Why Is There No Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride At The Annual March ERAU Wildfire Mgmnt. Academy Of This Fatal June 2013 Epic Event?

Author Fred J. Schoeffler and other contributing authors 

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

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( www.yarnellhillfirerevelations.com )

This post is based on the author's professional judgement and opinions based on available evidences with no intention to defame individuals.

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Abbreviations used: Wildland Firefighters (WFs) - Firefighters (FFs).

All emphasis is added unless otherwise noted. 

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Where there is no counsel, the people fail.

But in the multitude of counselors there is safety

Proverbs 11:14 (NKJV)

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"It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong."

François-Marie Arouet - a French Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his nom de plume Voltaire, famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. He was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the separation of church and state and a versatile and prolific writer.

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The author's intent here is fairly simple. The YH Fire remains one of the deadliest wildland fire tragedies in U.S. history, claiming the lives of 19 GMHS on June 30, 2013. Despite its proximity to Prescott, AZ, the AWIMA at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) has consistently omitted a YH Fire site visit or staff ride from its curriculum, even as other academies offer staff rides as listed below. The value of staff rides in learning from tragedy, and questions whether institutional resistance to truth hinders wildland fire safety. Given the generally accepted fact that most (and likely more than half ) Wildland Fire Weather, Fire Behavior, Human Factors, and Psychological Factors are somewhat similar on wildland fires. However, they are very much-so similar on those wildland fires where burnovers, entrapments, fire shelter deployments, and /or fatalities have occurred. Therefore, there are ostensibly "lessons learned" for all of them with some having much to offer than others, e.g. more detailed and more informative than others and clearly more truthful, in particular the many older, historical and notable wildland fires you've heard or read about, especially those listed in the what used-to-be trusted and valuable Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WLF-LLC) Incident Reviews, Two More Chains, etc. And then came the Yarnell Hill Fire (AZ-2013) and the alleged Honor the Fallen Group and former Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WLF LLC) Manager Kelly Woods' Podcast along with then Plumas WF Eric Apland titled Why Has the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center Lost Its Ethical Compass Defending The Federal USFS-Funded June 30, 2013, SAIT-SAIR Conclusion of No Wrongdoing? (2022). such as Mann Gulch (MT-1949), the Rattlesnake (CA-1953), Butte (ID-1985) South Canyon (CO-1994), Dude (AZ-1990), Thirty Mile (WA-2001), Cramer (ID-2003), Yarnell Hill Fire (AZ-2013) and National WX Service - Yarnell Wildland Fire (NWS-AZ-2013) and the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Education (NCEI-NOAA-accessed 4/16/25, (with the YH Fire being the absolute worst of all of them in this author's professional judgment as qualifying as potentially "the biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history" because of the preventable 19 PFD WF deaths occurring in one fell swoop due to an alleged rouge firing operation in the Sesame Street-Shrine Corridor, i.e. Friendly Fire. The pre-South Canyon (CO-1994), and the (ID-1985). The 1985 Butte Fire would be topped by the decades-long (31-years) arrival of the 2016 Butte Fire Staff Ride video of the 1985 entrapment (ID-2016). The Pasqual Battle Staff Ride offered by Rio Hondo College 171 years later, 93.5 miles away. Yes indeed, a second academy Staff Ride! The Mark Kaib quotes criticizing the GMHS supervisor and the GMHS attitudes and actions on the YH Fire is worth reading in Dougherty's (2016) New Times article titled: Wildfire Expert Alleges Arizona Forestry Division Covering Up Yarnell Hill Tragedy. Briefly discussing the concept and value of renowned retired Lt. Colonel Grossman and his worthy On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs (mwkworks.com). And to maintain our YHFR legacy as truth-seekers is strengthened by presenting a defensible, well-reasoned case. This author has provided links for as many of the sources referenced as possible.

AWIMA’s Omission: A Missed Opportunity The 2025 AWIMA Course Schedule (Figure 1) lacks any mention of a YH Fire Staff Ride, despite the fire’s significance and proximity. This mirrors the 2023 schedule (Figure 1a), even on the tragedy’s 10th anniversary. In contrast, the Colorado Wildland Fire & Incident Management Academy (CWFIMA) offers a South Canyon Fire Staff Ride (Figure 2), and Rio Hondo College hosts a Battle of San Pasqual Staff Ride (Figure 2a). Why does AWIMA, just an hour from the YH Fire site, ignore repeated calls for a staff ride, as documented in our evaluation forms (Figure 3)? We submitted feedback to AWIMA, urging a YH Fire Staff Ride to foster learning (Figure 3). Question 8 (“How could we improve the Academy?”) received this author's response: “Provide a week-long course for a Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit or Staff Ride. We are in the heartland of the YH Fire, an hour away.” Question 9 (“What courses would you like to see?”) reiterated this request. Yet, the AWIMA Staff has failed to respond, raising questions about their spoken-about-in-briefings and classrooms and such very similar to the unpublished commitment to what the often refereed to WLF LLC mission of promoting a “learning culture.”

Moreover, this author highly suggests utilizing the the Socratic Method of teaching as applied in Law Schools to make up for the lack of information in most of the SAIT-SAIRs and certainly in almost all of the "no blame, no fault" Facilitated Learning Analyses (FLA) and Learning Reviews (LR), etc. that are lacking in the core sources of wildland fire human factors, as well as wildland fire weather, etc. Utilizing the renowned Kahn Academy's version by Rogerio L. Roth titled: The Socratic Method Reloaded: a Rereading to Improve a Technologically Sound Education from the (2016) Intl. Journal of Learning, Teaching and Educational Research. And their Case Study - How Khan Academy Leveraged AI to Change Education (2024) written by Puran Parsani. "Khanmigo is an AI chatbot tutor, built on the GPT-4 architecture, designed to engage students in interactive learning sessions across a wide range of subjects. Unlike traditional educational technologies, Khanmigo uses the Socratic method to prompt critical thinking and independent problem-solving. Rather than simply providing answers, it encourages students to think deeply and reason through problems." 

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And lastly, the forthcoming (1985 Butte Fire post will be titled: On The August 29, 1985, Salmon NF (ID) Butte Fire IMT Aerial Ignition Firing Operation Entrapped 118 WFs & FFs, 73 Requiring Fire Shelters. So, Why Would They Pre-Purchase Cases of Military Body Bags? Except for our Almighty God-granted fact that there were no fatalities, it may well give the tragic YH Fire a run for it's money. You decide when the time comes.

Figure 1. 2025 AWIMA Course Schedule Snippet clearly minus any mention of a YH Fire Site Visit and / or Staff Ride Snippet. Source: AWIMA website

Consider now the 2023 AWIMA Course Schedule (10-Year Anniversary no less) Snippet clearly minus any mention whatsoever of a 2013 YH Fire Site Visit and / or Staff Ride. Previous years' AWIMA Course Schedules revealed similar courses also minus any mention whatsoever of a 2013 YH Fire Site Visit and / or Staff Ride approaching the Twelvth Anniversary!

Figure 1a. 2023 AWIMA Course Schedule Snippet clearly minus any mention of a YH Fire Site Visit and / or Staff Ride Snippet. Source: AWIMA

We asked the same questions in 2023 on our YHFR post titled:  Speaking Ill of the Dead By Lying About Them? Or Honoring the Dead By Searching For The Truth If They're Considered as Public Figures? Part 2 in that posts Figure 3a. (2023) "The use, benefit, value, and availability of Staff Rides and Site visits and, of course, the palpable favoritism or exclusion for selection based on the interested applicant's stance on the YH Fire and GMHS tragedy. The in-depth genesis and history of the derogatory and even unethical phrases and alleged actions and behaviors of "speaking ill of the dead" and "defaming the dead." Contrast those with the more beneficial and positive healing aspects of "honoring the dead." Next, it is worth the time to delve into the Ninth Circuit rulings on a First Amendment Free Speech issue regarding whether "bloggers" have the same First Amendment rights as established journalists (Crystal Cox vs. Obsidian Finance Group, 2011), and the legal principles of "the public at large” and "of public concern" cited here and on the YHFR website post.

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The call to action - urging AWIMA to include a YH Fire Site Visit and / or Staff Ride and inviting community engagement - channels our passion into a constructive path. It positions us as leaders who identify problems while also proposing solutions, encouraging the wildland fire community to learn from the past, as the WLF LLC mission intends. Our voices can spark the change we’ve fought for throughout our careers and while searching for the YH Fire & GMHS truths on the YHFR site and other forums. Google searching (GTS) for this YHFR post title reveals only negative responses because there is no such thing as an AWIMA Staff Ride! Go for it! Check it out for yourselves. "Why Is There No Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride At The Annual March ERAU Wildfire Mgmnt. Academy Of This Fatal June 2013 Epic Event?" However, there are YH Fire & GMHS Staff Rides offered by other entities listed below. Unsurprisingly, the Dept. of Forestry & Fire Management (DFFM) under the leadership of a retired California Department of Fire (CDF) employee, now a DFFM Fire Mgmnt. Officer who oversees the highly vetted DFFM YH Fire Staff Ride that this author alleges always excludes this author and one of the YH Fire "local hikers" noted in the (SAIT-SAIR) Eyewitness Hikers Joy A. Collura. Moreover, he expressed in a phone interview to YH Fire Eyewitness Joy A. Collura (paraphrasing, something to the effect of) 'the truth doesn't matter on a Staff Ride.' Really? Since when is the truth excluded? According to military historian Von Clausewitz. He wrote in On War that “War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty. ... A sensitive and discriminating judgment is called for; a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth.” That is the purpose of staff rides: to help commanders and staff officers develop their judgment and hone their intelligence so that they can lift the fog of war before they are faced with the pressures of combat or the budget cycle." (Retired Col. James M. Johnson PhD. The Value of Staff Rides. Thayer Leadership 2020)

And two more sources as follows from (1) Retired Lt. Col. Ed Kennedy (2023) also citing Von Clausewitz as a Redstone Rocket. "Letter to editor: Difference between staff rides, tours."  “Staff rides” are largely academic and intellectual exercises. Formalized under the Prussian General Staff during the 1800s, “staff rides,” as the name implies, is (sic) for commanders to work with their staffs in order to educate them. The end result would be a staff more situationally aware and prepared for contingencies on the battlefield having studied past battles and campaigns to deduce “timeless truths.” And (2) Colonel (USAR Ret.) Thomas Williams (2019) The Value of Inquiry. War Room (W/R) writes: "Must everyone tell the truth in the same way, or do they tell it from their particular vantage point? ... Staff rides allow us to connect the concrete—what happened, and when and where and how—to the abstract—about strategic leadership and decision making and communication. … Yet if we don’t discipline ourselves to ask more of them I suspect history will be unkind to us as some future staff ride guide asks, “how could they have been so blind to their own folly?” 

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A sensitive and discriminating

judgment is called for;

a skilled intelligence to scent out the truth

German theorist on war, Carl von Clausewitz

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Retired Lt. Colonel Grossman points out the following from a William J. Bennett, lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997. ... He focuses time, on the post-9/11 time concerning the violence - and potential violence in our schools, especially the victims at Columbine High School ... in our churches specifically mentioning the church massacre in Ft. Worth, Texas in 1999. One Vietnam veteran, an old retired colonel, once said this to me: "Most of the people in our society are sheep. ... Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep. ... I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. ... For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators. ... Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy. ... The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial. ... "Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf." ... A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed ... We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. ... The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. ... Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land. ... Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog. ... Understand that there is nothing morally superior about being a sheepdog; it is just what you choose to be. Also understand that a sheepdog is a funny critter: He is always sniffing around out on the perimeter, checking the breeze, barking at things that go bump in the night, and yearning for a righteous battle. That is, the young sheepdogs yearn for a righteous battle. The old sheepdogs are a little older and wiser, but they move to the sound of the guns when needed right along with the young ones. ... Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. ... Some people may be destined to be sheep and others might be genetically primed to be wolves or sheepdogs. But I believe that most people can choose which one they want to be, and I'm proud to say that more and more Americans are choosing to become sheepdogs. ... If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door. ... It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up. ... Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth. ... Denial is a save-now-pay-later scheme, a contract written entirely in small print, for in the long run, the denying person knows the truth on some level. And so the warrior must strive to confront denial in all aspects of his life, and prepare himself for the day when evil comes. If you are warrior who is legally authorized to carry a weapon and you step outside without that weapon, then you become a sheep, pretending that the bad man will not come today. No one can be "on" 24/7, for a lifetime. Everyone needs down time. But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself... "Baa." ... This business of being a sheep or a sheep dog is not a yes-no dichotomy. It is not an all-or-nothing, either-or choice. It is a matter of degrees, a continuum. On one end is an abject, head-in-the-sand-sheep and on the other end is the ultimate warrior. Few people exist completely on one end or the other. Most of us live somewhere in between. Since 9-11 almost everyone in America took a step up that continuum, away from denial. The sheep took a few steps toward accepting and appreciating their warriors, and the warriors started taking their job more seriously. The degree to which you move up that continuum, away from sheephood and denial, is the degree to which you and your loved ones will survive, physically and psychologically at your moment of truth."

Countering the formerly mentioned CDF employee, now a DFFM FMO's bold and misplaced assertion below is the Otter app written transcription of Wildland Fire Safety Training and Refresher (WFSTAR) (WLF LLC) Brit Rosso's Weather Channel video clip regarding his YH Fire speech stressing the importance of talking about the Yarnell Hill Fire. Here below is the Otter app written transcription of WFSTAR and WLF LLC former Natl. Park Service (NPS) Hot Shot Supt., Fire Management Officer, and National Advanced Fire & Resource Institute (NAFRI) Center Manager Brit Rosso's Weather Channel video clip of his emotionally sincere YH Fire speech stressing how important it is to respectfully talk about the Yarnell Hill Fire in order to heal as well as learn from this tragic event in pursuit of truth is rooted in respect for the 19 GMHS and their families:

"My name is Brit Rosso, Center Manager with the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. Quick fire background, I spent about 21 years on a Hot Shot Crew, spent a few years as a District FMO, been working with the Lesson Learned Center for the last three or so. I'm here today talking about the Yarnell Fire. We're all struggling with how to process what happened on June 30, 2013. Know we're all struggling out in the fire community about where are the lessons? What are the take home messages? What can we learn from this incident? ... What I want to share with you is how important it is to talk about it. Not only to talk about it, to let you know that it's okay to talk about it. And it's important that you do talk about it. Share what you've learned by reading the reports and 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 is going to happen ... is with you and your brothers and sisters out there in the field. It's the 20th anniversary of South Canyon. We're still learning from South Canyon 20 years later. Yarnell just happened eight months ago. We'll be learning about the Yarnell incident for years to come. Time and patience are going to be key for learning from this incident, by asking you to just take the time and be patient as we work through this together."

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Consider the Wildland Fire WFSTAR Yarnell Hill Fire Weather Channel Video below in Figure 2. (2018)

Figure 2. WFSTAR YH Fire WX Channel Video Source: NWCG, WFSTAR

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Consider now this very comprehensive Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy cogent research paper (2015 & 2018 substantive revision) tilted: "The Definition of Lying and Deception." From the insightful and germane YH Fire research papers: "Questions central to the philosophical discussion of lying to others and other-deception (interpersonal deceiving) may be divided into two kinds. Questions of the first kind are definitional or conceptual. They include the questions of how lying is to be defined, how deceiving is to be defined, and whether lying is always a form of deceiving. Questions of the second kind are normative — more particularly, moral. They include the questions of whether lying and deceiving are either defeasibly or non-defeasibly morally wrong, whether lying is morally worse than deceiving, and whether, if lying and deception are defeasibly morally wrong, they are merely morally optional on certain occasions, or are sometimes morally obligatory. In this entry, we only consider questions of the first kind."

Likewise consider Josef Pieper's, 1992, Abuse of Language - Abuse of Power germane and trenchant quotes "Public discourse, the moment it becomes basically neutralized with regard to a strict standard of truth, stands by its nature ready to serve as an instrument in the hands of any ruler to pursue all kinds of power schemes." and ”This lesson, in a nutshell, says: the abuse of political power is fundamentally connected with the sophistic abuse of the word, indeed finds in it the fertile soil in which to hide and grow and get ready, so much so that the latent potential of the totalitarian poison can be ascertained, as it were, by observing the symptom of the public abuse of language. The degradation, too, of man through man, alarmingly evident in the acts of physical violence committed by all tyrannies (concentration camps, torture), has its beginning, certainly much less alarmingly, at that almost imperceptible moment when the word loses its dignity."

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Consider now the Figure 3. (below) for the 2025 Colorado Wildland Fire & Incident Management Academy. Notice the June 4, 2025, Specific Courses schedule Snippet clearly revealing a "Lessons Learned South Canyon [CO, 1994] Fire Hike" Site Visit and/or Staff Ride Snippet.

Figure 3. 2023 Colorado Wildland Fire & Incident Management Academy (CWFIMA) June 2025 courses schedule Snippet is clearly and curiously revealing a first "Lessons Learned South Canyon [CO, 1994] Fire Hike" Snippet. Source: CWFIMA website

Consider now the Battle of San Pasqual Wildland Fire Academy Staff Ride in March 2025, a second documented and offered Staff Ride for the Battle of San Pasqual. Adapting to Changing Circumstances, Lessons from a Staff Ride.  Rex Hambly Fire Prevention Technician. California Desert Interagency Fire Program. U.S. Dept. of the Interior Region 8 and 10, El Cajon, CA Hosted by the Rio Hondo Wildland Fire Academy, Whittier, CA, San Diego County. Interestingly, this same wildland fire academy hosted a Battle of San Pasqual Staff Ride in 2019 and was fairly well documented by former El Cariso Hot Shot and webmaster Bill Gabbert (RiP) on his Wildfire Today website.

Figure 4. Rio Hondo College to San Pasqual Battlefield State Park Snippet (93.5 miles). Source: Google Earth

During the San Pasqual Battle, there was a critical Decision-Making Under Pressure event that is evidently worthy of a Staff Ride Decision Point- "The infamous 'Charge' by Captain Johnston with his eleven Dragoons (mounted cavalry) and the moment of definitive engagement, focuses on decision-making, ego, and a warrior’s identity- with eleven Dragoons following Captain Johnston - and the pressures that led to a sudden decision to charge toward the enemy." 

The Battle of San Pasqual Staff Ride

As a learning culture, this battle’s unintended outcome has valuable lessons to offer the wildland fire service.

(link)

Rex Hambly - Engineer - Engine 8332 - Southern CA Zone - USFW Service

Figure 4a. Battle of San Pasqual painting Snippet. Source: WLF LLC

Similarities Between Firefighting and Warfighting "At this point, Sergeant Dan Bothwell, a U.S. Marine Scout Sniper Instructor, starts to inform the Staff Ride participants about modes of decision making, rules of engagement, and combat effectiveness. He relates this historic battle to modern-day wildland firefighting. We - significantly - learn that in both fire and warfighting, the enemy can often outperform our expectations."

Figure 4b. San Pasqual Staff Ride Snippet. Source: WLF LL

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Consider now the Figure 5. (below) a photo image of the 2025 AWIMA Evaluation Form and this author's handwritten comments regarding proposing an AWIMA YH Fire & GMHS debacle Staff Ride. This represents this author's THIRD such AWIMA Evaluation Form over the years. However, the other two are lost somewhere in the archives. And, this author has NEVER received a reply from any of the these AWIMA evaluation forms verbally or in writing - SO FAR! Question 8 reads "How could we improve the Academy?" This author's reply is: "Provide a week-long course for a Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit or Staff Ride. We are in the heartland of the YH Fire [an] hour away." Question 9. reads "What courses would you like to see in the future to meet your training needs?" This author's response is "See #8 above."

Figure 5. Handwritten comments on the 2025 AWIMA Evaluation Snippet conspicuously inquiring why there is no AWIMA YH Fire & GMHS Site visit and/or Staff Ride an hour away from Prescott. Source: Schoeffler

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Consider this revealing, and expected information regarding this Wildland Fire Academy's (CO-1994) South Canyon Staff Ride. The CWFIMA, located in Alamosa, CO is 160 miles west of Glenwood Springs, then seven miles (167 miles) west of Glenwood Springs to the South Canyon Fire Trailhead near Storm King Mountain, So then, at this point, the curious, and very likely experienced, and inquisitive reader(s) many of which are likely FFs, WFs, and those engaged in wildland fire, is/are asking themselves why it is that a sister Wildland Fire Academy in CO is willing and able to provide an edifying epic worthy Historical Fatality Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Staff Ride experience 167 miles away (334 miles round trip)! So then, we must ask ourselves why the AWIMA continues to deny, ignore, refuse to provide a response to this author's & and others' several YH Fire & GMHS tragedy Site Visit and / or Staff Ride AWIMA Evaluation requests over the years; for one a mere 37 miles (74 miles round trip) away! See Fig. 6. below.

Figure 6. GMHS Memorial Trail Fire Hike Snippet. Source: Google Earth

Figure 7. South Canyon Fire Trail Snippet looking Northeast from a hiker's perspective hiking out of the forest to the first ridge, across the West Drainage. Major sites in the accident are labeled. Source: Outside Magazine (2024) Photo: Courtesy of J. Kautz, USF., Missoula, MT.

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Lessons of Storm King by Dennis Webb June 29, 2014. Updated Sep 28, 2017. (link)

Figure 8. Crosses of where Smokejumper Roger Roth and Prineville Hot Shot Doug Dunbar (RiP) died side by side on the Storm King Mtn. Fire in 1994 Snippet Source: Tucson Sentinel

Consider now Author & Researcher John Maclean's alleged notoriously obsequious and often misplaced insight on the Storm King Mountain Fire and the Yarnell Hill Fire: "When winds fanned flames that swept away 14 young lives on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs two decades ago, it changed forever how wildland firefighters would approach safety on the fireline. .. So many things have happened as a consequence of South Canyon," said John Maclean, whose book "Fire on the Mountain" chronicled what took place on Storm King, adjacent to the area that gave the July 6, 1994, fire its official name - the South Canyon Fire. Most know the event by its more widely used moniker, the Storm King Fire. ... Chief among the changes after Storm King, many in the firefighting community agree, is a firefighter's ability to second-guess leadership if a safety concern arises.

"Back then it just wasn't encouraged in our culture to speak up unless assigned authority or ability to speak up," said Todd Richardson, state fire management officer in Colorado for the Bureau of Land Management, who 20 years ago was working out of Montrose and was headed to Storm King before the blowup when he was turned around and sent to the Wake Fire in Delta County. ... The firefighters' deaths also placed a renewed emphasis on safety practices, such as the need for lookouts watching out for crews, and adequate communications, escape routes and safety zones, all of which proved lacking on Storm King. ... But for all that's been learned from the tragedy, events in Arizona just a year ago, on June 30, showed that perhaps not all the lessons of Storm King are being heeded and pointed to potential new opportunities for improving safety. ... That day, 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot crew, associated with the Prescott Fire Department, died in a fire on Yarnell Hill when a fire blew up and overran them. In other echoes of Storm King, communications broke down and the latest weather forecast didn't reach the crew, which got caught without means of escape to a safety zone. ... "It's really hard," said Jim Roth, who lost his brother, Roger, on Storm King and has become involved in firefighter safety issues in the ensuing years. "I know we tried to work so hard on the fireline to be safe … and learn from the South Canyon Fire and yet it happened. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe (it happened) not just to 14 but it happened to 19." ... Bill Gabbert [RiP], a former firefighter who runs the website www.wildfiretoday.com, said he remembers 20 years ago thinking it couldn't be true when he heard 14 firefighters had died. That many people didn't die on firelines anymore. So for even more to die at Yarnell Hill, "in the 21st century, that's just incredible," he said. ... The Granite Mountain crew died after heading into what proved to be a fire trap in an unburned canyon. Their motivations are unclear thanks to a 30-minute gap in communications with them, possibly due to the heavy radio traffic at that point as the fire picked up. But an initial investigation report by a team that included representatives of multiple agencies surmised they may have been trying to better position themselves to try to protect threatened homes. [The 30-minute gap issue was proved false early on!] ... That U.S.F.S.-funded investigation "found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol," according to its report."

But a separate investigation for the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health [ADOSH Report Detail - Accident Summary Nr: 202561775 - Nineteen Employees Killed in Fire Event Date: 06/30/13 ... 10 STANDARD FIREFIGHTING ORDERS We have applied the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders to the Yarnell Hill Fire: ... Although GMIHC successfully followed most of the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders and LCES... ] pointed to shortfalls involving planning, supervision, risk management and other factors, resulting in the State Forestry Division being hit with a $559,000 fine, according to news reports at the time. ... Roth worries about the U.S. Forest Service's decision to redact portions of reports from some witnesses for in the second investigation and decline access to witnesses. Gabbert reported that the Forest Service cited issues including employee privacy laws, and sought to distinguish between a regulatory/compliance investigation and the first one, which was focused on understanding why the accident happened." It's disconcerting that the SAIT-SAIR found no indications of wrongdoing yet the ADOSH Report found that they followed half of the Fire Orders - and both were paid for by the USFS!

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Roth worries about the U.S.F.S. decision to redact portions of reports from some witnesses for use in the second investigation and decline access to witnesses. Gabbert reported that the U.S.F.S. cited issues including employee privacy laws, and sought to distinguish between a regulatory/compliance investigation and the first one, which was focused on understanding why the accident happened.

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"There's a tendency now for the people involved to not have full disclosure because they're afraid of lawyers," [The Brother of one of the SJs that died] Roth said, "and that's extremely frustrating to me and dangerous because we're not going to be able to learn from that Yarnell Hill event because we don't know the truth." ... Author Maclean said the two investigative reports are highly contradictory, and he hopes further investigation will occur and "come up with information, analysis and conclusions that are different and more thorough than the ones we have seen so far." ... Other lessons from [YH] may involve things such as equipment. The federal government has sped up a planned review of fire shelters, which were deployed by [GMHS FFs] without success. There's also talk of whether something such as fitting each [FF] with a global-positioning-system location device might have value. And the multi-agency [YH] report notes that personal cellphone use by firefighters sometimes is prohibited except on breaks, and asked, "Should some crews, working under certain conditions, be able to access their own weather intelligence to increase the accuracy and timeliness of information that affects their own safety?" ... Richardson said such questions need to be weighed against questions such as how reliable the technology is and whether it would help firefighters make better decisions or contribute to them ending up deployed in places where they shouldn't be." 'SOUTH CANYON 
HAS SAVED LIVES' ... As disheartening as the [YH] deaths were, observers agree that it doesn't mean the costly lessons of Storm King haven't been learned. Roth believes the deaths there led to lots of situations in which firefighters refused to accept unsafe assignments, or survived scares due to good decisions, "and you never hear about" them. ... Maclean said that, "Absent the catastrophe in Yarnell last summer, you could say the South Canyon Fire had been learned from properly and well." ... Since the fire on Storm King, firefighter deaths by flame have dropped dramatically, Maclean said. ... "To say because [YH] happened South Canyon is meaningless is wrong. South Canyon has saved lives," he said. ... As a specific example of safety improvements, he cited an increased focus on the importance of weather forecasting since Storm King. There, Chris Cuoco, then and now a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, accurately predicted the dangerous change in weather and strong winds, a forecast that never made it to the firefighters on the ground. ... One change Maclean would like to see as a result of both fires is a call from top BLM and Forest Service officials, and even the president, for strict limits on how far firefighters should go to protect homes, and a willingness to have their backs politically when they decide to back off. ... Property owners this week sued the state over the [YH Fire], which destroyed 127 homes. Relatives of 12 of those who died also sued the state this week. ... For observers such as Maclean and Gabbert [RiP], issues surrounding property protection take on increasing relevance as fires grow larger and more people move into the wildland-urban interface. ... Richardson said the biggest lesson over the last 20 years "is you can't continue to do things the same old way." ... After tragedies like Storm King and [YH], "The question is, are we willing to address them and are we willing to listen to those messages and … try to take some of those things and improve ourselves as a firefighting community." ... Maclean called Storm King "the landmark for the last generation of [FFs]." ... [YH] "has been claimed by the current generation. This is their fire. They know it, they're learning from it right now.I would like to be clear what's being learned from it (through more investigation)." ... If enough can be learned as in the case of Storm King, "maybe 20 years from now we won't have another one of these things," Maclean said."

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30 years after Storm King: Each wildfire a new classroom for bettering fire management, safety education (2024) John Stroud. The Aspen Times

"It’s something that’s discussed every year during the South Canyon staff rides, which [Brian Achziger, fire management officer for the [BLM] in Colorado[ has taken part in. Staff rides [The Staff Rides link takes you to their 2014 article titled "Storm King survivors share perspectives"] are a regular part of wildland firefighter training, where those in training gather at the scene of a past wildfire and are shown, firsthand, what happened there and how to avoid those situations. The South Canyon staff rides take place every May, ahead of the summer wildfire season, and usually involve a hike up the Storm King Memorial Trail to where 14 granite crosses mark the spots where each of the firefighters perished on that fateful day 30 years ago."

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Citing from the renowned Richard C. McCrea's (2014) International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) "The Yarnell Hill Fire: A review of lessons learned" "The real story is YH was much like many other entrapments in the last 20 years and the mistakes made are nothing new. I might as well have been writing about the South Canyon Fire of 1994. Other reviews of entrapment fires during the last 20 years have pointed out many of the same deficiencies in team management and safety practices. Are we condemned to keep making the same mistakes far into the future? Skookum is a native American word used by some tribes in the Pacific Northwest, which means someone that could be counted on and reliable and hard-working. We need skookum leaders that will make wise decisions or we are condemned to repeating the same mistakes and a YH type tragedy will happen again. ... ... compiled for the ADOSH report included a review of fire fatalities from burnover entrapments from 1990 to 2013. This review looked at common denominators during entrapment fires and at fuels, weather, topography, fire behavior, and firefighter and fire team factors. The results of this review showed that the predominant cause of entrapments are fire crews working in mountainous terrain, uphill from a fire, when a sudden upslope fire run entrapped them. In fact the data shows that about 80% of the fatalities on fires from 1990 to 2013, due to entrapments, occurred due to the situation of firefighters working upslope from a fire. This situation was repeated on the YH fire. The GMIHC was working upslope from the fire, when thunderstorm winds turned the winds and pushed the flames to the south, and the flames channeled up mountain canyons and slopes enveloping the crew. ... Wildland urban interface (WUI) is a major problem that is only going to get worse, and some communities, homeowners, and politicians will continue to push firefighters to act on every fire and not to disengage from any given fire situation. In addition some home owners are filing lawsuits against wildland fire suppression agencies over the loss of property and structures, which further complicates the situation, and this trend is going to get worse. The wildland fire culture has a real “can do” attitude, and many FF find it nearly impossible to disengage from a fire. We need to change the fire culture and better educate ourselves and the general public that safety comes first, and when blowup fires occur that some homes will have to be allowed to burn. Homeowners in the WUI need to be told and retold that it’s their responsibility to reduce the fuels around their structures. ... … Quoting the renowned author Stephen Pyne: "Sometimes checklists can sort through the clutter. But lists cannot be too long and they have to be memorable. The lessons of history reveal human character, not natural laws. Their true lessons are such things as the fragility of knowledge, the tenacity of ignorance and fantasy, and the appreciation that wisdom relies on character rather than information. Flawed judgment is more often a source of error than faulty equipment or protocol. Humility matters as much as know-how.— Stephen Pyne, Proceedings of 3rd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference, October 25-29, 2010, Spokane, Washington, USA. International Association of Wildland Fire."

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Yarnell Hill "has been claimed by the current generation. This is their fire. They know it, they're learning from it right now. I would like to be clear what's being learned from it (through more investigation)."

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This is a great critique of the South Canyon Fire debacle and wholeheartedly supporting the Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations by “They Said” Abercrombie: “Assuming there may be a few readers left with me here, I’ll now address the issues noted in the second paragraph of this article. The failure of a firefighter, all firefighters, any firefighters, regardless of rank, to follow established rules or guidelines have little to do with weather forecasters, district managers, or dispatch centers. Yet, Mr. Maclean in his ignorance and some of the readers of his book seem to prefer blaming some of these individuals, or others who were far from the fireline. ... An excess amount of uninformed, misplaced, insinuations filled far too many pages of the book as the author critiqued decisions and placed blame on those making decisions about when the fire first ignited, how long it was left to burn, whose jurisdiction or responsibility it was, and how long it took until resources began to attack the fire. I consider this extraneous information as fluff, dander, and fill to make the book fit the parameter of a novel at around 275 pages. Most of dialogue, interviews, and conclusions fail to address the primary responsibility of each firefighter to comply with the fundamental rules already existing to govern their actions and behavior. ... It didn’t matter if the South Canyon fire was burning for a week or a month, it didn’t matter if the fire was 5 or 500 acres prior to initial attack, or if there were 10 or 100 airtankers five miles away ideally spinning their props. Understand? ... It doesn’t matter and has absolutely no bearing on why the firefighters died. Do you get it? ... The primary responsibility for a crew’s safety lies with their crew supervisor. Period. ... It doesn’t matter who the IC is, who the Division Supervisor is, nor the Branch Director, nor any other person in an observing status. It’s the crew supervisor! ... I believe adequate training was provided these people to prevent this scenario from happening. They just didn’t follow the rules. I would like to have the capability of making sure each firefighter reading this understands that a similar situation may happen to them on any given fire. My hopes are that each of you are aware that you have the right to “question authority ... Ensure you understand and are aware of the 10 Standard Orders and the 18 Watchout Situations! Make sure you understand them and apply them to every fire you fight. You have the right to refuse any assignment you are uncomfortable with. You have the right to say NO! " ... "Seldom politically correct, always fire correct. . . Abercrombie" In addition, Dr. Ted Putnam stated that he had found approx, 20+ errors, omission, alleged lies, etc. in Maclean's book and notified Maclean of that fact. He acknowledged receipt of this, however, according to Dr. Putnam Maclean never corrected any of the alleged errors and/or omissions.

Figure 9. Yarnell Hill Fire and GMHS debacle Memorial Trail Snippet looking North from a hiker's perspective hiking up from the GMHS Trailhead. GMHS Interpretive sign locations are labeled accordingly. Source: Down The Road

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And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.

(Ephesians 5:11 NKJV)

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Please consider the inset (Figure 9.) on the right which states states: "This park will serve as a reminder for future generations of the ultimate sacrifice made by our 19 fallen [GMHS]. With each step we take on the trails, we will remember their service and show gratitude for their sacrifice." This author emphatically states - really? Are you kidding me? There was no sacrifice! There allegedly was no one - except the GMHS Supt., that supposedly "willingly gave their lives!" Their lives were literally taken from them by their IMT supervisors and the GMHS supervisor's allegedly “unsafe” or “questionable” and blatantly irrational and unsafe decision-making and threats made over their Crew Net channel. This alleged "investigation" was entirely funded by the USDA U.S. Forest Service Serious Accident Investigation Team & Report (SAIT-SAIR). This was published in the Jan. 2022 Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics (AHFE) Conference paper titled: "How was it Possible to do Everything Right and yet 19 Prescott Fire Department Firefighters Died in One Fell Swoop on June 30, 2013?" by Schoeffler & Collura.

A typical snarky response on our YHFR website and sometimes even in person regarding revealing the truth and lies about the potentially alleged biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history of the June 2013 YH Fire is "when will you and Joy just go away and let us heal. think about us. you two are a daily reminder of what we no longer have. go away."

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Dr. Ted Putnam, the USFS Investigator that boldly refused to sign-off on the 1994 South Canyon Fire Report as accurate and truthful because he believed the report was false, and takes umbrage with Staff Rides: 'I think the staff ride is an insult to all of their loved ones because it hasn’t yet told the truth,' says Ted Putnam, a retired wildfire fatality investigator and Prescott-area resident who has been conducting unofficial investigations of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire and the YH Fire. 'The biggest tribute we should do for these firefighters is to tell the truth.'” So then, why was Dr.Putnam never involved in and/or requested for the June 2013 YH Fire investigation?

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Please consider our Dr. Ted Putnam's May I Introduce Wildland Fire's Top Notch Person ... Dr. Ted Putnam (Sept. 2023) The one who boldly refused to sign the 1994 South Canyon Fire SAIT-SAIR because of the many potential lies and cover-ups.

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Figure 10. 10 Years Later Remembering the Yarnell Hill Fire Later Channel 12 News video Source: Channel 12 News, YouTube

This author encourages you to Google search (GTS) for this YHFR post title statement which reveals only negative responses because why? Because there is NO SUCH THING AS AN AWIMA YH Fire & GMHS Staff Ride at the March ERAU AWIMA! "Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride At The Annual March ERAU AWIMA Wildfire Mgmnt. Academy Of This Fatal June 2013 Epic Event." See Figure 1. above AWIMA Course Schedule

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Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.

Aristotle

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A staff ride should avoid being a recital of an investigation report. Such reports rarely address the human factors that affect individual decision-making. ... providing participants with a variety of information sources is important, especially in the preliminary study phase."

Wildland Fire Leadership (2021)

At several OMNA International November Dude Fire & YH Fire Staff Rides, OMNA Intl. (mostly retired military, especially Marines) Staff Members, boldly stated to this author at a recent Dude Fire Staff Ride at the Walkmoore Canyon Trailhead "we know who you are and we have to allow you here because it is public land. However, you are prohibited / restricted from engaging with any of our participants."

Figure 11. OMNA Intl. Sept.-Nov. 2024 Staff Rides Snippet indicating the combined Dude & YH Fire Roundtable #2 USFS Class 6 Source: OMNA Intl.

Furthermore, this author alleges that former USFS Prescott HS, former USFS NIMO OPS, and current OMNA Intl. USFS Dude Fire & YH Fire Roundtable Staff Ride Leader Curtis Heaton (and alleged hard core YH Fire GMHS Party Liner) adamantly insisted on utilizing the same edict, however, he reluctantly granted this author "permission" to speak only with these select "invited guests" Scott Briggs (Into the Black Productions) Dude Fire and YH Fire & GMHS debacle film Director and Producer of his published "Prisoners of Fire" documentary allegedly claiming to be "The True Story of The Dude Fire" which includes the three Perryville Inmate Crew survivors (Bill Davenport, Patrick Flippen, and Steve Pender, the 22-year old youngest Perryville Inmate), and at some of the Question & Answer sessions BLM WF Dean Fernandez (YH Fire Air Attack & possibly Initial Attack IC) Prescott HS survivors Steve Emery and KC Yowell), retired PHX FD Kevin Dodd (Into the Black Advisor), retired Rural Metro Captain Al Dibenedetto, and several other Dude Fire participants and / or knowledgeable others Bob Scopa, Cliff Pearlburg, and this author.

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For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle? So likewise you, unless you utter by the tongue words easy to understand, how will it be known what is spoken?

For you will be speaking into the air.

1 Corinthians 14:8-9 (NKJV)

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Given the bold and instructive WLF LLC Fall 2017 WLF LLC Mission Statement: "Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center actively promotes a learning culture to enhance and sustain safe and effective work practices in the wildland fire community. The Center provides opportunities and resources to foster collaboration among all fire professionals, facilitates their networks, provides access to state-of-the-art learning tools, and links learning to training." (emphasis added) You will need to seriously dig deep and ask yourselves why would the former WLF LLC Center Manager Kelly Woods instead prefer to justify mistaken beliefs, behavior, numerous mistakes, misjudgments, or misfortune and practices about the YH Fire and GMHS debacle rather than positively change them for more truthful reliable ones for the benefit of the many WFs, FFs, and interested and discerning public? This author alleges that the WLF LLC, under the allegedly questionable leadership of figures like Center Manager Kelly Woods and supported by the "Underground Honor the Fallen (HTF) Group," has veered from its foundational mission of fostering a learning culture to enhance wildland firefighter safety by instead aligning itself with a troubling defense of the federally funded Serious Accident Investigation Team’s (SAIT) report. This report, concluding no blame, no fault, or wrongdoing in the June 30, 2013, YH Fire and GMHS)debacle that claimed 19 lives, is widely contested by this author and many others as a potential deliberate cover-up. The WLF LLC’s "Reading, Reflecting, and Changing Behavior" podcast (9/16/21) post, quoting: "Kelly Woods talks with Erik Apland about his assignment to read all of the entrapment reports housed in the LLC Incident Review Database. Erik provides perspective on the evolution of reports spanning over a century. He highlights how old reports contain modern topics and he also provides some unique thoughts on PPE. In addition, Erik discusses how reading the reports has changed him and will affect his future actions." This author boldly alleges and asserts that omitting any mention whatsoever about the YH Fire and GMHS clearly exemplifies conspicuous fraud upon the general Public and specifically the less-than-well-informed wildland firefighting community despite literally hundreds of extensive available WLF LLC Incident Reviews (database link) documentation, revealing an alleged intentional, Federally funded calculated effort protecting the U.S.F.S. and other Govt. institutional interests over the public's expected need for the truth.

In addition, "the AWIMA Mission Statement is to develop professional and safe responses in wildland/all-hazard environments by providing training and education that meets or exceeds [NWCG] and FEMA standards. AWIMA aims to be a catalyst for bringing all-hazard responders together annually, offering quality training and updates on the latest safety protocol." (AWIMA 2025)

Wow! Now that is a nice weasel-worded, non-committal Mission Statement, ey. However, this author alleges that it falls far short of addressing ethics & conduct, safety, academic accomplishments, course instructor academic requirements, instructor expectations; instructor knowledge, skills, abilities, expectations, and requirements; courses to be offered; team building and teamwork expectations and requirements; oversight organizations such as NWCG, NFPA, OSHA, State and/or County Occupational Health & Safety entities.

Consider now an AI-generated Mission Statement - AI Overview Learn more  "A typical wildland fire training academy mission statement focuses on developing a competent and safe wildland firefighting workforce. This is achieved through training in various aspects of fire behavior, suppression, and safety, often adhering to interagency standards. ... Key elements of a typical wildland fire training academy mission statement:  (1) Developing a competent workforce:  The academy aims to equip individuals with the necessary knowledge and skills to effectively fight wildland fires. (2) Prioritizing safety: Safety is paramount, with training emphasizing safe practices and procedures to protect firefighters and the public. (3) Adhering to interagency standards (4) Many academies align their training with standards set by organizations like the [(NWCG)] and the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). (4) Focus on various aspects of firefighting: Training typically covers fire behavior, suppression techniques, incident command systems, and equipment operations. (5) Providing ongoing training and development:. (6) Many academies offer refresher courses and advanced training to ensure firefighters stay up-to-date with the latest methods and best practices. (7) Enhancing collaboration and communication: Training may emphasize teamwork and communication skills to facilitate effective interagency cooperation on the fireline. (8) Promoting a culture of safety and professionalism: The mission often aims to instill a strong safety culture and professional conduct among firefighters."

Figure 12. Never Has A Generation recording Itself Doing So Little Snippet Source: FaceBook

Wildland Fire Leadership (2021) In 2021, the Wildland Fire Leadership Campaign focused on "Sharpening Your Tools" and promoted leadership development across the wildland fire community, offering challenges and resources to enhance skills and knowledge. (link)

Figure 13. Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program Highlights Snippet Soure: WFLDP website

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In The Electric Mist (2009) movie quote

Dave Robicheaux - Tommy Lee Jones

“In the ancient world, people placed heavy stones on the graves of the dead so their souls would not wander and inflict the living. I always thought this was simply the practice of superstitious and primitive people. But I was about to learn that the dead can hover on the edge of our vision with the density and luminosity of mist, and their claim on the earth can be as legitimate and tenacious as our own.”

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Consider these two prior YHFR posts re: honoring the dead relevant to this proposed AWIMA Staff Ride post Speaking Ill of the Dead By Lying About Them? Or Honoring the Dead By Searching For The Truth If They're Considered as Public Figures? Part 1 (2023) and Part 2 (2023)

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History of Staff Rides

Staff Ride/Case Study/Site Visit - What's the Difference? Wildland Fire Leadership (2021) (link)

The Staff Ride (link) W.G. Robertson. Army University Press

The Evolution and History of the Staff Ride (link) Army University Press

Military Staff Rides (link) National Park Service

The Value of Staff Rides (link). Thayer Leadership

Walking, Talking, Teaching, and Learning (link) Teaching Military History

The Dude and Yarnell Staff Rides (USFS 2023) (link)

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Staff Ride Information and Other Staff Ride Sources

Colorado’s Storm King Mountain Memorial Trail Takes You to Sacred Grounds - Thirty years ago, a fire blew up on Colorado's Storm King Mountain, causing one of the worst wildland-firefighting tragedies in U.S. history. The trail honors those who died in the line of duty and the work of all firefighters. (Qutside magazine) Leadership

Sun Tzu's Art of War (January 2011) If you are a student of fire and leadership, you should be well acquainted with Sun Tzu's Art of War and his philosophys written over 2,000 years ago as applied to WF Leadership subtly implying yet never specifically mentioning anything related to either battlefield visits, lessons learned, Site Visits, or Staff Rides.

Wildland Fire Leadership Blog (2011) (link) "A forum where students of fire and leadership come together to discuss, debate and exchange leadership development concepts, experience, and thoughts with an intent to promote cultural change in the workforce and strengthen the wildland fire service and the communities they serve."

Battle of San Pasqual. Adapting to Changing Circumstances, Lessons from a Staff Ride. Hosted at the Rio Hondo Wildland Fire Academy in the community of San Pasqual in San Diego County, California April 15, 2025.

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Consider now the detailed July 3, 1990, Snippet of the NWS Meteorologist David Goen's Dude Fire Weather Overview - June 26, 1990, indicating the imminent weather indicator of the 'calm before the storm ... between 1400 & 1415'... followed by the blow-up experienced and observed by several FFs and WFs on the fireline in Walkmore Canyon.'

Figure 14. Dude Fire, 6/26/90, Fire WX Overview Snippet Soure: D. Goen

Were you aware that there is a revised version of the Wildland Fire Staff Ride Guide that was released in November 2010?

2011 New Staff Ride Guide (NPS & USFS HS Supt, & National Training Coordinator) Jim Cook, U.S. Forest Service Fire Training Projects Coordinator and Chairman of the NWCG Leadership Subcommittee, compiled the following information regarding staff rides. For complete information, visit the Staff Ride Library in the Leadership Toolbox.

"A staff ride is essentially a case study that is conducted on the ground where the event happened. In application, leaders revisit the scene of past fires to examine and analyze the decisions and actions that occurred on those fires. A well designed staff ride involves three phases: the first phase is a directed preliminary self-study that engages participants in reading and information gathering about the selected incident; in the second phase, participants visit the actual site of the incident as a group, accompanied by a cadre of subject matter experts; and the third phase is an integration session that allows participants an opportunity to share and discuss the insights and lessons they derived from the preliminary study and the site visit."

"The intent of a staff ride is to put participants in the shoes of the decision makers on a historical incident in order to learn for the future. A staff ride should not be a tactical-fault finding exercise. Participants should be challenged to push past the basic question of 'What happened?' and examine the deeper questions of leadership and decision-making: 'What would I have done in this person's place?' and 'How detailed should the guidance from a superior to a subordinate be?' and 'Can a senior leader make use of a competent but overzealous subordinate?' and 'What explains repeated organizational success or failure?' The study of leadership aspects in a staff ride transcend time and place."

"The staff ride concept was developed by the Prussian Army in the nineteenth century. The U.S. Army War College adopted the technique in 1906. In the 1970's the U.S. Army and the U.S. Marine Corps turned to staff rides with great enthusiasm and now they are considered essential educational techniques for advanced military schools as well as for operational field units."

"We need to bear in mind that the Dude Fire Staff Ride was, in effect, a field trip for FBANs, albeit a very significant one, held in conjunction

with a major conference, the first. In 1999, the wildland fire service conducted its first formal staff ride at the site of the Dude Fire on the Tonto NF (TNF) in Arizona as part of the 1999 International Fire Behavior Conference in Phoenix, AZ."

"This was not unlike the field trips to the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire included as part of the first National Fire Behavior Training Course held in Missoula, MT, in March/April 1958 (McDonald 1979) and the Wildland Firefighters Human Factors Workshop, which was also held in Missoula, June 12–16, 1995 (Putnam 1995b). Future staff rides would have to be linked

to a major event of this kind in order to justify the time and expense

of organizing a staff ride.

"Videotape Value

Four groups of some 135 participants were involved in the Dude Fire Staff Ride. A number of the presentations and discussions that took place at the stands were videotaped and edited into a Dude Fire Staff Ride videotape produced by Paul Keller. This was certainly fortuitous, because it captured

information and the personal feelings of certain individuals involved in the incident, such as Paul Gleason (RiP). It might not be possible to acquire this information at any other time. ... Like many others who participated

in the Dude Fire Staff Ride, I was mesmerized by Dave LaTour’s account of death and survival; the USDA Forest Service’s Missoula Technology and Development Center has incorporated his testimony into the new Using Your Fire Shelter video (NFES 2001).

[On the contrary, this author was rightly pissed off and stunned when listening to Perryville Crew Representative LaTour's testimony leading up to his entirely avoidable yet inevitable fire shelter deployment while blatantly ignoring the Navajo Scouts' warnings to get out of Walkmoore Canyon and for at least a few minutes of him droning on about palpable "burning bark plates bouncing off my shirt ... burning bark plates, sticks and twigs bouncing off my shirt ... burning bark plates, sticks and twigs and pine cones bouncing off my shirt." Are you kidding me, are you serious?]

Jim Cook states: "I would strongly recommend that any future staff rides videotape all the presentations and discussions at each stand in the interest of historical documentation. This value added aspect of a staff ride should not be underestimated as we look to justify the time, expense, and effort of planning and carrying out staff rides in the future. ... In 1997, I suggested at a fire safety conference that perhaps an annual fatality fire study tour should be developed in which a small group (perhaps 25 people) would visit a network of selected sites (perhaps 6) in different regions over a 2- to 3-week period, with each stop facilitated by a local historian for each fire (Alexander 1998). For example, Karl Brauneis (1997), a forester and fire management officer on the Shoshone National Forest, has made an extensive study of the 1937 Blackwater Fire in northwestern Wyoming (Brown 1937) and would make an excellent guide. ... I also suggested that there was an overwhelming need for a comprehensive case book on fatality fires; [author Steve] Pyne and others (1996) have made a start at this. Although there is an obvious role for the kind of extraordinary [in-depth] coverage of a fatality fire that Norman Maclean (1992) did for the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire, the wildland fire community also requires the “Reader’s Digest” encapsulated version, such as Rothermel’s (1993) Mann Gulch synopsis. ... [Inset - Future staff rides would have to be linked to a major event in order to justify the time and expense of organizing a staff ride relative to how many people would attend.] ... Building Institutional Memory - A formal staff ride like the one on the Dude Fire is highly appropriate for FBAN and wildland firefighter safety training. However, we need to find ways to make information from a completed staff ride available to a wider audience so that future generations might benefit, in addition to the select few who were able to attend. If we are truly serious about establishing and maintaining an institutional memory, then we should take the following steps: (1) Where possible, develop a simple marked trail with interpretive signs for as many fatality fires as possible, or alternatively for a preselected few designed to illustrate certain principles. A large number of memorials already exist (Gulliford 1997). (2) Create a national register of fatality fires in the form of a Website that allows one to download an incident summary; a selfguided study booklet or pamphlet, complete with a map linked to the interpretive trail system outlined above; and perhaps other information, such as reports and articles, photographs, and video clips of interviews with personnel involved in the incident.*[Footnote - Mining Our Past - Following the Dude Fire Staff Ride, I was haunted by the fact that-in spite of the information provided to the participants in a three-ring binder titled “Dude Fire Staff Ride]. For example, Smith (2002) conducted interviews in 1994 with five Civilian Conservation Corps survivors of the 1937 Blackwater Fire; and the marvelous documentary by Smith (2000) commemorating the 60th anniversary of the U.S. smokejumper program contains an excellent series of interviews related to the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire, including one with Bob Sallee [Wagner Dodge, Donald Rumsey, and Recreation & Fire Prevention Guard James Harrison per the U.S.F.S. GTR-INT-299 Mann Gulch Fire: A Race That Couldn't Be Won - R. C. Rothermel (1993)] the last remaining survivor[s]). ... An[d] this way, we could visit fatality sites at our leisure, much in the way we view other historically meaningful places. Admittedly, the personal element of being able to talk with the actual personnel involved in the incident- a strength of the Dude Fire Staff Ride - would not apply. However, this disadvantage is small compared to the advantage of more widely disseminating information in order “to use the lessons of the past so we don’t have to keep relearning them the hard way” (NFES 1998b). [end of footnote]"

So then, why is that the AWIMA refuses to acknowledge utilizing the benefit of a YH Fire Site Visit and /or Staff Ride "to use the lessons of the past so we don’t have to keep relearning them the hard way" and yet the What have we learned from the Yarnell Hill Fire Wildfire Today (2014) article points out "While the sudden deaths of 19 people is horrific, it would ease our pain somewhat if we thought that something, anything, could come out of this that resembled lessons learned. If a few tidbits could be found in the ashes of the fire that could help others avoid a similar fate, maybe we could move forward with a glimmer of hope."

Even though this is more-or-less non YH Fire Staff Ride specific, please spend some time delving into the Learning from Yarnell Hill (2018) Firehouse Magazine article by the alleged YH Fire "Lead Investigator" as he "offers training exercises for developing yourself and your crew for the future in the hopes of preventing another tragedy like the Yarnell Hill Fire that killed 19 hotshots." Please take the time to read the several comments and critiques of Mayhew's article by Holly Neill, a huge BWS AM supporter, this author as Douglas Fir, and Jim Weller. a municipal or structural FF or WF based on his comments. Moreover, there may be some inadvertent redundancy in the Douglas Fir portion,

Comment by Holly Neill. June 2, 2018. My name is Holly Neill. I am a former Wildland Firefighter and I am working with John Maclean on a book about the Yarnell Hill fire. I have a few comments about this article. ... Mr. Mayhew states: Personnel who communicated with the Granite Mountain IHC knew the crew was using the black as a safety zone at the southwest end of the fire—and believed they would stay there. When the crew said they were moving, they were not fully understood. ... The Serious Accident Investigation Report states on the Executive Summary page 1: "No one realized that the crew left the black and headed southeast, sometime after 1604. There is a gap of over 30 minutes in the information available for the Granite Mountain IHC. From 1604 until 1637, the Team cannot verify communications from the crew, and we have almost no direct information for them." ... There is a great deal of evidence to the contrary. A careful study of official and private interviews, audio recordings and other evidence indicates numerous overhead had specific intel on what GMIHC was doing during the "gap in over 30 minutes in the information available…from 1604 to 1637." I will go into more detail in our book, but documented evidence will show that numerous overhead personnel stated the following about GMIHC’s movements: • The last communication with Eric Marsh was: we are on the west ridge descending a predetermined escape route. • Eric said he was headed to his pre designated safety zone, and the assumption was he was headed to the Boulder Springs Ranch, not the black. • Granite Mountain said they were using their predetermined route towards the structures… obviously whoever they were talking to knew what that meant. • They (Granite Mountain) were gonna move out and start coming in a southerly direction based on the fire behavior. • From an audio recording of Eric Marsh himself, he is answering to a status update check at 16:13: “Granite is making their way down our escape route from this morning, it’s SOUTH…” ... This is by no means a complete list of reported communications involving Granite Mountain during the SAIR’s gap of over 30 minutes in the information available. The Team states "we cannot verify communications from the crew and have almost no direct information for them." ... These communications also contradict what Mr. Mayhew said above: Personnel who communicated with the Granite Mountain IHC knew the crew was using the black as a safety zone at the southwest end of the fire—and believed they would stay there. ... Mr. Mayhew also stated “When the crew said they were moving, they were not fully understood.” This issue will be discussed further in our book. ... Perhaps for now, at the 5 year anniversary of the Yarnell Hill fire, we can honor The GMIHC by learning more about communications on the Yarnell Hill fire on June 30, most notably the communications that occurred during the SAIR’s "gap of over 30 minutes in the information available for the Granite Mountain IHC, from 1604 until 1637." ... Esse Quam Videri - To be, rather than to seem." [End of Holly Neill statements]

Doug Fir (Schoeffler) comments to Mayhew: - June 11, 2018.

Thank you for your insightful article Mr. Mayhew. I agree with you in part and respectfully take issue with the rest. I am a retired USFS Hot Shot Crew Superintendent with several years of experience. Over the years, besides becoming a student of Fire Weather (our first Fire Order) and Fire Behavior, I have become an avid student of fatality fire case studies. From these I do my best to draw what conclusions I can garner from the many, often ineffectual, litany of Investigations, Reviews, and Learning Reviews, Facilitated Learning Analysis, Accident Prevention Analysis, and many others regarding the crucial, yet ignored, issue of human factors. Human factors, no matter what the activity or profession, either keep you out of trouble or gets you into trouble almost every time. ... I agree that we should “honor our fallen by learning from them” and it is always “a good time to ask a question: How have we learned from this accident?” ... I find it discomforting that you ask “how” - and not what - we have learned from this accident. How I have learned was from good supervisors and good mentors that required us to know, recognize, heed, and follow the proactive Basic Wildland Firefighting Rules, (i.e. the 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations). The Watch Out Situations are more or less guidelines whereas the Fire Orders are rules. In other words, you cannot violate the Watch Out Situations which you must mitigate in order to remain safely engaged or escape to elsewhere to safety. I also learned by passing these valuable lessons learned along to our young Hot Shots and other WFs in both formal and informal training sessions. And, of course, from practical experiences on many wildland fires. Most WFs are unaware that the term ‘Safety Zones’ had not yet been included in the Standard Fire Orders as late as April 1980 according to the “Preliminary Report of Task Force on study of Fatal / Near-Fatal Wildland Fire Accidents.” ... Yes indeed, the GMHS “were hiking through an unburned box canyon when the wind shifted again.” Two flagrant items come to mind here. The fact that they were hiking through the “unburned” AND a “box canyon” at that time of day and under those readily observable adverse weather and aggressive fire behavior conditions was totally contrary to our WF training. And that is not “hindsight bias.” From the SAIT report, you will also infer that they had no lookout while they were doing this, and that they did not tell Air Attack or anyone else they were leaving their Safety Zone (S/Z). ... From their Lunch Spot/ S/Z they had the best vantage point of the fire, save Air Attack. They well knew what was happening before they made the decision to leave. The WFSTAR NWCG image titled “Only Minutes – Blowup to Burnover” indicates that the Yarnell Hill Fire time was only “52 minutes.” ... The “4:30 p.m., thunderstorm outflows reached the southern perimeter of the fire” and did indeed drive “the fire directly south.” And yes, “the fire overran the Granite Mountain IHC at about 4:42 p.m.” in an unburned, lethal bowl near the Boulder Springs Ranch. Chimney, chutes, and especially bowls are specifically mentioned in WF as being deadly based on historic fire fatalities. ... Yes indeed, “the crew left the road (upper right) and hiked down into an unburned box canyon, taking the most direct route to a ranch.” Yes, this BSR was considered “as a safety zone (left), on the edge of town.” However, you failed to mention a key point, that they were already in a good S/Z in the ‘good black.’ ... Correct again, “part of the crew’s story was lost with them, even to those of us who served on the Investigation Team.” You state: “We may speculate, but we do not know for certain how they decided to leave the black and hike through the box canyon.” On the contrary, we do know how they made that decision. ... Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini recounted in an AZ Republic article (“New account of hotshot deaths in Yarnell fire” - April 5, 2015) discussing conversations between PFD Wildland Battalion Chief Darrel Willis and GMHS survivor Brendan McDonough. Paladini is quoted as saying: “My understanding of the argument between Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed ... was that Steed did not want to go down.” Even though there were no “official” recordings of this, there were many other WFs that heard these radio transmissions over the discreet GMHS Crew Net channel. The Division Supervisor of that operational area was Marsh and the Acting Superintendent in charge of the GMHS was Steed. ... We refer to it as the highly abridged and redacted “discussing our options” video, available on YouTube. The Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT), of which you were the lead Human Factors Investigator, had the original full-length recordings of this entire GMHS Crew Net entire discussion. ... I agree that the crew’s earlier decisions are clear, and we can make sense of them in hindsight. We definitely know there is in fact, “more to their story, but we don’t know what it is,” yet. This level of uncertainty certainly is unusual in wildland fire accidents because all the men, except one, died that day. ... Please read the Yarnell Hill Fire Serious Accident Investigation Report (2013) or the Yarnell Hill Fire Case Study (2014) and look for the Human Factors section of the report. There isn’t one. There is only a “recommendation” on page 44: “The Team recommends that the State of Arizona request the NWCG [National Wildfire Coordinating Group] and/or Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) to charter a team of interagency wildland fire and human factors experts to conduct further analysis of this event and the wildland fire communications environment.” ... To the best of my knowledge, no such “team of … experts” has ever been chartered. ... In the fire service, we do learn from our accidents when we are told what and why the accidents and fatalities happened. Throughout our history, I will agree that we have gotten better at fighting fire, however, it depends on the actual units and their supervisors whether or not we’ve gotten better at learning. I am in the group of many that strongly believe we have not learned enough from this epic multiple fatality event. ... I believe that one of the key “reasons we don’t fully understand the events of June 30, 2013” is because the SAIT concluded: “… the [SAIT] found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol.” Really? Framing that into a more positive assertion, those men did everything right – yet 19 men burned to death in one fell swoop. How is that possible when the SAIT basically concluded that the GMHS performed their inherently dangerous job according to “policy” and “protocol? You are absolutely correct that “it can be hard to see what the lessons are, and how to improve for the future” when dubious conclusions like that are made. ... You stated “If our learning has stalled for this event, we should try a different approach. But how can we learn for the future when there are gaps in our knowledge of the past” Good question. We can truly “learn for the future” when we close or fill those “gaps in our knowledge of the past” with forthright, straightforward conclusions about why these tragedies occur instead of their “story,” where nobody did anything wrong and nobody is to blame. Realistically, when WFs die on fires, it is almost always because someone made bad decisions. Beware the training instructors that begin WF training sessions with “There are no wrong answers.” ... I have thought about what it may have been like if I was with the Crew, hiking through the canyon. And with this in mind, I ask and then immediately tell myself: What the heck are we doing in here because this path is not right and it certainly does not feel right based on our WF training, and case studies of past fatality fires in similar conditions. And it is the worst possible time to be making these decisions and taking these actions. ... Comparing notes with other WFs does not surprise me at all what they come up with. For the most part, we come to the very same conclusion(s) - bad decisions that contradict all we know about decision-making and the human factors that influenced all of the many wildland fire fatality case studies where WFs are killed by fire. ... On the contrary, we know almost exactly how they chose their path. I cannot see myself or others that I have supervised and trained over the years, on a similar path, because we learned the valuable human factors lessons of the many historic fatality fires. As WFs, the best way to “learn for the future” and honor the fallen is to respect the past, provide sound leadership, and learn and follow the proper, aggressively safe way to fight fires based on the tried-and-true WF Rules. Realizing that our ultimate responsibility as WF Supervisors is the safety and welfare of those we supervise, that is the most meaningful and redeeming “memorial we can build for the future.” ... Author John Maclean and Holly Neill were the keynote speakers at the Southern California Foresters and Fire Wardens (SCFFW) conference in May (Yarnell Hill 5 Years Later). We were prewarned by the SCFFW Directors that none of us was allowed to interrupt or ask questions during their planned two-hour presentation; and that we could ask our questions later that evening at the planned mixer. Their presentation was unexpectedly cut short a little over an hour on this very issue, when someone persuasively disagreed with their “facts” regarding “the communications on the Yarnell Hill fire on June 30, most notably the communications that occurred during the SAIR’s ‘gap of over 30 minutes in the information available for the Granite Mountain IHC, from 1604 until 1637.’" ... Several WFs in the group were overheard saying “It’s about time.” I later thanked the gentleman for mustering the courage to do speak up and challenge Maclean and Neill. He thanked me and told me that he had waited for that moment for almost five years to say that. I agree that we should “honor our fallen by learning from them” and it is always “a good time to ask a question: How have we learned from this accident?” I find it discomforting that you ask “how” - and not what - we have learned from this accident. How I have learned was from good supervisors and good mentors that required us to know, recognize, heed, and follow the proactive Basic Wildland Firefighting Rules, (i.e. the 10 Standard Fire Orders and the 18 Watch Out Situations). The Watch Out Situations are more or less guidelines whereas the Fire Orders are rules. In other words, you cannot violate the Watch Out Situations which you must mitigate in order to remain safely engaged or escape to elsewhere to safety. I also learned by passing these valuable lessons learned along to our young Hot Shots and other WFs in both formal and informal training sessions. And, of course, from practical experiences on many wildland fires. Most WFs are unaware that the term ‘Safety Zones’ had not yet been included in the Standard Fire Orders ... April 1980 according to the “Preliminary Report of Task Force on study of Fatal / Near-Fatal Wildland Fire Accidents.” ... Yes indeed, the GMHS “were hiking through an unburned box canyon when the wind shifted again.” Two flagrant items come to mind here. The fact that they were hiking through the “unburned” AND a “box canyon” at that time of day and under those readily observable adverse weather and aggressive fire behavior conditions was totally contrary to our WF training. And that is not “hindsight bias.” From the SAIT report, you will also infer that they had no lookout while they were doing this, and that they did not tell Air Attack or anyone else they were leaving their Safety Zone (S/Z). From their Lunch Spot/ S/Z they had the best vantage point of the fire, save Air Attack. They well knew what was happening before they made the decision to leave. The WFSTAR NWCG image titled “Only Minutes – Blowup to Burnover” indicates that the Yarnell Hill Fire time was only “52 minutes.” ... The “4:30 p.m., thunderstorm outflows reached the southern perimeter of the fire” and did indeed drive “the fire directly south.” And yes, “the fire overran the Granite Mountain IHC at about 4:42 p.m.” in an unburned, lethal bowl near the Boulder Springs Ranch. Chimney, chutes, and especially bowls are specifically mentioned in WF as being deadly based on historic fire fatalities taking the most direct route to a ranch.” Yes, this BSR was considered “as a safety zone (left), on the edge of town.” However, you failed to mention a key point, that they were already in a good S/Z in the ‘good black.’ ... Correct again, “part of the crew’s story was lost with them, even to those of us who served on the Investigation Team.” You state: “We may speculate, but we do not know for certain how they decided to leave the black and hike through the box canyon.” On the contrary, we do know how they made that decision. ... Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini recounted in an AZ Republic article (“New account of hotshot deaths in Yarnell fire” - April 5, 2015) discussing conversations between PFD Wildland Battalion Chief Darrel Willis and GMHS survivor Brednan McDonough. Paladini is quoted as saying: “My understanding of the argument between Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed ... was that Steed did not want to go down.” Even though there were no “official” recordings of this, there were many other WFs that heard these radio transmissions over the discreet GMHS Crew Net channel. The Division Supervisor of that operational area was Marsh and the Acting Superintendent in charge of the GMHS was Steed. ... We refer to it as the highly abridged and redacted “discussing our options” video, available on YouTube. The Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT), of which you were the lead Human Factors Investigator, had the original full-length recordings of this entire GMHS Crew Net entire discussion. ... I agree that the crew’s earlier decisions are clear, and we can make sense of them in hindsight. We definitely know there is in fact, “more to their story, but we don’t know what it is,” yet. This level of uncertainty certainly is unusual in wildland fire accidents because all the men, except one, died that day. ... Please read the Yarnell Hill Fire Serious Accident Investigation Report (2013) or the Yarnell Hill Fire Case Study (2014) and look for the Human Factors section of the report. There isn’t one. There is only a “recommendation” on page 44: “The Team recommends that the State of Arizona request the NWCG [National Wildfire Coordinating Group] and/or Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) to charter a team of interagency wildland fire and human factors experts to conduct further analysis of this event and the wildland fire communications environment.” ... To the best of my knowledge, no such “team of … experts” has ever been chartered. In the fire service, we do learn from our accidents when we are told what and why the accidents and fatalities happened. Throughout our history, I will agree that we have gotten better at fighting fire, however, it depends on the actual units and their supervisors whether or not we’ve gotten better at learning. I am in the group of many that strongly believe we have not learned enough from this epic multiple fatality event. ... I believe that one of the key “reasons we don’t fully understand the events of June 30, 2013” is because the SAIT concluded: “… the [SAIT] found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol.” ... Really? Framing that into a more positive assertion, those men did everything right – yet 19 men burned to death in one fell swoop. How is that possible when the SAIT basically concluded that the GMHS performed their inherently dangerous job according to “policy” and “protocol? You are absolutely correct that “it can be hard to see what the lessons are, and how to improve for the future” when dubious conclusions like that are made. ... You stated “If our learning has stalled for this event, we should try a different approach. But how can we learn for the future when there are gaps in our knowledge of the past” Good question. We can truly “learn for the future” when we close or fill those “gaps in our knowledge of the past” with forthright, straightforward conclusions about why these tragedies occur instead of their “story,” where nobody did anything wrong and nobody is to blame. Realistically, when WFs die on fires, it is almost always because someone made bad decisions. Beware the training instructors that begin WF training sessions with “There are no wrong answers.” ... I have thought about what it may have been like if I was with the Crew, hiking through the canyon. And with this in mind, I ask and then immediately tell myself: What the heck are we doing in here because this path is not right and it certainly does not feel right based on our WF training, and case studies of past fatality fires in similar conditions. And it is the worst possible time to be making these decisions and taking these actions. ... Comparing notes with other WFs does not surprise me at all what they come up with. For the most part, we come to the very same conclusion(s) - bad decisions that contradict all we know about decision-making and the human factors that influenced all of the many wildland fire fatality case studies where WFs are killed by fire. ... On the contrary, we know almost exactly how they chose their path. I cannot see myself or others that I have supervised and trained over the years, on a similar path, because we learned the valuable human factors lessons of the many historic fatality fires. As WFs, the best way to “learn for the future” and honor the fallen is to respect the past, provide sound leadership, and learn and follow the proper, aggressively safe way to fight fires based on the tried-and-true WF Rules. Realizing that our ultimate responsibility as WF Supervisors is the safety and welfare of those we supervise, that is the most meaningful and redeeming “memorial we can build for the future.” ... ... Author John Maclean and Holly Neill were the keynote speakers at the Southern California Foresters and Fire Wardens (SCFFW) conference in May (Yarnell Hill 5 Years Later). We were prewarned by the SCFFW Directors that none of us was allowed to interrupt or ask questions during their planned two-hour presentation; and that we could ask our questions later that evening at the planned mixer. Their presentation was unexpectedly cut short a little over an hour on this very issue, when someone persuasively disagreed with their “facts” regarding “the communications on the Yarnell Hill fire on June 30, most notably the communications that occurred during the SAIR’s ‘gap of over 30 minutes in the information available for the Granite Mountain IHC, from 1604 until 1637.’" ... Several WFs in the group were overheard saying “It’s about time.” I later thanked the gentleman for mustering the courage to do speak up and challenge Maclean and Neill. He thanked me and told me that he had waited for that moment for almost five years." End of Schoeffler comments to Mayhew.

Comments from Jim Weller, a FF or WF. July 29, 2019, responding to this author's comments on Mayhew's article: I totally agree with you that "when [firefighters of any type] die on [any type of scene], it is almost always because someone made a bad decision" or, perhaps, 1 or more people made a series of bad decisions. But this is the very crux of why it's so hard to have meaningful discussions about and learn from LODDs where the decision-makers were among the fatalities. It's not that we don't know, or can't make educated guesses about their thought processes. It's because we know from our training that all our safety regulations, SOPs/SOGs, and such are literally written in blood, and exist to help us make better decisions than the poor sods who caused the regulations to be written. Thus we know before we start that any discussion of tragedies such as Yarnell Hill will ultimately lead to speaking ill of the dead for violating some well-known safety practice, and nobody wants to do that. Especially with so great a loss of life as at Yarnell Hill. ... The reluctance to critique dead decision-makers contrasts with our zeal to learn from incidents where the decision-maker survived but some of his troops did not. Those of us in leadership positions ardently want to avoid making that same mistake while society as a whole might bring criminal and/or civil charges against the decision-maker. Thus, we discuss these tragedies to great length, and the poor guy is still alive so there's no social taboo about speaking ill of him. ... I understand this situation all too well. My own department lost our deputy chief on an icy road back in January because he made a series of bad decisions that put himself and a number of others in a very vulnerable position. We were lucky more folks weren't killed. He was a good friend and mentor to me personally and his loss devastated not only his family and my department, but also many agencies over the whole region where he had previously worked. But we have never critiqued that incident because nobody wants his epitaph to be, "Great career except for this one slip-up at the end."

Doug Fir reply comments to Jim Weller (Oct. 26, 2021) Reply to Jim Weller: You posted "Thus we know before we start that any discussion of tragedies such as Yarnell Hill will ultimately lead to speaking ill of the dead for violating some well-known safety practice, and nobody wants to do that. Especially with so great a loss of life as at Yarnell Hill." On the contrary, there is NO speaking ill of the dead from me regarding the infamous YH Fire and GMHS debacle or any other fatal fire. I honor those dead men by critiquing and thoroughly examining those alleged "investigators" like Brad Mayhew, that create the bogus investigation reports and lie and whitewash what actually occurred and why. ... Myself and others consider this debacle to be the biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history."

Doug Fir comments to Mayhew (Dec. 30, 2023) What Are the Underground Honor the Fallen Group Ulterior Motives For Defending the GMHS Decisions? (YHFR link) Alleged Lead Investigator Mayhew is unethical profiting from his book series. He has also restricted our First Amendment Rights of Free Association and Free Speech when it deals with the YH Fire and GMHS at the San Diego Wildland Fire Safety Summits. Even when posing the question "are there any comments, questions, or smart remarks," one commenter was immediately ignored. And the second question was IMMEDIATELY and loudly rebuffed with "not you Fred" followed by one of the Cadre starting "that's enough, we're done here" just for raising my hand! ... I allege that Mayhew aggressively quashes dissent! And yet the person I referred to at the 2018 F&FW Conference charging forward TWICE to challenge MacLean & Neill was, in fact, Brad Mayhew! Such hypocrisy!"

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And the WLF LLC Travis Dotson offers his version in his Painful Progress article (2023) From the perspective of the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center, a single element of the post Yarnell climate is most concerning: The notion that nothing was learned. The prevalence of that perspective is disheartening. It’s also not accurate. Learning in the aftermath of tragedy is guaranteed—at least at the individual level. Survivors learn to cope with their new reality. Those directly involved learn the level of support they can expect from their employer and their community. This level of learning is not what is meant when people say: “We didn’t learn anything from Yarnell”. In most cases, the learning they feel is missing is at the organizational level—as evidenced by the conspicuous absence of new policy, programs, checklists, courses, or equipment."

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Rules and Risk in Wildland Firefighting | Hannah Coolidge | The Hypocrite Reader (2015)

Following a predetermined set of rules encourages us to set aside our superstitions and our instincts (whether to run away in fear or to plow forward at all costs), and instead act according to lessons learned from past successes and failures. By creating a common standard for action and hopefully reducing unwanted deaths, rules increase both the sustainability of wildland firefighting as well as its respectability.

To use the lessons of the past

so we don’t have to keep relearning them the hard way 

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Notably, in the late 1990s, [former Smokejumper] Dr. Jason Greenlee, former executive director of the International Association of Wildland Fire, made a strong effort to put up many of the wildland firefighter fatality accident investigation reports on the association’s Website.

Visit Dr. Greenlee's Wildland Fire Research Institute website (link)

Figure 15. Former TNF Payson RD FMO Pat Velasco at a stand on the Dude Fire Staff Ride Snippet. Source: USDA USFS. MTDC. Missoula, MT, 1999.

"Mining Our Past - Following the Dude Fire Staff Ride, I was haunted by the fact that- in spite of the information provided to the participants in a three-ring binder titled “Dude Fire Staff Ride Preliminary Study” and the 17-minute excerpt on the Dude Fire from the NFES (1998a) video - there still seem to be many unanswered questions and perhaps conflicting opinions. Admittedly, some questions might never be definitively answered. However, new information has emerged as a result of undertaking the staff ride of the Dude Fire. For example, while it is well known that both live and dead fuels were at critically low moisture levels, the fact that fuels had accumulated in the area for at least 30 to 35 years is not documented anywhere in the literature on the Dude Fire; yet this general concern with respect to firefighter safety has been enunciated elsewhere, especially with respect to the wildland–urban interface (e.g., Mutch 1994; Williams 1995). ... I was invited to attend the critique team luncheon meeting that followed the integration phase of the Dude Fire Staff Ride on the morning of March 5, 1999. At that session, I recommended that a technical report along the lines of the excellent publication by Butler and others (1998) on the 1994 South Canyon Fire in western Colorado should be done for the Dude Fire, including an analysis of the prevailing burning conditions in light of previously held views regarding blowup fires in the region (Bates 1962). ... As Thomas (1994) points out, we need to avoid falling into the trap of assuming that experience will make its lessons available automatically,

and therefore failing to keep systematic records to track the results

of our decisions and failing to analyze these results in ways that reveal their key lessons (Russo and Schoemaker 1990). There is, as well, the concern that we might be failing to interpret the evidence from past outcomes for what it really says because we are tricked by hindsight effects (Russo and Schoemaker 1990). We owe it to those who have been entrapped and killed or seriously burned on wildland fires to do as thorough a job as possible. ... Paying Tribute - In closing this essay, I’d like to pay tribute to the Dude Fire Staff Ride Steering Committee for their innovation and efforts in organizing a highly successful event, as well as to those responsible for publishing this special issue of Fire Management Today on the Dude Fire Staff Ride. The Dude Fire Staff Ride and this resultant publication constitute a glowing example of the wildland

fire community paying homage to its fallen firefighters. Thus, “the living have remembered the dead, and therefore, the dead go on living” (Dude Fire Staff Ride)" quoting Gulliford 1997).

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Truth trumps narrative. You can temporarily rally people around what sounds good, but reality eventually imposes its verdict. And “Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage” (Anaïs Nin) And If you're responding to the facts in front of you and not thinking from first principles… the likelihood that you'll make the right strategic decision is almost zero. Brain Food Farnam Street (April 20, 2025 #625)

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You will also want to read and research the curiously mysterious A Case For Wildland Fire Behavior Research Units article inset about the 1988 Brewer Fire Mystery in southeastern Montana, in which the Wyoming Hotshots were forced to deploy their fire shelters on the evening of June 23, 1988. "The team also found that the sudden calm and temperature rise (estimated to be 15 oF [8 oC] in just a few seconds) felt by crew foreman Neil Beisler and another crew member could not be explained or substantiated from the available weather information. It was Beisler’s alertness that enabled the crew to seek refuge in time from the ensuing blowup in the grassy meadow where they deployed their fire shelters." Fire Management Today (Fall 2002),

Crew Entrapment on the Brewer Fire (WLF LLC) “The crew was reluctant to use shelters because of a feeling that it was bad and indicated that someone made a mistake. This reluctance could cause fatal delays. However, it is tied to a deeper safety consideration that people should be astute enough to avoid situations requiring deployment. This is a ‘Catch 22’ situation that needs further examination.” Brewer Fire Shelter Deployment Investigation Report (July 23, 1988), Brewer Fire Mystery Discussion (FRAME) (Fire Research and Management Education).

This author has often taken umbrage with the phrase "forced to deploy their fire shelters" by so many so-called "investigators." It has connotations of someone intentionally holding a pistol to their head forcing them to deploy their fire shelter. Just saying ...

Due to a lack of Google Internet searches for specifically wildfire fire heat burst events, The AI response is: "They are rapid increases in surface temperature and strong, dry winds caused by the collapse of a thunderstorm. These events can significantly impact wildfire behavior by intensifying fire spread and creating extremely hot and dry conditions. Here's a more detailed look. Mechanism: Heat bursts are often triggered by the collapse of thunderstorms, leading to a rapid influx of dry, warm air at the surface. Impact on Wildfires: The sudden increase in temperature and decrease in humidity associated with heat bursts can dramatically increase fuel aridity, making vegetation more flammable. The strong winds can also drive rapid fire spread, making control efforts more challenging. The alleged "Relationship to Climate Change" portion is ignored. "Specifics: Heat bursts can cause a rapid increase in surface temperature (e.g., from 85 to 102 degrees Fahrenheit in minutes), a substantial decrease in surface dewpoint, and strong winds. In essence, heat bursts are a type of extreme weather event that can significantly amplify the risk and impact of wildfires, particularly during periods of already elevated fire danger." 

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This author attended both the 1999 Fire Behavior Conference and the Dude Fire Staff Ride. And also worked on the Dude Fire from June 25, 1990, as a Field Observer and Operations for the rehabilitation and stabilization phases until the end. It was at least a year before this author could mentally and psychologically endure returning to the Dude Fire area. This author takes every opportunity to attend Dude Fire Site Visits and Staff Rides and was often called upon and / or invited to lead and / or participate in them until the alleged Powers-to-Be decided otherwise and / or both personal and professional reasons because of some alleged perceived threat or delusion.

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Staff Ride PARTS ONE & TWO - Do The Yarnell Hill Fire Staff Rides by Arizona State Forestry provide that specific perspective of strategy, technology, and leadership? After reviewing the 52 page Facilitator Guide - did you even take that route that day? (Part One Dec. 8, 2018) and (Also Part 2 Dec. 8, 2018)

What Really Happened On The June 1990 Dude Fire? The Perryville Dept. of Corrections Officer Deserted His Crew Taking The Only Radio; The Two Fire Bosses Shredded Key Fire Package Documents (Records); Why Was The Historic Zane Grey Cabin Allowed to Burn; and The Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery Was Saved Between June 26-27, 1990. Part. 1 (July 26, 2024) and Part 2. (June 26, 2024)

Did Similar Known & Later-Discovered Human & Psychological Factors & Wildland Fire Weather Causal Conditions Save Lives on Both the June 26, 1990, Dude Fire & the June 30, 2013, Yarnell Hill Fire? Part 1 (Jan. 8, 2024) and also Part 2 (Jan. 2024)

5 - Was The June 26, 1990, Dude Fire a precursor for the incomplete lessons learned on June 30, 2013. (August 2023)

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"Beginning in 2001, the Wildland Fire Leadership Development Program began a national on-line Staff Ride Library to support the use of the technique at all organizational levels. Currently there are more than a dozen nationally significant historical incidents with complete staff ride packages developed and archived in the library. Staff rides are used as a delivery method for the L-580 Leadership is Action course that is targeted for Incident Management Team command and staff positions. In addition, a number of local field units have begun to develop staff rides for locally significant incidents."

"Staff rides are a superb tool for developing the decision-making skills of leaders at all levels. The 2002 National Fire Plan fully endorses the use of staff rides as a decision-making and leadership development tool for fire management personnel at all levels and lists the implementation of this technique as Task G1B / Item 4 in the Ten-Year Comprehensive Strategy."

"Ideas for Wider Use: (1) Utilize staff rides to add an experiential learning aspect to key leader position courses such as Initial Attack and Extended Attack Incident Commander, Type 2 Burn Boss, and Local Fire Management Leadership. (2) Utilize staff rides for team building and continuing education at regional and national meetings. (3) Utilize staff rides for all hazard incident learning."

"Critical Success Factors: (1) Experienced facilitation. An effective learning environment can only be created by a cadre of facilitators that have a combined background in fostering open two-way interaction among participants and a thorough understanding of the events being focused on during the staff ride. (2) Multiple perspectives. A staff ride should avoid be a recital of a single investigation report. Such reports rarely address the human factors that affect individual decision-making. For this reason, providing participants with a variety of information sources is important, especially in the preliminary study phase. (3) Logistical pre-planning. Staff rides are an educational event delivered in a field setting. Time needs to be dedicated to addressing the logistical aspects of moving people to and around the site as well as the location and timing of the various stops during the site visit and integration phases. (3) Benefits: (1) Experiential learning (2) Leadership development (3) Learning from past mistakes and successes (4) Emotional imprint from “real” past events" ...

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DO STAFF RIDES HELP MOVE THE FOREST SERVICE TOWARD

LEARNING ORGANIZATION? Joseph Harris - Lund Univ. Div. of Risk Mgmt. and Societal Safety. Sweden (2015) Abstract - "The [U.S.F.S] has declared its intention of becoming a learning organization. As a means to that end, the [FS] has borrowed and adapted the staff ride concept from the military. This paper describes the staff ride product and compares it to what scientific research tells us about the nature of learning. Focus group sessions were conducted to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of staff rides. This research is intended to provide a scientific and argument basis for the digitalization of the staff ride environment for a particular organization. As such this thesis is a much a design document as it is a piece of empirical research. Designing 'into the future' especially for the [U.S.F.S.'s] requirement, requires designing for an organization whose learning and organizations needs are quite broad and sometimes contradictory. Further sorting out of real world teaching events like the staff ride that should be transferred to digital environment at this point in time rests more on intuition than science."

Consider now these instructive and inquisitive comments regarding the YH Fire from Participant D with Harris' prefaced comments: "What’s cool about that now. Here is an example of an informant explicitly stating that the site visit with peers really helps to understand the conditions from the historical participants’ perspective. He is really able to identify with what the people he is studying went through in a way that was not available to him after the preliminary study phase.  Participant D stated it this way: …this is my fifth staff ride and I’ve had pretty good understandings of every staff ride I’ve gone to before going through with the preliminary study. The important quantum leap that happens for me on a staff ride is; I really understand the conditions, I can see me doing that given those conditions. That’s the huge thing that happens to me during the field study… Being on the ground and talking together and really chewing on this together, on staff rides for me that’s what happens is; Wow I can see myself doing that and that’s not always good. Sometimes there’s bad things that happen when you do something, Mann Gulch [a tragedy fire] for instance, if exactly seeing the logic and putting … I can see myself doing that in those conditions. What’s cool about that now, is when I read reports, when I read a Yarnell [a tragedy fire] report or something like that, I’m hesitant to rush the judgment because I’ve had enough of this experience now, a personalizing experience where … Well I can see myself doing that even. So I think that’s the value of the staff ride, it opens you up to actually being able to personalize it. To be able to see yourself in that and learn from that and not rush the judgment and have it all figured out. This statement seems to imply that written reports may become more valuable to a person once he or she has been exposed to the staff ride experience. Where before he used to rush to judgment while reading a report, now that he has been exposed to staff rides he is able to get more out of the report because staff rides have made him less judgmental."

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Consider the April 12, 2016, BRHS Frisby email between USFS Shelton LaVelle and Human Dimensions Joseph R. Harris regarding the proposed GMHS Staff Ride and "Human Factors!" Frisby wrote "The picture that is being painted is very different than what we remember ... and "that human factors that day were off the charts" and "swept under the rug." (emphasis added)

Figure 16. BRHS Brian Frisby's Staff Ride April 2016 email Snippet with Joe Harris regarding the proposed YH Fire Staff Ride and Human Factors. Source: YHFR

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[Yes indeed "Real Past Events" with a typical SAIT-SAIR "conclusion first, then facts to fit their pre-established conclusion" according to this author's professional judgement firmly being that the June 2013 YH Fire and GMHS Tragedy is the classic one and indeed potentially the biggest cover-up, lie, and whitewash in wildland fire history, bar none - i.e. "The Team developed these conclusions through deliberation. The process considered information from a number of sources, including accounts from personnel on the fire, records and logs, physical evidence, knowledge of the firefighting culture, Team observations, and SME [Subject Matter Expert] sessions. ... Firefighters performed within their scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The judgments and decisions of the incident management organizations managing this fire were reasonable. Firefighters performed within their scope of duty, as defined by their respective organizations. The Team found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol."]

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The Team found no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol."

And so this will hopefully readily translate to the fact that the GMHS did everything right, ey. So then, how is it even possible to to do everything right while adhering to all the established Rules of Engagement and the associated solid Entrapment Avoidance Principles and yet 19 Prescott FD WF GMHS died in one fell swoop? (YHFR- July 2023)

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Because for if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?  

I Corinthians 14:8 (NKJV)

"Hope resides in the future, perspective and wisdom are found by looking to the past" 

Unknown author

“What is needed is the right to print what one believes to be true, without having to fear bullying or blackmail from any side.” George Orwell (1946)

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Dude & Yarnell Fire Staff Rides (link) (USFS, 2023)

Figure 17. OMNA Intl. Dude Fire & YH Fire Staff Ride Snippet Source: YouTube, OMNA Intl.

"OMNA International, a private contractor that specializes in preparing staff rides for wildfire-fatality sites, as well as for military battlegrounds, including Gettysburg, prepared the guides under a contract with the U.S. Forest Service, according to Bill Boyd, Forestry Division public-affairs and legislative officer." (New Times - 2016)

Wildfire Expert Alleges Arizona Forestry Division Covering Up Yarnell Hill Tragedy. (Dougherty - 2016) "A long-anticipated field presentation scheduled today by the Arizona Forestry Division for the families of 19 incinerated Granite Mountain Hotshots – during which relatives are to be taken to the site where their loved ones perished — has been sharply criticized for failing to accurately portray what happened."

Former NPS Hot Shot and Payson Hot Shot, Fish Daddy "Mark Kaib, southwest deputy regional fire-management coordinator for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, for the presentation to the families.... Kaib, in a detailed report of the February staff ride, questioned that guide’s characterization that Granite Mountain was a very knowledgeable and accomplished crew in the type of terrain and vegetation that was present in Yarnell. ... “That’s a difficult one to support,” he stated. ... Kaib also questioned whether Granite Mountain leadership allowed the threat to the Yarnell community, 45 miles from Prescott, to “blind their fire behavior situational awareness and risk-assessment process? ... Wild-land firefighters, armed with picks and shovels,. should not be focused on protecting structures, many experts believe. ...“[Granite Mountain leaders] did have good experience and knowledge,” Kaib stated, “but was their experience only sufficient enough to give them the self-confidence to take on greater, possibly unjustified risks?” ... The facilitator guide to be presented to the families today includes several factual errors, leaves out a key event in the timeline, and misquotes a crucial conversation, among other shortcomings, including  changing the times of critical events. ... The family guide includes a 1930 essay, “The Courage to Be,” written by John A. Lejeune and a one-page open letter to the city of Prescott written in March 2013 by GMHS's supervisor during a period when the Prescott City Council was considering eliminating the crew. ... Lejeune’s essay glorifies the death of brave Marines who followed orders from a strong and just leader. ... "If each man knows that all the officers and men in his division are animated with the same fiery zeal as he himself feels, unquenchable courage and unconquerable determination crush out fear,  and death becomes preferable to defeat and dishonor," Lejeune wrote.

In this author's professional judgement, alleging that this was allowed to be included in order to justify the GMHS clearly preventable deaths.

Figure 17a. OMNA Intl. Sept.-Nov. 2024 Staff Rides Snippet Source: OMNA Intl.

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OMNA International Staff Rides

(2025 link) virtually all the Staff Rides are linked, curiously except for the Dude and YH Fires which are listed as obviously co-existing on the OMNA International website as "Dude and Yarnell Hill Roundtable USFS" and acknowledged by one of our YHFR posts titled: Did Similar Known & Later-Discovered Human & Psychological Factors & Wildland Fire Weather Causal Connections Save Lives on Both the June 26, 1990, Dude Fire & the June 30, 2013, Yarnell Hill (Pt 1) and (Pt 2)

Gettysburg Staff Ride 

Little Bighorn Staff Ride

Fredericksburg Staff Ride

Chancellorsville Staff Ride

Shiloh Staff Ride

Andersonville Staff Ride

Manassas Staff Ride

Harpers Ferry Staff Ride

Sharpsburg Staff Ride

Wilderness Staff Ride

Spotsylvania Staff Ride

Overland Campaign Staff Ride

Valley Campaign Staff Ride

​Pea Ridge Staff Ride

Vicksburg Staff Ride

​San Pasqual Staff Ride

Taos Pueblo Revolt Staff Ride

Donner-Reed Expedition Staff Ride

Chickamauga-Chattanooga Staff Ride 

Esperanza Fire Staff Ride

​Mann Gulch Fire Staff Ride

South Canyon Fire Staff Ride

Dude Fire Staff Ride

Thirtymile Fire Staff Ride

Yarnell Hill Fire Staff Ride

Grant West Staff Ride

Laguna Beach Staff Ride​

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NWCG Staff Ride Library

1. 1910 Idaho Fire

2. Bar Harbor Fire

3. Battlement Creek Fire

4. Blackwater Fire

5. Cart Creek Fire

6. Cerro Grande Fire

7. Dude Fire

8. Loop Fire

9. Mack Lake Fire

10. Mann Gulch Fire

11. Rattlesnake Fire

12. Rock Creek Fire

13. South Canyon Fire

14. Thirtymile Fire

This author has completed Site Visits on the Cart Creek Fire (UT-1977), several times on South Canyon Fire (CO-1994), Dude Fire (AZ-1990), North Neola Fire (UT-2007), YH Fire (AZ-2013), and the Battle of Little Big Horn (SD-????); and Staff Rides on the Battlement Creek Fire (CO-1976), Dude Fire, South Canyon Fire, Thirty Mile Fire (WA-2001).

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The Staff Ride (Army University Press - 2021)  Multiple perspectives. Staff Rides require maximum participant involvement before arrival and at the site to guarantee thoughtful analysis and discussion. A staff ride should avoid be a recital of a single investigation report. Such reports rarely address the human factors that affect individual decision-making. For this reason, providing participants with a variety of information sources is important, especially in the preliminary study phase.

Wildland Fire Leadership Blog - Staff Ride / Case Study / Site Visit - What's the Difference? (2021)

The Staff Ride: Fundamentals, Experiences, Techniques (2020)

The Staff Ride: An Approach to Qualitative Data Generation & Analysis (2011)

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Other Commercially Available OMNA Services:

1. Keynote Speakers

   
   

2. Leadership and Management Presentations and Seminars

   
   

3. Facilitation of Meetings and Conferences

   
   

4. Operational Consulting Services

   
   

5. Operational Planning Exercises

   
   

6. Training and Education Assessments

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Figure 18. Devil and Hades either or comic Snippet Source: FaceBook

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The loudest signals come from the emptiest sources. Those who truly possess something rarely need to announce it and Those who fear appearing foolish rarely discover anything new. The genius of tomorrow often looks like an idiot today. Farnam Street April 6, 2025

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Balancing critique with empathy, this author hopes to counter the “go away” sentiment and align with David Turbyfill’s call for transparency. This approach heals wounds while demanding accountability, fulfilling your mission to prevent future losses. Consider the Father of GMHS Travis Turbyfill (RiP) Yarnell Fire Realities quotes regarding the April 2016 YH Fire Family Staff Ride: – "April 6 at 12:59 pm  Some of us spent yesterday (April 5, 2016) with all of the leaders of that fire and after a grueling 6 hour hike and stations of conversation at certain points it is my belief as far as Arizona State Fire goes it is very disconnected and there appears to be more of a culture of Delegation and not my job then true honesty integrity and transparency. I’m a very unpopular person for having this opinion but my opinion was formed by the events that took place yesterday that I witnessed for myself. valuable to those who want the truth. I also want those who read this page to know that the truth is very difficult to find. Rumors and gossip flow much more freely because you don’t have to prove it. This comment is posted exclusively from the observation and opinions I saw and formed yesterday How do you change a culture when the leaders see nothing wrong with it? When asked questions and the answers are I don’t know. And how sad it is to read the comment of David Sheets to never trust overhead. But with my experience sadly to say I think he’s right Wildland firefighting needs to be revamped completely the fires are different the world is different we can’t rely on how it used to be….. it’s killing us. I find this page valuable to those who want the truth. I also want those who read this page to know that the truth is very difficult to find. Rumors and gossip flow much more freely because you don’t have to prove it. This comment is posted exclusively from the observation and opinions I saw and formed yesterday – Shari (Turbyfill ) Chad Walker – April 12 at 9:11 pm  Phoenix New Times  Wildfire Expert Alleges Arizona Forestry Division Covering Up Yarnell Hill Tragedy  [Originally] Published: Tuesday, April 5, 2016 – John Dougherty (InvestigativeMEDIA) posted here (YHFR 2022)

Therefore, in closing, we urge AWIMA to include a YH Fire Staff Ride in 2026, leveraging its proximity and significance to foster learning. We call on the wildland fire community to demand transparency from the USFS and WLF LLC, ensuring lessons prevent future tragedies. Share our insights on (www.yarnellhillfirerevelations.com) best accessed on a laptop or PC and join us in honoring the GMHS through seeking the truth.

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“Hope resides in the future,

perspective and wisdom are found by looking to the past.” 

— Unknown

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And now to answer the title question Why Is There No Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride At The Annual March ERAU Wildfire Mgmnt. Academy Of This Fatal June 2013 Epic Event? Striving to avoid the appearance of the common Logical Fallacy of Begging the Question (TX State - Dept. of Philosophy) by simply restating the conclusion in a slightly different way within the premise - it is in fact - and in this author's and likely other's experienced, knowledgeable Truth Seeker and Truth Teller professional judgements that Wildland Fire Weather, Fire Behavior, Human Factors, and Psychological Factors are somewhat similar on wildland fires. Especially similar on those wildland fires where burnovers, entrapments, fire shelter deployments, near misses, "bad decisions with good outcomes," i.e. Normalization of Deviance and /or fatalities have occurred. Therefore, there are ostensibly "lessons learned" for all of them with some having much more to offer than others, e.g. more detailed and more informative than others and clearly more forthcoming, and more truthful; in particular many of the oldest, historical and notable wildland fires you've heard or read about, especially those listed in the what used-to-be trusted and valuable Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (WLF-LLC) Incident Reviews, Two More Chains, etc. Then came the Yarnell Hill Fire  and the alleged Honor the Fallen Group (YHFR-2023) dutifully defending the GMHS's clearly preventable actions "We could see ourselves making the same decision they’d made" and indeed the former (WLF LLC) changing for the worse. John Dougherty's (2016) New Times article titled: Wildfire Expert Alleges Arizona Forestry Division Covering Up Yarnell Hill Tragedy where former Payson Hot Shot and Deputy Regional USFWS Fire Management Coordinator comments critical of GMHS supervisor's YH Fire and GMHS judgement errors. ... Lejeune’s essay glorifies the death of brave Marines who followed orders from a strong and just leader. ... "If each man knows that all the officers and men in his division are animated with the same fiery zeal as he himself feels, unquenchable courage and unconquerable determination crush out fear,  and death becomes preferable to defeat and dishonor," Lejeune wrote. In this author's professional judgement, alleging that this was allowed to be included in order to justify the GMHS clearly preventable deaths.

And clearly shown y'all the value of engaging in Site Visits and Staff Rides!

While taking a slight advantage of using AI and then modifying it. in order to get a somewhat favorable AI Response from Google: "Why Is There No Yarnell Hill Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride At The Annual March ERAU Wildfire Management. Academy Of The Fatal June 2013 Epic Event when requested by a YH Fire truth seeker?" This third Google search and Artificial Intelligence (AI) response which more-or-less ignored the Truth Seeker portion and appeared to favor the Politically Correct Party Line Sensitivity approach. Additionally, it is word-edited to save limited space and slightly word-smithed for clarity beginning here: "I find this The ERAU may choose not to include a YH Fire Site Visit or Staff Ride due to a variety of factors, including logistical constraints, the emotional impact of the event on survivors and families, and potential sensitivities surrounding ongoing investigations or memorialization efforts. ERAU may prioritize other fires for study, or the academy's curriculum may not specifically focus on a single event, but rather on broader principles of wildfire behavior and management.  Here's a more detailed explanation: Logistical Challenges: the YH Fire site may not be accessible for large groups of students, or organizing a visit may require significant coordination and resources. Emotional Sensitivity: The YH Fire was a devastating tragedy, and visiting the site could be emotionally difficult for students, especially those who may be firefighters or have connections to the event. ERAU may want to avoid causing undue distress or trauma.  Memorialization and Respect: The YH Fire site may be a place of remembrance for the 19 firefighters who died, and ERAU may want to avoid disrupting memorialization efforts or potentially causing disrespect to the fallen. Curriculum Focus: ERAU's AWIMA may avoid focus on a single event, instead on the broader principles of wildfire behavior, strategy, and tactics. They may choose to study other fires that offer valuable lessons without the same emotional and logistical complexities. Ongoing Investigations or Litigation:  There may be ongoing investigations or litigation related to the YH Fire, and ERAU may want to avoid potentially interfering with these processes or causing undue publicity."

In this author's professional judgement this point may be considered a paradox, which is a statement that seemingly contradicts itself but may still be true or have some truth in it because we have been at this since 2013 with no "official" investigations by the U.S.F.S, DFFM, YCSO, or any other State or Federal investigative entities. (Nordquist, R. "100 Awfully Good Examples of Oxymorons." ("true fiction") ThoughtCo, Jul. 10, 2024). Additionally, a statement that contradicts itself can be described as "Orwellian" when it's used within a context that suggests doublethink or the manipulation of language to distort reality, echoing the themes of George Orwell's 1984. In the novel, the Party uses paradoxical slogans like "War is Peace" and "Freedom is Slavery" to control the populace by denying the very nature of these concepts. (SparkNotes. 1984 Orwell quotes).

In this author's humble professional judgement, and as noted above, the AI final point regarding the "Ongoing Investigations or Litigation" is still spot on!  And basically the theme of our YHFR website and very likely the real reason behind the failure to include a YH Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride in the AWIMA Course Schedule. The AI response: "There may be ongoing investigations or litigation related to the YH Fire, and ERAU may want to avoid potentially interfering with these processes or causing undue publicity." Yet, there are clearly two accredited Wildland Fire Academies in other states clearly offering Staff Rides. So, what is your real excuse for excluding a YH Fire Site Visit and/or Staff Ride AWIMA?

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For this author and many others, the following Wind River (2017) movie quote comes from a place of deep truth, it’s easy to be emotionally moved by its message. Some may argue that discussing the YH Fire disrespects the fallen or reopens wounds. We counter that truth honors the GMHS, as Rosso and Putnam emphasize. Others may claim the AWIMA curriculum is their prerogative or that logistics prevent a YH Fire Staff Ride. Yet, the CWFIMA 334-mile round-trip to South Canyon undermines this excuse. The SAIT-SAIR’s defenders may insist it was thorough, but the ADOSH findings and redacted witness reports suggest otherwise. We echo the Wind River (2017) movie quote that follows. Hence, this author has chosen to use it as a healing proxy for the YH Fire and GMHS debacle. 

"I'd like to tell you it gets easier. it doesn't. If there's any ... comfort, it's ... getting used to the pain, I suppose. Went to a grief seminar in Casper. Did you know that? I don't know why. Just wanted the bad to go away. Wanted answers ... to questions that couldn't be answered. The counselor come up to me after the seminar and sat down next to me. And he said something that stuck with me. I don't know if it's what he said, or how he said it. He says, 'I got some good news and I got some bad news. Bad news is you're never gonna be the same. You're never gonna be whole, not ever again. You lost your daughter. Nothing's ever going to replace that. Now the good news is, as soon as you accept that, and you let yourself suffer... you allow yourself to visit her in your mind, and you'll remember all the love she gave you, all the joy she knew.' Point is, Martin, you can't steer from the pain. If you do, you'll rob yourself ... You'll rob yourself of every memory of her. Every last one. From her first step to her last smile. Kill 'em all. Just take the pain, Martin. You hear me? You take it. It's the only way you'll keep her with you."  (IMDb Wind River 2017)

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Figure 19. David versus Goliath image Source:  Wikipedia Osmar Schindler (c. 1888) lithograph

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Additions, comments, corrections April 23, 2025, 8:50 AM: minor formatting, spelling, punctuation, and grammar; Dr. Putnam comments regarding Author John Macleans' book errors, omissions, etc. Two YHFR posts with links regarding the 1990 Dude Fire and 2013 YH Fire wildland fire weather, fire behavior, human and psychological factor connections.

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Adding this correction on April 24, 2025, 10:00 AM for Figure 8. per ADOSH Investigator Barry Hicks regarding who and where Smokejumper Roger Roth and Hot Shot Doug Dunbar (RiP) died.