InvestigativeMEDIA today posted the supporting documentation for the Arizona Department of Safety and Health investigative report into the Yarnell Hill Fire disaster that killed 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots last June 30.
The investigative report, which includes audio interviews of key personnel who fought the fire including Granite Mountain’s only surviving member, is located here. [Read more…]
The Arizona Industrial Commission today released the following reports in connection with the deaths of 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots on June 30 during the Yarnell Hill Fire:
AZ Dept. of Occupational Safety and Health Agenda 12/4/13
Worksheets for Proposed Citations
Wildland Fire Associates Report
InvestigativeMedia has also attached an important essay by Ted Putnam on the impossibility of firefighters following the 10 Standards Fire Orders. Putnam’s paper written in 2000 concludes:
“Currently the fire organization is not very proactive in making safety a major
influence in strategies and tactics. Getting the job done, money and image
concerns push firefighters into taking excessive risk. What is needed
organizationally is truthful fire investigations, an honest reporting system that
tracks physical, mental, cultural and social aspects of firefighting and a
willingness to become a learning organization. If safety is ever to become No.
1 in the fire community then the fire community must be willing to spend more
time, money and effort to make it No. 1. The fire community must get beyond
its superficial practices like saying over and over again that safety is No. 1
without any true, longer-term, institutionalized commitment.”
InvestigativeMedia will have a complete report shortly.
