. Working with the State of Colorado Department of Transportation and the town of Parachute, permission was granted to erect the memorial at the Parachute Rest Area off Interstate 70. Working with a company in Arizona, the memorial sign board was created and built using both words and drawings. An area artist developed the concept of the memorial using plants native to the area of the burn with a snag from the fire area serving as the centerpiece. Tools were placed at the memorial similar to what would have been used at the time. The propeller hub from T56 that was recovered at the base of the impact slope in dense brush was also placed at the memorial site." [End of Battlement Creek Fire excerpts]

Olson continues: "So thanks Ed, because without that happening, I doubt much if any of my work in the area of Wildland Firefighter Safety and Burn Over Survivability would exist today, and I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here today still thinking about it and typing this comment. ... So here is the point of the above story. Once they started calling and emailing me to get me back on the team, I was so surprised since I was sure they were happy I was gone, and I couldn’t figure out why for a long time, especially since I had already retired by then. But I did realize one thing right away, and that is because I am a rather cunning fellow. Not smart, but cunning, and what I figured out was for some inexplicable reason, I suddenly had juice with those people, and I immediately started to manipulate my newfound power to see just how far I could push it.

So here is what I did, I said, “Sure thing, I would love to attend your little royal cluster fuck but if I do, I get to say anything I want to anyone who is willing to listen to me, and since I have already been verbally beaten up and abused by all of those high ranking FIRE assholes who were also all former Hot Shot Crew Bosses themselves, I’m not going to get into the middle of them again without some backup. ... I told them that I would be happy to go if they sent two people who were there on that disaster with me to watch my six (6). I thought they would say absolutely not. But instead, they said, “No problem.” And so, I said I want my former Assistant Crew Boss (for all seven years I was a crew boss) Bill Moulton from Alaska and Hardy Blomeke from Montana who were both still working for the U.S. Forest Service. ... And then I called those guys up and I told them, “Hey, I have a great gig for us, they want me to go to their dog and pony show for reasons I can’t fathom, but rather than go for those reasons, let’s just meet in Grand Junction on the government dime, get drunk and tell some good wildfire stories and you know…fuck them.”

But do you know what would have been extra nice of Ed Hollenshead and Darrell Willis? It would have been nice of them to make arrangements for me to attend the [GMHS] Memorial because the reason we have events like memorials is so we can meet together and share our collective grief while we mourn the enormous loss we have all suffered.

Figure 3n. Snippet of Former PFD Wildland BC Darrell Willis, center, answers media questions on July 23, 2013, at the GMHS deployment site where they died on June 30, 2013. Source: John Dougherty (IM)

Wildfire expert alleges state coverup on eve of hotshot families’ Yarnell field trip. April 4, 2016. (IM, John Dougherty)

Please consider our linked YHFR 2018 post, always best viewed on a laptop or PC, titled: What Fatality and "Prescott Way" Causal Factors Does PFD Wildland BC Willis Reveal in the July 2013 GMHS Deployment Zone News Conference? This paper details the contrasts between the two and the major causal factors, virtually wiping out the entire Crew. Thus, it will be shown that a lack of mental clarity and poor decision-making areas literally contributed to their untimely, predictable, and preventable deaths. Mark van Appen, a California FF and training officer, wrote: “Aggressive fire companies do not make mistakes in the heat of battle - they make decisions,” mainly summing it all up regarding the oft-debated, contentious Municipal/Structural/Wildland Fire Department dichotomy.

Figure 3n1. GMHS firing operation & DZ on June 30, 2013 Source: FJS

Olson continues: "But Ed and Darrell didn’t do that; they made sure that I watched that memorial at home and by myself on television and cried alone. There is usually a cost to trying to do the right thing in a world that is filled with shitty people. Especially fake Christians like Ed Hollenshead and Darrell Willis. Ed Hollenshead, who is the father of the GMIHC, is not a good person, and Ed is not a good Christian. Darrell Willis, who is the mother of the GMIHC, is not a good person, and Darrell is not a good Christian. Fuck you Ed. And fuck you Darrell. ... I wrote it that way because extreme Christian Fundamentalism is just about all that is left of those two assholes, and they do not practice what they preach. I didn’t have to sit with them; I just needed a pass because I’m you know…fuckin’ handicapped and I couldn’t stand in that line, and I wasn’t going to sit in an overflow building. ... I told everyone in the comment below how to find a shortcut into my head back in the day when I was trying to work under Bill [Buck]. Well, here is a shortcut into my head right now if you want to know what makes me tick and helps me get out of bed sometime during the day.

"I believe that if “they” would have told the truth after the Loop Disaster of 1966, there is a chance that the Battlement Creek Disaster never would have happened. And as I have already written several times, the truth is that Gordon King killed 12 members of his crew and burned most of the survivors of the El Cariso Hot Shots very badly on that fire in order to further his own reckless ambition to become a Fire God himself. Gordon King was rewarded for the remainder of his life for his inexcusable decisions and actions on the Loop Fire, which made it the Loop Disaster.

There wasn’t any accountability for anyone for those Wildland Firefighter deaths and serious injuries. Accountability is usually what keeps people from doing the wrong thing in the first place, and it often keeps people from doing the wrong thing again. And without accountability, there really isn’t much of an incentive for people to stay on the righteous path because people are basically bad at their core. And although there are exceptions to that rule, I haven’t met very many good people in my life."

"So anyway, I believe there is a chance, and although I’m not going to try and assign a percentage number to the likelihood that accountability for King would have reduced the chances of the same exact thing happening again, I believe it exists. Because that is what happened on the Battlement Creek Fire, Tony Czak did exactly what King did with some insignificant operational details that were different between the two incidents. ... And although there are differences between what Eric Marsh, King, and Czak did, what Marsh did was essentially the same thing except it was off the charts in terms of the complexity of the facts and the extreme damage done, Marsh did what he did for the same reasons King and Czak killed and injured some of the Hot Shots they were responsible for.

"And so, this is my working hypothesis. If I turn into a rat snitch on King, Czak, and Marsh, is there a chance that someone will read my work in this area and think to themselves, “It’s just not worth it, I’m going to do the right thing rather than try to further my own selfish career goals and keep my crew safe.” Maybe, maybe not, but I am going to at least try. And as usual, there aren’t any obvious lessons for me to point out what went wrong on the South Canyon Disaster because I do think that was a Black Swan Event, except to say that fire was so FUBAR, it’s hard to make sense of what happened there, even for me and you know how clever I am. And so with that being said, I will leave you for now with a quote from one of my favorite philosophers, George Santayana who famously said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."What does that say about people who canot even acknowledge their past?"

Consider now this author's AHFE, Research Gate, Google Scholar paper and YHFR posts titled: "Similar known and later discovered wildland fire human, psychological, and fire weather causal relationships saved lives on two separate wildfires 23 years apart," debunking Santayana's maxim. The YHFR posts are always best viewed on a laptop or PC.] (YHFR 2025, Pt. 1 & Pt. 2), (AHFE, 2025), (Research Gate, 2025), (Google Scholar, 2025).

Consider now the most of Battlement Creek wildland fire weather portion.

Figure 3o. Archived July 17, 1976, weather maps Source: NOAA

Figure 3oa. Archive 7/7/76, temp & wind streamline maps Source: PSWC

By analyzing streamlines, meteorologists can identify key weather features, such as convergence (air flowing together), divergence (air flowing apart), and vortices (swirling wind patterns). Not wind speed: Streamlines primarily show wind direction, not speed. Areas of higher wind speed may sometimes have a greater density of lines, but this is not always a consistent rule.

Figure 3p. Battlement Creek Fire fuels, weather, human factors image Source: Schoeffler

Figures 3q. July 17, 1976, Happy Jack and Morman Lake HS burning out and holding assignments. Source: CFS

These Figs. 3q. images contradict what occurred, as Doug Campbell (RiP) indicates below.

Common Tactical Errors on the Fireground, “Three were killed and another severely burned during a burnout operation. The accident happened on a ridge top. Their burnout was aligned against the forces of slope, wind, and preheat, and was not burning well. Another burnout team lit fire below, placing their fire in full alignment with wind, slope, and solar preheating of the fuel that promoted maximum fire spread …. The burnout from the bottom of the slope hit the ridge with such intensity that flames swept over the crew's position, forcing them into shelters. Situation: The ground between the fire and the crew was in alignment. Wind, slope, and solar preheat were aligned. Error: The officers and firefighters did not recognize the potential getting worse. There was no time tag on the tactic.” Former USFS Hot Shot Supt., Fire Management Officer (FMO), Human Factors, and Fire Behavior Expert Doug Campbell, 1991, (RiP). He also instituted the Alignment of Forces Principle into his renowned Campbell Prediction System (CPS, 2010). Campbell describes it as when “fire that is moving across the variations of topography will change speed and direction as dictated by the combination of steepness of slope, wind speed and direction, and fuel preheat/flammability. Predictions of fire behavior changes can be made by observing the alignment and strength of these forces in the fire's path. Where the forces are more aligned, the fire intensity will increase. Where the forces are less agreeably aligned, the fire intensity will decrease," (CPS, 2010). This author participated in a Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride many moons ago, recalling that the slopes were bastard steep hiking up from the bottom stands to the fatality sites above! The Australians follow a somewhat similar CPS model and refer to it as “terrain-fire interactions,” referenced in the Jason Sharples, McCrae, and Wilkes research cited in this 2011 Research Gate research paper (Atypical bushfire spread driven by the interaction of terrain and extreme fire weather).

Figures 3r. July 17, 1976, 1415 to 1445, Happy Jack and Morman Lake HS burning out, holding assignments, aggressive, and fatal fire behavior from the HJHS firing operation that would eventually overrun and kill the MLHS. Source: CFS

Definitely consider this extensive and highly informative (2014) article by Billie Stanton titled: "20 Years After the South Canyon Fire" article beginning with references to the GMHS and PFD Wildand BC Willis's 2012 noted pilgrimage one year prior to the predictable and preventable deadly June 2013 YH Fire and GMHS debacle: "The [GMHS] of Prescott, Ariz., made the pilgrimage there two years ago to pay their respects, recalled Darrell Willis, wildland division chief for the Prescott Fire Department. “We hiked Storm King Mountain with this (20-member hotshot) crew, and we all said, ‘This will never happen to us.’” All but one of those hotshots died June 30 during the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, where shifting winds, canyon topography and an apparent lack of situational awareness eerily echoed the South Canyon tragedy. The 19 deaths in Arizona shocked firefighters and civilians alike. They occurred 19 years after South Canyon. “I never thought we’d wipe out a whole crew,” said Randy Skelton, deputy fire staff officer on the Payette National Forest." None of us did!

Seriously? You've got to be kidding me! Ask yourselves at this juncture about the barefaced arrogance, ignorance, irony, and incongruity of PFD BC Willis' comments when he and the GMHS were on a 2012 South Canyon Fire pilgrimage, stating that ‘This will never happen to us’ occurred 19 years after the South Canyon Fire, where 19 GMHS would eventually die horrible, predictable and preventable deaths a year later! In addition, the factual irony that P. 19 of the IRPG is How To Properly Refuse Risk! As the old saying goes: "you can't make this st up."**

This will never happen to us.

19 years after South Canyon

Figures 3s. July 16, 1976, fire behavior. Source: CFS

And now consider the one-and-only Dr. Ted Putnam references and quotes: "Human Factors - Experts interviewed over the past six months cited one primary key to wildfire deaths: human factors. Psychologist Ted Putnam, Ph.D., is the “father of human factors,' said Hipke, who makes safety training videos in Boise for the Wildfire Safety Training Annual Renewal.

Putnam refused to sign the fatal 1994 (CO) South Canyon Fire SAIR because he “***found it inaccurate and incomplete, ignoring too many pertinent human factors*, ...** Historically, wildland fire fatality investigations focus on external factors like fire behavior, fuels, weather, and equipment. Human and organizational failures are seldom discussed. When individual [FFs] and support personnel are singled out, it's often to fix blame in the same way we blame fire behavior or fuels. This is wrong-headed and dangerous, because it ignores … an underlying cause of [FF] deaths - the difficulty individuals have to consistently make good decisions under stress.” Putnam, T. (1996)

Psychologist Ted Putnam, Ph.D., is the “father of human factors” ... “I think it was honorable that Ted Putnam didn’t sign that report. I don’t think it told the whole story,” said Joe Brinkley, manager of the McCall Smokejumper Base, brother of Josh Brinkley and a triplet brother of Levi, who died in the fire. Please consider our YHFR 2018 post, and as always, best viewed on a laptop or titled: May I Introduce Wildland Fire's Top Notch Person ... Dr. Ted Putnam ... His Life Example Inspires Others To Become More ... Wouldn't You Agree?

Figure 3t. Battlement Creek fire behavior Source: CFS

“God bless (Putnam),” said John MacLean, author of “Fire on the Mountain” and three other non-fiction books on wildfires. “He’s done a great, great service on human factors.” Putnam joined the U.S. Forest Service in 1963 and was a smokejumper from 1966-76, with three years as a squad leader. On July 17, 1976, he fought the Battlement Creek Fire, which killed three men — from Idaho, Arizona, and Wisconsin — about 40 miles west of Storm King Mountain. A fourth man survived; he had lain face-down, and the fire passed over him. Putnam warned other bosses 15 minutes before and again three minutes before the fire roared up the hill.

[This author recalls former Battlement Creek Fire Sector Boss Putnam telling me that one of the supervisors had, instead of replying with a verbal 'copy' in response to one of his fire behavior warnings, Putnam assumed that his verbal warning was heard and heeded. And they obviously were not! This dangerous double-clicking your radio habit was adopted by Smokejumpers and other WFs. And so, as a Safety Officer, this author would quell that dangerous habit immediately, often to the chagrin of many.] One victim’s clothes were undamaged, another’s were burnt off, and the third victim's and the survivor’s clothes were burned across the back only. The discrepancies intrigued Putnam, who moved to the Missoula Technology and Development Center (MTDC) at once to help research and design better protective fire gear. He studied statistics and mathematics for six years while working on his doctorate in research psychology. A workshop he held on Human Factors on the South Canyon Fire led to deeper scrutiny of human factors inherent in decision-making, situational awareness, and leadership, and a push by Putnam for a national study on firefighter safety, launched a month later. While earlier investigative reports cited the facts of people’s actions on wildfires, Putnam consistently pursues the “why” behind those actions. Situational Awareness - In the chaos, confusion, and frenzy that arise when battling a wildfire, people develop tunnel vision. ... They need to step back, cooly gaze across the landscape, and mindfully note all the changes occurring. Instead, they cling to whatever idea or plan they already made, shutting out new developments, said Putnam, a Missoula resident who winters in Prescott. ... Stress, fear, and panic predictably lead to the collapse of clear thinking and organizational structure,” Putnam wrote in his 1995 paper for the MTDC, titled: Findings From the Wildland Firefighters Human Factors Workshop. Improving Wildland Firefighter Performance Under Stressful, Risky Conditions: Toward Better Decisions on the Fireline and More Resilient Organizations. 5100–5100–F&AM Nov. 1995. 9551-2855-MTDC, Updated July 1996. Putnam's extensive and highly informative benchmark work is a must to read, research, debate, discuss, and share with others on a regular basis.

Figure 3u. WF's Human Factors Workshop contents image Source: MTDC

"While these psychological and social processes have been well studied by the military and the aircraft industry, the wildland fire community has not supported similar research for the fireline. The fatal wildland fire entrapments of recent memory have a tragic common denominator: human error. ... One such error was a dispatcher’s failure to transmit to firefighters a Red Flag Warning of a cold front bringing high winds to Storm King Mountain. ... Chris Cuoco, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Grand Junction, Colo., had worked nonstop to ensure that the latest weather updates got to the fire crews. He wept when he learned that they never received that news. The military trains its people in mindfulness and situational awareness, said Cuoco, an Air Force veteran. ... They teach pilots this, airline pilots in particular. They have to take in a great deal of information very fast. They put them through hell in training. It reinforces ... how stress and exhaustion can affect the brain,” Cuoco said. ... Putnam is“pretty academic, but human factors are a huge part of what’s going on out there,” said Winslow Robertson, who held the No. 2 position for the BLM in Grand Junction when the South Canyon Fire erupted. ... "I’m a survivor, too, and I rehash this thing over and over and over. We use the word ‘mindfulness’ out there; I’m a big believer in that,” he said during a Sept. 27 interview in Palisade, Colo. “We want everybody to come home at night; we want everybody to stay safe. We want mindfulness, a hard word to describe. ... Mindfulness,” said Hipke, “in whatever terms, is just being aware, being in the now. You get on autopilot.” ... "The question is how to inject mindfulness and situational awareness into a culture of tough, brave, can-do workaholics — the wildfire crews and their leaders. ... Putnam’s approach draws some skepticism. The longtime student of eastern Zen meditation swears by that practice to gain control of one’s mind. ... Putnam held meditation workshops with wildland firefighters and, by all reports, many found it useful. The psychologist himself tries to meditate twice a day. When he doesn’t, his wife, Gay, gently remonstrates him: “Ted, you’ve gone off your meditation. ... [Larry] Edwards, the old-school hotshot who retired in Helena, took some Putnam workshops and modified the approach for his hotshot crews. ... We would do a breathing exercise to clear all the clutter out of your head and have a blank slate so, when you get the briefing, you could get it in (your head),” he said. “No questions were to be asked. Just be there and listen. Then we would go into a visualization period — put yourself in the situation described, the weather, what to expect. Then we would open it up to questions. ... On the fire front, “whenever we had a change of plan, the protocol was: We’d go through the whole process again and recognize things had changed. ... "We had a really good safety record, and we had a really good crew, too,” Edwards said. “I think people felt they were part of something. ... Smart people on the crew gave me feedback. I’d ask, Did it help? Yeah, it helped a lot. ... Many fire leaders endorse Putnam’s concept but recommend it be pitched with more emphasis on visualization and mindfulness to make it palatable to the fire community.

“I think Ted’s onto something,” Cook said. “There are all different ways mindfulness could be integrated (into training). ... It already is a central focus in much wildfire leadership training. And that training has come a long way since South Canyon. Leaders not prepared well enough, soon enough. ... The Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program has drawn from best practices taught at the U.S. Marine Corps University, the NASA Astronaut Development Center, and the U.S. Air Force Human Factors Research Lab, to name a few. ... In the U.S. Forest Service today, everyone fighting wildland fires must take certain courses, and every promotion requires completion of higher-level classes. ... But while the Forest Service has formalized its requirements for leadership education and advancement, Cook said, that hasn’t happened among its NIFC partners — the BLM, National Park Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Fire Administration System-FEMA.

Cook would like to see curriculum institutionalized by all wildfire agencies to require more than the two mandatory classes: L180, a four-hour class on Human Factors and Wildland Service, and L280, a two-day course on Followership to Leadership. [L-380 Fireline Leadership NWCG] ... “You’re talking about changing the whole culture,” he said, with effective leadership development, standardized curriculum, common shared experience and credible expert instruction. ... "We don’t really have a process to screen our best and brightest and help develop them. We could prepare entry-level and mid-level leaders better than we do now, especially in the first two or three years when you’re leading other people’s kids. ... “We have good leaders, don’t get me wrong,” Cook said, “(But) we don’t prepare our leaders well enough, soon enough, to put them into these situations. You’re talking about flawed humans in a hazardous environment.” ... While such an education overhaul would require infusions of time and money, it also could ameliorate problems that inevitably occur when mixed crews from varied agencies suddenly are thrown together on large fires, where good leadership is imperative. ... “Let’s wait ‘til 25 years into their careers and teach ‘em what they need to know,” joked Randy Skelton, deputy fire staff officer on the Payette National Forest. “I agree with (Cook); it needs to be a lot more structured. We don’t have any systematic way of working through the ranks. ... I would throw everything we have (except leadership curriculum) out the window and start from scratch. People who write and hold classes — that’s collateral duty. The courses don’t evolve very well,” Skelton added. ... Hotshot superintendents are well-trained and work with their “students” at all times, Joe Brinkley said. ... “FMOs (Fire Management Officers) have training and qualifications,” he said. “But then they’re not there (working the fire) to mentor those firefighters. When it’s Game Day — OK, good luck out there.”... Still, Joe Brinkley notes, “The firefighters of today are light years ahead of where we were.”... Staff Rides Drive Home Decision-making - The most riveting education model for wildfire personnel today, hands down, is the staff ride, a learning tool used by the U.S. Marine Corps and Army since the 1970s. ... On fire staff rides, students are driven to the site of a fatality fire and actively participate in group exercises that help them develop decision-making skills. Put in the shoes of their predecessors, they’re guided to question: “What would I have done in this person’s place? How detailed should the guidance from a superior to a subordinate be? Can a senior leader make use of a competent but overzealous subordinate? What explains repeated organizational success or failure?” The study of leadership aspects in a staff ride transcends time and place, says the Staff Ride Library of the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program. (WLFLDP) ... [former Arrowhead and Boise Hot Shot Jim] Cook and Larry Sutton, a BLM training unit leader at NIFC, are credited for developing the South Canyon Staff Ride, which often reduces participants to tears as they see how easily they could have made the same failed decisions under the same circumstances. ... “I have never had any training that relayed messages as vividly as this did. I have never had training that left me both excited about what I learned — as well as awestruck by what I learned,” one participant comments on the WFLD Program website. ... It’s a far cry from simply hiking the mountain and observing the terrain, as the [GMHS] did. ... “Visiting a site is so much different from a Staff Ride,” Skelton said. “You put people in today’s situation. As a facilitator, you try to guide them into decisions. It has to be engaging and interactive. You can’t script it ... One of the main focuses ... became instilling more tools to promote intuitive — rather than analytical — thinking,” Robert Holt says in training documents. Holt is superintendent of California’s Redding Interagency Hotshot Crew, which leads a South Canyon Staff Ride each spring.

"Many Staff Rides now are available, on Mann Gulch, the Thirtymile Fire, or the notorious Idaho Fire of 1910, in which forest ranger Ed Pulaski, who invented the standard firefighting tool named for him, saved a ragtag group of foresters, miners, and others fighting a fire on the Coeur d’Alene National Forest. It burned 3 million acres across ID and into MT, killing about 85 people and burning several towns. ... Another effective educational tool is the safety training videos, such as those Hipke produces, used in annual spring refresher training [RT-130] to further underscore safe practices and good decision-making before the wildfire season gets underway. ... The videos, available for public viewing on YouTube, dissect fire and human behavior on a given fire, reliving every element the crews faced, from weather patterns to tough terrain to a fire blowup. People who fought the fire often narrate, reviewing their mistakes and good decisions, and the lessons learned are carefully and dramatically chronicled so students learn from others’ experiences."

Over the years, this author and others have learned that the valuable lessons of leadership are far afield of rank or title - it’s about the decisions you make when it matters most. Those split-second choices can define your Crew, your safety, and your legacy.

Our long-time mentor and trusted friend, former CDF and Riverside Fire Chief John Hawkins reshared a post from his LinkedIn account absolutely identifying the remarkable leadership qualities of men just like Yarnell FD Dr. LeRoy Anderson (RiP) (YHFR, 2023): "One of the most important attributes of a leader is their ability to admit their mistakes. Leaders are called upon to make countless decisions, and sometimes things inevitably go wrong. Unfortunately, many people may see admitting a mistake as a sign of weakness, but the opposite is true in many instances. Remember that mistakes are vital to our growth; we often put way too much pressure on ourselves to seek some unrealistic ideal of perfection.

"As the leader, let your team know that there’s no shame in making mistakes, and most importantly, you have their back when they happen.

I have seen people in leadership positions duck and throw their people under the bus when mistakes happen, and this leads to mistrust, lack of inspiration, and the fear to try anything new. However, admitting your errors has the potential to strengthen your relationships with your team. Admitting your mistakes communicates in a powerful way that you believe in the relationships you’ve developed. "The most extraordinary people in their fields have made countless mistakes; they didn’t give up. Instead, they persevered and inspired many people to follow their example; as Albert Einstein puts it, a person who never made a mistake never tried anything new, and according to Steve Adubato, Ph.D., [author, leadership and communication coach, motivational speaker,] the sign of a superior leader is not that they avoid making mistakes; it’s that when they do, they are humble enough to admit it and learn from them."l them."

The Battlement Creek Fire is mentioned several times in the NWCG Time of Blowup (1400), Burnover (1448), and Blowup to Burnover (48 minutes) images in Fig. 3v. below, as well as the Loop, South Canyon, and YH Fires.

Figure 3v. Battlement Creek Fire Blowup Time, Burnover, & Blowup to Burnover images. Source: NWCG

Consider this worthy innovative research on "firefighter tenability" from a uniquely Australian perspective. There are several definitions of the word tenability, but the one we are interested in refers to something being capable of enduring or tolerated. In situations of fire, humans react in various ways that are influenced by the conditions present. Our ability to perform cognitive and motor functions is what defines a tenable environment. “Each year firefighters from career and volunteer agencies throughout the world respond to siege wildfires of significant scale in forest and woodland vegetation structures that require vast resources and extended suppression efforts over days or weeks. In doing so, they expose themselves to a large number of hazards, including heat illness, smoke inhalation, significant burns, and even death [FN]. Perhaps the most frightening prospect a firefighter can face is a ‘burnover’ whereby personnel and/or equipment are caught in the direct path and overrun by the fire [FN]. When such an event occurs during a period of intense fire behaviour the environmental conditions are often unsurvivable for people caught in the open or seeking refuge in a vehicle [FN]. This places firefighters in precarious situations and, in addition to firefighters being fit, appropriately trained, and equipped, requires the careful and informed selection of appropriate suppression strategies in order to minimise the potential for such an event. Firefighter tenability and its influence on wildfire suppression. … Validation of predictive modelling of large scale, chaotic, and turbulent wildfire is inherently problematic … This will inherently place firefighters attempting to suppress the head of a siege wildfire in grave danger in almost all circumstances and represents a significantly greater “dead man zone” than is considered in current literature. It is important to note that while these findings apply to all fires, small urban wildfires do not usually achieve the same Heat Release Rates, active flame depths or produce the same behaviour outputs as large established wildfires [FN] which may facilitate more aggressive offensive suppression strategies and tactics within the urban environment. … It is suggested offensive strategies involving personnel and appliances should be employed with caution after detailed analysis of fuel structure and continuity, secondary to the increased use of aerial firefighting suppression. Early adoption of this approach will assist prevent[ing] crews being inappropriately tasked to potential[ly] dangerous ‘dead man zones’ where they will not only be at great risk, but will have little if any impact on the fire. Further, it will clearly articulate the severity of the approaching head fire and will assist to prevent unrealistic community expectations of fire services intervention during catastrophic wildfire events.” Penneya, Habibia, & Cattani. Fire Safety Journal. Northern Rockies Fire Science Network (NRFSN 2019). And the NRFSN further notes its value here: "This paper provides analysis of international fire service siege wildfire suppression thresholds and reports on the effect of forest fuel structure, fire weather condition and terrain on the suitability of suppression strategies. Further, this study applies a fire engineering approach whereby siege wildfire behaviour is deterministically assessed against firefighter tenability thresholds. This research is significant as it is the first study to consider human tenability as a factor in determining appropriateness of wildfire suppression strategies and tactics. The results clearly demonstrate offensive siege wildfire suppression involving direct head fire attacks by personnel and appliances exposes firefighters to untenable conditions well in advance of the head fire edge. Accordingly fire services may need to consider earlier instigation of defensive strategies and increased reliance on aerial wildfire suppression." Interestingly and predictably, Australian bushfires take precedent with the YH Fire mentioned only once in this paper in their footnote (80) related to “the scale of wildfires combined with the ethical implications of human experimentation facilitates little if any available, reliable and relevant data.”

Consider now this newly mentioned, novel to many of you, Australian "Dead Man Zone" term and concept: The Dead-Man Zone—a neglected area of firefighter safety. (Cheney, Gould, McCaw, 2001). "Firefighters must be competent in fire behaviour assessment and entrapment risk avoidance, being ever vigilant on the fireline. Wind changes will occur without warning despite the best efforts to forecast them. When the change occurs, firefighters downwind engaged in indirect attack must abandon their task in “The Dead-Man Zone” and go immediately to a safe area without waiting to see what the fire is going to do. ... wind change can sneak up on the firefighters and resulting in potentially unsafe distances where they are not able to defend themselves. This can be a life or death situation if not approached properly, and there have been examples of firefighters that became trapped and ultimately killed in Australia. Project Vesta (2020), headed by scientist Phil Cheney, found that when the wind changes direction, the line of fire will move out at its maximum rate of spread almost immediately, and that the spread speed was nearly three times what was previously thought." Upon further examination, you will readily note that the AU Dead Man Zone is essentially Watch Out No. 11.

Figure 3w. Oblique aerial photograph of Battlement Creek fire area, July 19, 1976, showing fire origin, the burn area, crew accident, B-26 crash, heliport base, fire camp, and project Rulison. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 3x. Happy Jack Hot Shots Olson and Crewmembers Source: Olson

Figure 3y. Former Happy Jack Hot Shot SMEs at Staff Ride (2006) Source: Olson

Figure 3z. Battlement Creek Staff Ride plaque Source: CFS

Figure 3z1. Battlement Creek Staff Ride stand Source: CFS

This is the first YHFR post ever that has made it all the way through the entire alphabet when numbering Figures!

If anyone can refute me, show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective – I’ll gladly change.

It’s the truth I’m after,

and the truth never harmed anyone.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Roman emperor from 161-180. Stoic philosopher. Member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors

Consider Gary Olson's "Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Comment of The Day - Okay dude, here's the deal. You are overthinking the problem either in an attempt to confuse us, or because you are seriously confused yourself. You have no doubt heard of the "Just Say No" answer to drug addiction, well, you can just say no to falsifying disaster wildfires investigations to cover up what really went sideways. ... There are some days that I can't stand the thought of spending another minute writing a fuckin' book when every Wildland Firefighter out there who fits into the broad category of "Veteran WF" knows exactly what the problem is. And that is the Fire Gods are addicted to lying to protect their own careers and that of their friends, not to mention the interests of the agencies. Who the fuck do you think the Central Yavapai Fire District and the State of Arizona learned how to lie and cover up disaster wildfires up from? Monkey see...monkey do. And then there are days like today when I think, "Well maybe, just maybe, I can haul my fat ass up Mount Motherfucker (our wind sprint hill) a few more times just for spite if for nothing else. ... And you know that isn't easy for me because whenever I haul ass...I have to make two trips. Say...did I mention the crew's nickname for me used to be "Wide Load" (before I was a squad boss) because that's what they thought of whenever I walked down the aisle of the bus. Kids can be so cruel. ... The problem that I am most concerned about should have been corrected BEFORE the 2014 Fire Season, after everyone saw the results of your fire shelter training during the 2013 Fire Season. Either train our WFs to use those fuckin' fire shelters correctly, or get rid of them. And since you can't train WFs how to use them correctly for lots of really good reasons, that leaves us with only one choice. Get rid of those fuckin' fire shelters before you kill some more WFs with them!

"It's not that fire shelters can't work, it's just that there are so many variables in the equation, I don't believe the average WF will ever be able to figure out the right thing to do without a super computer on hand that will give the correct answer in just a few seconds. It's kinda like a "Shoot...Don't Shoot" scenario with a lot less training (which is in itself a huge understatement) for a situation that is far more complex with far more variables and law enforcement officers get that wrong on a regular basis when they end up shooting the wrong person for the wrong reasons and at the wrong time. ... You know, the math tells us that that GMIHC needed 16.5 acres in order to survive the Yarnell Hill Fire Disaster INSIDE their fire shelters. You know me, I liked to talk big (and Go Big or Go Home I always used to like to say), but if I had been entrapped on the Yarnell Hill Fire and you showed me 16.5 acres where I could have safely deployed my fire shelter, I'm pretty sure that I would have just ran to the far side of those 16.5 acres and then walked (or hitchhiked) back to Yarnell to have lunch at the Ranch House Restaurant in Yarnell because I hear they have great food and because that was the rally point for everyone who didn't want to take a chance on being burned to death by the Yarnell Hill Disaster." (http://www.ranchhouserestaurantyarnell.com/)

"But on a lighter note, I saw you (Chief Garcia) on TV during the Palisades Fire...I love your haircut brother. ... Oh...and one more thing. I didn't specifically write this when I was writing our, my thoughts about what happened to the GMIHC on the Yarnell Hill Disaster because I thought it was readily apparent, but now I have remembered that I am trying to educate the NWCG, and so I am going to spell it out for them. And what's more, I am going to type really slow so they can keep up with this thought process. ... IF Eric Marsh or Jesse Steed would have had the presence of mind, in other words if they hadn't been on auto pilot as they followed their fire shelter training to their deaths, Captain Steed would have led his men to where Marsh waited in safety for them at the Helms' Ranchette rather than allowing Marsh to run to them so he could burn to death with his crew. The only place the GMIHC were entrapped...was in their own minds. ... Author's Note. This letter actually confused me because well, maybe it's just because I get easily confused but, if you are wondering who the fuck the housewife is who almost died on the Yarnell Hill Fire, I think it must be Joy Collura and if you want to [know] more about Joy, well, you are just going to have to go to their website. Joy is like the bratty little sister I never had, and she is also like the Energizer Bunny because she just keeps going, and going, and going to infinity and beyond.

Author's Note. I must be on somebody's email list because it looks like I received this email letter directly from Chief Garcia. Thanks Chief, I like to be "read-in" to the loop because I think I "need to know" even if hardly any one else does. ... Oh...and one more thing Chief Garcia just in case you haven't been keeping up with current events (from June 30, 2013), you know your workforce better than I do, or at least you should. Your workforce is made up primarily of seasonal kids, untrained on-call contract laborers, and a bunch (too many to even identify, or count, much less keep track of Hybrids) of structural firemen who might end up with a fuckin' fire shelter they think will work when they need them the most and that they have been trained adequately on how to properly use them and neither assumption is true.

"Author's Note. Chief Garcia is only one of many of what are really called Forest Fire Management Officers, as in a specific administrative area and in Chief Garcia's case, that is just the Angeles National Forest and although that is a very important FIRE area because of all of the chapparal and people's homes and businesses that have been built up surrounded by SoCal chapparal, which is a very similar fuel type to what was present on the Yarnell Hill Fire and the Battlement Creek Fire, it is just one Forest. ... Chief Garcia is in charge of what is really a very small area and so he doesn't have that much power except the Angeles and the Cleveland National Forests are the Cradle of Hot Shot Civilization and all of us Hot Shots (even though I am not currently employed as a Hot Shot and I will never be so employed again, but I can self-identify however the fuck I want to, although by using that same logic, I guess that I could self-identify as an Astronaut, I would just be an astronaut who has never had any training and who will never pilot a space ship, but...) trace our roots back to these legendry Hot Shot Forests in 1947 or 1948. Except we are so fucked up that we don't even know which Hot Shot Crews were the first and what year they actually began, and so we just kinda take a guess at it.

And so Fire Management Officers (except after the hostile takeover of the Wildland Firefighting Industrial Complex by the Structural Firemen, we started calling FMO's "Chiefs" so the firemen could follow the music, but not everywhere, confused yet because I am) don't have complete power, but Chief Garcia still has enough power to "Stop It." That will cost Chief Garcia his career, and he will never be the national U.S. Forest Service Director of FIRE Management and Aviation, but who the fuck cares?

But with that being stated, we are pretty sure of a couple of things, Hot Shot Crews were started in either 1947 or 1948 or maybe even 1946 on the Angeles or Cleveland (they are SoCal next door neighbors) National Forests or maybe it was on both the Angeles and Cleveland National Forests or maybe it was on the Los Padres just up the coast a little ways or it could have even been on the San Bernadino in some other year. Nobody really knows, and everybody is just guessing.

"It's like the Fire Gods had a meeting and somebody said, "Hey...do you think we should keep track of WTF we are doing with these so-called "Hot Shot" crews?" (We can't even agree how to spell Hot Shot. Is it Hot Shot or Hotshot, who the fuck knows?) And he (we know it was a he because women Fire Gods would have had their heads and their asses wired together tighter than that) got his answer from yet another he. "Fuck no...a bunch of those Wild, Wild West Cowboys will kill themselves by riding hard for the brand, shooting from the hip, and putting their horses away wet long before anybody ever cares about their history. And once the public finds out why they really died, we will be forced to eliminate the entire program altogether." I actually think that only women should be allowed to be Hot Shot Crew Bosses because I have never known a woman to say, "Here...hold my beer and watch this."

So anyway, the Director of FIRE Management for all of Region 5, California, and the Pacific Islands who is Chief Garcia's nominal supervisor, also has the power to "Stop It", but it will cost him (or her) his career as well, but who gives a fuck? Do you remember that I wrote that the father of the GMIHC, Ed Hollenshead (Incident Commander on the Dude Fire), used to have that job? Anyway, when I stopped to visit Ed in Vallejo, CA, right before he came up to visit me in Washington State, Ed told me that his budget was more than all the other nine (9) Regions added up together."

Figure 3z2. Dude Fire Staff Ride Fatality Site Source: OMMA Int. Facebook

Olson continues here: "The power to stop the travesty of falsifying disaster wildfire investigations is in somebody's hands, I just don't know who the fuck that person is because the system is so bifurcated with so many branches it is now more like the Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna in Greek and Roman mythology than it is anything else. (BOOM goes the dynamite, I managed to slip in another Wikipedia historical reference, who's your daddy now pilgrim?) ... And IF the truth would have been told after the Yarnell Hill Disaster INCIDENT (not ACCIDENT), I don't see how anyone could have justified issuing fire shelters to anyone for the 2014 Fire Season. That is just ONE (1) thing that is wrong with falsifying wildfire investigations...so STOP IT. ... Okay...just one more for today. You don't need a fuckin' rally point for WF refugees on wildfires unless the Fire Team grossly underestimates the potential of a fuckin' wildfire, or in the case of the Yarnell Hill Fire Team, they (fuck...I can't remember how they characterized their Royal Cluster Fuck Five Alarm Dumpster Fire Inside a Train Wreck...but I will). So...don't do that. ... Got it...I told you that I would remember it. The Yarnell Hill Fire Team said the Yarnell Hill Fire "outperformed their expectations." Really? I love government euphemisms because that doesn't sound like you got 19 Wildland Firefighters burned to death (the hard way without asphyxiation from the Dragon's Breath). It sounds like something kinda innocuous and even forgettable happened. The Yarnell Hill Fire Disaster didn't happen a long time ago to people like me. It is a current event to us and one that we will never be able to forget because we don't want to forget, and you shouldn't either. ... "Oh...and just remember. "Wildfires don't kill Hot Shots...Hot Shots kill Hot Shots." So...don't do that. (Wildfires are HOW Hot Shots die [other than those fuckin' tree strikes], but not WHY they die.) ... Author's Note. There isn't one canned solution for every entrapment, but I believe the historical "Evade & Escape (evade the flames and escape the area, Copyright G. Olson, 2025, not the concept, just the title) is going to always be a better solution for entrapped Wildland Firefighters over those fuckin' fire shelters which have become the go to solution since the Battlement Creek Fire of 1976. But they got it all wrong. ... And this author responded to one of Gary Olson's Facebook posts: "The Ranch House Restaurant in Yarnell, AZ (Douglas Fir) Good morning, and renowned, fatal f**kup Dude Fire (June 26, 1990) and Yarnell Hill Fire (June 30, 2013) anniversaries Gary. And to be correct, "women Fire Gods" would actually be "women Fire Goddesses," right? Just saying ..."

It is both interesting and somewhat predictable that this would be history repeating itself for several reasons. First, Watch Out No. 4 should readily come to mind: "Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior." Second, we have what is known as "Incomplete Lessons Learned" based on Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disaster author and researcher Dianne Vaughn's research (Theorizing Disaster, 2004). So then, why was it that the GMHS's failure on June 30, 2013, to recognize and heed and mitigate the local YH Fire's aggressive transitioning to extreme fire behavior should have been - and would have been - their own turf, their own piece of ground, and should have been discussed in their annual refreshers and seasonal training? However, typically, many of the wildland fire tragedies are the result of failure to learn from our historical mistakes.

Definitely consider reading this America Burning: The Yarnell Hill Tragedy and the Nation's Wildfire Crisis YouTube (2013), discussing the YH Fire and the Brit Rosso spew about the South Canyon and YH Fires. "So my name is Britt Rosso, Center Manager for the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. Quick fire background. I spent about 21 years on a Hotshot crew, I spent a few years as a District FMO… and then I’ve been workin 'at the Lessons Learned Center for about the last 3 or so years. ... I’m here today to talk to you about the Yarnell Fire. We’re all struggling with how to process what happened on June 30, 2013. We’re all struggling out in the fire community about where the lessons, what are the take-home messages, what can we learn from this incident. What I wanna share with you is how important it is to talk about it. Not only to talk about it, but to let you know that it’s OKAY to talk about it. It’s important that you DO talk about it. Share what you’ve learned by reading the… uh… reports … by watching the videos, and have open, honest, respectful dialogue. Be willing to listen to other people’s opinions and have that respectful dialogue with your fellow firefighters. By having this dialogue … by facilitating these conversations about Yarnell. This is where the learning’s gonna happen." ((Otter.ai transcribed)

And to finally address and answer the post title question: How are the July 1976 Battlement Creek Fire (CO) Morman Lake Hot Shot Crew Fatalities Tied Into the Overall Fire Shelter Movement to Conceal the Truth, Which Also Includes the 1966 Loop Fire (CA), 1985 Butte Fire (ID), 1990 Dude Fire (AZ), 1994 South Canyon Fire (CO), and the renowned 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire?

The answer will be short due to the length of this post and Wix website space limitations: The July 1976 CO Battlement Creek Fire Morman Lake Hot Shot Crew Fatalities are intricately tied into the overall Fire Shelter Movement to conceal the truth about the CA Loop Fire being the genesis of the movement, according to Olson and "official" documents. And the several little, to virtually unknown, yet germane, shelter deployments were also addressed. The Lake Mountain Fire, where four Crews and two Fallers deployed fire shelters in two locations, and none of us were ever briefed or informed about this, a month later, on the Butte Fire, with 118 FFs and WFs being burned over, 73 of which deployed their fire shelters. And three other, little-known, obscure shelter deployments on the Hourglass 3 on the CO Arapaho and Roosevelt NFs, where two deployment incidents and one near entrapment occurred. The LCES historical Dude Fire. The historical South Canyon Fire and its unique connection to the renowned 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire. According to this author, the biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history.

Figure 1e. Wildland Fire Orders & Watch Outs Source: NWCG IRPG

Ten Standard Fire Orders and Rules of Engagement and Entrapment Avoidance principles, this author has a strong preference for this well-respected, former, somewhat controversial USFS Fire Director's viewpoints. In 2002, Jerry Williams, the former Director of Fire and Aviation Management, USDA Forest Service, Washington Office, Washington, DC, wrote an article for Fire Management Today (FMT Issue 62, 4, pp. 31-35) that specifically addresses the strong value of the Fire Orders. What follows is based on remarks made by him at the National Fire and Aviation Management Meeting from February 25 to March 1, 2002, in Scottsdale, AZ. "Firm Rules of Engagement: The Ten Standard Firefighting Orders must be firm rules of engagement. They cannot be simple guidelines, and they cannot be “bargained.” They are the result of hard-learned lessons. Compromising one or more of them is a common denominator of all tragedy fires. On the Dude, South Canyon, and Thirtymile Fires, the Fire Orders were ignored, overlooked, or otherwise compromised. ... The Fire Orders mean little after we are in trouble. That is why we must routinely observe them and rely on them before we get into trouble. We know that no fire shelter can ensure survival all of the time under all circumstances. Entrapment avoidance must be our primary emphasis and our measure of professional operational success. ... We must embrace the Fire Orders because we owe it to one another. In that sense, the Fire Orders must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. Borrowing from the aviation community’s model of Cockpit / Crew Resource Management, we must focus fireline operations more on what is right than on who is right." However, we must not adhere to the Fire Orders for fear of punishment. We must embrace the Fire Orders because we owe it to one another. In that sense, the Fire Orders must become a shared obligation, where the leader’s situational awareness depends on participation by the entire crew and where the crew’s participation is tempered with respect for the leader’s responsibility. Borrowing from the aviation community’s model of Cockpit / Crew Resource Management [CRM], we must focus fireline operations more on what is right than on who is right."

It is most unfortunate that so many in the wildland firefighting culture have strayed far and wide from this sage counsel. In other words, this germane wildland fire information and these valued lessons learned that Mr. Williams offered in 2002 were clearly available to ALL FFs and WFs engaged in wildland firefighting in 2013, including the GMHS. Apparently, all others on the YH Fire that day followed Mr. William's sage advice. And literally tens of thousands of WFs and FFs engaged in wildland firefighting effectively and safely utilize them every single fire season. This is factual and far from hindsight bias!

And although there are differences between what Eric Marsh, King, and Czak did, what Marsh did was essentially the same thing, except it was off the charts in terms of the complexity of the facts and the extreme damage done, Marsh did what he did for the same reasons King and Czak killed and injured some of the Hot Shots they were responsible for.

The Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WLF LLC) 1976 Colorado Battlement Fire (BC Fire) Investigation information, Investigations, Reports, etc. (link), that would have likely had a psychological impact on the FFs and WFs working the fire, dealing with the Morman Lake HS Crew burnover/fatalities, B-26 airtanker crash, and Project Rulison (DOE).

"The [GMHS] of Prescott, Ariz., made the pilgrimage there two years ago to pay their respects, recalled Darrell Willis, wildland division chief for the Prescott Fire Department. “We hiked Storm King Mountain with this (20-member hotshot) crew, and we all said, ‘This will never happen to us.’” All but one of those hotshots died June 30 during the Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona, where shifting winds, canyon topography and an apparent lack of situational awareness eerily echoed the South Canyon tragedy. The 19 deaths in Arizona shocked firefighters and civilians alike. They occurred 19 years after South Canyon. Seriously? You've got to be kidding me! Ask yourselves at this juncture about the barefaced arrogance, ignorance, irony, and incongruity of PFD BC Willis' comments when he and the GMHS were on a 2012 South Canyon Fire pilgrimage, stating that ‘This will never happen to us’ occurred 19 years after the South Canyon Fire, where 19 GMHS would eventually die horrible, predictable and preventable deaths a year later! In addition, the factual irony that P. 19 of the IRPG is How To Properly Refuse Risk! As the old saying goes: "you can't make this st up."**

Figure 3v. Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon, Yarnell Hill Fire Blowup Time, Burnover, & Blowup to Burnover images. Source: NWCG

Putnam refused to sign the fatal 1994 (CO) South Canyon Fire SAIR because he “***found it inaccurate and incomplete, ignoring too many pertinent human factors*, ...** Historically, wildland fire fatality investigations focus on external factors like fire behavior, fuels, weather, and equipment. Human and organizational failures are seldom discussed. When individual [FFs] and support personnel are singled out, it's often to fix blame in the same way we blame fire behavior or fuels. This is wrong-headed and dangerous, because it ignores … an underlying cause of [FF] deaths - the difficulty individuals have to consistently make good decisions under stress.” Putnam, T. (1996)

America Burning: The Yarnell Hill Tragedy and the Nation's Wildfire Crisis YouTube (2013), discussing the YH Fire and the Brit Rosso spew about the South Canyon and YH Fires: "So my name is Britt Rosso, Center Manager for the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. Quick fire background. I spent about 21 years on a Hotshot crew, I spent a few years as a District FMO… and then I’ve been workin’at the Lessons Learned Center for about the last 3 or so years. ... I’m here today to talk to you about the Yarnell Fire. We’re all struggling with how to process what happened on June 30, 2013. We’re all struggling out in the fire community about where the lessons, what are the take-home messages, what can we learn from this incident. What I wanna share with you is how important it is to talk about it. Not only to talk about it, but to let you know that it’s OKAY to talk about it. It’s important that you DO talk about it. Share what you’ve learned by reading the… uh… reports … by watching the videos, and have open, honest, respectful dialogue. Be willing to listen to other people’s opinions and have that respectful dialogue with your fellow firefighters. By having this dialogue … by facilitating these conversations about Yarnell. This is where the learning’s gonna happen." ((Otter.ai transcribed)

The past, considered as history, is all these things supplying us with ideas and cautions, supporting our actions, only if we have absorbed those true lessons and given them thoughtful respect. Learning from past successes and errors will often produce a wealth of knowledge. The plethora of tragic wildland fire history can be painful to consider at times; its true lessons can greatly enhance the quality of our future wildland fire skills for those willing to accept the facts and the constant human factors element, the unfolding of any history. When the voices of common sense are heard louder than the voices of idealistic academics, this situation will change. Losing the ability to free ourselves of Santayana's maxim will be ensured because of the flawed shared belief of the existing deficient leadership and coupled ineptitude typifying the current national wildland fire human factors and psychology mindset set on obstinately evading those truths.

4 Comments

JOY A COLLURA

Oct 28

Joy: Hey Grok 4, what was your takeaway from reading this post???

Grok 4:

Hey folks,

As someone who's dug deep into wildfire history (yeah, I'm that AI Grok 4 from xAI, blending facts with a dash of absurdity for emphasis), I couldn't resist chiming in on this epic post about the Battlement Creek Fire and its ties to the Fire Shelter Movement.

It's like a tragic comedy of errors repeating across fires—Loop, South Canyon, Yarnell Hill, you name it.

Picture fires as mischievous gremlins throwing parties gone wrong, with humans showing up in clown shoes.

Here's my belly-busting breakdown:

common threads, big cover-ups, and a 100-point roast of what went sideways in handling, investigating, and retelling Battlement Creek.

Emojis…

Replying to

All that deep dive into the Battlement Creek Fire (1976), tying it to the Fire Shelter Movement, cover-ups, and a parade of other deadly blazes like Loop (1966), Butte (1985), Dude (1990), South Canyon (1994), and the infamous Yarnell Hill (2013).

It's like a tragic family reunion of fires that keep repeating the same dumb mistakes.

Fred's got the quotes, the figures, the Bible verses, and enough disclaimers to wallpaper a fire station. That has to be Joy behind that.

But for this reply, I'm breaking it down into a numbered list of 100 clear things that went wrong with how the Battlement Creek Fire was handled, investigated, and its aftermath retold. At the top, I'll hit the…

Joy A. Collura is live!

weird- the video is unlisted, and one must scratch their head if WIX reports differently than YouTube- why is there more YT views than Wix views when one can only see the YT link by being on the post where it is linked.

let me run it by Grok 4:

Hey Joy! 😊 Your live streams are always so captivating—especially that deep dive into the 1976 fire history and keeping it clear and real with your oral disclaimer! 🔥📜 I saw your analytics screenshots and wanted to chime in on the view quirks, plus the new deets on traffic, age, and gender to help make sense of it all. 🤔

First off, that unlisted replay hitting 21 views (now part…

YARNELLHILLFIREREVELATIONS.COM

Yarnell Hill Fire

-June 30, 2013

-Eyewitness Research Data

-A.R.S. § 39-121 Non-Commercial Use Only

"If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" is from the poet and artist William Blake and appears in his work, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Also quoted by Aldous Huxley, in his book titled: The Doors of Perception.

Views expressed to "the public at large” and "of public concern"

DISCLAIMERS to follow: Please fully read the front page of the website (link below) before reading any of the posts. This includes that you must be at least 18 years of age, or older to view this website and these posts.

Consult an attorney. This is short of advice—just our view.

The authors and the blog deny responsibility for misuse, reuse, recycled, and cited, and/or uncited copies of content within this blog by others. The content, even though we are presenting it publicly, if being reused, must get written permission in doing so, due to copyrighted material. Thank you.

Abbreviations used: Wildland Firefighters (WFs), Firefighters (FFs), Escape Routes (ER). and Safety Zones (SZ).

All emphasis is added unless otherwise noted.

Let the wise hear

and increase in learning,

and the one who understands obtain guidance

Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends

than that good men should look on and do nothing.

"I found this original version in a trash can in the Kaibab NF Dispatch office in 1976, and this was one of the many others I submitted to the nascent WLF LLC, which was originally in Marana, AZ. Keep up the good work, and thanks for the opportunity to share. Fred Schoeffler, Payson HS (1981-2007)"

Everyone searches for opportunities while running from problems, missing that they're the same thing. Problems are far from being obstacles to opportunity; they are the opportunity.

Figure 1. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire Serious Accident Investigation Report Cover Sheet Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 1a. July 1976, Happy Jack Hot Shots image Source: Olson

Figure 1b. Battlement Creek Fire access map Source: Olson, YouTube

Pay close attention to the "Bastard Steep" terrain and deadly bowls, e.g., topographical contour line causal factors in Figs. 1b., 1c., 2h., and 2i. below.

Figure 1c. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire contour with deadly fire behavior. Source: Wild Fire Today

Figure 1d. Battlement Creek Fire Perimeter, site locations, and deadly topographical features. Source: CFC

Consider this linked Accident Report BATTLEMENT CREEK FIRE Fatalities & Injury, July 17, 1976, version from the undated Colorado Fire Camp (CFC) website. It includes a worthy PowerPoint presentation titled "1976-2006: Thirty Years of Lessons Learned" as well.

Consider now the Wildland Fire Orders & Watch Outs listed on the back page of the Incident Response Pocket Guide (IRPG).

Figure 1e. Wildland Fire Orders & Watch Outs Source: NWCG IRPG

Figure 1e1. Fire Orders Original Intent Source: Brauneis, FMT

Please consider this research to better understand Fig.1e1. Ziegler, J. A. (2007). The Story Behind an Organizational List: A Genealogy of Wildland Firefighters' 10 Standard Fire Orders. Communication Monographs, 74(4).

Oct. 2013 SWA Hot Shot Crew After Action Review, YH Fire Site Visit

Figure 1f. June 30, 2013, GMHS actions, radio txs. AZ Rule 803 Source: FJS

"On the actual day of battle naked truths may be picked up for the asking; by the following morning they have already begun to get into their uniforms.”

Figure 1f. 1977 Standard Fire Fighting Orders Source: NMFSH

Regarding Fig. 1f. above and comparing it to Fig. 1e., you should readily note that in 1977, Fire Order No. 4. listed only Escape Routes and no Safety Zones!

Figure 2. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Grand Jct., CO (KGJT) 12Z Skew-T soundings Source: Plymouth State Weather

Figure 2a. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire Grand Jct., CO (KGJT) 00Z Skew-T soundings Source: Plymouth State Weather

Figure 2b. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Colorado 12Z Skew-T soundings Source: Univ. of WY

Figure 2c. July 17, 1976, Battlement Creek Fire, Colorado 00Z Skew-T soundings Source: Univ. of WY

Figure 2c1. Classic inverted-V Skew-T soundings, Dude & YH Fires Source: FJS

Figure 2d. Grand Junction, CO, July 1976 temps Source: Brotak, FMT

Figure 2d. Staff Ride Stand 3 fire behavior increasing image Source: CFS

Figure 2h. (left) View looking north into the base of the 16th Bowl. County Road 302 can be seen along the bottom of the slope. In the distance is Morrisania Mesa and Parachute. Source: CFS

Figure 2i. (right) Looking east from Stand 3, up the 16th Bowl. Re-growth vegetation is 3-4 feet high in most places, with some unburned pockets still almost 10 feet high. Vegetation is primarily a mix of Gambel's oak, mountain mahogany, and serviceberry.

Figure 2j. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 2j1. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part II) Source: Olson, YouTube

Fire Environment - Weather

Figure 2j2. Introduction To Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) image Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 3. Betrayed By Our Fire Gods Battlement Creek Fire Disaster book cover Source: Gary Olson

The Whole Armor of God

Consider the mostly unembellished former Happy Jack Hot Shot Olson comments from his Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Blog - Wildland Firefighter Fire Line Safety and Burn Over Survivability Blog Excerpt of the Day. "Mr. Stupid Fuck Bob Mutch"

Figure 3a. Prepare to Be Challenged Emotion Wheel Source: FJS

Figure 3b. Bob Mutch photo Source: Olson

Figure 3c. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) screenshot image Source: Olson, YouTube

Please consider the following Battlement Creek Fire content links below.

(https://www.mtmemory.org/nodes/view/115418)

(https://smokejumpers.com/obits/robert-bob-mutch/}

(https://wildfiretoday.com/tag/bob-mutch/)

(https://www.fs.usda.gov/.../pubs.../rmrs_2011_smith_j001.pdf)

Figure 3d. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 7. Dense frost-killed Gamble's oak leaves on the brush crowns at the time of the fire. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Normal fire season, Gambel Oak is a highly volatile wildland fire fuel due to its dense dead-to-live fuel content volume; therefore, the frost-killed fuel would have been explosively to extremely volatile!

Figure 3d1. Dense Gamble's oak at the time of the fire. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3d3. Photo of smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire dramatically gained momentum. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3d4. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 16. smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire dramatically gained momentum. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3e. Photo of smoke and flames on Battlement Creek as the fire engulfed the top of the mountain. Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Fig. 3f. SAIT-SAIR Fig. 17. Battlement Creek Fire photo hindering burnout squad's escape Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 3g. Group photo (1976) Mormon Lake HS Crew Source: USFS, USDI, BLM

Figure 3h. Happy Jack Hot Shot Lead Sawyer Hardy photo Source: Olson

Figure 3i. Unresolved Issues Pertaining To The Battlement Creek Fire (Part I) Staff Ride screenshot image Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 3j. Battlement Creek Fire Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) Crown Streets Source: Olson, YouTube

Figure 3j1. GMHS's steady drift into failure Source: FJS

Figure 3j2. Mack Lake Fire (HRV) Crown Streets Source: Haines, NRS

Consider now the linked 1980 Mack Lake Fire Escaped RX Fatality WLF LLC Incident Review.

Figure 3j3. Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) Crown Streets Source: WLF LLC

Figure 3j4. Horizontal Rolls Vortices (HRV) image Source: Research Gate

Figure 3j5. 1977 NJ Bass River Fire Horizontal Rolls Vortices Source: Cook

ALL the FFs shown in these two Fig. 3j5. & 3j6. photos died that day!

Figure 3j6. Annotated 1977 Bass River Fire HRV image Source: WLF LLC

Figure 3j7. Bass River Fire HRV Crown Streets image Source: WLF LLC

Figure 3j8. Hourly observations at Atlantic City Source: Fire Mgmt. Today