Chapter I, Chapter II, Chapter II supplement, Chapter III, Chapter IV, Chapter V, Chapter VI, Chapter VII, Chapter VIII , Chapter IX, Chapter X, Chapter XI, Chapter XII , Chapter XIII, Chapter XIV, Chapter XV, Chapter XVI, Chapter XVII, Chapter XVIII, Chapter XIX, Chapter XX, Chapter XXI, Chapter XXII, Chapter XXIII and Chapter XXIV.
© Copyright 2017 John Dougherty, All rights Reserved. Written For: Investigative MEDIA
The “bait-and-switch”
from the surprisingly
frank Burn-Baby-Burn
“reincarnated”
Woodsman of Olde
into the “far safer and more politically correct”
Critic of Managerial Oversight Responsibility
(equally valid, tho’ it may be)
would seem to best be described, thusly…
“What are we
DOING
or
NOT DOING
to make BURN-BABY-BURN
more likely to be accident free
while providing an efficient service to THOSE taxpayers NOT
living in the Wildland-Urban-Interface, when it comes to wildfires in the US?”
** NEW CHAPTER XXVI ( 26 )
New Chapter XXVI ( 26 ) has been started.
As always… many thanks to John Dougherty and InvestigativeMEDIA for the
continuing patience and support for this ongoing discussion.
Direct jumplink to the new chapter…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxvi-here/
On March 29, 2018 at 10:19 pm, Robert the Second (RTS) said…
>> Good stuff Gary,
>>
>> Here is a link for Leadership and Biographical information on Dr. Putnam.
>>
>> https://www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/leaders_meet/interviews/leaders_TedPutnam.html
>>
>> I will follow up at another time with his article titled:
>> “Accidents, accident guides, stories and the truth.”
>>
>> This amazing paper is published in the Proceedings of 11th International
>> Wildland Fire Safety Summit, April 4-8, 2011, Missoula, Montana, USA;
>> Published by the International Association of Wildland Fire,
>> Missoula, Montana, USA
Here is a link to where that ( full ) paper by Dr. Ted Putnam can be downloaded…
Eleventh International Wildland Fire Safety Summit
April 4-8, 2011 Hilton Garden Inn Missoula, MT
Promoting the Story of Wildland Fire Safety.
Presentation Title: Accidents, Accident Guides, Stories and the Truth
Presented By: Dr. Ted Putnam, Mindful Solutions
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=05262454341263280395
WTKTT,
Thank you for once again using your sleuth skills to locate Dr. Putnam’s paper and post a very unique link for it.
PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO READ DR. PUTNAM’S PAPER AND WHAT HE HAS TO SAY ABOUT ACCIDENT AND FATALITY INVESTIGATIONS AND THE COVER-UPS THAT ARE A MAINSTAY OF THE OSTENSIBLE “FACTUAL” INVESTIGATIONS AND SAIRs!
“Accident Investigation Concerns
Although it seems obvious that accident investigations should strive to uncover the actual causes and conditions that led to the accident, this is seldom attempted let alone advocated in the relevant agency investigation guides used by wildland fire and other organizational (Airlines, NASA, Military, etc.) accident investigators. Failure to look for all discoverable causes and conditions leads to accident reports that are superficial in understanding or missing vital information on what really occurred as well as why it occurred. It is relevant for individuals and organizations to look at what accident guides investigations are focusing on compared to what
they could and ought to be focusing on. Specifically, we ignore the impact of the individual’s cognitive processing on accident causation.”
“Historically wildland fire entrapment investigations have operated with strong biases and typically left out entire quadrants of analysis, i.e. the cultural and intentional quadrants. Often these actions involve deceptive accounts but sometimes they involve misleading accounts. Why do people and agencies do this?”
“From accounts of [1949] Mann Gulch the only person known to be at the bottom of Mann Gulch, about the time the “spot fire” ignited, was the district ranger as he himself testified. What is noteworthy is that only the district ranger was allowed to talk about the spot fires in the bottom of Mann Gulch. At the Board of Review hearing NO ONE WAS ALLOWED TO CONTRADICT OR QUESTION THE RANGER’S STORY.” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
Unbelievable! THIS is the investigation where the “FIRST ESTABLISH A CONCLUSION, THEN FIND THE “FACTS” TO FIT IT” means of hiding the truth began resulting in a FULL cover=up.
“A Fire Expert who wanted to observe the spot-fires’ origins was FORBIDDEN TO DO SO BY THE TEAM LEADER, since it was not in the scope of the investigation. In the case of the Board of Review it is what they ignore and don’t talk about that screams of a cover-up.” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
“My summary points are that MANN GULCH WAS AN ELABORATE COVER-UP FROM THE START, did little to help future firefighters and mostly protected upper level managers and the Agency’s images. I invite readers to go back and take a more thorough look at the available evidence and to realize, like I have, that the Mann Gulch investigation set the pattern for later fatality investigations, namely that it is ok to cover-up the truth and blame firefighters and fire behavior than mental errors, cultures, managers or organizations. If our accident investigations don’t promote finding and telling the Truth then Lessons Learned, firefighter safety and High
Reliability Organizations are just convenient buzz words; lullabies numbing us out rather than keeping us awake to underlying conditions and causal elements which best account for our collective firefighter realities.” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
Dr. Putnam then goes on to discuss the partial cover-ups and whitewash of the 1994 South Canyon Fire and why he refused to sign the report.
“Thus the South Canyon report has elements of deliberate cover-ups like Mann Gulch and elements of partial cover-ups, with the promise that another report is coming and “trust us to fix the problems later.” No later team report was written.”
Dr. Putnam also reveals untold truths about the Alabaugh Canyon Fire (2007) in South Dakota that resulted in a fire shelter deployment and burns to two WFs and the Crandall Ranger Station tree felling accident in 2010.
Dr. Putnam and I disagree on the value of the tried-and-true WF Rules, especially the “10 and 18.” I hold that they work every time you utilize the Ten Standard Orders and observe, recognize, and mitigate the 18 Watch Outs. Tens of thousands of WF and Supervisors successfully utilize the 10 and 18 every single fire season.
After all, the fire signals to you what it is going to do — every time.
Yes, thank you WTKTT.
And I never stated this specifically in my meandering diatribe down below, but the reason, and the only reason, the Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride Developement Committee was nasty to me while Shawna was so sweet to me, because she is such a smooth operator, is because I started insisting they were on the wrong track with the lessons that should have been learned from the Battlement Crrpreek Fire and they were in the early stages of designing a Staff Ride based on factually incorrect information.
Shawna wasn’t the only whore (non gender specific) on that committee, every one of them were agency and system whores (non gender specific), Shawna was just the Whore-In-Charge (WIC), which was of course is non gender specific. The non gender specific whores were her henchmen who did her dirty work while she treated me with kindness and respect as she humored me right up to the point of telling the truth about the Battlement Creek Fire.
And what is really, really, neat…is the fact I re-read my “Smoking Gun” document the other day that proves the Battlement Creek Fire Investigative Report was a cover up, and it also proves I came right out of the starting gate advocating to have the true story told during the Staff Ride.
And when you read the Smoking Gun document, please keep in mind that although it is specifically is about the Battlement Creek Fire, it is an proof and therefore an indictment of how corrupt the entire system is because it is run by fire gods who are WIC’s who have corrupt hearts and intent.
Not corrupt intent in the sense they are directly receiving things of value for their systemic corruption and gross mismanagement from outside sources, their unethical pay offs come in the form of promotions and other related benefits that even their retirement in based on, so they are whores until death.
I need to go back through my records and find their names and post them here on this thread as part of the historical record of the people who have blood on their hands from the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Speaking of having bloody hands, I can’t help but wonder if I have blood on my hands as well? Could I have done more to force them to tell the truth, should I have done that instead of resigning from that committee? Am I complicit in the deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots? Of course I am…not only did I resign from that corrupt committee rather than stay and fight, I helped build that entire corrupt system, I was on of those who were “in” as the Woodsman wrote.
Oh…and one more thing. The last meeting I had with BLM State Director, (who is the equivelant of a Regional Forester in the USFS) was regarding how to handle a felony investigation of a mining company operating on your Public Lands that I had been supervising.
So…what did I do after the meeting instead of calling “60 Minutes?” I went out with the Case Agent who was assigned to conduct the investigation and I instructed him to dig a hole. And then together and under my direction, we buried one more body for the BLM.
When I went to work for the BLM, we agreed on what I was, the only thing left for us to negotiate was which specific acts was willing to perform and for how much money.
#Complicit
Except I wasn’t in the situation poor FBI Special Agent Andy McCabe was in and 24 hours from retirement when they got him, I had a,ready reached full retirement age several years earlier, my finish line was artificially imposed by me.
But…when the BLM tried to find mental health professionals to find me unfit for duty, I was several years short of making it to my minimum retirement age and if they would have been successful, I would have been fired because my guns, credentials and Top Secret Security Clearance all would have been permanently taken away from me instead of just during my testing period.
I’m telling you straight up…the BLM has mostly .world class motherfuckers running that sorry agency because like I said, they are political appointees. Although some USFS managers can come close, even though they are career professionals who came up through the ranks. At some point, everyone who goes any higher has to be willing to at least compromise their integrity at least som of the time…am I right Mr. Mike Dudley? 🙂
Yes, Gary, you’re complicit. That’s the bad news. The good news is you are MORE than making up for it by having the brass ones to tell the truth. Hell, I don’t think you even knew the truth until much later when you had the time to really take it all in. If it makes you feel better I wasn’t able to see the truth until recently myself. We get caught up in the system until one day we say to ourselves, ” hey! Wait just a fucking minute! DO WHAT??” I’m as guilty as you are, friend. We are awake now. That’s one of the primary reasons why I’m so pissed off. We’ve been had.
RTS is guilty too. We are responsible. BUT, it’s never too late to make a change. We got this….together. Technology has increased our odds for success.
Now back to my anger management therapy.
THE Woodsman
No…when I started this “journey” more than five years ago, I primarily blamed Darrell Willis and the Prescott Fire Department. Now I understand they are just symptons of the disease, not the disease themselves.
And to quote the comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
I honestly and truly believe that if we can finally admit what was really primarily responsible for the hotshots deaths on the Loop, Battlement Creek and Yarnell Hill Fires, it really will make a huge difference in whether the fourth hotshot disaster ever occurs.
Hotshots will still be killed and seriously hurt on fires due to inherently dangerous circumstances like occurred on the South Canyon Fires and the tragic tree strikes, which sounds like they were certainly preventable deaths.
On a side note, most hotshot sawyers aren’t really professional fallers, especially when falling really big trees under complex conditions. The men who are really trained and experienced to do that highly technical work come as contractors from the logging industry who have thousands of hours of experience and on the job training in falling. Hotshots sawyers get a lot of saw time, but most of isnt actually dropping trees, especially the really big ones.
But like so many other things on this thread, those are side issues. They are very important issues, like “How Big Is Big Enough”, but they aren’t the primary issues here.
Admitting you have a problem…we all know is the first step in correcting that problem. We have a problem….let’s take steps to correct it!
To expand on my statement, it’s not a simple process of placing each other in the appropriate “box” labeled COMPLICIT or NON-COMPLICIT as my words may be interpreted. We are all located somewhere on the spectrum of complicity, from very little to “all in.” It can be logically argued that even ‘civilians’ share complicity in fireline fatalities. When you examine people’s expectations of firefighters in protection of the forest resource and minimizing the impacts to private property, it simply must be considered by any rational human.
Using myself as an example, on July 28, 2002 I was on a crew as a basic firefighter near Happy Camp, CA engaged in the Stanza fire. 3 USFS engine crew members lost their lives when their engine lost traction at the edge of the road and rolled down the mountain. There were many causal factors to this accident. Has it bothered me since that night? You DAMN STRAIGHT it has! Even as an FFT2 (basic) I knew at the time of the hazard of that section of road due to the width, surface, and trouble with traffic on it. Adding smoke and darkness, it’s identified hazards killed three good people because management wasn’t sharp enough to change the way firefighters were using that section of road. BUT, I was a brand new guy, what the heck do I know? Double-BUT, I didn’t speak up other than to my crew boss. I certainly didn’t do everything in my power to stop it and it 100% could have and should have been stopped.
It takes time and experience for firefighters to build the toolbox that allows them to SEE…not merely observe but SEE! Until most gain this, through time spent on the line, we MUST rely on leadership to SEE FOR US and not merely OBSERVE!!!! Not only that, they must speak up about it and change how we are operating in the fire environment in response to the visual factors identified in the changing nature of wildfires.
Too many put their own self interests first as considerations for money, advancement, and to GO ALONG TO GET ALONG. The non-boat rockers possess something or things that are apparently more important than doing the right thing even though it may mean negative consequences personally. I’ve believed for a tragically long period of time that, as a wildfifre community, when it comes to safety: WE TALK THE TALK BUT WE DON’T WALK THE WALK!!! This must change or more will die in the future in similar incidents due to the human factors of sub-standard decision-making under stress.
So what does it take to effect real change in the business of wildland firefighting in the US? Courage and SELFLESSNESS!!! It takes people with their head on straight who have the intestinal fortitude to be able to tell management to shove it, “the people I’m responsible for ARE NOT going to do that!” In other words it takes the individual to first change themselves and others will follow. (thank you Mr. P)
In summary, the claim I made that you, me, RTS, and nearly everyone in this business is complicit in covering up after accidents is a very complicated matter. We should ask each other: “What are we DOING or NOT DOING to make wildland firefighting more likely to be accident free while providing an efficient service to the taxpayers when it comes to wildfires in the US?”
What are you doing to prevent injury/deaths on the fireline? What have you NOT done about it? Why? Give yourself an honest self-assessment. We have become specialists at lying to ourselves! We’ve got that down pat!
If you are responsible for others as a fireline leader, and you have concrete evidence of serial cover-ups by management in nearly every single major fireline accident investigation (and if you don’t by now, you must be brain dead or blinded by indoctrination into the system), what are you going to do about it? How will you go about making sure the people you are responsible for are safe on and off the line?
One more thing: the word “SAFE.” Maybe it has become over-utilized and by default a cliche’. “Let’s be safe out there!” ” Safety first every fire every time!” I propose we change it to PROTECTION of our people. My last sentence above should read:
How will you go about making sure the people you are responsible for are PROTECTED from harm on and off the line?
Woodsman
…And it is a monumental barrier to learning when “management” doesn’t allow firefighters to actually learn from fatality investigations due to the rampant conspiracy to commit fraud by explicit burial of the real causes of fireline deaths by the investigation teams. Incidentally, these investigation teams are always packed full of the types of personnel Gary refers to as fire god or those on the fast-track to fire god status…those who would sell their own grandmother in order to preserve their paycheck, status and retirement funds for the future. Selfish and sick bastards… every last one of them!
Reply to Woodsman post
on April 3, 2018 at 9:07 am
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> It is a monumental barrier to learning when
>> “management” doesn’t allow firefighters to
>> actually learn from fatality investigations
>> due to the rampant conspiracy to commit
>> fraud by explicit burial of the real causes
>> of fireline deaths
Monumental is right.
It’s as if the Airline Pilots Association is the only agency allowed to “investigate” airplane crashes.
As Gary has already pointed out… if that were the case then planes would be falling out of the sky and the only ‘explanation’ the grieving family members would be getting is “Flying is inherently dangerous. Get over it.”
At some point the responsibility for investigating Wildland fireline deaths has to be taken AWAY from the U.S. and State level Forestry agencies.
The argument that “We’re the only ones who understand what we do so we are the only ones qualified to investigate” is, and always has been, total bullshit.
The investigations must be TRULY ‘independent’.
As you and Gary have now both said…
Not just to LOOK… but to truly SEE.
Hallelujah brother! Can I get an amen? AMEN!
Reply to Woodsman post on April 3, 2018 at 8:57 am
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> To expand on my statement… ( snip )
Incredibly well said.
Thank you.
Your welcome. We have become experts at facade construction & replaced potential progress with extreme energy spent in the program of “covering the bases.” That’s why we have a Lessons Learned Center where the real lessons are not shared at all. It’s a sham.
‘Facade’. Good word.
Describes the situation perfectly.
——————————————————–
fa·cade
fəˈsäd/
noun
noun: facade; plural noun: facades; noun: façade; plural noun: façades
An outward appearance that is maintained to conceal a less pleasant or creditable reality.
——————————————————-
Woodsman,
I appreciate your ideas and words. They ring true!!
There is some confusion as to what I think of Eric Marsh. So…just to be clear, I don’t believe Mr. Marsh was a murderer. I do however, firmly believe Mr. Marsh was clearly guilty of 17 counts of manslaughter according to Arizona State law.
I believe that because I can read and comprehend the English language at a competent level. If you can do the same, then either you will agree with me, or you are a person who lives in denial and wants the world to be as you want it to be, rather than how it really is.
Now…both the police and prosecutors have enormous duscreation, we can even say they have complete discretion, as to whether to investigate and subsequently charge a person with any crime or not. But just because a person is never charged with a crime, certainly does not mean they are not guilty of that crime, it just means they are lucky or beyond the reach of the law…like being dead.
I am also a reasonable person, so if anyone can read the following law and explain why Mr. Marsh is not guilty of 17 counts of manslaughter, I would certainly like to read it. Othwise, there is no doubt in my mind, nor should there be any doubt in yours, that the acts of both Mr. Marsh and Jesse Steed leading up to the deaths of their crew clearly and squarely meet the very definition of, “Recklessly causing the death of another person.”
If knowingly and deliberately violating almost all of the rules and guidelines of wildland firefighting safety at the same against repeated warnings isn’t reckless, then I don’t know what reckless is? I didn’t write the law, shooting the messenger won’t change the facts…or the law.
https://www.azleg.gov/ars/13/01103.htm
13-1103. Manslaughter; classification
A. A person commits manslaughter
1. Recklessly causing the death of another person; or
2. Committing second degree murder as prescribed in section 13-1104, subsection A upon a sudden quarrel or heat of passion resulting from adequate provocation by the victim; or
3. Intentionally providing the physical means that another person uses to commit suicide, with the knowledge that the person intends to commit suicide; or
4. Committing second degree murder as prescribed in section 13-1104, subsection A, paragraph 3, while being coerced to do so by the use or threatened immediate use of unlawful deadly physical force upon such person or a third person which a reasonable person in his situation would have been unable to resist; or
5. Knowingly or recklessly causing the death of an unborn child by any physical injury to the mother.
B. An offense under subsection A, paragraph 5 of this section applies to an unborn child in the womb at any stage of its development. A person shall not be prosecuted under subsection A, paragraph 5 of this section if any of the following applies:
1. The person was performing an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or a person authorized by law to act on the pregnant woman’s behalf, has been obtained or for which the consent was implied or authorized by law.
2. The person was performing medical treatment on the pregnant woman or the pregnant woman’s unborn child.
3. The person was the unborn child’s mother.
C. Manslaughter is a class 2 felony.
Oh…and one more thing. The confusion regarding what I think of Eric Marsh is coming straight from Amanda, so I would like to take this opportunity to repeat other things I have also written in the past.
1. If I were with Eric now, I would hug him and we would cry together, but only after I had slapped the bitch (non gender specific) out of him. I have also written that I identify with Eric because I was a deeply flawed hotshot crew boss as well and fought my own demons…just like he did.
2. The data points I can see now and the threads that run between all three hotshot disaster fires, the Loop, the Battlement Creek and the Yarnell Hill Fire clearly reveal to me that Eric was also a victim and hero of that cursed fire, even though he was a deeply flawed hero of a corrupt and grossly mismanaged system.
Although the “Smoking Gun” I am in possession of, is directly related to the Battlement Creek Fire, it is evidence against and an indictment of the entire system led by people like Mike Dudley and Shawna Legarza who have sold their souls for professional advancement at the cost of hotshot lives in the past, as well as those in the future.
I know this because as I have written many times, once is an anomonly (the Loop Fire Of 1966), twice is a coincidence (the Battlement Creek Fire Of 1976) but three times (the Yarnell Hill Fire Of 2013) is a pattern, so it will happen again. It’s only a matter of when…not if.
And if management would have done the right thing after the Loop and Battlement Creek Fires, would the Yarnell Hill Fire have been avoided? I don’t know for sure, but one thing I do know, is that Darrell Willis told me that he was a student of the Battlement Creek Fire and I know Eric and his crew studied past disaster fires that certainly included both the Loop and Battlement Creek Fires.
The only problem with that, is that Darrell and Eric were studying the fake lessons and lies from the Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride because after I told Shawna the truth and what needed to be studied, she thanked me for my interest, but informed she would be following the official accident report anyway. This, even though the two former hotshots, who were also Subject Matter Experts (SME) who had also been on the Battlement Creek Fire with me, told her the very same things I did at the same time.
This was in addition to Dr. Ted Putnam, who was not only an SME on the same staff ride because he had been a sector boss on the Battlement Creek Fire, he had been part of the Battlement Creek Fire Serious Accident Investigation Team (although it went by a different name) and he knew the report had been a cover up full of lies and he told Shawn’s Legarza the very same things we did, but she ignored him as well.
Like I said, I don’t know how much of a difference it would have made if the true lessons from the Battlement Creek Fire would have been learned, but if those lessons had been studied together with the true lessons that could have been learned from the Loop Fire instead of their lies…maybe the Yarnell Hill Fire would just be one more successfully fought and forgotten wildfire? Whatever those odds would have been…I would have gratefully taken them, wouldn’t you have done the same?
So…I’m sorry Amanda, but this isn’t about the dead hotshots of the past, it’s about the living Hotshots of the future. If you want to help, please let me know and we can work together to save the lives of all of the wildland firefighters of today and tomorrow, not just our beloved hotshots.
I can write a novel reply Gary yet all I am going to state to the world is when you ask for foias or public records…YOU FOLKS who contacted these entities tied to a govt email or cell (TEXTS) thinking it was private (THINK AGAIN-) may you been an investigator or a grieving loved one or whomever you are—- thank you because your personal or govt cell that called or texted these folks showed me who is who in this and I can confirm Gary if you gained such data boy you would have a field day on that- RTS too and as well a few others…Sad screwy world we live in when this site is labelled as the lead component for their current problems when there is no other area where you can freely share. Sad huh. I mean you can freely share at the local bars…I am sorry Rocksteady and Diane are not able to post…
CALLING JOHN DOUGHERTY…new chapter please! We know you visited recently John—
http://www.investigativemedia.com/trumps-former-attorney-john-dowd-petitioned-clinton-to-pardon-former-arizona-governor/
Everyone should be able to post. I don’t think it is the size of the chapter, I think it is the anti spam thing a ma jig, you just need to be patient, save your work and then hit he back arrow, and then the forward arrow, once or twice, back and forth, you might even have to close all of the way out and log in again, but if your work is saved, it doesn’t matter, it just takes some time. It is a pain in the ass, but hey…we get to post here and share our thoughts with the world! So…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470716
Happy Anniversary Diane Lomas
Have you learned much else in the past year except maybe the site can make one a little stir crazy at times…
Gary, the Heckler & Koch 27 is not a battle rifle and does not have the punch or the distance. It just takes the place of the M-249 but it is lighter. Basically a heavy barreled M-4 with a piston driven bolt.
I would marry my Grendel if it was allowed…6.5 Grendel would still be alot better than 5.56
the .300 blackout is useless after 300 yard Gary- it drops like a rock
Gary said God Bless America and Our Troops! Somebodies children are dying and suffering life long injuries, including PTSD for the rest of us.
THAT ALSO CAN BE STATED FOR THE FIRE INDUSTRY NOT JUST THE TROOPS GARY
Gary, we were right to be there at Vietnam but the Generals should of fought the war not the politicians—oh and again much like the fire industry…war then would of been over in 2 years…
this is a broken promise me being here but I am not talking fire data and the end of that talk did not go to a healing as I had wished for so I am here but not for fire stuff just the love of educating on guns since Gary is well rounded in his view I like to always put a twist on it but not late at night; at dinner time (wink) (NUMBA 10 please),
I love talking guns and politics and numismatics.
Yes…but in Arizona you couldn’t marry your Grendel unless it is a male Grendel.
And I guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree on our particular choice of firearms, but I do respect your opinion, especially since you are…you know…a chick. :). But I am going to have to take a hard look at the .300 Blackout ballistics. I will admit…I didn’t do that.
Actually, I misstated what I said about Vietnam. I am sure we didn’t belong there, but I think I did (paraphrased from “Full Metal Jacket”).
I am pretty good at compartmentaling things and I can put the morality of that war and many of our other wars of choice in one box and the courage and valor of those who fought them in another box.
That is one way I survived working for the federal govt. for 30 years in the jobs I had, I could compartmentalized “things.” These shitbags like Mike Dudley have to be pretty good at it to or they couldn’t look at themselves in the mirror.
The Vets taught me how to do that in the aftermath of the Battlement Creek Fire. We didn’t miss a beat and joked about WF who got burned over as being “ Crispy Critters”; which was another Vietnam term I think.
They didn’t need to take us out of rotation for the rest of the entire fuckin’ season. It cost us a lot of lost fire money and we weren’t living in that barracks and showering in a communal shower because we liked each other. Wildland firefighting is first and foremost about making extra money, overtime, hazard pay, double time on holidays in addition to nighttime and Sunday differential, etc. no tree huggers need apply. The only good tree is on the back of a logging truck and sometimes you have to burn down the forest in order to save it.
Joy,
I have been thinking about it and I don’t think I have to check the ballistics on the .300 Blackout because I don’t think it matters if it drops like a rock at 300 yards, we are talking about a battle rifle…not a sniper rifle. And I think in both LE and with the military, those are considered to be effective out to only about 100 yards. I guess after that, you could use Kentucky windage?
As far as the HK 27, it’s advantage is that it is built around a completely different operating system and keeping the M4 and it’s ariations clean enough to operate without jamming has been an issue from day one in Vietnam.
Not for LE and most sport shooters because I think it takes thousands of rounds to start causing problems and I think they see something like one malfunction every 600 or 700 rounds and LE just doesn’t shoot them that much, I guess the military does?
In any case, the HK 27 eliminates the entire issue, as do the Sig Sauer assault rifles with the new and improved operating systems, so I want one (HK 27) and in a .556 because like I said before, a heavier bullet is academic to me because our culture is built around the cheaper NATO round.
And you know when the Zombie Apocalypse comes and we have to raid the National Guard Armories in order to survive, we are going to want to be able to shoot NATO rounds, so…
Hey Joy,
What do you think of the HK MP5? I hated it because it definitely wasn’t a battle rifle, so I switched to an HK 53.
But even though we have MP 5’s in this realistic training video, we also have some bitchin’ Hueys with some great sound effects from those big beautiful and magnificent machines, but it also comes with a really bitchin’ sound track personally selected by me. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56Zs9BKHpP8
Hey Gary- when I was younger I knew HOW MANY RBIs and TDs completed and I even tried to keep up with all the guys who counted all the tail fins and the hood ornaments back to the 40’s…but who’s dating me that far back…the bottom line “who gives a shit”…I know nowadays not many do…back to joining your boat you sailed on…have a good night. I know mine won’t be so swell yet it is the right thing to do…so if there is any of you out there debating if you should just keep the YHF data details to yourself please remember sharing is the right thing to do…what I am about to share to someone tonight will shift my life forever but it’s the right thing to do…so yeah Gary sorry but not a solid phase in my life to be cutting it up with you. I am in prayer mode. God Bless-
It’s okay, I already know what you think of a gun that can’t drop a man like a rock at 300 yards and beyond, it ain’t worth having. And I agree with you, So…
What do I think
of the 1960s technology- MP5?!?!
It was good for swat teams and anti terrorism units but was never designed to be a battle rifle.
I’m glad you switched to the short barrel 5.56…less over penetration…with the right ammo 😉
Great video sir
I like the old army helicopters…the hueys…
I still enjoy the ride it like you stole it one…or take the wheel one….
you know for us folks who others claim as “crazy” or “not right”…in all reality there has to be something said because we are at least raw and pure and say it as we see it may it not always be the proper way to express…yet what is the proper ways nowadays…I know Gary you are thinking hmmm… “AI”…aka WTKTT ;)…he is all proper…so proper one has to think if we are on the set of the Wizard of Oz…who stands behind that curtain, eh? 😉
I just spent a good hour earlier being very pure on a topic I thought was going to lead to a shift yet I walk away scratching my head…like a chimpanzee Gary. I think I even scratched under my arm pit. I do not want to keep this up- trying to do no more late night pop-ons but wanted to thumbs up the aerial shot videos—wonder what Rocksteady thought of it…He had to love it…
Wow…you really do know guns and stuff about them!
Particularly, when statistics are involved right Gary—the determination of what constitutes a credible fact (and what does not) can contain elements of personal subjectivity. Isn’t it our mission to minimize subjective information and to provide highly factual content or is that just wtktt’s area. Therefore- I just got notified you were writing my name on IM so I ended up over here but I was not even reading here lately…been training…I recently Gary attended ARIZONA WILDFIRE ACADEMY and I am now a long term student of fire—what’s your views on that…(do not answer rocksteady…or you Norb…or you RTS…) I just wonder what Gary thinks because the last I knew you called me what on my 40 day fast and I am still here…I lost more weight this week then I did on the 40 day fast being treated for strep A with antibiotics even though it came back zero and I did come back + with tonsillitis and pharyngitis- ugh so on their dang meds…
leave you with some trivia:
“American Sniper” Chris Kyle’s longest confirmed kill, at 1.2 miles, was made using this rifle?
SINCE IT IS SO LATE I WILL GIVE YOU
A B C D CHOICES -OK….
a. Mk-12 5.56mm
b. .338-caliber Lapua
c. .50-caliber Accuracy International AS50
d. L42A1 Enfield 7.62mm
if you guessed “B”…then try this one on for size….Tommy Gun”, the M1 Thompson shoots what bullet?
.45 acp
AK-47 shoots what bullet?
Actually when the AK-47 was being tested in the mid 1940s the bullet shells were so top secret that after firing they were collected and reloaded or destroyed.
where were you Gary when you “first saw” your first desert eagle and could a .44 mag be chambered in one?
I was in Chandler Arizona when one of the Phoenix Suns Player was taking me to my doctor appt then we chilled by pool side and as I went up their spiral stairs where all the awards laid and the pool table was on 2nd level he showed me his collection and I thought “hell no” I’m not gonna touch another man’s weapon I hardly know…right 😉 Man, thank God I did not…tell you why in person…but I did like seeing that toilet spray water up at his place…that was another first to my life…I learned what a bidet was that day…
Life is surely funny
Happy Easter World
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftomfernandez28.files.wordpress.com%2F2013%2F12%2Fscreen-shot-2013-12-23-at-6-13-01-pm.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Ftomfernandez28.com%2F2013%2F12%2F24%2Fdear-god-where-did-we-go-wrong%2F&docid=qVHduOV5xPBUYM&tbnid=CLt_qoFnrnZZAM%3A&vet=12ahUKEwjet_WdypjaAhUJ2GMKHWiMA6E4ZBAzKB0wHXoECAAQHg..i&w=2014&h=988&bih=760&biw=1536&q=god%20created%20man%20sam%20colt%20made%20them%20equal&ved=2ahUKEwjet_WdypjaAhUJ2GMKHWiMA6E4ZBAzKB0wHXoECAAQHg&iact=mrc&uact=8
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.spreadshirtmedia.com%2Fimage-server%2Fv1%2Fmp%2Fcompositions%2FP1012440574T812A231MPC1020611413PA1663PT17X19Y34D1008449835S59%2Fviews%2F1%2Cwidth%3D1200%2Cheight%3D630%2CappearanceId%3D231%2CbackgroundColor%3DE8E8E8%2Cversion%3D1515071979%2Fgod-made-man-samuel-colt-made-em-equal-men-s-premium-t-shirt.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.spreadshirt.com%2Fgod%2Bmade%2Bman%2Bsamuel%2Bcolt%2Bmade%2Bem%2Bequal-A105671288&docid=keIwt2AXapOq0M&tbnid=sMoE2xPnOmycmM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiM34OyypjaAhVI2GMKHX0DDYMQMwhnKDUwNQ..i&w=1200&h=630&bih=760&biw=1536&q=god%20created%20man%20sam%20colt%20made%20them%20equal%20sam%20colt&ved=0ahUKEwiM34OyypjaAhVI2GMKHX0DDYMQMwhnKDUwNQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
SNAP
Happy April Fool’s Day too
Okay…okay…okay, Joy, you know more about guns and calibers, ballistics and gun trivia than anyone I have ever known and wayyyy more than me. And that bothers me…just a little bit. Say…when is the last time you had a psychological examination and passed it?
I had two of them in the late 90’s because there were some managers in the BLM who questioned my psychological fitness for duty. But I aced both of them and then I was the only person I knew that had not one…but two certifications I was mentally squared away and I think I was wayyyy more sane than most of the BLM Ring Masters who ran that fuckin’ CIRCUS!
And even though I am working on my MOAP that will show just how bad USFS managers were, even FIRE managers, (I mean…how do you think I came up with the title for my book anyway? I didn’t pull, “Betrayed By Our Fire God’s” out of thin air) all of them were bush league compared to the Major League players who ran the BLM.
And if you want to know why (of course you do) all, or almost all the top managers in the USFS are career employees, all, or almost all top managers in the BLM are political appointees and most of them come straight from the industries they are supposed to be regulating while they give away the candy store…your candy store.
And that included both Republican and Democratic administrations although the Republican ones were wayyyy worse. I worked under the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush Fuck Up administrations, so I know.
I shudder to think what it is like now under the Spawn Of Satan’ Adminisration. It has to be like drunken school children raiding the candy store with Pukaski’s.
But hey…elections have consequences and barring a thermo nuclear war, our country will survive and somebody will be there to pick up the pieces. I’m just glad I won’t be one of them this time.
I mean…you can disagree with me all you want about politics, as most of you fire dogs do, but there isn’t any doubt the Democrats are better for land management agencies and the enviroment than Republicans. But if that isn’t your hot button issue…that’s cool with me, I don’t like electric cars anyway.
True story. When I went to the Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride, I said I would only go if they would also send both of my two old friends who had been on the Battlement Creek Fire with me. Those other bastards on the committee were being pretty nasty to me and I wanted some back up, so they agreed to my demand. Both of them were still USFS employees, one in Alaska and one in Montana so it was easy for them to do…expensive, but easy.
Anyway, one of them was my old sawyer partner (he ran first saw and I ran the number two saw, in other words…he was THE crew sawyer) who had been jumpin’ out of Missoula since he left the crew 30 years earlier.
Wow…this is a long story with very little pay off, but here we go. When we went the first day to go meet Shawna Legarza for lunch so she could tell us she was going to sell out the WF as a management hack and we walked out to the parking lot where my car was parked, which was a Honda Accord Hybrid (I never made that mistake again) he stopped short…spread out his arms and exclaimed in dismay, “Where do you put your FIREWOOD!”
Notice how I did that, complimented Joy and then immediately pivoted to fuck with BLM managers, USFS managers, politicians in general and Republicans in particular and nailed Shawn’s yet again for selling her soul to get to the top of the USFS FIRE program.
Athough she did make it all of the way to the top, which is pretty damn impressive for an ex hotshot crew boss And I did all of that while spinning a yarn as cover. I love being an old guy…except for the old part.
Oh…and brag about myself yet again. Although I’m not sure bragging that I got sent in for two Fitness For Duty psychological examinations is something MOST people would brag about?
Those BLM managers thought I must be crazy to fuck with them as much as I did. But nope…I was a SANE person just trying to cope while working inside an INSANE agency. It really was a good thing I knew where so many bodies were buried (because I had buried most of them or at least dug the holes) or I never would have made it to the finish line. 🙂
Oh…those BLM managers didn’t like the results of the first tests..so the bastards sent me in for another set of tests with another whole different set of both psychologists and psychiatrist doctors in a different state.
Those BLM managers were some real motherfuckers…but hey, it’s all behind me now!
And you can tell I never even think about more than in the morning, the afternoon and always at night. Talk about PTSD…I have PTSD just from trying to be a good employee in a really bad agency.
Okay…I’m on a roll. The very first “one on one” meeting I went to with a BLM State Director just a few short months after I went to work for them as a Special Agent. I went in…sat there for a few minutes while he kept writing
Finally he looked up and said, “Gary…….long pregnant pause, you do good work but…..another really long pregnant pause…you leave too many bodies on the trail.”
And then he went back to writing and I finally got up and walked out of his big corner office.
The very last meeting I went to with a BLM State Director (and the entire state management team including the Associate State Director) when the meeting was over and everyone was starting to pick up their notebooks etc., the Associate State Director looked at me and said, “What are you going to do now Gary…call 60 Minutes?”
And I was so proud of myself…I replied without missing a beat, “No Carl…I know how the game is played.”
I didn’t think that hill was worth risking dying on yet again… mostly because I was so close to the finish line.
Oh…and one more thing. It’s no wonder I went to the epicanthic border to work as much as I could.
The people I met there were a lot better class of people than I met in BLM Management Team meetings.
Those managers were some real motherfuckers, whoops, starting to repeat myself…again. I love being an old man…except for the old part.
Epicanthic…what the fuck does that even mean Apple Automatic Spell Correct?
“MEXICAN Border”
Whoops…I should have written that everyone on the Battlement Creek Fire Staff Ride Developement Committee were nasty to me except for the Chairperson of that committee, the San Juan Hotshot Crew Boss Shawna Legarza.
Shawna treated me with kindness and respect and humored me as much as she possibly could, right up to the point of telling the truth about what really happened on the Battlement Creek Fire.
The rest of the committee were all, or almost all, ex hotshot crew bosses who were in certified fire god level jobs at that point in their careers with grand titles.
Talk about about some really big egos, that bunch made me look as humble as Fred…almost. Their only problem was I had been beaten like a rented mule by some top shelf BLM managers who were some real motherfuckers for the previous 18 years, so none of those little bitches (non gender specific) intimidated or impressed me.
And needless to say, they didn’t think I belonged there and although their yapping and whining didn’t intimidate me, it did irritate me and since I was retiring, I was wayyyy over being irritated by a bunch of little bitches (non gender specific) so I resigned from Shawna’s committee.
I was really surprised that a lowly hotshot crew boss was ramrod for that bunch of ego driven arrogant bastards full of hubris, until I figured out Shawna had been identified for greatness wayyyyy early in her career.
And after I met her I understood why. Shawna was highly educated, intelligent, motivated, driven and squared away. And most of all, she was a really nice person who was politically savvy and very smooth. I could see why she was going far….and I’ll be damned, I was right. But just to be clear, being a woman certainly didn’t hurt her, but she had all of the boxes checked to get were she is at.
So….do I feel like a no good rat snitch bastard for doing what I am doing? Nope…like I have written many times. I’m not here to make friends or expand my Christmas Card List. If you can’t do the time…don’t do the crime.
And now it’s my turn…I control what I write here and elsewhere. Pay back is a real BITCH, (non gender specific).
Oh…and one more thing, I am very well aware that very few of you if any, are particularly interested in what happened on the Battlement Creek Fire or the Loop Fire.
You are interested in what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire as I am. BUT…here is where my connecting data points and common threads between all of those fires come in.
IF…the truth would have been told about the Loop Fire and IF…the truth would have been told about the Battlement Crrek Fire, then maybe…just maybe, however small the chance would have been, maybe the Yarnell Hill Hill Fire would just be one more forgotten fire by now, you know…except for those people directly impacted by it like the residents of Yarnell etc.
Have you noticed I quit throwing rocks at the Prescott Fire Department years ago? And have now quit bitchin’ about Hybrid Firefighters (I leave that task to the Woodsman) I can see clearly now what the real problem is.
And it isn’t the Prescott Fire Department or Hybrid Fitefighters, it is a systemic failure and a refusal by the entire fuckin’ wildland firefighting complex to be honest with themselves or anyone else.
Like I have written several times…thank God the National Trasportation Safety Board isn’t like them or none of us would be any safer now traveling by air or common carrier than we were when the NTSB was first formed.
Gary,
I am so glad that you are retired and can be candid in your remarks.
I am learning from your remarks about the BLM and the fire system.
Hi Diane,
Thanks and welcome back.
TO REPLY ON THESE:
Gary Olson says
MARCH 30, 2018 AT 11:11 AM
Wow…you really do know guns and stuff about them
————————
Gary Olson says
APRIL 1, 2018 AT 1:18 PM
Okay…okay…okay, Joy, you know more about guns and calibers, ballistics and gun trivia than anyone I have ever known and wayyyy more than me. And that bothers me…just a little bit. Say…when is the last time you had a psychological examination and passed it?….Notice how I did that, complimented Joy and then immediately pivoted to fuck with BLM managers, USFS managers, politicians in general and Republicans in particular and nailed Shawn’s yet again for selling her soul to get to the top of the USFS FIRE program.
——————————
JOY’S REPLY:
I will appease your distraction techniques Gary….
and reply below-
yet we do know most skim you and me when they come here when we talk this stuff because they figure
there they go again those two
so let’s think of something good this time around…got anything?
I don’t.
Happy April Fool’s Day
and
Happy Easter!
Very apropos that this would come up on Easter Sunday Gary about “crazy”
They also thought Jesus was crazy
to the point that they were willing to crucify him for speaking the Truth.
And even in their ignorance Jesus still said forgive them for they know not what they do.
I look at it this way Gary…look at how many truly celebrate Easter for its pure definitions versus the commercial end of it…
have you ever went to church and saw Mr. Norton snoring away during a sermon?
is it the modus operandi and that it is very routine? uninteresting? Is the Holy Spirit not in that sanctuary or is it so much so it puts you so relaxed you nod off? How does one get the requisite skills of passing the message to us the people from Above and how many get the best messages while asleep? Does it have to always happen in a church? One man who is older than the mountain said he thought it was his weekly nap hour and would awake ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’
I love politics and I love talking religion…
I do not get scared away
like one side of my family trained me to be a lover to the government and the Govt’ wants and needs for me- that never happened Gary— I am free as they come and I do not see that changing…that is where I do not see me yet fitting in to your certain parts to the industry
now my new industry too as a student to fire…I might have to earn my way through and not be able to ride the gravy promotion trains—
I am not a bacteria egg as one named their brother recently and I am not a trashy bunch of lizard shit either- She is getting up in her age and high up in the Mormon church but she sure has a way with words…but most people of Faith do 😉
back to the guns because all this other talk is making me sad I do not have a place to worship Him just in my heart…sooooooo
the .300 blackout is not a new cartridge
It came out in the late 80s and was designed to shoot with a sound suppressor and was called the .300 whisper and designed for hunting up to 200 yards quietly and why it was called whisperer and never meant to be a war fighting battle cartridge for wild boars and such. Its fat and slow…like me. They do load it faster but it still performs worse than a 7.62 x39 AK bullet
AK round is still better
As for the grendel and why I would marry it over man …the most distance and energy out of a standard AR. Most bang. Meaning power Gary. The grendel would never leave my side and makes me feel equal.
You have the right to keep and arm bears Gary….I mean bear arms…or is it bare arms?
https://www.google.com/search?q=you+have+the+right+to+bare+arms&rlz=1C1SNNT_enUS599US599&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj81OLtu5raAhUOEHwKHTzxAJcQ_AUICigB&biw=1536&bih=760#imgrc=R1apWU3snhc89M:
I have a hard time with comprehension one of my flaws I must say. I look forward to be a long term student of fire and good thing I have poor comprehension I will fit in just perfect with the party 😉
The delayed roller block action of the HK was originally in the mg42…Hitler’s zipper so I was hoping Gary you would say I did not know ENOUGH about guns but you didn’t but in 1960s HK got the design from CETME in Spain for the HK 91 and then they made a smaller for the MP5.
Funny how a German company would pay a Spanish company for a German design. ?????
I had a psychological test almost 2 years into my trails with Sonny and they said I was a-ok and sharp and both licensed counselors are dear to me today on a personal level- we talk and hike and do medical massages together and always been great visits. I was being qualified to do contracted work and also passed those tests to help criminally minded mentally challenged folks learn the tools to lead a productive life vs homeless or gained more independence for the people struggling just to be a part to this modern life. I have taken a almost 60 year old Native American Lady who had a lobotomy and I was told to feed her pureed foods and I must feed her because she was unable to feed herself but I was able with no talk speak with her and in a much cave woman mannerisms by example showed her she can do it on her own. Same lady was in wheel chair and after a few months she was walking 3 miles the 7 day shift every other week that I worked and you saw how proud she was in how she stood and smiled. Sometimes some of us need that specialized time and attention to grow in life….
So yeah never be afraid of me Gary because I am God’s and I know and practice safety always even ask fire chief Pete Anderson…safety first with me always…and I am so glad Norb you got to meet Pete very much so—because human factors and safety will always be my platform on the aftermath of the YHF and many fires.
Good night. Rough 2 hours so nap time.
NEW CHAPTER PLEASE…
I have to hear Diane and Norb and Rocksteady, John.
please
also always write your comment than come here and copy and paste because the longer on page writing the better chance the captcha locks up
oh and Gary remember…yep… remember eyes and ears right here— are not working so well but well enough to know and feel truths…get your foia and public records or privacy act records today and include the names who you feel need to be included- I did the ones who did me harm to see where they laid in this all— I have to state some are just in a grieving process and that includes FFs and every day folks not just the ones affected by 6-30-13 directly…
Gee whiz, I already unconditionally surrendered, you win already!
Oh…and it goes without saying that now IF the truth is told about the Loop, Battlement Creek and Yarnell Hill Fires, maybe…just maybe…however small the chance may be…the next hotshot disaster fire will never happen?
This is because the fact is, none of those fires were the primary cause of the deaths of any of the El Cariso, Mormon Lake or Granite Mountain Hotshots. Their leaders were the primary cause of those deaths…that’s the truth.Oh…and one more thing, I am very well aware that very few of you if any, are particularly interested in what happened on the Battlement Creek Fire or the Loop Fire.
You are interested in what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire as I am. BUT…here is where my connecting data points and common threads between all of those fires come in.
IF…the truth would have been told about the Loop Fire and IF…the truth would have been told about the Battlement Crrek Fire, then maybe…just maybe, however small the chance would have been, maybe the Yarnell Hill Hill Fire would just be one more forgotten fire by now, you know…except for those people directly impacted by it like the residents of Yarnell etc.
Have you noticed I quit throwing rocks at the Prescott Fire Department years ago? And have now quit bitchin’ about Hybrid Firefighters (I leave that task to the Woodsman) I can see clearly now what the real problem is.
And it isn’t the Prescott Fire Department or Hybrid Fitefighters, it is a systemic failure and a refusal by the entire fuckin’ wildland firefighting complex to be honest with themselves or anyone else.
Like I have written several times…thank God the National Trasportation Safety Board isn’t like them or none of us would be any safer now traveling by air or common carrier than we were when the NTSB was first formed.
Double whoops.
On March 26, 2018 at 12:29 pm, Gary Olson said…
——————————————————————————————————-
As I have written before, I am a student of the Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon and the Yarnell Hill Fires. All of course are the wildfires that killed Hotshots with flames, as opposed to random accidental deaths.
I am researching and writing about the data points all of these fires have in common and the threads that run through all of them. These common data points and threads meet the very definition of George Santayana’s famous quote.
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana
I hope to use my research and writing to beat “them” like the low down dirty dogs they are. These fire gods are now epitomized by my old friend…Shawna Legarza.
————————————————————————————————————
On March 26, 2018 at 6:57 pm, Woodsman said…
———————————————————————————————————–
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
———————————————————————————————————–
On March 28, 2018 at 11:20 am, Gary Olson also said…
( Regarding the similarities between the fatalities at the Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon and the Yarnell Hill Fires )…
———————————————————————————————————–
The system flaws were revealed for most to look at, very but few to see, which probably resulted in no changes and every since then we have just been lucky which will continue until the next time it happens.
————————————————————————————————————
“The system flaws were revealed for most to look at, very but few to see.”
And that is why so many have worked so hard ( for so long ) even just on this particular forum.
Not just to LOOK ( at every possible detail )… but to truly SEE… and genuinely increase the chances of saving the lives that have yet to be extinguished.
Carry on.
I’m impressed. I thought that was a “sleeper line” that would go unnoticed. And of course I was taking a shot at many, or maybe even most of “them”, but clearly I intended to exclude those who participate here on this thread.
I believe this impromptu crowd sourcing social investigation, review and analysis of the Yarnell Hill Fire is truly the first wildfire disaster investigation in the history that an honest alternative to what is the standard cover up and fairy tale that has always been the product of corrupt and mismanaged agency hacks with the heroic exception on Dr. Ted Putnam, who until now has been the one light in the darkness of deception, obfuscation, and obstruction systemically practiced by the agencies to cover up the true primary, secondary and causal factors in literally every serious accident wildfire investigation to date in order to protect those agencies and the civil servants running them and the careers of those who were directly responsible for the mismanagement, malfesonce, and incompetence with a conspiracy of lies, deception and half truths.
All of this while they were in reality committing very serious felony violations of federal law, one in particular everyone who watches the news should be very familiar with by now thanks to the Adminisrarion of President Trump. And that is 18 USC 1001 and not only sent Martha Stewart to federal prison for years, but may in the end bring down this current Presidency. I am not advocating or saying I want that to happen because I think there is at least some risk of serious civil disturbances and some level of civil war which will result in good people being killed on both sides…my people.
In other words, I am trying to emphasize this law, 18 USC 1001 isn’t an obscure and little known, understood or used federal statute. It is a workhorse and is used on a regular basis by all federal agents, not just those in the FBI.
I used this law all of the time in my previous life to help hold people accountable for their actions and enforce the rule of law that is currently being ignored and flaunted by SERIOUS ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION TEAMS on a regular basis in order to generate false and misleading SERIOUS ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION REPORTS AND CIVER UPS!
And guess what? Several experts have agreeed with me, my “Smoking Gun” from the Battlement Creek Fire Investigation is indeed a Smoking Gun, that now can’t be oversold because it is what it is.
And what it is, is a classic example of how the corrupt and mismanaged wildland firefighting agencies, specifically the U.S. Forest Service in this particular case, has been violating 18 USC 1001 among other federal statutes for decades now.
It is finally time for a little expose, which of course is well beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution, but hopefully the next one won’t be. And just as a little reminder, you need to be aware that federal law views the OMMISSION of facts…exactly like it views LIES pertaining to those same facts. STOP IT! AND DON’T DO IT ANYMORE! We the People, will be watching…YOU PEOPLE.
GOD BLESS AMERICA!
U.S. Code › Title 18 › Part I › Chapter 47 › § 1001
18 U.S. Code § 1001 – Statements or entries generally
US Code
Notes
Authorities (CFR)
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this section, whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully—
(1) falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact;
(2) makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or
(3) makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both. If the matter relates to an offense under chapter 109A, 109B, 110, or 117, or section 1591, then the term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be not more than 8 years.
(b) Subsection (a) does not apply to a party to a judicial proceeding, or that party’s counsel, for statements, representations, writings or documents submitted by such party or counsel to a judge or magistrate in that proceeding.
(c) With respect to any matter within the jurisdiction of the legislative branch, subsection (a) shall apply only to—
(1) administrative matters, including a claim for payment, a matter related to the procurement of property or services, personnel or employment practices, or support services, or a document required by law, rule, or regulation to be submitted to the Congress or any office or officer within the legislative branch; or
(2) any investigation or review, conducted pursuant to the authority of any committee, subcommittee, commission or office of the Congress, consistent with applicable rules of the House or Senate.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 749; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(L), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147; Pub. L. 104–292, § 2, Oct. 11, 1996, 110 Stat. 3459; Pub. L. 108–458, title VI, § 6703(a), Dec. 17, 2004, 118 Stat. 3766; Pub. L. 109–248, title I, § 141(c), July 27, 2006, 120 Stat. 603.)
Good stuff Gary,
Here is a link for Leadership and Biographical information on Dr. Putnam.
https://www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/leaders_meet/interviews/leaders_TedPutnam.html
I will follow up at another time with his article titled: “Accidents, accident guides, stories and the truth.”
This amazing paper is published in the Proceedings of 11th International Wildland Fire Safety Summit, April 4-8, 2011, Missoula, Montana, USA; Published by the International Association of Wildland Fire, Missoula, Montana, USA
Right on, need that for my book. Thanks
Gary,
I emailed you a copy
Need a new chapter… can’t post
Here is one of the main issues with the business of wildland firefighting in the United States: it’s an exclusive club. You’re in or you’re out. I’m lookin at you Todd fucking Abel, you wannabe wildfire guru battalion chief motherfucker. There’s two kinds of firefighters in the wildland arena: those who have progressed through the system the right way & those who have ‘fast-tracked’ bypassing the accepted advancement practices & poof! Big-time qualifications overnight. I’m lookin at YOU, Darryl Willis.
The life or death situation on the firelines of America manifests itself when those working on the fire don’t actually know which class their leaders come from either through ignorance or voluntary cognitive dissonance. So let me ask you: who is your supervisor & more importantly, how did they get there? Recognition of the answer to this question and hedging accordingly in your daily risk analysis JUST MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE!
Nothing can be taken for granted or assumed in the business of wildland firefighting. The sooner you accept this reality, the more likely you & those around will have an accident free successful mission. So, let’s THINK out there, people. It’s not rocket science!
The Woodsman
Lesson #2
The pervasive national Let It Burn Unofficial Official Policy
The powers that be want it all to burn. At first glance one may believe this ideology is in reaction to a hundred year philosophy of maximum fire exclusion from the landscape… but it’s actually more than that, way more. The people behind the curtain pulling the strings as it were WANT IT ALL TO BURN. Why, you ask? Because it’s good for fuel reduction therefore lessening the impacts from wildfires that are likely to occur? Well, yes but it’s more than that. It is believed by some of those in power that humans are a blight to the planet, fire is a natural part of the ecology of the land, and by default it NEEDS to burn for the cleansing of mother earth. Oops, I almost forgot: just as the enormity of the military/industrial complex was identified years ago our society has entrenched another similar phenomenon: the wildfire/industrial complex. Big fires pay, big time. So how about it residents of Curry county, Oregon? How about you, Gatlinburg? Ever wonder why it took the Park Service 3 freaking days to actually attempt to extinguish a small fire in the rocks? Now you know why.
THE Woodsman
.,.and if your home or your subdivision is in the way, TOO BAD, you shouldn’t have lived there anyway. You should live in a planned development with government water & sewer service. Mother Earth is more important than pesky human life. That’s the truth. You will not hear the truth, however. You will hear excuse after excuse. Failing to engage in aggressive initial attack in the name of firefighter safety is a common excuse. The old-timers know Exactly what I’m talking about. That’s what public information officers are used for: lying to the public in order to cover up the honest truth of what’s really being considered by fire managers in order to ‘contain’ a wildfire. FIRE USE, baby! Look it up.
Woodsman
And speaking of fire managers placing the needs of ‘the resource’ ahead of human life, I have a story to share. Before I continue, let me first say that I’ve reached the limits of my tolerance to keep my mouth shut in order to play along with the charade.
Look here, leaders of wildfire across the land, I’ve given you upwards of 6 MONTHS to give us a factual report on the 2, count them 2!, tree strike fatalies in Montana last July & August. That’s right 2 fatality by tree strike on the same forest 2 weeks apart.
#1 The condition of the Lolo & Beaverhead-Deerlodge national forests was shocking! Square mile after square mile of dead lodgepole, a true mess unlike I’ve ever witnessed before in 20 years of service. It’s my understanding that active forest management including tree harvesting & thinning has all but been eliminated from consideration due to special interest groups and subsequent litigation preventing stand thinning and other silvicultural practices from occurring. Thus the public forests are miles of standing & down timber ripe for burning when lightning strikes. What a shameful piece of ground!
I’ve carried this with me for over 6 months: I received an unsolicited in person first hand account of the events surrounding the death of hotshot Witham on the Lolo Peak fire. Fireline leaders opted for use of mechanized equipment for dead tree snag removal in the fireline construction area but were OVERRULED by forest personnel, their objection being it was in an area classified as PROPOSED WILDERNESS AREA. (It wasnt true designated wilderness yet) That’s right, no machinery allowed! Out came the mechanized tree harvester and in went the hotshots (hand crew.) On the first shift Mr. Witham was killed by a tree strike. In summary, I have one question for my readers: are fire managers putting the resource ahead of human life? My answer is YES, they are.
RIP, Brent Witham, you deserved better leadership across the board. Also, deepest prayers for the feller-buncher operator who related his personal account of the true happenings of that day to me. It’s not your fault!
Trenton Johnson of Grayback forestry type 2 crew was the victim of the tree strike fatality 2 weeks prior to this event on the same forest. While I have no first hand knowledge of the circumstances in his death, I wonder what if any unnecessary risks were taken due to consideration of the resource needs in comparison to the preservation of human life.
Woodsman
One can easily check behind my words if you don’t believe me. It’s written in black and white all over wildfire documents. Just go to the lessons learned center. There is an 11 min 26 sec video entitled ” Every Fire is an Opportunity to Treat a Landscape. ” This mentality has absolutely infected the management of wildfires in the United States today.
…….and everyone knows you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet, right? The civilians who lost their lives in Gatlinburg were the eggs. Afterall , every fire is an opportunity to treat a landscape. Read the management plan for GSM national park – reintroduce fire to the landscape as much as possible.
Dear Woodsman;
Whoa now…where did that come from.? What did I miss? In any case, you have certainly given me a lot to think about just after I finished watching the Stormy Daniels interview on “60 Minutes.” She is the gift that just keeps on giving!
And in return…here is what I have been thinking about today in the hope that it might give any WF who are still checking this thread something to think about while they are waiting for my much anticipated and highly acclaimed (at least conceptually) tome to be finished and published.
“I have been thinking a lot today about somebody in the USFS “authorizing” the El Cariso Hotshots and only them, to wear berets…black berets. I think that is really weird and the perfect metaphor or symbol for my theory that “Hubris is the number one killer of Hotshots.”
I mean…WTF, black berets? I knew that airborne units of the US Army are authorized to wear maroon berets and that Special Forces are authorized to wear green berets, like everyone else knows, but I was a little fuzzy on the black ones.
FYI…those used to be the sole honor for the glory covered 75th Ranger Regiment until General Shinseki, who was the Army Chief Of Staff at the time, fucked it up and decided everyone in the Army should wear a black beret…kind of like everyone getting blue ribbon for “participating.” And now the Rangers wear a tan one because Shinseki ruined what the black beret had come to symbolize for he elite Rangers first made famous for scaling the cliffs of Normandy on D Day.
But isn’t that weird, given the context of the time…1966, (while we were winning the Vietnam War, think John Wayne in “The Green Berets” and before Walter Cronkite decided we should just declare victory and withdraw after the disastrous Tet Offensive of 1968) that the El Cariso Hotshots would be considered so special somebody authorized them to wear black berets that were synonymous with the second only to Special Forces in fame…the storied Army Rangers?
As Hotshots, used to run in cadence to, “I want to be an Airborne Ranger, live a life of constant danger” etc. led by some an ex Vietnam door gunner and Huey Crew Chief who ended up being captured and held hostage by the Revolutionary Guard when the Shah was deposed because he was in Iran working under contract for Bell Helicopters for the Iranian Government and making a bunch of money at the time.
Anyway…I have been writing a chapter on the whole concept in my head today. Those black berets killed 12 El Cariso Hotshots (at least partially…no, they were symbolically totally responsible, or at least what the black berets symbolized was totally responsible for those deaths) and severely burned a bunch more of those stupid glory driven fucks who had a terminal case of “Hero Complex.”
Think about it.
Whoops, I meant to write, “as Hotshots, during my early years we used to “run in formation singing in cadence,” not running in cadence.
That tradition was lost once the Vietnam guys were all gone from our crew. But…it was inspiring while it lasted…I guess?
Running in formation and singing in cadence like Airborne Ranger wannabes was like a lot of things hotshot crew managers do to build esprit de corps that motivate ordinary people to do extraordinary things while working as the “tip of the WF spear” in situations that would make most people run the other way while saying…”FUCK THIS SHIT; I’m outta here!”
FYI,
As I have written before, I am a student of the Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon and the Yarnell Hill Fires. All of course are the wildfires that killed Hotshots with flames, as opposed to random accidental deaths.
I am researching and writing about the data points all of these fires have in common and the threads that run through all of them. These common data points and threads meet the very definition of George Santayana’s famous quote.
https://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana
I hope to use my research and writing to beat “them” like the low down dirty dogs they are. These fire gods are now epitomized by my old friend…Shawna Legarza.
Unfortunately, my very own personal most beloved and respected fire god, Bill Buck is in this same group. Like I have written many times, I don’t have any secrets from you, who are indeed among my closest friends and confidants.
There are just things I haven’t had a chance to tell you about yet and that will eventually include the “Smoking Gun” I am in possession of that Bill used to kill the Mormon Lake Hotshots on the Battlement Creek Fire.
SPOILER ALERT – The Battlement Creek Fire SAIT was in possession of this smoking gun but…wait for it….they covered it up and it was not mentioned in their final SAIR or anywhere else until it was sent to me 30 years later.
God Bless America!
Oh…and one more thing. It took my participation in this on going discussion for the past five years to “see” these common data points and threads in context after staring at them for years without seeing them and understanding what they are.
Now…I just have to be able to paint a picture for you by connecting the dots (data point and threads) one at a time so your eyes will be opened as well.
I hope I can do it. 🙂
Well, Big G, grab a brush & a sheet of canvas & hop to it. Lives of good people are at stake here. There’s a better chance somebody will listen to you as your credentials are rock solid in the world of hotshots…if I recall, some of the best times of your life?
“Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana
OK…I’m on it. I will actually work on a Readers Digest version so I don’t have to wait for my book to come out to share my nuggets of wisdom and insight.
Plus…with those of you who are still here, I can skip the lengthy back story because you already know that part and you “get it.”
And yes…being a Wildland Firefighter and specifically a grunt and a ground pounder was the happiest times of my life. I have to insist on that because I was always so jealous and resentful of the luxurious life those who showed up in either their own engines or helicopters enjoyed.
And as I have said before, my happy place is back in the shadow of the magnificent Sangre de Christo Mountains in the Land Of Enchantment, Nuevo Mexico.
I liked Flagstaff as well, but I didn’t work or live most of the time in Flagstaff. I worked all of the time and lived most of the time at Happy Jack on the Long Valley Ranger District in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. It was like being at a Special Operations Group, Forward Operating Base where the Lord Of The Flies meets Animal House. So it is kind of hard to call that my “Happy Place.” A great place to learn how to be a hotshot, but…
Fun Fact…New Mexico has to print USA on their license plates because so many ignorant people in the rest of the country think anyone with a New Mexico plate is from a foreign country.
Oh…and one more thing. Whenever I have floated my “Hubris is the number one killer of hotshots to people who are former hotshots or those who know what it means to be a hotshot, they invariably say something like, “Yes, but hotshots have to have that in order to do their job.”
Which of course I agree with, but it is nuanced. Now of course if RTS were responding to this he would write something about no one needs hubris to be an effective hotshot, humility and an absence of braggadocio is far more important. So, just to be clear…I use hubris and “confidence” on a level of between 1 and 10 at a borderline 11 interchangeably. It is just easier to type or say,
one word…”hubris.”
And at the risk of using yet another totally inaccurate military comparison to WF because wildfires can’t think and due to the simple fact it has to follow the laws of nature, I am going to use one simply because it is easy to visualize.
“Those who recruit, train, supervise and manage hotshots have to pump them up and convince them of their own superiority and invincibility in order to make them believe they can succeed by fully committing to a full frontal assault on the machine gun position because they are just that good.”
That is what prepares ordinary people to be able and willing to undertake extraordinary tasks when their primordial survival instinct tells them to run away.
Now…this concept works really good most of the time because those who are actually leading the hotshots on the fireline understand and know how to apply “nuance” while prosecuting their missions and they know you don’t really charge the machine gun nest, you just know you could and be successful if it was really necessary to do so, but it’s not necessary or a good idea because you will probably DIE and beating the wildfire is never THAT important.
We only know of three times in the history of hotshots when this system has experienced catastrophic failure because those who were actually leading the hotshots failed to appropriately apply nuance at the appropriate time in the appropriate way. And of course that was on the Loop, Battlement Creek and Yarnell Hill Fires.
Think about it though. On those three fires, those hotshots had the discipline, confidence, courage, commitment, loyalty and belief in themselves and their leaders…they followed them into the maw of hell.
Is “into the maw of hell” to corny? All of those who died were burned alive…so I don’t think so.
And just as a reminder, I always exclude the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain which is often mistakenly called the Storm King Mountain Fire.
Based on my study of that fire, those 9 Prineville Hotshots died more like the 7th Calvary Troopers died with General Custer at the Battle Of The Little Big Horn. There was no leadership present that day or a Last Stand.
There was only chaos, confusion, disorganization and panic, retreat, disaster and ultimately…horrible deaths.
I received some constructive criticism for my literary use of the comparison of how the Troopers in the 7th Calvary died in the Battle Of The Little Big Horn, so I am going to try and explain myself.
I know that sometimes when someone asks me what time it is, I tell them how to build a watch. So I do try to keep it short, but by doing so, especially in this abbreviated format, a lot is left out and is open to interpretation.
If you detected a tone of disgust and anger in my comparison, it was there, but was not directed at either the 9 Prineville Hotshots, the 2 helitack or the 3 smokejumpers who were burned alive on the steep slope of Storm King Mountain and this includes the jumper in charge and IC Don Mackey, nor the 274 Troopers and Induan Scouts who died from the 7th Calvary.
My anger in both cases is directed at the government who was responsible for all of the loss in both cases. The BLM in the first and the Department Of Army in the second, combined with the arrogance and criminal stupidity of General Custer which I think has been well documented and accepted by mainstream experts.
I think the original sins in the Battle Of The Little Big Horn, staying completely out of the moral right or wrong of the Indian Wars, was sending Troopers to fight an adversary with inferior weapons because the federal government was just to damn cheap and corrupt to provide its soldiers with the latest and best weapons that were available that incidentally their adversaries did have.
It was not only a lope sided battle in terms of numbers (several hundred against several thousand) but the Troopers were armed with single shot rifles whereas their adversaries had repeating rifles.
In terms of the chaos, confusion, disorganization etc. during the Battle Of The Little Big Horn and ultimate horrible deaths, I was referring to the latest archeological research (that I believe is accurate) that shows that rather than a disciplined and organized defense of their position resulting in a heroic last stand, it was rather hundreds of separate battles between individual combatants in complete confusion resulting in a total breakdown of command and control which resulted in a confused melee and slaughter of the Troopers, which was the fault of management, not the individual soldiers who gave their lives for their country and deserved much better.
As far as the South Canyon Fire goes, I have expressed my opinion in some detail regarding that fire on this thread before.
But as a short reminder, those wildland firefighters deserved much better from the government represented by the BLM as well because the BLM’s incompetence and failed policies resulted in those WF losing their lives for their country as well when it was totally avoidable and unnecessary.
The specific policy I am referring to is the BLM’s policy to make the first jumper out of the door the jumper in charge and Incident Commander regardless of their qualifications or skill set.
This probably works okay most of the time on small isolated smokejumper fires with very few people and resources to manage, but I think it can quickly become problamatic on larger and more complex fires.
I think it has been well documented that Don Mackey, although he was technically qualified to be IC, was more suited to keeping his head down and building fireline than managing a complex fire with mixed resources and agencies in a real hodgepodge of personnel, because Mackey had his head down constructing fireline when he should have been heads up with complete situational awareness to see they were constructing fireline ABOVE an uncontrolled wildfire without any anchor points on a very steep slope in what the Colorado Division Of Forestry calls Fuel Type X, that is frost killed Gamble Oak up to 12 feet high that is so explosive, fires in that fuel type have been documented to run down and kill adult mule deer, in addition to the fact that the area had been burned earlier by a ground fire through the understory that further prepped the overstory to literally explode in what was a giant canyon and natural chimney, with the WF above the fire when it did finally go off like a bomb.
And on top of that, the senior BLM engine supervisor from the local area was in charge until the jumpers showed up and then Mackey was in charge for some things, but the other guy was still in charge for other things and it kind of went back and forth which resulted in no one really being in charge.
And into this mess went an entire squad of 9 Prineville Hotshots from Oregon by helicopter insertion who were unfamiliar with the area or Fuel Type X.
Neither the Prineville Hotshot Crew Boss nor their Number 2 were with the squad that was sent in, they were both still waiting down at the helibase with the second squad and never made it to the fire when things went to hell in a hand basket.
I don’t think it is uncommon for a squad boss under those circumstances to lack the juice (status and influence) to call bullshit on the situation and refuse to go along in order to get along.
Now…that is my short interpretation of just some of the things that went wrong on the South Canyon Fire. Iif I have it wrong, I will be more than happy to read or listen to an opposing assessment and if it makes sense, I will modify my position accordingly on both the South Canyo Fire and the Battle Of The Little Big Horn.
I know I do have a tendency to blame management first and ask questions later given my long and at times unhappy relationship with “the suits”, especially those in the BLM who fucked up the Battlement Creek Fire as well and then blamed the firefighters for their incompetence and malfeasance, whoops….getting angry again, time to sign off.
Oh…and one more thing. The reason all of those firefighters were cutting fireline in a giant chimney above an uncontrolled wildfire in Fuel Type X…is because that’s where they all initially ended up in the first place.
And then on one ever looked around and said wait a minute…something is wrong with this scenario.
The helitack flew in to a ridge top and constructed a helispot because that’s what helitack do.
The hotshots were transported by the helitack to the helispot on the ridge top because that’s what hotshots do.
The smokejumpers jumped in and landed by parachuteo on the ridge top near the helispot because that’s what smokejumpers do.
And then everyone started cutting fireline from there because that’s what wildland firefighters do.
In hindsight, they didn’t need a helicopter or a helispot or any smokejumpers because there was an interstate highway running along the point of origin and the base of the fire.
Everyone could have simply gotten out of their vehicles, hiked up to the base of the fire and started constructing handline along the flank of the fire with a solid anchor point like the manual and all of their training told them to do. WTF…Over?
Oh…and several smokejumpers were further up the slope and they made it to the top and over the leeward side and survived.
One smokejumper, Eric Hipke, barely made it and survived with serious burns just in front of what really does sound more like an explosion than a fire front.
And Don Mackey could have survived, but he ran back down the slope to help the hotshots, so there’s that then…
Everything looks simple from my La-Z Boy recliner. I have all of the answers…just ask me because that’s what old men do.
Gary,
Thanks for the South Canyon Fire refresher once again and the Little Big Horn information.
I have a few points of clarification and emphases to make.
First off, IC Mackey was not building any fireline but was sharpening his chainsaw instead of managing the fire, a clear sign of stress and resorting to what one is most familiar with,
Second, the frost-killed chaparral was a major contributor to both the 1976 Battlement Creek Fire and the 1994 South Canyon Fires. It becomes basically freeze-dried whereby all the fuel moisture is removed making it aggressively volatile and a kindling-like contribution to the extremely low fuel moisture making the entire fuel bed available to burn violently.
http://coloradofirecamp.com/battlement-creek/vegetation-fuels.htm
In August 1983 a grass fire occurred at the Little Big Horn Battlefield in
Montana,which allowed archeologists to use metal detectors to locate shell casings and bullets and such.
I am positive i read that they concluded that the movie version of the Indians riding around the 7th Cavalry in circles was mostly drama and therefore false. However, I am unable to locate the research on it.
What the archeologists actually found were numerous sniper shooting holes with remnant shell casings at each one where they picked off many of them that way.
RTS,
Thank you, it has been a few years since I have studied the South Canyon Fire and I have never really focused on it so I knew I was off on some details.
However, I was pretty sure I had the gist of it right and you have confirmed that because you didn’t rip me apart.
One very interesting thing though, is the new information to me that Mackey was sharpening his chain saw which I never knew. And yes, as I have written many times, when all of us are under stress we revert to our ingrained training, which of course is why good training is so important, especially that training that simulates real world experiences.
And I am far from an expert on the Battle Of The Little Big Horn. I have mostly just always focused on the fact that a mismanaged and corrupt federal government sent US soldiers to fight a dirty war with inferior and drastically outdated weapons, probably because I am a gun nut and I always identify with those grunts in the trenches. I have never been able to visualize myself as what the vets used to call a REMF.
And BINGO…you hit on one of my favorite bones to chew on I did not mention in order to keep my post…shorter. And that is Fuel Type X on the South Canyon Fire.
I am not a student of the South Canyon Fire because as I have said, I don’t consider it a hotshot fatality fire like the Loop, Battlement Creek and the Yarnell Hill fires. I think it is a hotshot related fatality fire because 9 hotshots were burned alive on it, but I personally don’t think the mistakes that were made on it were hotshot mistakes. Nor do I think Mackey was was primarily responsible for what went wrong, he was both a victim and a hero.
I do however, believe deeply flawed agency policies which were revealed in a catastrophic failure that reflected systemic faults that were accepted because the cascading events of the South Canyon Fire hadn’t lined up (Swiss Cheese Effect) since the Battlement Creek Fire, a whole 18 years earlier and we as a species, or at least as a culture have pretty fucking short memories, to fall like dominoes. In that, if any one of them would have been removed from the sequence or equation, no one would have died and the South Canyon Fire would just be one more forgotten wildfire that was “successfully” fought.
But instead…the system flaws were revealed for most to look at, very but few to see, which probably resulted in no changes and every since then we have just been lucky which will continue until the next time it happens.
Speaking of the perils of ignoring the lessons of the history, I am working on my next MOAP (mother of all posts) that is going to include the common data points and threads that run between the Battlement Creek and South Canyon Fires, even though as I said, I am not as interested in the South Canyon Fire as I am the others, I leave that task to “generalists” in wildland firefighter safety such as yourself.
I have however, always been interested in those common data points between the two fires, which I find dumbfounding and a true indictment of the BLM Fire management people, especially those in the local area of Grand Junction.
Here are some of them off the top of my head,
Both fires,
1. Were in the same specific fuel type, which was the infamous but little known and understood (outside of the Colorado Division Of Forestry, I guess?) nicknamed Fuel Type X.
2. Out of state hotshots were killed on both fires who were unfamiliar with the area and specific fuel type.
3. Both fires had mixed inter agency resources between the BLM and USFS, which made them inherently more complex and difficult to manage which required higher expertise than the first jumper out of the fucking plane had!
4. Both fires burned at the same time of year with very close dates of occurrence.
5. Both fires trapped and killed wildland firefighters working in huge canyons and natural chimneys ABOVE THE FIRES!
6. Both fires burned on very steep slopes in very rugged terrain.
7. Fire conditions were nearly identical, including severe but anticipated winds.
8. Both fires were managed by the BLM.
9. Neither Fire investigative report identified any agency or system failures and were cover ups.
10. And my favorite…wait for it…Battlement Mesa and Storm King Mountain are only about 50 miles apart. Fuck Me!
I don’t want to oversell my “ Smoking Gun” claim. I never intended to wait this long to publish it but frankly, I have never had the format to do so before now. And the reason I don’t want to oversell it it, is because it will probably mean precious little to precious few and maybe just me because I know the complete backstory and I can see it for what it is. Written proof of a cover up of the Battlement Creek Fire and as far as I am concerned, a damning indictment of the entire system of agency fire investigation cover ups and proof of the dirty way the U.S. Forest Service in particular has operated for decades.
You know Mr, Mike Dudley, there wouldn’t be so many crazy cover up conspiracy theorists out here if there weren’t so fucking many governments cover ups that are revealed at regular intervals. It is also proof to me at least that Shawna Legarza isn’t the first fire god, nor will she be the last to sell her soul for self advancement.
Although…in the meantime RTS, I am curious what you will think of it and if you read it the same way I do (I might be a little off in my perspective since I am more than a little off the Rez) so I will send it to you just in case the USFS has me whacked and my hard drive “disappeared.” This way, they will have to wack you as well…Good Luck old friend!
See…18 USC 1001 and know the law viers an OMMISSION the very same way it views a LIE.
Speaking of being s gun nut and providing the best battle rifle possible for our troops and going back to an earlier discussion between Joy and I, I just want to state for the record I am a huge fan of the new Heckler & Koch 27 they are starting to equip our Marines with even though they cost more than 3 times what an FN Herstal manufactured M4 does. I can’t wait to get one of those nasty little bitches (non gender specific) for myself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle
Joy…although it looks like they are still way behind both of us on the need to upgrade to a heavier bullet like the .300 Blackout and I can’t remember you Serbian pick? Which is probably like I said before, we are too invested in the .556 NATO, probably because it was our idea in the first place?
God Bless America and Our Troops! Somebodies children are dying and suffering life long injuries, including PTSD for the rest of us.
As you can probably tell, I was heavily influenced by the few Vietnam combat vets on our crew at a young and very impressionable age.
I don’t know if we belonged in Vietnam or not, but I think I did. I think I would have made a good grunt and ground pounder. But then again…we all know what a high opinion I have of myself. 🙂
Woodsman,
Thanks for the good lessons.
This sure got you riled up Woodsman enough to write your spot post about “Todd fucking Abel, you wannabe wildfire guru battalion chief motherfucker” and “those who have ‘fast-tracked’ bypassing the accepted advancement practices & poof! Big-time qualifications overnight. I’m lookin at YOU, Darryl Willis.”
Good stuff sir. Feel free to share the details. Keep up the fine work.
**
** “ONLY THE BRAVE” MOVIE MARKETER WILL BE TRUMP’S 2020 CAMPAIGN MANAGER
You. Just. Can’t. Make. This. Shit. Up.
Brad Parscale, the guy who was hired by Blacklabel Media to help market the Yarnell Hill Fire Movie will now become Donald Trump’s actual 2020 Campaign Manager.
That is… if Trump isn’t in prison or hasn’t resigned or been impeached by then.
Variety magazine was the first media outlet to report about Brad Parscale being hired to promote the “Only The Brave” movie using both social media and tricks like HIRING former Navy Seals to ‘push’ the movie…
Variety
Article Title: ‘Only the Brave’ Taps Trump Digital Guru Brad Parscale
Published: October 19, 2017 2:00PM PT – By Brent Lang
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/only-the-brave-trump-brad-parscale-1202594267/
From that article…
———————————————————————————————————
Brad Parscale, the digital media director for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was hired by the makers of “Only the Brave” to help the action-drama appeal to red-state moviegoers, Variety has learned.
Black Label Media, the film’s financier, retained Parscale to supplement online and social media marketing efforts. Sony Pictures is distributing the $38 million production.
Parscale advised the filmmakers to retain Marcus Luttrell, a former United States Navy SEAL whose heroic attempt to reach safety in Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan was dramatized in the 2013 film “Lone Survivor,” as an “influencer.” Luttrell was later paid to send out an email endorsement on the film’s behalf.
Parscale also suggested that the filmmakers emphasize charitable giving in an effort to avoid any criticism that “Only the Brave” was exploiting a real-life tragedy for profit. One suggestion Parscale offered was to create a digital ticker showing the amount that was going to charity. Parscale said they thought the approach might resonate with liberal moviegoers who wouldn’t be as interested in “Only the Brave.”
The film is targeted at heartland audiences, a group of moviegoers that Hollywood, a liberal-leaning industry, has struggled to reach in the past. Parscale’s efforts have been somewhat effective. Despite the weak tracking, insiders say the film is resonating more strongly in the South and Northwest, areas that are more receptive to President Trump.
The work was done through Parscale’s for-profit company Giles-Parscale. It has a number of corporate clients, including the Bank of San Antonio, Hotel Emma, and Trump International Reality. Parscale has said he is already working on Trump’s 2020 re-election effort. He was recently profiled on “60 Minutes,” where he talked about the critical role Facebook played in helping Trump pull off his 2016 election win.
———————————————————————————————————–
VOX
Article Title…
How Trump’s 2020 campaign manager is connected to the Russia scandal
Brad Parscale is linked to a data firm that has become a focus of the Trump-Russia investigation.
By Sean [email protected]@vox.com
Published: Feb 27, 2018, 1:55pm EST – By Sean Illing
From that article…
———————————————————————————————————–
President Donald Trump has named Brad Parscale to be his 2020 campaign manager.
On Tuesday morning, Trump released a statement calling Parscale a “longtime digital marketing strategist for President Trump” who was “essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run.”
Trump is not being hyperbolic here: Parscale, who was in charge of the Trump campaign’s digital operations and worked closely with Facebook, Twitter, and Google to hone the campaign’s social media presence, was a huge part of why Trump won the White House. A 2017 profile on 60 Minutes called Parscale the “secret weapon” of Trump’s social media strategy.
“I understood very early that Facebook was how Trump was going to win,” Parscale said of the campaign’s use of social media during the 2016 presidential campaign. “I think we used it better than anyone ever had in history.”
But the young tech guru who ran the Trump campaign’s digital operations from his office in San Antonio is an extremely controversial choice to run the president’s 2020 campaign — particularly given that Trump’s 2016 campaign is still being investigated for potential collusion with Russia.
That’s because Parscale is intimately tied to a company called Cambridge Analytica, a shady data analytics firm that has become a major focus of both the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian meddling in the election and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
Last December, Mueller requested that Cambridge Analytica turn over internal documents as part of his investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election.
The thread connecting Russia, the Trump campaign, and Cambridge Analytica is Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was forced to resign after he reportedly lied to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI about his phone conversations with a Russian envoy in 2016.
A series of reports last July by the Wall Street Journal’s Shane Harris, Michael Bender, and Peter Nicholas revealed that Peter Smith, a pro-Trump GOP operative, sought to acquire 30,000 deleted emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server. Two of the groups Smith reached out to had connections to Russia.
Smith told Harris that he was in regular contact with Flynn, who at the time was still working closely with Trump’s campaign. Harris also reported on intelligence assessments that outlined the efforts of Russian hackers to retrieve Clinton’s emails and pass them on to Flynn, who would then share them with the Trump campaign.
Via an August 2017 Associated Press report, we also know that Flynn was later forced to disclose “a brief advisory role with a firm related to a controversial data analysis company that aided the Trump campaign.”
That “data analysis” company was ( Brad Parscale’s company ) Cambridge Analytica.
———————————————————————————————————–
SIDENOTE: Brad Parscale himself remains one of the leading suspects with regards to who actually “gave the green light” to Wikileaks to start ‘dumping’ stolen emails just 29 minutes after Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” Access Hollywood tape first hit the airwaves last year.
On October 7, 2016…
At 4:03 PM – The “Access Hollywood” tape of Trump boasting about sexually harassing
women and “grabbing them by the pussy” is first released.
Just 29 minutes later…
At 4:32 PM – WikiLeaks begins posting Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s stolen emails.
Correction for the post above…
Donald Trump’s “grab ’em by the pussy” video did not come out in October of LAST year ( 2017 ).
It was first released to the public on October 7, 2016… BEFORE the 2016 election(s).
Followup…
Just hours ago… Facebook announced that Brad Parscale’s company ( Cambridge Analytica ) is now SUSPENDED from participating in that social media platform.
Whoops.
Pretty hard to continue to be a social media advertising troll when you are now SUSPENDED from Facebook.
Maybe Brad Parscale can go back to just paying Navy Seals to promote movies, like he did with the Yarnell Hill Fire Movie “Only The Brave”.
CBS NEWS
Article Title: Facebook suspends data firm used by Trump’s 2016 campaign
Publshed: March 17, 2018, 12:16 AM – By Caroline Linton
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cambridge-analytica-suspended-facebook-trump-campaign/
From that article…
—————————————————————————————————–
Facebook on Friday suspended consulting firm Strategic Communication Laboratories, the parent company of data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica, for violating its policies on data collection and retention. President Trump’s 2016 data guru Brad Prascale, who has been named campaign manager of the 2020 re-election bid, hired Cambridge Analytica during the campaign. Cambridge Analytica has said it was key to Mr. Trump’s victory.
Julian Assange has said Wikileaks was approached by Cambridge Analytica in 2016 about potentially working together about the release of Hillary Clinton’s ( stolen ) deleted emails. According to The Wall Street Journal, Cambridge Analytica’s CEO Alexander Nix was emailed by Trump donor Rebekah Mercer asking if they might be able to better organize the release of ( the stolen ) Hillary Clinton emails by Wikileaks.
—————————————————————————————————
**
** HEAD OF U.S. FORESTRY RESIGNS
ABC News
Article Title: U.S. Forest Service chief steps down amid sexual misconduct investigation
Published: Mar 7, 2018, 7:03 PM ET – By Stephanie Ebbs
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/forest-service-chief-steps-amid-sexual-misconduct-investigation/story?id=53594798
From the article…
——————————————————————————————————-
The chief of the country’s forestry agency has stepped down amid an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed to ABC News in a statement on Wednesday night.
A PBS News investigation first reported allegations against Chief Tony Tooke related to relationships with subordinates prior to when he assumed his current role. The U.S. Forest Service confirmed last week that an independent investigator was looking into concerns about Tooke’s behavior.
U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue confirmed that he accepted Tooke’s resignation.
The Forest Service is an agency within the USDA that fights wildfires and manages federal land. The agency had more than 35,500 employees as of September 2017, according to a federal database.
The agency has a history of problems related to sexual harassment and misconduct allegations.
The House Oversight Committee held a hearing on the issue after a Huffington Post Highline report was published in 2016 and multiple class-action lawsuits have been filed against the agency over the years.
——————————————————————————————————–
Pattern recognition is a survival trait.
you still exist Woodsman—
good to see you
started think you vanished like Norb and Diane 🙂
special note to world—
Norb and Diane did not vanish
they just have the hardest time posting on IM
yet we do miss your input so maybe John Dougherty will be kind and make a new chapter ssSSoooNnnnn 😉
That’s interesting about Donald Trump, Gary.
It’s also interesting to see how the military is doing double time right now.
I see big bus loads of troops being brought it in and tanks are on the move.
I noticed the Convoy headed California way during the night time hours.
That is unusual to see them moving in the night. What does it mean? To me it seems like ramping up for a major war effort. We weren’t able to whip their North Koreans before, and I wonder if this will turn out to be another Vietnam situation. China is backing North Korea and they’ve got plenty of bodies to supply in case North Korea runs short. Hang around as long as you can because life is going to get interesting.
Joy, nine lives but I’ve already used 6 up so I’ve got to be more careful. I’m just drinking rye whiskey mixed with apple juice for my health. The doctors ran a catheter up to my heart a couple weeks ago and couldn’t believe how clear my arteries were. Sad part of all this is it the forest service killed us by ruining our lungs with that 500,000 gallon dump on June 28 2013 and another 500,000 gal dump 2 years later. You can’t call them murderers can you? Well the population of Yarnell was reduced by over 20% in the few years after those excessive dumps of retardant. Gary Olson believes he was never affected by those retardant dumps. I think if you look closer he was affected. Young people can lose a lung and carry on. But the elders when their oxygen is compromised face tragedy. They go the way of the 20,000 plus fish that the retardant killed when dumped in a river. indeed, the resident of Yarnell during the retardant dumps had become a guinea pig for the forest service. But did the forest service list the names of the deceased after they dumped the retardant around Yarnell? Did they ever bother to investigate the situation where 20% of the population is now deceased since the retardant dumps? Do they dare look beyond the 19 wrongful deaths of the Wildland firefighters? No, reputations might be tainted. Okay before the dumps and before we hiked so many times through that s***. You took me off life support Joy so you know I was dead but if there were one good thing we could do for people would be to stop those damn dumps anywhere near a town site or a human population. Well to stop them. Because those Wild land firefighters are going to suffer in their later years.
You make a good point Sonny, I don’t even know now why I disagreed with you in the first place. How would I know what that nasty stuff does to the human body, it is chemicals? ‘Like many WF, I was painted more than a few times because we would often be at or near the head of the fire where they would be dropping, especially during the first 36 to 48 hours while the fire was being managed by Chaos and it was a rippin’ and a roarin’.
I can also tell you what would is the biggest threat to WF, it’s when that nasty stuff dries on clothes and line gear and then those things are not changed out or cleaned for days, weeks or ever. This means when it dries it would be turned into a powdered particulate form and would then be breathed continuously by the WF over time.
To make matters worse, WF wear slurry as a sign of pride in fire camp because that means you were in the shit. Nobody wanted to get hit by it because it smelled like manure and could really chafe you when it dried like around your collar, but if you did…you did.
The protocol calls for WF to lay prone out facing the drop with your hard hat on and chin strap down, but if there were trees around, I preferred to step behind one and then wait while it comes down like rain if the mix is right, the airspeed isn’t to fast and the bomber isn’t too low. There are videos of drops that have tore vehicles apart so it can hurt or kill you. Plus it can dislodge rocks and widowmakers, although I never heard of anyone being killed by a drop. But there’s a lot of things I haven’t heard of
I can tell you something else that is probably even more dangerous. And that is the powder we used to mix up big batches of jellied gasoline, especially for large scale control burns, but I It is also mixed for heli torches or vehicle mounted terra torches…I guess? We never used any breathing protection or hazmat type gloves and it kind of gets everywhere in the process.
I did have a close friend who had been a Santa Fe Hotshots for many years and had mixed a lot of that stuff up in the off season who died from kidney failure and I do know he was convinced that stuff was killing him.
This is probably the safest place in the world considering you got 80 tanks here and busloads of troops coming out going out on the military range. They could wipe out j u a r e z and no time at all.. the only problem right here is the noise of the trains going by. Been getting ready for the rain stacking stuff and burning brush around the trailer. Lots of Mesquite and I saw two African antelope those big ones close by. Anyways doing pretty good but except for this hernia which slowed me up and my breathing is gotten worse than ever. Joy, if you came here I would give you two of these lots. There are five of them all together. Then you could build your own set up like you wanted.
I just got off the roof for this trailer. I went up there and sealed all the seams. I sealed myself as well. Me and paint and such don’t go together very well. Gary tells a sad story of how little the forest service and Wild land firefighting officials are concerned about the chemicals involved with slurry drops. The chemicals added to the slurry are trade secret, therefore, only a doctor treating a patient can find out what the hidden chemicals are. I suspect if people found out there would be quite an outrage. But that outrage ought to be expressed from just knowing the major constituents of the slurry. We do know that ammonia is a major lung cell killer. The least you breathe it the better off you are. Of course if it only depletes your lungs by 50% then you can still carry on. But the ammonia that comes off of that slurry has other dangers. Ammonium phosphate and nitrate content once applied to burning embers creates a certain amount of cyanide, a very deadly chemical well known or it’s killing effects. Now what the 5 to 15% hidden chemicals are, we have no idea. I haven’t been able to uncover any of those chemicals since I am not a doctor. And I can’t find a doctor interested enough to look into it. Even if he did he wouldn’t be able legally to reveal what he found. That stinks. How can the forest service or any government agent allow chemicals to be dumped on human beings or in the proximity of human life and human habitations without the public being informed of what those chemicals are. Life and health are being disregarded when this is allowed. When joy and I mention the deaths of so many people after the enormous slurry drops that surrounded Yarnell, we are very serious. Our own health has degraded to such a degree that both of us are limited in our actions and what we do after those slurry drops. Unbeknownst to us dangers of the slurry, we hiked through that chemical pollution many times soon after we were allowed back into the area. Joy even waded in the black chemical rain runoff. But noticing so many deaths after the drops, I began to research chemistry of the slurry. What I found and because more than 20% of the population is now deceased from Yarnell since the Yarnell fires, I now know how deadly this chemical slurry pollution can be especially to those compromised in their health already. If you go around the state where the elderly retire you will not find one city where 20% of the population dies within 3 years, unless of course it is Yarnell. We cannot let this tragic ending to people’s lives go unheard. Gary tells us of the carelessness of the forest service when they d o u s e t h e i r firefighters with these chemicals, knowing the dangers I am certain, yet not informing the men of the long term effects these pollutants will have on their health. This information that I have talked about is easily found out on Google. It is common knowledge among miners of old times that to make cyanide you simply put that dry ammonium nitrate or phosphate on to burning embers. Cyanide, as dangerous as it is, is used to release gold from sulfide ores. of course there are many old miners that suffered the side effects from being around cyanide, one of them being sudden death. It’s like my dad used to retort Mercury ores. He was very careful so he never got the effects, but Mercury ingested or fumes breathed causes one to lose all his teeth, hair to fall out, and as you have heard The Madness of Hatter’s. Hatters often we’re found insane because they were using Mercury in the process of making their hats. We are well aware that when billions are involved then many health issues will be overlooked by the and greed. when we needed uranium during the Cold War, miners were told that this low-grade uranium is harmless. that has been proven to be a lie, just as the cigarette companies told us smoking didn’t contribute to cancer. John Dougherty is doing a great work exposing the mining companies that could care less about the poor person’s health. They don’t mind creating dangerous pollution that harms people. For instance, the smelter in El Paso for years put off toxic fumes containing lead. When a psychologist tested people who had grown up within three or four mile radius of the smelter, he found that intelligent quotients we’re at least 10 points lower than people raised up outside the danger radius. the lead in the smoke was determined to be the cause, and God only knows what other effects that fumes had on people’s health. we will not tolerate continued disregard for the lives of humans. we will try to continue to educate people concerning the danger of the slurry drops.
FYI…the substance we used to make our own napalm is called Aluma-Gel.
https://www.frames.gov/fedb/13000/13663.html
I am going to take a wild guess and say that is made up of some really NASTY chemicals that most likely are hazardous to the health of those who come in direct contact with it.
The alarm Bells went off! 9 people from Yarnell died during the month of January. The young Kevin Black is now down with throat cancer , and Bill is about dead as well. Hello folks, talking about a town that only had a population of 645 residents. There is something deadly wrong when a town that has already been cleaned out of 125 people now this last January loses nine more in one month and add to that two more and Dire Straits. Joy and I k n e w personally most of those people that are dead or suffering on the verge of death. It is sickening to say the least how the retardant has taken lives and health from the individuals and Yarnell. Indeed there is many more deaths than the 19 firefighters that must be accounted for due to the Yarnell fire and subsequent retardant slurry drops. Do not forget Yarnell got a double dose of slurry drops from Jumbo Jets exceeded 500000 gallons during the first dump alone. the second dump came a couple years later and you can see now how the chemical retardant dumps are a deadly solution to slowing wildfires. Joy and I are saddened because many of these people where our near friends we enjoyed company with. What will it take to break through the callousness of heart the money greedy and reputation guarding Forest people, fire leaders involved, and companies profiting from these deadly chemicals. We need to know what was in that retardant trade secret ingredients that were in the solution to the tune of 5 to 15%. What is going on because I had written the EPA about this, yet they didn’t see any reason to investigate. I think had it killed 20 javelina they would be on to it.
Joy,
You know me…I hate to criticize what others say, think, or do, but I am pretty sure that in order to starve a tumor to death, you have to starve to death the tumors host. Just sayin your plan doesn’t make much sense to me?
Oh…and one more thing. YOU are the tumors host.
Not this again Gary—
I have so much to do in a day in my complex life which is rather boring and simple but let me explain since its raining here with heavy fog— YES it does mean packing only oxygenated nutrients IN with an extracted method and starving me the host of delicious succulent savory morsels but I take each day at hand and allow the body to do its healing and yes like I said last night the first meal I would beg to place on my lips was Cafe Monarch and hashtag it away all day and night or I would even like to visit my old Culinary crew and let them make me something unique and one of a kind because I know they make things for me with heart and love…and I think that would make for a great first meal…Clear fiber M-F helps me keep regulated and the weekends I allow the body r&r from that manipulated fiber method and I take in protein yet I can tell you this—the next vlog will show HOW MUCH the tumors are vanishing and I do plan to extend it past 40 days in a manner that I will keep current regimen EXCEPT I will mash and chew cucumbers and tomatoes and basil bananas and start bringing back in my avocado staples and asparagus and garlic and peppers and all the yummy stuff I am missing…It’s my one life- I did not get what Sonny got; 9 lives. So I want to be around a long time and so I know to do that I have to make sure I love the host in a way that shows her the beauties of this here world versus just getting by and saying I made it or I survived this or that…All my life I waited thinking someone else would show me the world through rosey glasses but I gave my heart a fresh start and this year I am my own Valentine…sounds gay huh…I made me my Valentine choice…it was soooo easy I said what do I want to hear this 2018 and I said I want to hear “Will you be my Valentine’s?” and so sappy me knows that is not gonna happen in real time so I said “Self, will you be my Valentine?” and I replied “Hell yes, you amaze me” 🙂 hee hee self love baby hee hee Who else better than me…I am always there for me…when you think about I am my own life experiment and I am a work of art…messy like VanGo Picasso; hee hee…thanks for the concern but I am locked in this method because I am once and for all going to balance my mind body and soul…I deserve it…
Well okay then. I don’t think I will try it for my tumor though, the process sounds just to darn complicated. And you know…Arizona Road Lizard CRAZY!
rather be a Arizona Road Lizard CRAZY than a Lounge Lizard 😉
Although truthfully, whenever I talk about my brain tumor, it’s just a shallow ploy for sympathy. It was discovered by accident during a routine brain scan and it has never bothered me except for random outbreaks of something very similar to Tourette’ Syndrome whenever I go into Walmart to shop. Nowhere else…just Walmart, if you don’t count the outbreaks here on this thread, which I don’t.
After watching all of this news about background security investigations though, I think I might be screwed now if I was to ever need to have my Top Secret security Clearance renewed. Maybe I should have thought that one through before starting down this road? Whoops. I went through four of them over an 18 year period, and they were always stressful because no security clearance…no job.
Oh…and one more thing. The reason I don’t count my outburst on this thread is because my anger was righteous. And if you weren’t as outraged as I was…either you weren’t paying attention or you bought into “The Big Lie” being perpetuated by the agencies and the Yavapai County FIRE Cabal Cosa Nostra.
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved4.html
I’m pretty much over it now though. My rightoues anger has been replaced by resignation and acceptance. They won…again. So…
News Flash….Dateline….New York City, In case you missed it.
OK…that’s enough for me! I am throwing down the bullshit card on President Trump! Omarosa has ratted him out on “Big Brother, Celebrity Edition “and that’s enough for me because she was his wing woman originally.
Omarosa said we would all have to bow down to him when he won because it was the ultimate revenge and now she says she wouldn’t vote for him again in a million years.
And furthermore, she said, “It’s not my circus, not my monkeys, I’d like to say not my problem but I can’t say that because — like, it’s bad,” She also said, “No,” she said, “it’s going to not be OK. It’s not.” And, “I was haunted by tweets every single day, like what is he going to tweet next?” she said.
I am pretty sure this means it time to begin impeachment proceedings and have Omarosa testify against him. You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down? So… it. News Flash….Dateline….New York City
OK…that’s enough for me! I am throwing down the bullshit card on President Trump! Omarosa has ratted him out on “Big Brother, Celebrity Edition “and that’s enough for me because she was his wing woman originally.
Omarosa said we would all have to bow down to him when he won because it was the ultimate revenge and now she says she wouldn’t vote for him again in a million years.
And furthermore, she said, “It’s not my circus, not my monkeys, I’d like to say not my problem but I can’t say that because — like, it’s bad,” She also said, “No,” she said, “it’s going to not be OK. It’s not.” And, “I was haunted by tweets every single day, like what is he going to tweet next?” she said.
I am pretty sure this means it time to begin impeachment proceedings and have Omarosa testify against him. You pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down? So…
Whoa now! Repeat…repeat. That training I received from the Department of Redundancy Department is really paying off!
Oh…and one more thing. Watching the daily news pertaining to the Trump Administration is kinda like watchin’ the Jerry Springer Show in the old days except thermonuclear missiles may be launched on any given day instead of chairs being thrown. So…you know…it’s a lot more exciting for me to watch.
man..another Xanax moment for Gary
poor Gary
A reality show usually means FARTHEST from reality Gary…
MUCH editing for their agenda purpose and effect to make it popular and be influential to the cookie cutter minds that watch it and build trust in those engaging like you…ie. Gary
Those like Gary who are following the trails of the deepest darkest jungles ducking when they hear a noise between the vegetation looking and watching for the poison darts and spears hurtl’ing into Gary’s direction…
OK PEOPLE… take one…scene 2…
thank you Gary
I did not say the above because you said life is not all about me and the Bill Murray insert but because Gary reality shows, I would say that the producers AREN’T concerned with the truth. That’s not high on any producer’s list of things that they’re attempting to capture. I would say that in best case scenarios, the essential truth of a scene or scenario is conveyed, and in worst case scenarios, it is completely falsified. SO just because they edited that Omarosa bit as it was done does not mean REALITY…if people edited the insert I did on my area awhile back on you then it could be taken out of context…have you seen the hashtag “HootSuite”, TweetDeck, Monitter, Trendsmap, Google Feedburner, Klout, TweetLevel, Twitalyzer after some of the stuff you put out….have you ever seen your rating???…
When I say facts another labels it biased opinions yet it is facts when it reflects this phase to my life that is ever-changing…I can tell you this Gary…there is always perceptions…we all share diverse ones here…let me ask you Gary, do you like roses? Not because in less than a week a Holiday is upon us…I would like to know if I said the word ROSES…what color? I think of Sultry Sangria Heirloom Roses or the Koko Loko…or the Smokin’ Hot…or the palest pink…https://img00.deviantart.net/f9b5/i/2013/193/f/9/thy_rarest_rose_by_marsiams-d6c14uv.jpg
but we have to ask ourselves Gary when some are on IM saying we are all on the same page here; I sit back an ponder “are we on the same book though…” or can one read…or comprehend…do you know HOW MANY years it took me to comprehend Bob Powers and the infamous RTS, Gary…Yeah, something sooooo simple…I have some areas I am okay at…but alot more areas I never even discovered yet…My husband tonight when I was talking to Aclu fella when I hung up asked me “is your life always going to be about the fires” and I replied it really has no yet even begun…
So I ask Gary that rose you are holding…are you seeing its beauty or are you focusing to the thorns…and the ooohhs and ahhhs…recently I learned to become one step closer to engaging in adult life vs. being a housewife hermit…I thought it long and hard (33 seconds) because in reality I cannot ever see me wondering if Omarosa’s edited conversation is TRUTH or NOT…but I can tell you if you believe your political rant made an impact on me…I think we all should worry about when the lights go out in Georgia…because Julie Chen took a pay cut just to get these folks on tv…
44 y.o. Omarosa Onee Manigault should only be getting “happy birthday” from me as her bday just passed as far as my comments…Trump was not her first rodeo at the White House and you should know Gary her in 1990 there as a Deputy Associate Director in the White House…she has history…she is not a dumb lady and well calculated….Central State University is a historically black university located in Wilberforce, Ohio and she got her BA…in 97′ she started Studying M.A. from Howard University and then back to her white house job yet again…I like that God led her path to Aaron Harvey Stallworth…neat God blessed man…so whatever lies ahead FOR ALL OF US I feel pretty happy I know God is there waiting….Some of us walk away with degrees from community colleges or Universities or that school of hard knocks but no matter where we come from or where we are going I know one thing I am NEVER going to take the news from Gary because what a reality person says as GOLD but maybe by some backup water perhaps (just in case you are right ;)) hee hee
When I hung out in CA, Gary and NO not with Norb or Bob but down in the areas you mention … I was playing a version of myself — a character — and with a nudge here and a shove there, it was clear what character these Hollywood folks wanted me to play and it was never ME…point is IT IS ALL FAKE…I didn’t feel it was a discredit to my true character because the situations that I was put in and the things I was asked to say were so far beyond my own reality that anyone I cared about who saw they knew ME…so I will let you have your jaw dropping rants as I insert a jaw breaker…really, OMAROSA Gary???? ugh. “oh my”
sorry for typos
Okay, forget about using Omarora to impeach President Trump. I would be lost without the daily sideshow he produces for us at this point anyway. Removing him from office sure isn’t worth a civil war. I always just shrug and remind myself, “Elections have consequences.”
Maybe next time more people vote and those who don’t want another four years of a Trump Presidency won’t do really stupid things they thought were cute like casting protest votes for candidates who can’t possibly win like those idiots Sanders and Stein?
I guess I like roses? I never thought about it before. I can’t think of a flower I don’t like since I try to be inclusive at this point in my life. And if I had to pick a color, I guess I would do like almost everyone else and pick red. And no, I don’t like thorns of any kind and I do try to avoid things that hurt me. And no, I have never seen my rating, I didn’t know we had one.
Gary-
I was on hike and I tried to post via phone-
no luck.
Sun, Feb 11, 2018 at 1:22 PM
Gary, I would never want to get a water Hemlock flower or the deadly nightshade flower and I reckon I think flowers are pretty outdoors but my mom likes them indoors for oxygen based reasons as she does Pilates and smokes Vantage 100s…I don’t get this world Gary…I am just making my way through it.
I can say this RAIN is in the forecast here so I did alot of hiking this weekend to make up the miles I will miss…I am on the 5th week as of yesterday of the fast and about 5 hours were hard today because I do all this activities and yet not getting some results I would like as FAST as my head would like yet Gary maybe that is a safe good thing…anyways I plan to extend fast until my goal is reached but incorporating soon say mashed cucumbers or gentle on the GI kinda oxygenated foods…I never liked red roses…I rather for the price of those to be practical and get me an inexpensive Blue Chinese Wisteria Tree or purple Yankee Doodle lilac bush or OMG how about hydrangeas (mmmmmm)….and some day I want a specific pine tree young one…do you like trees more than you do roses? I do. If I had a choice between a thorny rose bush I would pick a tree first…or cacti…The hardest loss I have had was my massive…mine was in the top 3 in the state of Arizona but a 100yr flood washed and killed it…SAD FACE indeed…and my other fav that just died this year was my massive saguaro and Aloe Ferox and it the feroc was 5 feet tall and so beautiful…I miss her indeed. Well enough about plants…I am trying to figure how to use a drone and SMOVE this hour than crash…I tried awhile ago to sleep then I tossed and turned and said forget it let me go answer Gary but I did at 1:22pm just never made it but I saved it in my inbox to post so there ya have it…Good night..
duh.
the one that died was an aloe dichotoma
sad face
na- na- na- na- na- (hum the McDonald’s your loving it theme song…)
the YHF is not the only place LYING …I mean I was laying there thinking how hard it is to reduce the scale # when in the day it was super simple (age and health most likely)…and I have not been near a Mcdonald’s (Sonny’s favorite place to get senior coffee 2 and 2) in almost a year…I never liked McDonald’s and I am not lying there…just was easy for Sonny to split a meal there as he was always in a rush and thankfully the visit was 1 time a month on the first..(thank you Jesus)…my father loved Burger King and I could not stand that place either for that fake smelling grilled burgers; chemicals….My mom NEVER has stepped into a fast food for food maybe to use restroom but never drinks or food; she is a sit down kinda gal in a nice high dollar spot…anyways it made me think Gary…how many are lying in this world besides some on the YHF who hiding stuff is to me the same as some layer to a LIE…how many billions has been sold at McDonald’s and yet how many millions are living? Do the math, huh…Yeah someone is lying that they do not go there to McDonald’s…”just saying”…and we all know that place is just as bad as throwing down a Hot Pocket which I never was into but my brother Bill did as a teen and Combos pretzel filled nougats; pizza flavor while my other brother was a Twinkie fan…anyways after being on this fast I thought would I ever go to a fast food place again? I rarely ate out much except the hot spotting phase and well that is dead and buried and never would do that again but I thought what place would I go to for my first meal out and I always enjoyed my old living spots eateries like HASHTAG Cafe Monarch…mmmm….I am a bit strange as they come because I have no quarrels in the day to drop $200-300 on my meal alone there…their steaks are my thing…I am blood type O so steak is my thing really…anyways my palette is not for Mickie Dees…only had shared meals because it was Sonny’s thing—if you had not ate solids for 40 days or more Gary what would your first meal be?
As a kid Gary my family would tell you I was into not only climbing trees and identifying their common name but their scientific name and I would watch the weather and how they were treated each year and at age 4 I would water them if I felt they were not getting enough naturally. I was indeed a tree dweeb for sure—I fell out of many in my day too up in Pine Arizona my family would call my name and I would be so tiny and wave all happy at all of them so high up and as they looked at me so scared and I would just think I could fly so yes I did end up in emergency rooms here and there…I will show you a pic back channel some time…indeed a tree nut…and indeed not the brightest girl on the block yet bright in other ways…
I
H E A R T
Trees.
What is Woodsman up to anyways???
retired yet 😉
Sonny would say there is 2 kinds of trees too- the cord illegally cut in the back of his international
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gb0ax9cykwvrsav/AAC3HhPQPpMK8gqLUk1LTqCba?dl=0&preview=P1000177.JPG
or the one he had not yet chain sawed-
Gary- if he was not out loading cords of wood—the ol’ miner logger was also the most underpaid cowboy as he will tell you the Mexicans made more than he did…probably because the rancher did not care for Sonny staying in their humble abodes as Sonny took his pistol inside and shot mice of the wood rafters near the ceiling at night …but Sonny since young and even today likes old vehicles and fixing them up—
Sonny:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gb0ax9cykwvrsav/AAC3HhPQPpMK8gqLUk1LTqCba?dl=0&preview=P1000176.JPG
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Chicken noodle soup or whatever the experts recommend because your body is going to react negatively I think?
Well…you certainly know a lot about flowers. And yes, I like trees, who doesn’t like trees? Although it sounds like there are some flowers I wouldn’t like and I do know of at least one tree I don’t like that some idiot thought was a good idea to plant all along the block fence sepersting the house from the street in Paradise Valley where we lived in during my first five year sentence in the Valley Of The Sun.
Those were Russian Olive trees, because they didn’t need much water they seemed to be a favorite of desert landscapers in Land Of Mordor. I used to have to clean up around them and trim them. Talk about thorns, my arms would be streaming blood with the sweat…yes Woodsman, STREAMING blood I say.
Although that reminds me of one of my old standby stories from NAU. They have a highly respected and well known school of Forestry there and people would sometimes say to me, “Say…you work for the Forest Service, what kind of tree is that? I would always reply the same way, “I’m a Firefighter, there are only two kinds of trees, those that are on fire, and those that aren’t. That one is the kind that’s not are fire.”
Oh…and one more thing. I should have said the Trump Presidency reminds me of the Jerry Springer Show except the entire world is their stage and the cast of characters is infinite. Although I thought we had it all once Stormy Daniels was on set and we had see it all. But nope…they just keep coming.
I don’t know about you RTS…but I’m not willing to give him a mulligan on that one even though the Evengalical leaders are. I know forgiveness is a cornerstone of our common Christian Faith, but I also know sinners have to first repent and atone for their sins…right? And President Trump hasn’t even admitted what he did much less asked the Lord for forgiveness. What do you think?
Whoops, ….”that one is the kind that’s not ON fire.”
Nahhhh…I screwed that stroll down memory lane up. That was bougainvilleas the landscapers planted everywhere on that lot in PV. Those things are really nasty with thorns. Pretty…but NASTY.
I can’t remember now where I used to get hurt by Russian Olive trees? It will come to me and I will get back with uou on that one.
I posted this historical document (1977) to assist both Bob and RTS (and other US Forest Service old timers, it is in the shape of the USFS Shield) in taking a little stroll down memory lane.
I pasted one on the inside of my hardhat underneath the suspension webbing when I started as a hotshot in 1975 so I could study it during breaks. Pretty good idea huh?
I should have submitted that as an Employee Suggestion….or did everybody else think of that one too?
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
Like we discussed the other day, my favorite was always Number 10, which I also thought should have been Numba One. And technically…in support of my Minimalist Theory of Safety, if you always followed that ONE order, that was the only one you needed….right?
I mean…it kind of sums up the other 9 plus all of the other safety advisories, guidelines, suggestions, standard operating procedures, general orders, policies, directives and recommendations…right?
Oh…and one more thing. I have been watching wayyyyy to much news the past couple of days about this whole, “Memo” thing and how the FBI and the DOJ are corrupted by left wing people who let politics get in the way of them doing their jobs. And everyone who has been following this thread know I trash talked about the FBI, but that’s just because they think they know everything, but they don’t know how to go into the backcountry like those of us who have worked and lived in the backcountry our whole lives can and do. So anyway…I‘m pissed off, so it’s time for another one of my work stories because this is my only outlet to express myself and you are among my closest friends and confidants.
President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore went to the Grand Canyon in 1996 to sign the Presidential Proclamation creating the almost 2 million acre Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument, that dumb ass President Trump has now greatly reduced in size. As you can imagine, having both the President and Vice President in the same place at the same time was a really big security deal involving hundreds of security people from dozens of agencies. Most of these were variations of special operations type tactical teams because they were covering mostly outdoor areas and uniformed people because they were assigned to static posts like in stairwells or wherever. I had just been instructed to bring both casual clothing and BDUs and show up in the high school gym at Tusayan at a certain time.
I expected to be either guarding a tree or a doorway and I was good with that, it all pays the same as we used to say on the fire line. But when I checked in… they told me to go into a room off the gym and I found I had been selected to be the USDI departmental representative on the three person inter-agency React Team assigned to President Clinton’s security detail. The React Team was made up of a Senior Secret Service Special Agent, a Coconino County Sheriff’s Office Detective and me…go figure? But…I just rolled with it because you know, “Sometimes you eat the bar and sometimes the bar eats you.” (The Cowboy in “The Big Lebowski”) I didn’t ask any questions since I learned early in my career to never ask the question I didn’t want to know the answer to which at the time was, “Why aren’t I guarding a tree or a doorway?” The inter-agency nature of that React Team was necessary because of the specific and compartmentalized nature of our nation’s laws.
The big deal was I got to be there when the President got off his plane which looked wayyyyy to big to be landing at the Tusayan airport and then I got to ride in his motorcade and hundreds of people were lining the streets waving to me as I went by; I felt very special and wanted. The only exciting thing that happened all day was some local Utah cowboys showed up with a big red, white and blue sign with a cartoon of the “Where’s Waldo” character that said, “Where’s OsWaldo?” as they were standing by their pickup truck on the motorcade route.
It was really a very clever sign and they had put a lot of work into it, but they screwed up because they had hunting rifles just like every other Utah cowboys has in their truck, which combined with the funny but implied threat against the President and Vice President of the United States backed up by high powered scoped rifles, made it turn into a very bad day for them. This was because the Secret Service guy I was with didn’t think anything about it was funny at all. And you know me, I do what I am told to do just as long as it isn’t illegal, immoral or any of those other reasons RTS is always quoting. And having those rifles in a National Park was illegal at that time and that was my area of jurisdiction on land administered on behalf of YOU PEOPLE by the USDI…my employer at the time. And I always tried my best to ride hard for the brand.
The only other exciting thing that happened as a result of that incident, is we weren’t where we were supposed to be when the President and Vice President got out of their vehicles at the historic El Tovar Lodge on the very scenic South Rim of the Grand Canyon. So we had to sprint from where we were with the cowboys on the entrance road to where the lodge was to catch up with the rest of the detail so we could be in position for the next problem, which thankfully never came. It was a good thing I wasn’t bullshitting you about not skimping on the Stairmaster because sometimes I did have to run or hike really long distances in the backcountry with a team, which was kind of like being on a fire with a hotshot crew, except we carried different tools.
So anyway…I was jogging as half speed as we ran in and out between parked cars in a huge parking lot that was packed with vehicles. And as I zigged when I should have zagged between one car in particular, a man stepped out of the front passenger side just as I ran past the rear of his vehicle. I immediately applied my brakes in an attempt to make a full stop but as you know, I weigh a lot. And forward momentum (velocity) X mass (my body weight) and E=mc2 because of the loose gravel on the asphalt meant I came very close to crushing the man who stepped out of that car because his back was up against his open car door, which wasn’t going to open any further in his favor.
Luckily for him (and me) I slid on the gravel and managed to stop just short of seriously hurting him but our noses were almost touching. Well technically…his nose was almost touching my sternum. It was another one of those weird moments in my life when my brain slowed down time by warping the space I was occupying and I saw his eyes get bigger and bigger the closer I got to him. By the time I managed to come to a complete stop…his eyes were about the size of small saucers. I was able to note one thing with interest as I was sliding towards him on the loose gravel, he had big blue eyes. The other thing I noticed as my mind once again took individual slides of what I was experiencing in slow motion with a…click…click…click, was the man with the big eyes was the actor Robert Redford who was attending the signing ceremony as a special guest of the President. The second good thing that happened that day, was they let us eat the fancy sandwiches after THOSE people were done eating lunch, because there were a lot of environmentally minded celebrities and political big shots there that day. But they had a lot of those little sandwiches and they were really good.
So…I know what you are wondering by now, IF you have made it this far. WTF does this have to do with my watching too much news today and being pissed off…right? The point of this story is this; the React Team just spent a lot of time that day just hangin’ out wherever the President was shootin’ the breeze while we waited for somebody to do something stupid. And IF they had and they had been lucky, they would have got to meet us and not one of the sniper or tactical teams. And this may surprise you, but at the time I had not yet morphed from a conservative caterpillar into a more progressive butterfly by digesting myself and converting an amorphous mess of cell soup into eyes, wings, antennae and other body parts of an adult butterfly.
And what is more…the Senior Secret Service Special Agent (who was Black or African American if you prefer) and detective (who was a standard Arizona White Guy) I was with, were also conservative law enforcement types and neither one of them liked President Clinton or Vice President Gore either. And so we spent part of the day bitchin’ about the damn liberals and you know…the damn Democrats. And while that was going on…I thought to myself, “What an amazing, wonderful and very special country I live in. Here I am hangin’ out with two guys I don’t even know and all of us feel free to complain about the politics of the people we were prepared to step in front of a bullet for without any fear…or even any concern of retaliation.” And today…I hope that very beautiful thing about our country isn’t changing?
So the bottom line is this; law enforcement is no different than FIRE. I worked for 14 years in FIRE and 20 years in law enforcement without ever knowing or even caring about of the politics or party affiliation of any person I worked except by sheer happenstance. And I never met, or ever even heard about any person who ever, at any time, for any reason, let their politics or personal opinions interfere with their job and the mission…period. And if I did find out by accident, they were almost always conservative Republicans because of the nature of those jobs and the people in those jobs.
There is ONE other thing that I witness that day that I found very interesting and humorous. Wherever the President or Vice President went, there was what they called Counter Assault Teams (CAT) very close to them. Even though I was prepared and willing to do my part and step in front of a bullet that day; not for President Clinton mind you, but for the President of the United States of America, I was pretty sure nobody was counting on me to actually save the day. And that is because I think they would loo to the CAT first.
These guys looked really bad ass crammed into armored Suburban’s with full black ninja suits, body armor, black balaclavas and ballistic helmets. And I didn’t even want to know what kind of firepower they had in those Suburban’s because I didn’t want them to have to kill me. Except at one point, and that is when they jumped out of their vehicles, stripped off their hoods and helmets and ran over to pose for a group photo on the edge of the spectacular Grand Canyon. They were laughing and joking for a few minutes and they looked like a college football team on spring break. And then the moment was suddenly over…and they looked really bad ass again.
And yes…IF you are wondering, IF I found myself in that same position today on a similar detail, I would take a bullet for President Donald Trump and you know how I feel about him. Not because he is President Trump; but because he is the President of the Untied States of America and everyone who is in the FBI, DOJ and every other serious American like most of you, would do the very same thing. So…lighten up on those agencies, they are staffed by patriotic Americans, just like you..
Oh…and one more thing. When the detail was finally over and I left the Grand Canyon National Park, nobody was lining the roadway to wave at me as I went by so I didn’t feel particularly special or wanted any longer.
And to round out my day, I did follow my old friend RTS’ advice and watch Fox News? To my surprise, anchor Shepard Smith said he thinks “The Memo” is a big “nothing burger” and anchor Neil Capitol said he didn’t know what to think?
I have taken a couple of Xanax and I have had some shots of bourbon and just as soon as the Xanax kick in…I am even going to check in with Breitbart, Mark Levin, Michelle Malkin (because she is HOT) and Alex Jones to hear and read what they think about the memo.
Neil Caputo, damn auto spell. What do you think RTS? Do you think Michelle Malkin is HOT and NASTY looking too?
Gary…did the bourbon kick in…??? We know the Xanax did.
Here is Michelle in her natural hot and nasty form RTS…please stick with Antastasia…Gary…she is a fire and I like Shell-
She reminds me of an old co-worker during college Kaja…
http://i.imgur.com/r00NtJU.jpg
Well I love freaking life. Love it.
No…they haven’t kicked in yet and this news cycle is driving me CRAZY!
I’m afraid I am going to have to paraphrase Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Potter Stewart when he said, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [hard-core pornography]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that”
So…I shall not attempt to further define what makes Michelle Malkin look so NASTY, but I know it when I see it.
Although given that post and your earlier Email, I am starting to think you must be on…something?
Gary, I feel like I am on this fluffy cloud in Heaven….
I am at my 4 week part of a 40 day fast—it is life changing.
I mean serious I feel like I am “living” a book I would read….some kind of intense niacin flush that gives one a rush…
I feel like the angelic plane I have reached…
I am there.
it feels like I can feel every single beat of my heart…
the smiles that radiates my face feels so permanent…
I feel how close we are to the TRUTH to the forefront…
I feel like the part of my soul that was broken is just healing forever…
its freaking contagious this smile of mine…it is…
I was doing cartwheels and skipping down the Weavers today From Yarnell doing my 10 miles and getting texts from locals asking WHAT IS IT THAT HAS YOU CAPTIVATED?
I want that they wrote.
I move about like I am a fresh kid to life and jump up and down…it is too cool, Gary.
I said I love life…I do…I like it because noone but you Gary get it…Xanax or no xanax…you get it…Moab Baby Moab…jeep trails baby…Sonny gets you Gary…he is out jeeping right now in NM…I think he is tearing NM a new hole…as much as he gets…and he is getting around…
The GMHS shuttle bus driver had the hugest smile as I was twirling down the highway as he bussed the recent GMHS state park hikers back to Yarnell and his smile was HUGE as I was being so silly but I had just heard wonderful news…
I have bumper sticker idea Gary —- “Fire & Desire”—
I use to lay in the gray of my mind…where at time the blue haze would sting me…no longer…
Gary —you ready..get set…START
what is the first thing that comes to your mind when I say the word HEART?
For me, I think of chemicals…not beer or whiskey…I have to admit and my dad will tell you if he was still alive I am an adrenaline junkie…to get my heart racing…that is about rare…a cardiac electrophysiologist will tell you as I do their tests and they are like ???? but recently I feel the thumps … we are so close to having the data be to the surface…so close…
It is like we have all seen a 1000s winds blow…or that sun touch to the diamond glints on snow… adrenaline, epinephrine and norepinephrine; they are all pumped…do a 40 day fast, Gary…it will change you…
you will love it and may it show you areas to your life you only imagined in your head as I have had in 2018…Mother freaker Gary…I am not kidding….I am for reals…the fast will change you.
slow down (but not as much as Dr Ted Putnam)…enough to appreciate the blessings…smile and right now take in a deep breath…compliment one person today like say RTS since we both are always so hard on him here 😉 and focus on how awesome life is and name 3 things you are grateful for RIGHT NOW…
me; what I am grateful for:
1) way close to the T R U T H being a public display for the world
2) being able to walk those 10 miles today and yesterday with a bad knee…bad groin…bad hip and one hell of a blister…but wasn’t wearing my Whites gary–shit…
3) having no fear to open up an area I feared to do and that is a miracle…and not talking about recent times of skydiving…yet that event was nuts…but when I talked to my brother and my husband about how I need them to get me and allow me this moments because really I do deserve it…I do…
was it you Sonny who said I am bad and that is good and I will never be good and that’s not bad ???
Sense of humor…taste of adventures…may you have an open confident healthy glow…life is funny…most girls I met like the bad boys and they expect the bad boy to be just good to her and then the guys want good girls but be just bad for them…strange world huh…
I will end this Gary by saying I am GLAD I have KNOWN sadness because it made for me to really appreciate pure happiness…I know what I am thinking would bother most cookie cutters especially in my own neighborhood…I do not care…have mercy on me…
I can say this much…all the funds and time put out to make this time happen soon enough…all the books and movies in the world that have been made or still gonna will be like I just wish I would of waited to call this true story
just saying…
over…you turn Gary
looking forward to see the people who were on that fire see their reactions…..I have to see if I can make that happen first….
Joy,
I am going to be completely serious right now and you need to read this. You are fuckin’ out of your mind crazy and if you were institutionalized right now they would have you strapped to a bed and on a feeding tube.
If your husband, brother and whoever else is in your real life love you they will have an intervention for you and get you some professional help and to a hospital like…right now.
And in this case, I am like our President Trump because I am like…a really smart guy who is using all the best words.
Joy,
I am going to be completely serious right now and you need to read this. You are fuckin’ out of your mind crazy and if you were institutionalized right now they would have you strapped to a bed and on a feeding tube.
———–
I read what you wrote (I do not agree)…what have I said or wrote that qualifies me such way? Because I live away from the normal way to life and hike M-F on the Weavers trying to keep gaining fire data? Or on the weekends you may see me fixing my pc or out at the shooting range or watching a movie or visiting the elders in town? Or because I allow myself to let go and let God work on my physical in the ways it needs to for healing? I cannot figure out what I did to make you feel I am crazy? Because I challenge the IC of YHF and one day it wont be a challenge just another chapter to this here journey of truths because to “know” me…is to know truth and heart…not craziness….I am respectful to self and others and fair and kind…even with my husband who I have said is my best bud and I did not enter that area normally or traditional and my husband would tell you like when Sonny use to wear his tshirts inside out (who does that)…my husband always felt if I just turned my shirts inside out to normal than I would be alright but you Gary have no idea the haunts of my earlier life that in real time I should be “crazy” for what I have seen to life but I am not—but I do believe in truth…I just do not roll in life like others…mine is all about happy energetic in the moments not programmed stuff and my brothers and my mother will tell you Gary I just have a unique style in living life…some use chemical liquids to make their day “happy” and well I am naturally just that way…so you have your perceptions and maybe others feel like you do but I do not live my life like the world—I live it like a joyful Wonder Woman using truth lassos…hee hee…I am a happy person and I follow heart in my own life…so I respect your perception but I do not agree…
————————–
If your husband, brother and whoever else is in your real life love you they will have an intervention for you and get you some professional help and to a hospital like…right now.
why? I do not get it. I reckon you never fasted for God before? I am doing good. Ask people here who have seen me…all is good…
And in this case, I am like our President Trump because I am like…a really smart guy who is using all the best words.
I am okay Gary…the only difference from 2017 to now is this fast and I have allowed God to use me and I agree there is a foreign newness but in the start of the year I had hard time getting going but now with the fast I am back to walking and the fast includes extracting oxygenated only nutrients and drinking alkaline water…I am watching Halle Barry in KIDNAP…I know what you mean about Heart Attack…I could not imagine to see my son be placed in a vehicle…intense highway scene…
Joy,
Although I am not a medical professional, or no longer a professional of any kind, I am pretty sure a 40 day fast is very unhealthy and potentially deadly. Or could simply result in permanent damage, like I don’t know…the muscle around your heart?
And even though not being a professional of any kind includes being a mental health professional, I am pretty sure anybody who is convinced a 40 day fast is a good thing to do could probably be classified as fuckin’ crazy.
BUT…I learned a long time ago that arguing with you is a complete waste of my time, even though I do have a lot of time to waste.
And in any case, I have done what I think is right and what I can do, which is to state my concern. So…you go girl!
Just don’t try to tell me even if this experiment works out for you it was a good idea. And that is because even somebody playing Russian Roulette can get lucky five clicks in a row…but the sixth one will be a real bitch (non gender specific).
And in any case, none of that means playing Russian Roulette was a good idea in the first place, even if you get a click when your turn comes. I mean…didn’t you even see “The Deer Hunter?”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGSXflBoWU
Oh…and one more thing. I made a career out of pushing the envelope (which I do not recommend to others by the way) you scare me and I try to be fearless.
And when the grid goes down, I am going to beg you to save me, so…
Whoops,
…BUT you scare me…
But…I’m not delusional since I know the weak link in my survival plan is the Internet won’t work when the grid goes down…so I might be screwed?
reply in bold below
Joy,
Although I am not a medical professional, or no longer a professional of any kind, I am pretty sure a 40 day fast is very unhealthy and potentially deadly. Or could simply result in permanent damage, like I don’t know…the muscle around your heart?
——–
as for the heart that is why I walk 8 to 15 miles M-F—as for protein I take that in my extract of oxygenated greens which is by essential living and organic with hemp protein AND I am properly hydrated and oxygenated every day and if I was not— that is dangerous Gary— Fasting for 40 days is a great way to transform your Spiritual and physical health. I also do it for autophagy Gary…I’ve seen that it releases atomic power in the Spiritual realm…It’s a missing piece in many Christian’s lives today…ask how many Christians do it or have done it…most say that is old testament or simply no…Down through the years, Godly people who have done Mighty Things for God have testified to the necessity of prayer with fasting.(gonna copy and paste for a sec)…It is a way to humble ourselves before God (Psalm 35:13; Ezra 8:21). It brings revelation of our spiritual condition resulting in brokenness and change. It brings personal revival through the powerful moving of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It helps us better understand the Bible by making it more vital and practical. It transforms prayer into a richer and more personal experience. the Old and the New Testaments (see Isaiah 58:5, Psalm 69:10, Matthew 23:12, I Peter 5:6, and James 4:8-10). Humility is an attitude of the heart. “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise (Psalm 51:17) (KJV).” God will hear us and respond to our cry when we come before Him in humility and brokenness–acknowledging and repenting of our sins, and asking Him to cleanse us by the blood of Jesus and to fill us with His Holy Spirit.
Fasting is not always the easiest godly discipline to practice. For those unaccustomed to it, going without food can be a struggle. The mental and emotional battles that may break out when we fast can sometimes be unsettling. Veteran fasters say this is a sure sign of the need to abstain from food and draw close to God. (end of Donna Partrow copy/paste)
———————-
And even though not being a professional of any kind includes being a mental health professional, I am pretty sure anybody who is convinced a 40 day fast is a good thing to do could probably be classified as fuckin’ crazy.
I like to call it in tune with my mind and body and soul… you call it crazy…it’s all good 🙂
————————————–
BUT…I learned a long time ago that arguing with you is a complete waste of my time, even though I do have a lot of time to waste.
it is never a waste of my time to engage with people seeking the truth to the YHF… also I do chew slow but not swallow until well chewed basil and mint and tomatoes so my jaw has the chewing action just so you know Gary and I use clear fiber so that area never fails on me during ketosis…but my husband will agree I am stubborn or hard-headed and yet if a NY pizza sat on my lap right now I might give up but go to Walmart or the places I have to choose for as eateries…not really too many around…however recently I did have the broth only part of ThaiPho at Tara’s in Prescott so I could socialize if that helps your psyche mentality of starving myself…I am a hermit but not ever second… and El Gato Azul made a very nice posole broth so I can socialize but I did not eat the matter in it but at Thai’s I had 3 tiny mini broccolis I chewed on and oh was it delicious…so YES I am not eating solids and yes I am staying FULLY hydrated and taking supplements to support the heart and skin and muscles…I am not an idiot…well I am when it comes to certain folks in this fire dealio…I mean last August should of never happened but it did and that person was probably thinking something a norm to me and it was just one whacked out day in its entirety and well I don’t error much like that but it is what it is…but I look at silver linings from bad situations anyways…thanks for the concern but doubt I will die from this…I feel too damn happy and good…but the fear of something else in me…but that won’t work…
————————–
And in any case, I have done what I think is right and what I can do, which is to state my concern. So…you go girl!
I will go and take my sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphate, and magnesium supplements now 😉 and when I bring foods back in I will start with 10 calories of body weight per day…Supplement with thiamine and other B vitamins 30 minutes before breaking the fast ….supplement with phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, and sodium before breaking the fast. —–
Just don’t try to tell me even if this experiment works out for you it was a good idea. And that is because even somebody playing Russian Roulette can get lucky five clicks in a row…but the sixth one will be a real bitch (non gender specific).
in a sense Gary— this is not my first rodeo when it comes to fasting silly— how do you think I can be so intuitive…
—————–
And in any case, none of that means playing Russian Roulette was a good idea in the first place, even if you get a click when your turn comes. I mean…didn’t you even see “The Deer Hunter?”
yes I did see the movie and you said Streep should play me remember…I think so too…she is a hoot… but that movie is a classic… how about this: https://youtu.be/fUJmVEB58TQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OuGSXflBoWU
do not be scared of me Gary
I am noone to be scared about—
shit, you are the polar bear
not me
Oh never mind. I just researched forty day fasts on the Internet and it looks like there is a variety of opinions and I’m pretty sure something has to be true before it can be put on the Internet so like President Trump used to say, “Who knows, who knows?”
At l east it doesn’t look like your body will consume your heart muscle. So…if you have that much willpower I should celebrate it with you rather than be like RTS and be a party pooper. So…good luck!
Nope, I can’t even watch the Deer Hunter scene again.
gary said-if you have that much willpower I should celebrate it with you rather than be like RTS and be a party pooper. So…good luck!
it is not willpower—you want to get better or you don’t…I was not even getting around and I was unsure if it was a rut or Winter hibernation laziness or food intake so I awoke and said reboot it all….and simple as that…why is it we always together pull RTS into our discussions…he is probably fast asleep…remember he is the normal one in this crowd not us…we stay up until late hours.
who is RTS to you Gary?
To me, he is the one to teach the lessons of responsibility, and lessons on associating, how to work for and with others, how to coincide viewpoints, and educate and organize others, and he has his core base and is not swayed…
and he works life through logic and facts…
he is confident.
Helps us here to explore our mental exploration sides and he gives us patience, time and effort.
He is a teacher of the fundamental natural laws.
I feel he is very independent and has a natural urge to initiate activities and is progressive by nature…
he not only has knowledge and understanding but he takes his time out and gives you the chance to absorb it at your own capability to learn the same.
His challenges if any is to understand the other peoples’ viewpoints if they are not balanced to his…
in some sense I feel RTS is responsible for you Gary and for Bob and even non industry me…to ensure we get what needs to be got…so he has a duty…I do believe in that alot.
I have found over the years him to be very generous of his time here on IM and in it he cultivates thoughtfulness by sharing his brilliant mind.
He has been original and resourceful (I know everyone now thinks I am talking about avatar wtktt but I am still on RTS)…
what I find to be stimulating is to see RTS here at IM engaging in group discussions often with Bob Powers right there with him as so many have challenged him but he never swayed..
he may say Gary I agree on this or that or I agree to disagree but overall he knows his shit…
I at times think my self-reliant independent thoughts make him flustered and the fact I dot…dot…dot…drives him mad…
I think he is about new challenges and opportunities…has a active relentless nature…I can see me doing menial tasks not RTS.
I can see him formulating new, more effective ways of doing things. Like my father, I feel if someone was to cause ill intent he would show caustic, irritable expressions but otherwise he really aims to educate not just himself but others…he is the right person to be in the area he is no matter what I heard months ago—“do not believe everything” others try to create— setups in life happen…I have seen it myself.
I strongly believe something going on in his life will flourish in 2019. so to sum one word CEMENT…he is the cement to your industry.
it is budding time for RTS
——————
Now let me cover you Gary 😉
Now Gary— you know before I talk about you I will talk trash on me first—k…even the score up— I have a generous love for humanity and strong desire to be helpful to another. There is many depths that make me ME. I need to learn to develop emotion education (poor there; very unseasoned there) as well as giving more time to develop my intellect because as I know its there I sometimes am not mindful to try…I love being around philosophical older generation intellects vs fun party young folks…I have a deep appreciation for the outdoors and the beauties of nature. I have qualities of ingenuity and originality. My inborn independence and freedom side to me would be a versatile asset to someone needing every 10 days nurturing…and I am very pleased my plane is currently all about SELF expressing vs doing for another…like RTS should feel if he does not… I feel a duty and responsibility to this world to seek truth and ensure it come out…I am a very matter-of-fact person and I accept and get life as each day unfolds…I tend to disregard advice given to me and have no clue why I always been that way but always since a tot…so like I said earlier RTS does not like menial areas from my way of looking I do so I am the germinator ;)…so I am the one to take the time for the tedious stuff most would never ever…I am very sensitive worse than Gary…I am restless and can be creative…and one word to sum me up is MUD…I love mud…where that fits in have no clue but I wear mud about every time I go hiking…Mud acts as a physical barrier between my skin and the sun by blocking the sun’s UV rays. When the mud eventually dries out and cracks off, it leaves behind a residue that also blocks UV rays. The sun’s UV rays are constantly on the prowl for skin to damage. The white powder found on the aspen tree trunks has an SPF of 5…I like to learn the Earth and use it…vs chemical store bought stuff so I am very ancestral like—and I have a pet peeves like leaving lights on…my family leaves lights on growing up and it always bothered me and same with brushing my teeth or showering- I turn water off when brushing or washing…am I brain-washed because that is all self-taught because noone else does it….and I just trying to be picky…oh well…NOW TO GARY—>
——————
Firstly, I think Craig is a kick ass guy and I am sorry…same with the lioness loss…and wishing your family at least one “gets” all you are and have done….you are a polar bear I know that much…Gary, you have a natural gift of self expression…which was to be developed to educate others…you are born to uplift and are for the betterment of humanity…you are to impart the heavy facts people cannot handle may it be philosophical or just the basic truths to life…you have a heart and mind for others…you are made to co-interact and shake the mundane ways to life…you are a natural born counselor…you use the power of language to bring happiness to people’s face even if at times its a “oh my” kind of smile you give the world. Great sense of humor especially in politics…you crack me up…you live to the maxim but you also LIVE TO GIVE…you are the one who can easily earn and learn the trust to just about anyne…so who is the scary one; you. hee hee You have an obligation not a duty to the people— you cannot be around folks like me too long due to the emotional imbalance I can radiate your way—you use better judgement than me 😉
You are free from monotony and limitations—you stretch the limits—you have some scattered efforts and one day Dr Ted Putnam may have a chapter in your book dedicated to him but hell Ted might have a book long before you and he is still on the Mann Gulch stuff…”just saying” You and RTS share the same stuff as I said to RTS would go to you as well…yet you are more of a serious thoughtful shrewd efficient business minded fella in areas RTS would not do what you do….I feel like you make the decisions in all of your life paths and not easy to sway…You and I share the same when it comes to independence and freedom and noone is gonna interfere that…you seem more like a stable settled guy that jokes about xanax and bourbon but maybe the Arizona Republic will do an article as a bourbon hound like they did old Sonny…so you get a world label like ol’ Sonny…I think you are serious in your private spots but the public display is another side…I worry about your head/sinus area; where RTS I worry about his gut areas…and I worry as you age about your eye health…
add-on or correction—
RTS if he sees harm– he is firm to correct you asap and not allow you to go at your pace— he sets you straight on SAFETY…lces…10 & 18…GROUPthink…etc
Well…you are right about one thing, Ted will have his own chapter in my book, he has already written it.
It is the story of the Battlement Creek Fire from his perspective. I’m very fortunate to have it.
My oldest daughter (who couldn’t keep Una) and my son in law have a German Short Hair Pointer. I dog sat him for a few weeks this summer when they moved and he is a really neat dog and I can tell that would be a good kind of dog to own. He is always hunting wherever he goes and whatever he does, he is always hunting. Una on the other hand was always in a moderate to high alert tactical mode.
And FYI…when Una leapt off that platform, she didn’t have any idea what was out there.
In the dark. She had never seen a raccoon before, all she knew is there were two of them and they were inside our perimeter and she was driven to protect us. For all she knew, there were two Velociraptors out there in the pitch black night.
And she still went because she believed that yea, though she walked through the Valley of the shawdow Of Death, she feared no evil because she thought she was the meanest and bravest one in the Valley.”
Which wasn’t true of course, but we all know if you have faith and believe in yourself, it will always go better than if you don’t. Una was an inspiration to me and a great watch dog. Una lived her entire life in Condition Orange and always positioned herself in a tactical position and was always looking for threats. If there were multiple entrances or approaches to wherever we were, she would choose where she could watch all of them (even if she has to expand her perimeter) at the same time and she would always place herself between me and the rest of the world.
And besides that, she didn’t have to be the baddest, all she had to do was alert me. I have the opposable thumbs and can rack the rounds and reload a bunch of different guns depending on where I am, what I am doing and what the threat level is.
I got tired of this news cycle so I started looking for GIF and memes for my website. And I found a perfect one for you, and a perfect one for me. I will post them later using my other computer.
I have learned my lesson about criticizing your fast, but I’m not sure you will be able to fast long enough to get rid of tumors or even shrink them down? I know this is a stupid question, but have you discussed your plan with a doctor who knows about tumors? Although just in case you are right, how long do you think I will have to fast to get rid of this tumor in my brain?
The following may be a repost, this tablet is a pain in the ass? But my computer sucks even worse.
Ted and I collaborated on the history of the BCF over several months a couple of years ago and he gave me a copy of his final product and permission to use it in my book. And I feel very fortunate to have his perspective on the fire. He was right there in the middle of it all. I was down at the bottom of the bowl that we burned out. I think it was many hundreds of acres? Anyway…it was big and steep.
Although for a 20 pound Yorkie mix, two bad ass raccoons are almost as bad. As you know, those things have claws like tactical fighting knives. I mean she had some deep slashes, especially on her underbelly and I didn’t have anywhere near enough money for a vet at 5he time. I just bought a bunch of tubes of antiseptic cream and changed the bandages a lot, but I couldn’t do anything about the puncture wounds but she was up to date on her shots. I did think she was a goner and on her way to Valhalla.
I didn’t have much money because my wife left me for 18 months right after I retired. So I have already had my practice run. Now…I don’t give a fuck. It’s been over forty years, but it seems like it has been much, much, much longer.
Oh…and one more thing. That basket I took a photo of Una In wasn’t her bed. That bed belonged to my youngest daughter’s Toy Fox Terrier who was a real little bitch who was always snarling and snapping at Una. But Una had quickly learned she couldn’t fight back so she retaliated by taking naps in that little bitches bed so she couldn’t use it. When Una went to sleep, she always slept in a hallway so she could guard all of the bedrooms at once, or where hallways intersected or a central area so she could watch all points of ingress or egress into the house I’m telling you, she was 20 pounds of tactical energy just waiting to explode. She also changed her position several times a night to confuse and disorient whatever may have been watching her from the shadows to confuse it. I’m telling you, that dog was scary smart. If she would have had opposable thumbs, I would have gotten her her own little gun with a laser sight and a backup tactical knife and then she would have been the biggest bad ass in the Valley Of The shadow of Death.
“Blessed is she, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for she is truly her brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And she will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy her brothers….Badass!” (Pulp Fiction)
Oh…and one more thing. Una’s favorite quote she liked me to repeat for her is, “In Your Darkest Hour When The Demons Come Call On Me Brother And We Will Fight Them Together”
Okay, enough about my fuckin’ dog, she is waiting for me in the Great Hall of my people in Valhalla. I just have to try my best to be worthy to join her.
Joy,
http://www.ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
The Bill Murray one is mine. The other two are yours…obviously.
I totally get you there—
I have been a goofball lately huh
even my neighborhood pals and elders noticed—
I guess yoda is me huh
and you right I do have life all backwards and in some odd order yet I just finally fulfilled my bucket list and this Saturday will be my 5th week of the fast—
pretty cool willpower for Yoda indeed
and as for Bill Murray- that is how I feel about my foias and public records—– same pond but HUGE redundant game mess they played me
and you right
correction
YOU ARE RIGHT
How can I fix it Gary?
is it even fixable?
I guess there is a group for these kind of things huh…
Yoda Therapy. Watch this you must.
https://youtu.be/Ck067-D7KvQ
do you think I can one day be a Jedi or will I always be making my way through the dark side of life Gary….
Gary, one thing I know in this aftermath=
there is alot of lies…alot of misleads…
Yet I am human and I live from my heart not what the world expects me to do…not even anywhere near traditional…
I would like to start a tradition and change mine and Sonny’s bucket list to what one felt was a more uplifting phrase and call it a LIFE LIST…so there you have it Gary…the only bad part is on my LIFE LIST I want know list just live the unexpected and spontaneous hours…breathing in good exhaling any toxic left in me….
By the way Gary—how the heck are you doing lately—
What made you think of Yoda today? and to post it here?
I know, bored huh-
I know it was not the Xanax or bourbon…Yoda is pure 😉
here is a bumper sticker idea for you:
https://anewkindofhuman.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/803e86052f46b83569a8942c976057b9-zen-art-yoda-quotes.jpg
I want know list just live the
STUPID PC
it changed my NO to KNOW
correction
Bored.
Thank God for the Trump White House Reality Show. It’s very entertaining, a little scary…but very entertaining.2
I said the Bill Murray meme was for ME not YOU. Not everything is all about YOU.
1.. I think Bill Murray is really funny.
2. That is how I feel most days, I don’t have some or any of my ducks in a row, but they are all in the same pond. So..;I do have that going for me.
I’m not even sure what a “meme” is?,
Ted and I collaborated on the history of the BCF over several months a couple of years ago and he gave me a copy of his final product and permission to use it in my book.
Nope…way to young for me to even admire from a distance. The furthest I will go is the young people doing “Shuffle Dance Steps” to Haddaway’s “What Is Love”, (that I posted for RTS because the girl at the beginning blew him a kiss) which is a timeless song made famous in the classic movie, “Night At the Roxbury”,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRVfysTXhNA
Here is my favorite video of dance steps…another timeless classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IvnPB5vLDk&list=RD_IvnPB5vLDk&t=97
Whoops, the Xanax are starting to kick in…gotta go.
Okay…time for just one more. One time Una and I were camping out and two raccoons were raiding our camp in the middle of the night. I kept telling her everything was okay and we didn’t care, but before I could grab her, she jumped off the sleeping platform I had in the back of my Jeep and engaged those damn raccoons in a death match.
By the time I scrambled out of the back of the Jeep, they were all locked in mortal combat in the pitch black night. Those raccoons where shrieking like banshees straight outta hell and Una was snarling and howling to boot.
I started kicking where the screams and shrieks were coming from and eventually flew up into the air and landed on top of Una and then the raccoons were able to escape into the night.
Una was cut up pretty bad and she was a bloody mess when I picked her up. I thought I was going to lose her for a few days…but that crazy little bitch eventually pulled through. But she never stopped challenging anything and everything that got in our way and violated whatever perimeter she has set in her mind…man or beast, she was fearless and CRAZY.
classic movie, “Night At the Roxbury”,
Gary, what is truly funny about above is on the Seaside Shore in the early 90s there was guys really like that at the clubs…and I remember this guy who was training to be a FBI agent asked me to go outside get out of the noise and as we walked out my heel broke and one of those kind of guys in that flick begged for my broken heel and I said take the whole pair…they had a freak dance with those heels like in the flick that went on local tv station news…me and Rich cracked up…Rich was good friends with the girl Lisa I went with to the club (we loved to dance)…we walked the boardwalk and went out on the house boat and talked about his ex and at the time I was going to movies with his famous movie critic mom and those messed up guys who had my heels came on the boat and did that freak dance again…now I know WHY Gary I moved to a ghost town in the desert where most just keep dropping like flies around here since the fires away from those freaks….and at Bumper’s – Clifton, (part of a hotel on Rt. 3) NJ (now a Red Robin) and Bloomfield NJ you saw the Greek guys like those 2…it was hilariouuuuussss Gary. You couldn’t make that shit up…well SNL did but it was real stuff happening back then…
Thank you for the bluegrass link…I will show my mom…we use to every year have a family reunion in September in Mississippi and our family got down with the banjos and got ripping…dancing and all…I sure miss dancing…that was the only reason I went to clubs because you knew you can dance for hours on end and that was fun…Gary, do you remember Rockin Rodeo in Tempe or The Mint…Rockbar or Talking Sticks…those were great dance places in the day…Club Tribeca…or how about old school The Devil House or same place later Club Rio…what was the place my brother and I would go dance and hang out at…oh yeah Mill Ave…him and I together on the dance floor…we had people moving…anyone remember Dooley’s? (Apache Boulevard in the 70s/80s) My pops took us kids to the Yucca Tap Room…do you remember that place?
Joy, I pray this post finds you…NOT DEAD!
1. I have been on some crazy diets in my life that ultimately proved unsuccessful in the long run, but I am pretty sure you have taken it to the next, and perhaps the final step of Arizona Road Lizard CRAZY!
2. A 40 day fast? No thank you, I can think of a lot of better ways to die, or at least put my life on the line.
3. What comes to mind when you say “heart” at my stage in life? “Attack.”
4. Sonny has the right idea, I always liked the sunsets in New Mexico. I think it had something to do with the wind and red dust of the Navajo Rez between me and the setting sun. I also really liked the way the setting sun played off the snow during the Magic Hour in the Sangre de Christo Mountains above Santa Fe.
maybe I will follow him?
5. It must have been Sonny who said that, although I like it and I will start using it.
6. I did manage to find the right balance between Xanax and bourbon last night so I was able to check in with most of RTS’ echo chamber news sources last night regarding “The Memo” and it’s just as I thought…they are still Texas Road Armadillo CRAZY.
7. No…I didn’t go to any of those places. If I was goofing off in Phoenix it was with some guys from the crew…and we went to dance places, but not those kind.
8. And in case anyone is wondering. and I’m pretty sure you’re not, I never went looking for any dog much less a crazy Yorky mix who thought she wa a lioness trapped in a small dog’s body. I had to really watch out for her because although she had the heart of a lioness, she still had the jaws and teeth of a Yorky. So she was pretty good at starting fights she couldn’t finish. She was a rescue dog from my oldest daughter who couldn’t visit her apartment enough times to take care of her…and then on her way to a new home, she decided she was my dog. I had her for 13 of her 14 years. Bob told me what it would be like to lose her a long time ago…and he was right. She’s actually been gone for several months now., you know…so **** It!
Correction, I didn’t “lose her”, I followed Bob’s advice and let her go.
And yes, I like clogging. I just wish I could do it. I wrote a long time ago I liked it ever since I fought fire in North Carolina. And you know…I fought fire from an office so of course it was mandatory that we party like Salamander Huggers and Biches (non gender specific) at night.
Whoops…”BITCHES”.
MY REPLY IN BOLD
Joy, I pray this post finds you…NOT DEAD!
Oh ok Gary…I do daily urinalysis and PH tests and it is quite an interesting thing to watch different hours be so perfect and others be like hurry up like really hurry up (the storm of it)….it has its moments the 40 day fast— yet I am very much alive Gary and it is life changing and if my tumor is not dissolved at 40 day mark I am extending it either until tumor is gone and the one is 75% gone and is not a grapefruit size but the size of the old toy silly putty egg container and that gives me hope to keep at it…sometimes it takes longer than 40 days…the only time I missed emotionally eating food was last Sunday when I thought an area was closing (emotion based) and last night was my 1st day of hunger pangs…and I always say do it under medical supervision if you do it…
Sonny is near T&C areas right now…probably in the hot springs…his cousin and him have been enjoying life…I was so pleased to hear he has trailed wherever his trails took him
1. I have been on some crazy diets in my life that ultimately proved unsuccessful in the long run, but I am pretty sure you have taken it to the next, and perhaps the final step of Arizona Road Lizard CRAZY!
I wish it was a diet but it is not…it is to bring the final clearing before the truth is presented Gary…a 40 day fast should reflect as a reboot to the system…if it was for diet reasons I would of gave up already because the weight does not drain off on the fast like one would think because it is working too much on alkalizing the body and removing the tumors and t cells.
2. A 40 day fast? No thank you, I can think of a lot of better ways to die, or at least put my life on the line.
it actually helps your life if you do it proper
3. What comes to mind when you say “heart” at my stage in life? “Attack.” you and Sonny both
4. Sonny has the right idea, I always liked the sunsets in New Mexico. I think it had something to do with the wind and red dust of the Navajo Rez between me and the setting sun. I also really liked the way the setting sun played off the snow during the Magic Hour in the Sangre de Christo Mountains above Santa Fe.
maybe I will follow him? he would enjoy that…he tends to like Grants NM for nostalgia so maybe you can meet at the junkyard bar in Grants…
5. It must have been Sonny who said that, although I like it and I will start using it. it does sound like Sonny
6. I did manage to find the right balance between Xanax and bourbon last night so I was able to check in with most of RTS’ echo chamber news sources last night regarding “The Memo” and it’s just as I thought…they are still Texas Road Armadillo CRAZY. I think alot of the media is fluff and you have to answer me this Gary for the bleachers…what are you going to do when the power grid is down?
7. No…I didn’t go to any of those places. If I was goofing off in Phoenix it was with some guys from the crew…and we went to dance places, but not those kind. oh my than you probably saw my giant dad there
8. And in case anyone is wondering. and I’m pretty sure you’re not, I never went looking for any dog much less a crazy Yorky mix who thought she wa a lioness trapped in a small dog’s body. I had to really watch out for her because although she had the heart of a lioness, she still had the jaws and teeth of a Yorky. So she was pretty good at starting fights she couldn’t finish. She was a rescue dog from my oldest daughter who couldn’t visit her apartment enough times to take care of her…and then on her way to a new home, she decided she was my dog. I had her for 13 of her 14 years. Bob told me what it would be like to lose her a long time ago…and he was right. She’s actually been gone for several months now., you know…so **** It!
same here Gary- every pet here was once at Sonny’s place…I never thought I would have a tiny dog myself…I am a hunting type dog like a german pointer dog and if I ever got one it has to be a pure breed w/ papers with certain pattern like this pup:
https://gfp-2a3tnpzj.stackpathdns.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/German-Shorthaired-Pointer-Puppies-For-Sale-600×600.jpg and some day I will get one…my grandpa had one and I always wanted one…I see me as an old lady owning one later down the road…
Oh…and one more thing. I wasn’t the only one who noticed how the red sunsets were reflected off the snow in the Sangre de Christo Mountains above the City of Holy Faith during the Magic Hour because that is why the Spanish Conquistadors named them the Blood of Christ Mountains in the first place.
And thinking about hiking for long distances in rugged and steep terrain in the backcountry with a Special Operations Team was like being with a hotshot crew on a fire except the tools we carried were different and the overall objectives were different made me think of a photo.
And you know me, when I can post one of my photos to illustrate a point…I like to do it. So I posted my favorite “hero” photo of me in the type of helicopter I had an unnatural attraction to…a Vietnam Era Bell Iroquois “Huey.” I love those helicopters and those of you who flew in them or 206’s and especially the Bell 212’s and 214″s know that familiar and distinctive sound of their rotors beating the air into submission, “Wop .wop .wop wop.”
I spent the first half of my LE career in Huey’s and the second half in Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, but I never fell in love with the UH-60 helicopter like I did with the Huey’s. They aren’t proportioned right…know what I mean, their tails are to damn long? I guess they have to be for aerodynamic reasons, but they are ugly?
But forgive me, I digressed. So check out the photo and you will see at my feet the very same green North Face tear drop day pack I carried for years as a hotshot that I liberated from the USFS and pressed into service on behalf of the BLM.
And to keep things equal, I posted one of my favorite “hero” photos of me with a wildfire. It was pretty hot where I was standing, but you can see the wind pushing the flames with dark smoke parallel to where we were cutting hotline.
I don’t know why young men like to take hero photos with fire (except for RTS, he isn’t full of himself), maybe it’s like counting coup and smacking your enemy with physical contact without engaging it in actual combat?
That’s why I now think all hotshot crew bosses should be women. I have never met the woman who I would recommend as First Pulaski (I’m not saying they don’t exist, I’m just saying I haven’t met her…yet), but I have met a lot of women who would make good hotshot crew bosses. Partly because you can count on them to never yell, “HEY…WATCH THIS!”
And I posted another photo of my best Jeeping buddy because I could. She (Una) was tired after a tough day of Jeeping with me in the backcountry. I mean…how cute was she? Una didn’t have any idea she was cute, she thought she was a lioness trapped in a Yorky mix’s body on steroids.
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
Yes Had one in my hard hat still have the hard hat meatal with the sticker in it.
Me too, short brim Bullard. Were you a round brim Bullard or short brim man? I know RTS was a round brim Bullard man because they standardized theirs the way I remember it. I gave everyone a choice because I promoted and valued the expression of individualism whenever and wherever possible.
That sawyer we had was lucky he was a round brim Bullard man or he might have cut his throat, and it was a night shift wayyyy up in the mountains. He wasn’t medevacced until the next day because as you know our slicks weren’t flown at night.
The old Flagstaff crew boss (Mark Zumwalt, I bet RTS knew him) at about that time did cut his throat limbing a tree on project work, but he got control of it in the nick (no pun intended) of time.
I doubt they let anybody wear those old aluminum Bullard anymore because of lightning…maybe? But I bet the old timers fought hard to keep them. They were a lot lighter for one thing, but of course style and status. were the biggest reasons.
Our standard issue were the new plastic Bullards after about 1979; but guys were always watching for the metal ones at flea markets and garage sales and quite a few of them had them.
It was the short one. Had it till around 1990 when the full switch to Plastic happened. Never knew or herd of any one getting hit by lighting that wore one. We were seldom around power lines back then either..
Gary,
Nice faux pax. This statement smacks of utilizing a Participatory Leadership style.
“I gave everyone a choice because I promoted and valued the expression of individualism whenever and wherever possible.”
Ahhhhhhhh dagnabit, you caught me! Damn…you ARE smart!
Gary,
Regarding Fire Order Number 10 – Fight fire aggressively having provided for safety first. you posted: “… if you always followed that ONE order, that was the only one you needed….right?”
“I mean…it kind of sums up the other 9 plus all of the other safety advisories, guidelines, suggestions, standard operating procedures, general orders, policies, directives and recommendations…right?”
Yes it does sum up the other 9 orders, however, you have to already know those Fire Orders and apply them. So then, I agree with you in part and disagree in part, with both you and the Woodsman that we can get away with only one.
And yes of course I agree with you, all of them must be known and applied, or you will end up dead. I was just taking it to the extreme to illustrate the point that technically, if you always provide for safety first in every situation, you will have it covered. I have never disagreed or challenged the Ten, I didn’t even use the challenge or ever question the Thirteen. I only started rolling my eyes when they took those to Eighteen and now it’s way beyond that. I am just trying to say that I really think Paul Gleason was on to something.
Making # 10 #1 was for a reason to me although in reverse of the safety first being a reminder at 10. As #1 it would have set the stage for the 9 safety directions that followed.
No one that I ever knew ever believed that we could NOT fight Fire Aggressively and still provide for Safety. As Wild Land Fire Fighters we always attacked the Fire Aggressively and provided for Safety First..
Bringing this up out of the weeds as they say.
This is a VIMEO video from a contract Engine Crew on the 2012 Holloway Fire in Nevada and southern Oregon. It is subtitled: “… we saved the Granite Mt. Hotshot buggies from burning up!” by Oregon WF Colby Drake – the video was later removed from VIMEO site. and you cannot find this video clip anywhere else.
The GMHS engaged in Bad Decisions with Good Outcomes THREE TIMES on the Holloway Fire (2012) in Nevada; what they referred to as the “Nevada Fire” during their PFD ‘public record’ Squad Boss interview when the candidates were asked to give an example of ‘good leadership’ on a fire.
On two separate occasions, they posted no lookout(s) and the fire basically snuck up on them and they then had to fire out around themselves and their Buggies. They downplayed it by saying “… everything turned out alright.”
Another time on the same 2012 Holloway Fire, they were fortunate to have a contract Engine Crew save their Buggies because they parked them in the unburned and left nobody behind.
Go to (2:40-3:25), TURN OFF THE VOLUME in order to concentrate on what is occurring. Watch as the Engine Crew (one wearing a helmet cam) videos as the nozzelman squirts water on the flaming grass and sage brush, Then you see the GMHS Buggies come into view and notice the fire has jumped their road and/or dozer control line, with flames within about 20 feet of one of the Buggies.
As the nozzleman moves back to the left, concentrate on the upper left part of the screen and you will notice a handline adjacent to the black. Then begin to freeze-frame through the images and you will notice a GMHS with a black hardhat running downhill, down the handline in the upper left screen.
This is best visible when the nozzleman’s hardhat aligns with the handline in the upper left of the screen.
http://vimeo.com/48411010
The FIRST time someone else ‘saved’ the GMHS Buggies was on the 2012 Sunflower Fire (TNF) when they had parked their Buggies on the road above an unburned bowl of chapparal that was heating up. A HS Supt warned the GMHS and offered to move them, however, Marsh declined the offer.
McDonough later admitted in one of his interviews that “they took a little heat.” This was also reflected in the GMHS Crew video as they drove past flames coming up from below the road. I was unable to locate this video on YouTube any longer.
The SECOND time someone else ‘saved’ the GMHS Buggies from burning was on the 2012 Holloway Fire depicted in the VIMEO video clip above.
The THIRD time was when the BRHS ‘saved’ them on the YH Fire the morning of June 30, 2013.
In addition, the Holloway Fire was where the Zuni HS Crew filler deployed her fire shelter because she was getting overrun by the fire when she got separated from her Crew. The Holloway Fire SAIR is on the Wildland Fire LLC and has been posted on IM in the past.
The similarities of fuels, weather, topography, fire behavior, and HUMAN FACTORS closely mirror what took place on the YH Fire, which includes them having to fire out around themselves because of no lookout, the contract Engine Crew ‘saving’ their Buggies, and the ZUNI HS fire shelter deployment.
The video is up and working and available.
On VIMEO?
Yes, I haven’t done anything to remove it or take it down. It has always been available. Might be a browser issue if it won’t play correctly.
I said VIMEO, not you, took it down and it cannot be found there.
firstly, great to see you Methods-
Been since September-
Hope all is well…
is this the old link?
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-472591
Wow. I didn’t know that 10 died in the last month. That area is contaminated and shouldn’t have been open for hiking. Trouble is we didn’t know all this until time elapsed. Had we known we certainly wouldn’t have like that area after the dumps.
Maybe people can start realizing how dangerous to health those retardant dumps are
The human body is very resilient. You know that looking back I have been through so many different injuries and even illness that would tax the survival-ability of just about anyone. But as time goes on our immune defenses and organs become compromised. You know from my uranium mining I have had well beyond 20 cancers removed from my body including tumors of melanoma and carcinoma period fact I’ve lost track of how many there are. Of course working Underground you breathe plenty of dust, diesel smoking a lot of those mines especially Union Carbide at the church Rock Mine, Dynamite explosion fumes also loaded with ammonia, the many heart attacks I’ve had, and yet my brain works enough to keep me going. The point is that the older we get the more compromise we are from the many things that may have happened to us and the many pollution we are exposed to
Yesterday is dead and gone, tomorrow is but a dream, today is all I have.
Life Goes On and we have to make the best of it today. I’m not finish just yet, but sometimes I feel like I am. Take heart, there’s one thing certain, things will change.
Happy trails. I count myself more the fortunate 4 knowing you, Joy. You make me smile and laugh. I guess I’m too simple. My advice on divorce is don’t do it. and why do it. Yet you are always welcome back on the trails with me. Gary would agree, you should be raising hell with old Sonny here. I need someone to work the wood burning stove. You can chop and load wood. Bad hernia here. Dogs aren’t much good for that. You are the finest person I have ever met or will know. Nobody can know how special you are as much as me. I mean what man in the world not even your husband can say he saw you in an extreme snow blizzard in the freezing cold in my outdoor shower with freezing water. You are some kind of Eskimo. (or) in the freezing blizzard chopping up wood and stacking it up the entire day until dark as I drank my Guinness or my snow cone whiskey bowls. My dad said the french men did that kind of thing. Make the woman work while the men watched and drank beers. My dad use to call certain ladies “40” as him and his pal buy a bucket of beer when they passed 2 stories buildings the ladies would peak their head out and say .40 cents today; 80 cents tomorrow. They were prostitutes. Times sure have increased. Beer was a nickel a bucket in the Chicago area and the ladies only cost 40 today 80 cents tomorrow. what a bargain. You are really just like one of the guys in alot of ways but definitely one of a kind. May the Irish Gods keep you well, prosper, and just know we all here care about you.
Too many of them are brainwashed into believing what the big money corporations want them to believe. Get that retardant killer away from our populations. Certainly there are a few so-called Elite individuals who believe it is okay to kill off the elderly, with the exception of themselves when they are elderly. In fact the elderly are a precious commodity to this world. They are bastions of experience and knowledge to pass along to those younger folks. That is just proven by reading the post on investigative media where the older retired bosses share their knowledge and wisdom with the younger men in their profession. Gary, RTS, Bob, Rocksteady and Norb. Hope you are doing good.
Good Lord Joy that is just too damn many people to die in that short of time. You can see that both you and I have suffered from the retardant. Me more than you I think because I’m older but you have gotten some bad effects from it as well. It’s amazing how people have skirted the issue.
I think the other thing beyond the death of the 19 firemen are the deaths of over a hundred and twenty of the elderly in the Yarnell area. Seems that people turn their heads when you mentioned that the more than 500,000 gallons of retardant dumps surrounding Yarnell and even on top of some residences watch the main contributing factor to those deaths. Anyone that wants to Google the retardant will find that it emits a deadly gas. When tank cars will that ammonia gas break open whole communities have been evacuated. It is highly poisonous and a killer to the lungs which never regenerate. Most elderly people are already compromised in their lungs. Not only that, ammonium nitrate and phosphate when applied to a fire or and burning Embers produces cyanide. Of course cyanide gas was wants you to kill prisoners. And the old way to make cyanide was to apply this ammonium phosphate and nitrate 2 charcoal Embers to make cyanide. They got a different method these days but the old one work very well and the cyanide is used to release gold from sulfide ores. So you see the forest service and the powers-that-be as well as the Israeli companies that make billions of dollars out of selling you the 95% ammonium nitrate sand phosphates that are dumped on you are not about to tell you the truth of how poisonous and dangerous their concoction is. Fortunately these days the internet has educated many people who are interested to be informed of the truth. The truth is sometimes hard to find but it is there if you can wade through the lies.
Dumping of retardant should be labeled the killing of the elderly. This is Germany all over during the Third Reich. Get rid of those that have low-iq and those that are ill at physical labor and the j e w and any of those that do not accept the f u e r e r ideas and commands. You and I would have been top on the list to add to the death list. Pointing out the death of the elderly would have been against his will
retardant is killing lots of people but it’s being kept Under Wraps kind of like the truth of the 19 deaths. Yes a dirty bomb would have been safer then the retardant dumps they made. Either way Yarnell should have been evacuated for quite a long time until the effects of the retardant we’re totally washed away. It is a fine thing to draw attention to that retardant problem. Despite the obvious deaths of people in the aftermath of those retardant dumps people are looking the other way as if these deaths never happened.
You see most of those firemen do not believe that retardant is at all dangerous. It kind of reminds me of the uranium mining where they had us brainwashed that low-grade uranium was not dangerous at all. Fact of the matter is one molecule of plutonium is all that is needed to start a cancer and there’s a certain amount of plutonium amongst the pitchblende uranium radiation. Always you will find that when big money is involved, the corporations operate without conscience.
Yes it would have been wise for and the whole town to be evacuated much like an area of radiation. I think the death toll is even higher than if Yarnell had been struck by radiation. Radiation is a slow killer if you get past the original blast where as this retardant has been Swift to kill its victims.
The Irish and leprechaun green. That guy is set up for St Patrick’s Day. And Ireland it be called The Emerald i s l e. Emeralds are beautiful Stone mostly come from Brazil. An emerald stone can approach the prices of diamond and to me it’s a more beautiful g e m. I bought another one of those recorders like the one I gave you Joy. But it’s a complicated I couldn’t record like I wanted to On My Guitar so went down and bought one of those cheap type that you put a cassette in and that damn thing sounds garble so I got to take it back to Walmart. That is unlike you to hear the news of your divorce. Must be something because your animals are your world. Your husband is what did you call him “Your Rock”
I would have to calculate this as a rare moment of emotions. Is it your health? your fast? May the Irish Gods keep you well.
The comments lately on IM are more of a personal discussion among friends and cohorts and people involved in the fire industry. I can imagine couple of old ladies who follow here have probably quit posting after recent times. Wives appalled.
Those kind of discussions are fine among friends privately but I didn’t see that the content is going to benefit the promotion of finding out the truth about the death of 19 young firefighters. It is True the tragedy always brings forth some levity. You see people at funerals laughing.
All things being said the truth is hidden because of politics. Someone up top decided it would be better to hide the truth than exposed those people whose reputation would be ruined. Someone wants to make wildland firefighter bosses look clean. But there was a lot of dirty work there in killing those men. So someone’s covering their own ass as well as comrades asses. Marsh & steed carry a heavy burden when they killed those men under them. But the public was done no justice by being fed a lie and young Wildland firefighters who risked their lives daily in the land of fire fighting are shorted.*
Hope you are doing good, Wants To Know The Truth.
I speak in my phone.
So forgive the punctuation and English errors.
Some of the school teachers that watch this they’re going to grit their teeth.
Where is Ms. Lomas by the way?
Thu, Jan 25, 2018 at 5:56 PM Gary is right. he gives terrible advice. 😉 My husband thought I was joking when I brought it up like I saw it on Candid Camera episode or something. ??? I was just trying to do right…if Gary can…why not me…I am about the same time in as Gary…I liked his reason so I ran with it…it did not even reach first base on believable at Date: Jan 25, 2018 12:08 PM….what kind of skills you got to pull that off—let me know back channel…I get laughed at…Well, Sonny is right. Probably because he heard it over and over for over six years…my husband is my best buddy…it confuses many over time…but early on I married my best friend…literally…I am not looking for trouble nor wanting trouble to find me…however this week was an odd week that I had know clue how to vlog that…but I can tell you this get well Paul My brother has his brain tumors in same areas as me and he got knocked real bad with pneumonia and I am less than 24 hours from me being at my 2 weeks of fasting of a 40 days fast…nice…I have had about over 30 hours of rough moments overall I think doing good; thumbs up. One guy fasted for 385 days and he went from 400 to 180— cool! I was going to sleep but I had to email my list to hubby so since on I finally am replying and YES Sonny just recently the rancher who had that burn barrel she died in December and Monday night Bob died over here and the book store owner and our friend Kathleen died of cancer….ALL cancers…and many NEVER had anything wrong with them before YHF…the numbers keep growing and the towns keep getting smaller. It is messed up. Sonny, I have had a research team assigned awhile back on this and they did state you were on to something when your neighbor in Yarnell died. There should be a true investigation. I sure miss going to all your old mines and it is by far the most unique situation and you cannot make this shit up…who goes west of the Grand Canyon with an old miner and journey off from the cookie cutter world…remember the opal mine…you sure know your stuff…no doubt…I never met a person who tells you drop your back pack and gear and just go out with yourself and “live”…and you took Earth and grass and what else? and you made us dishes and utensils out of earth clay than you taught me where water is and you taught so many ways to properly make a campfire with nothing…you taught me I can do it with a smile and sleep under the moonlit stars with all those different wildlife…I remember those little men with guns and you said take a photo and I ran across those pics and the Vernon one too…I liked the part where you stated YOU ARE FORTUNATE TO KNOW ME…I had to hidden chuckle on that…there is not 1 person on this site I can see doing that or 6 years like you showed me…In your honor in recent times to warm my body on a cold night I did have a pretty decent glass of Tullamore Dew on my fast to keep me warm…and to settle my tummy…I am still part Eskimo but not chopping wood lately or taking freezing showers where that plane took that photo and put it up in the local hardware store DO IT BEST in Dolan Springs of me taking a shower (the skies have eyes)…if anything I really want to let you know how your brother is so remind me to do that…I am like one of the guys when you think about it…I am the longest lasting female on IM 😉 probably because the others came to their senses…where are you Diane? Maybe Sonny is right…maybe our side smack got her to wash her hands of IM…or maybe she is just enjoying life like Bob Powers and Norb (you still coming out Norb?) and Otis with periodic stop bys…we know Rocksteady’s hidden joy is coming to America on this site…poor Woodsman was neglected in the post…out of sight out of mind…maybe he is on to other Folklore, Legends, and Traditions of the Valley…Sorry Sonny we gave RTS a hard time and you felt that talk should be private…maybe it should of been but someone from the bleachers wanted to hypnotize the site with Anastasia…it’s all good. Due to data I know I am not on the same wave length as RTS and Gary and Sonny about the 2 leaders and just so you know that area is shifting to a commercial foia…and I hope to bring light there. It is almost like the old Appalachian superstitions that locals and readers “just believe” to believe yet facts are still pushing forward…I have to say you do have a point of the many deaths…yet my main focus is the 19 and all fallen…so I keep at it for them…have a good night…I keep saying I am going to sleep but someone emailed you were here so came to say hello…and welcome back to IM or is this a Norb kind of visit?
That’s a great offer Sonny…thanks.
what did Sonny offer, Gary?
RTS,
I was asked in an email if I can explain the infomation at this link? But I can’t because I am…dumbfounded. Can you explain it?
https://www.us-hotshots.com/user/dougfir777/
Try this one.
https://www.ushotshots.com/user/dougfir777/
Panko,
Although frankly, I feel…violated. Like someone broke into my house and slept in my bed, sat on my throne and took a big dump. WTF…Over?
http://mrgabe.com/dictionary/spanish/index.asp?startrow=650&maxrows=896
Oh…and one more thing Panko, IF it is true and you sat on my throne and took a big dump, the least you could have done was flush…you fuck.
Gary,
The US Hot Shot Association website link is messed up. I sent them an email about it.
Oh thank God…I not only felt violated, I felt like I had been raped.
RTS,
I hope you understand, what with our little “rilvary” and me being so jealous of your accomplishments in the Hotshot world.
Being the founder and crew boss of the Santa Fe Hotshots is my second biggest claim to fame in life and I didn’t want to share it with YOU.
Of course we all know my biggest claim to fame. And that is I was the youngest hotshot crew boss in his…Oh never mind.
I totally understand. It’s a Hot Shot thing My Friend
Aren’t they kinda the same thing?
This post is in response to this from you: ” not only felt violated, I felt like I had been raped.”
Maybe…but I was detailed to the Department of Redundancy Department for several months. So….it’s not my fault, you can’t blame me.
I know there has been alot fluff on here lately but this serious—-
Are any of you on IM up for making a IM Firefighter Calendar with us in it?
I will wear suspenders and boots — I am not sure about the Helmet
might mess up my hair…
We need pole shots— and we need pulaski shots— we need to do structural and wild land…cross over…speaking of cross over— maybe some other genders in the calendar… anyone game?
Than the proceeds can go to John Dougherty to OPEN a new chapter on here
Please John 🙂
I will think about doing a photo shoot while doing a pole…dance. I’m pretty sure that would be a big seller.
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 20, 2018 AT 12:37 AM
I will think about doing a photo shoot while doing a pole…dance. I’m pretty sure that would be a big seller.
MY REPLY:
can you use fire in your dance like this:
https://youtu.be/I_Brl2KWf4o
or if you scared to carry fire then the fire ring in this video may be better huh:
https://youtu.be/nncKE12Ni4s
please do not do this dance… you may attract the wrong ones…
https://youtu.be/42m4c7HHtjg
keep it simple
its a photo shoot.
Yes indeed, the Ukrainian dancer has my vote.
I am going to have to go with RTS on this one. I found the fire used by the french pole dancer to distracting and got in the way of my admiring her technique.
So…I think Anastasia Sokolova nailed it. What is up with the name Anastasia anyway? It seems like all of the women I am communicating with from that part of the world are named Anastasia? And they all say they will love me long time if I help them get their Resident Alien card, but I don’t know?
Oh…and one more thing. This thread takes forever to load on my old computer too. Maybe that Canadian mining conglomerate finally assassinated JD. I sure hope not because I need him to maintain this blog.
Of course our very own safety matter RTS picks the video with the one where the fire ring versus carrying fire…you are right RTS…safety matters so rule out the act carrying fire. Good choice RTS.
So RTS wants to do the pole dance too…is that right?
John, as my house fills up with yummy aromas and I am on my fast….that was easier than I thought…drank kale juice with ginger and as I was cooking I put silver spoon in mouth that cuts off my sense of salivating aromas smells…
The only thing sticking around here besides my boredom behaviors is I am still not yet in new chapter…
I will arrange for that shot in photo shoot so which one of you is getting that scene again with the pole dancing?
Seems RTS being tall it would be a challenge so give it to Bob Powers because never seen Polar Bears on poles except the South Pole
Well…we would definitely have to reinforce the pole AND the floor.
RTS will only do a pole dance with the beautiful Anastasia Sokolova
RTS
Your attack hose psi is not high enough to handle her; is it?
I meant as the safety officer standpoint…I think she the fire ring would require higher psi…I thought I better clarify..
Joy has been paying attention and she is a quick learner because that is a female WF joke and a borderline female hotshot joke.
And FYI…I don’t think we need to worry about his PSI blowing out any hose.
My bad…I should have just written, WF joke and Hotshot joke and left off the “female” part. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, I want to be a better dog…I really do. Wuff, Wuff!
On the contrary, my attack hose PSI is goona be just fine for the beautiful Anastasia Sokolova
Aren’t you the funny one …
that comment sounds as weak as the PSI in question
RTS,
YES…I think I have my moments of jockularity…thank you.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=RDXPmBnnon0Ek¶ms=OALAAQE%253D&v=XPmBnnon0Ek
Gary,
Nice moments of jockularity. I can see why you enjoy them.
The shoes that have motion activated neon lights and the cool dance steps?
tried to correct my statement with clarification many times-pc glitch- it was for gary
Routine Housekeeping
I’m not trying to tell the whole Scott Fire experience, which was by far the worst experience I ever had by far on a fire, here on this thread, but I forgot a minor but important point I want to make.
The Santa Fe National Forest Dispatcher, who I eventually replaced was named Cyndie Hogg. She could drink and party like a hotshot and frequently hung out with us. Anyway…she was married to Jeff Hogg, who RTS mentioned the other day. Give me a fuckin’ minute…I’m trying to get to the point of the story.
Anyway, Jeff was a Forester on the Santa Fe but he transferred to the Carson and so that is why Cyndie left. But before she did, she had been working in expanded dispatch down on the Coronado and for whatever reason, she was on the specially chartered jet that the Santa Fe Hotshots were being sent home on.
Of course throughout my encounter with the fire boss, line boss and division boss, I didn’t blink. This was because had I backed down in front of my crew, they never would have respected me again, but…I didn’t feel nearly as confident as my face and words in front of the crew indicated.
So anyway, half way through the flight home, Cyndie came up front where I was sitting because the crew boss always gets on everything last as he counts his crew, but the first seat is always reserved the crew boss.
So Cyndie walks up to where I was sitting, stood in front of me and said, Ray Page (Forest FMO on the Santa Fe and the man I went to see when we landed) and Dickhead (since I can’t remember his name) are old friends.
Well…of course this made me feel much worse, but everyone really liked and respected Cyndie including me, so I know she was trying to be helpful.
I managed to respond to her without missing a beat, “So what…all these guys (meaning the Fire Gods) are old friends.” Because it was one big good ole boys club.
Ray and Dickhead may have been old friends…but Ray never blinked when it came to supporting me and the Santa Fe Hotshots. And I have always been greatful for that.
Oh…and one more thing. The last time I saw Cyndie, I was a Special Agent attending a training session because FLETC West which was at the CIA Air Base at Marino, Pinal Air Park, Arizona.
Anyway…Cyndie was there working for the National Advanced Resource Technology Center, so maybe that when Jeff ended up down there. Marana was also a huge fire cache and an air tanker base.
It used to be interesting at breakfast trying to identify the wide variety of air crew uniforms and nationalities in the dining hall. It was like a meeting of the UN in flight suits and spooks.
Routine housekeeping,
Joy asked me down below who the guy in my video is with the hurt and heavily bandage foot. That is the sixth Happy Jack Hotshot who joined us in Santa Fe beginning in our second year.
I don’t remember how he hurt his foot. His name is Dale Stephenson. He left us and served for two years with the Peace Corps in Mali, which I think is a sub Saharan former French Colony.
He went on to get his PhD in science and worked for several years at the Los Alamos National Labratory and then went on to work for a large research university the last time I heard from him.
The guy laughing at him is Craig Sawtelle, who was also a Happy Jack Hotshot who went with me to start the Santa Fe Hotshots., Craig was by far one of the best hotshot sawyers and fallers I ever saw work.
I think the more interesting story is the guy with the heavily bandaged up face. We were working on the night shift, maybe on on a fire on the Modoc? So anyway…we were mopping up and he was working on a steep slide slope bucking up a large downed and burning tree.
His name was Bill Panke, and his foot slipped and his head and shoulders picked forward as his saw bar came up screaming at full throttle. Within a split secon, the bar was hitting his round brim metal Bullard and it skipped all around his hard hat beginning in the front and making a notch in his hard hat every inch or so. It was pitch black in the middle of the night when the medics called for me to come over to where they were working on him.
I have never seen that much blood before on a hotshot because every time the bar touched his hard hat brim, it cut his face, and then skipped around cutting several notches in his face and of course, we all know how much facial wounds bleed. But he was okay and the medics were able to get him medevacced that night down off the fire line to a hospital.. after that night he had a new nickname…Scarface.
I think he came pretty close to amputating his one pwn head. And I would have had to fill out a lot of paperwork, so I was glad he was okay and I only had ti fill out some paperwork.
Routine housekeeping
Captain Jesse Steed did not lead his crew down that chimney to the deaths because he was a Marine. Captain Jesse Steed led his crew down that chimney because he was a family man, who had two young children at home and a wife who did not work outside of the home who depended on both his paycheck and benefits such as health insurance for their survival.
Captain Jesse Steeds experience as both a Marine who served in a combat zone and a Wildland Firefighter, with an emphasis on Hotshot work had made him qualified for a position in the fast food industry where he would have to ask, “Do you want fries with that” if he lost his great firefighting career.
Captain Steed also had two petty, vindictive and unreasonable supervisors by the names of Willis and Marsh who had destroyed Captain Steeds predessor’s career and life for petty and vindictive resons which weren’t even violations of policy, he violated the unofficial version of how Marsh and Willis viewed themselves on their sanctimonious high horses and unprofessional domination over a petty kingdom of their own creation.
Gary,
I agree with you in part here.
I think Steed’s Marine Corps experience and training to “follow orders” did influence his decision to lead the GMHS from safety to their deaths.
Credible and significant research on this “deference to authority” has also been found to be responsible for many aircraft mishaps, fatal and other wise.
I agree with your point on vindictive leadership
Technically, that was me disagreeing with what you said downstream blaming what Steed did on his Marine Corp background just as you aleays do and then I object…but why quibble?
What is far more important is the fact that you agree with me about the petty and vindictive leadership, especially since my conclusion were reached solely based on the information presented here, whereas yours is from real world exposure…I think?
Gary,
Yes, I blame what Steed did on his Marine Corp background just as I always will. Go ahead and object, it’s not quibbling, it’s much more serious than that.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/07/24/marine-veterans-among-19-firefighters-killed.html
The Ultimate Sacrifice
“On June 30, Travis [Turbyfill] and fellow Marine Jesse led the Granite Mountain crew into the toughest fight they had ever faced with no second-guesses. They had a mission to accomplish — protect the community of Yarnell — AND JUST LIKE THEIR TIME IN THE MARINE CORPS, THEY WERE WILLING TO LAY DOWN THEIR LIVES TO ACHIEVE THAT GOAL. and just like their time in the Corps, they were willing to lay down their lives to achieve that goal.” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
Unfortunately, they failed to mention GMHS rookie Billy Warneke, also a Marine veteran.
And there is also the video interview with PFD Wildland Chieff Willis.
“… Every [GMHS] knew that they were gonna protect … Yarnell. And if they laid down their life, it’s JUST LIKE IN THE MARINES, THEY KNEW WHAT THEY HAD TO DO AND THERE COULDN’T BE ANY MORE HONORABLE WAY TO DIE THAN THE WAY THEY DIED.” (EMPHASIS ADDED) PFD Wildland Division BC
http://www.military.com/video/specialties-and-personnel/veterans/marine-vet-killed-fighting-wildfire/2581462564001/
Roxanne Warneke on her husband Billy being a marine and following orders:
“Warneke said she believes her husband would only have abandoned a safe ridge and hiked into danger if he was directed to do so. “Orders,” she explained. “He was a Marine who was used to taking orders.””
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/06/29/yarnell-hill-fire-lawsuits-settlement-press-conference/29463359/
RTS,
I remember all of that and more. The personality of the Coconino Hotshot program during the Bill Buck years was dominated by the power, presence, charisma and presence of one Marine…Bill Buck that made us into a quasi Marine force.
I used to say the US Forest Service FIRE program was more military than the military, which I think was true because at the time the military was at its lowest point in decades in terms of reputation etc., because we were at the very end of our war of choice in Vietnam.
Which reminds me of something that I learned recently ( from the Pentagon Papers) that STUNNED me. We paid for the Frech war in Indochina that caused them to try and hold on to a colony they otherwise would have let go of. And that resulted in the deaths of more than 90,000 French soldiers, followed up by the deaths of more than 58,000 American soldiers and I do t know how many allied troops. Oh…and more than 2 million Vietnamese. What were we thinking?
So yes, I get it…I really do. Jesse Steed was multi dimensional person as we all are and there isn’t a single reason why he led his crew down that chimney, but I’m afraid this is just one more area we are going to have to agree to disagree on.
Having been there and done that…I believe to my core that Steed did what he did because there were two little beings waiting for him at home who meant more to him than he would ever have believed possible prior to their arrival in his life. Steed led his crew to their deaths primarily because he was a daddy…not a Marine.
Oh…and one more thing. I don’t want to see Cory Iverson’s training records anymore. I have the answer I would have been looking for. he was a former Hotshot.
Cory wasn’t killed by poor or incomplete training, he was killed by Hotshot hubris.
I know all to well how infectious, dehabilitating, and deadly Hotshot Hubris can be,
The disease of Hotshot Hubris is more commonly known by colloquial vernacular such as a “can do spirit” or a “hung ho attitude”, but I know it by its technical and more designation.that is more specific..
Almost all WF suffer from a can do spirit and a gung ho attitude, but it takes a current or former Hotshot to take it to the next level that is the “19th Situation That Shouts Watch Out” C. G. Olson, 2018.
Hotshot Hubris is dehahilitating in the sense it dulls specific brain stimulus that I think is related to the activation of the hypothalamus.
And yes, I am a former ground pounder and grunt but I can two finger type queries into internet search engines. So…
See…Instinct for basic primordial human self preservation and survival.
Gary,
Does this statement you made: “Having been there and done that,” mean that you led your Crews down chimneys?
“Steed led his crew to their deaths primarily because he was a daddy…not a Marine.”
Really? That’s what is called a Non Sequitor because it does not follow.
If he was a “daddy” as you say, which he was, then he would have and should have known that what he was going to do was going to get him and his men killed.
RTS,
No…my having been “there and done that” was in reference to my having many things throughout my working career, almost all of which happened while I was with the BLM, that I did because I had to do in order to keep my job and not because they were the right thing to do.
You have never mentioned children that I recall, so I have no idea of whether or not you have any or not? But…I think that people who do have children, or even dependents who are truly dependent on them for their survival, often do things they would not do otherwise.
In other words, I think for single people who do not have children or other dependents, the threshold for the ole, “take this job and shove it” is much, much, much…much lower. I know it would be for me.
I think I have been an outstanding example of that ever since I turned renegade and left the rez on the run. I just go around looking for people to tell, “Fuck Off!”
I don’t have any dependents. My children are all way grown. I still help them of course, because I am me and being an ATM is a hard habit to break. But I do it because I want to, not because I have to.
Steed had to go down that chimney because he was a daddy and two little beings were waiting for him at home for their survival. Historically….men who DO NOT meet that standard, usually find themselves alone and their kids calling another man “daddy.”
And to make matters worse for Steed, and if I understand the situation correctly, his wife did not have a readily marketable skills, maybe especially in the small inbred town of Prescott.
(Editorial) FYI….for all of the Trumpers out there who want to live in their same little town they were born in and where their comfort level is, work at the same factory where their fathers and their grandfathers worked and don’t like to go to school. I understand completely and I can relate.
I have ADHD, I hated school, much less four years of college. I was vary happy and very, very, very comfortable living in Prescott. But I had to leave for a future. I was very happy and very, very, very comfortable living in Flagstaff and working out at Happy Jack. But….I went to New Mexico, which was like moving to another planet.
After Santa Fe became home, I went to Phoenix for the job….I repeat, I WENT TO PHOENIX. When I left Phoenix I went to Albuquerque, which really sucks, and then I followed the job to Farmington, NM, which I don’t even like to think about because I have PTSD from there.
And then I was asked to return to Phoenix to take a promotion….I went even though I had a really long commute to ground zero in Phoenix again, and you know….it’s like living in Mordor without the Big Eye of Sauron, the Abhorred, Gorthaur the Cruel, Thû the Necromancer, Lord of Wolves, greatest of the servants of Morgoth, dwelling in the Elvish watchtower on Tol Sirion; later name Sauron, in addition to Mt. Doom.
But even without those things there, it is still like living in Mordor but I moved there TWICE for the job for 8 years….so don’t cry to me. Get off your asses, get an education and move to where the jobs are. Tell grand pappy, grandma, mom, dad, your siblings, aunts uncles and nieces nephews, and first, second, third, fourth and fifth cousins goodby and you will write when you find work. I am ONE generation out of the mountains myself…the White Mountains around Alpine, Arizona. That is where my ancestral homeland and family are. Thank God I don’t live there.
And now I am a tumbleweed and will ever know the joy of being a potted plant.
And just for the record, I think Steed led his men down that chimney more because he was a hotshot than because he was a Marine.
But…like I already said, Captain Steed was a multi faceted and multi dimensional person just like all of us are, well…except for you maybe? Steed led his men down that chimney for lots of reasons.
And clearly Steed knew what he was going to do was an unacceptable risk and COULD get them killed, but I don’t think he KNEW it was going to get them killed.
Captain Steed thought they could make it. And his crew believed in him.
My record was 6 weeks at the Pinal Air Park 5 miles or so north of Marana in one year. And I always spent between 1 and six weeks there.
And many of you have spent a great deal of time at “Marana” yourself, (which is actually the Pinal Air Park) for advanced training and even ONE night there really sucks.
And I spent a total of about 12 months at FLETC counting police, investigator and advanced training. And I really hated going to FLETC.
Advanced training to keep up with the changes in the world is the price of living in this century.
Whoops, that was over the top hyperbole, and I never do that so…
Moving to Northern New Mexico wasn’t like moving to another planet, but it was like moving to another country. A country I grew to love…or at least like more than Prescott.
Gary,
“And just for the record, I think Steed led his men down that chimney more because he was a hotshot than because he was a Marine.”
I agree in part to this with my angle on it.
I think Steed led his men down that chimney because he was a Marine first and THEN a hotshot which he equated to being back in the Marine Corps.
And I totally agree with this post with the caveat that the GMHS under his leadership had done nearly the same thing THREE TIMES on the Holloway Fire (2012) in Nevada, that they referred to
as the Nevada Fire. .
Twice when they posted no lookout(s) and the fire basically snuck up on them and had to fire out around themselves and their Buggies.
And once on the Holloway Fire when they had to have a contract Engine Crew save their Buggies because they parked them in the unburned and left nobody behind.
VIMEO video – “… we saved the Granite Mt. Hotshot buggies from burning up!”
Colby Drake – the video was later removed from VIMEO site. and you cannot find this anywhere else.
Go to (2:40-3:25) and then freeze-frame through and you will notice a GMHS with a black hardhat running down the handline in the upper left frame.
Best visible when the nozzleman’s hardhat aligns with the handline in the upper left of the screen.
http://vimeo.com/48411010
“And clearly Steed knew what he was going to do was an unacceptable risk and COULD get them killed, but I don’t think he KNEW it was going to get them killed.”
“Captain Steed thought they could make it. And his crew believed in him.”
LOTS of Human Factors and psychology to support why this occurred, including Groupthink, Abilene Paradox, Plan Continuation, The Filter Effect, False Consensus, Pluralistic Ignorance, Normalization of Deviance, Lack of Assertiveness, Deference to Authority, Mitigating or Hinting Speech, Suspension of Belief, Habituated Action Theory , Habituated Action Theory, Social Action Theory, the Exclusive Alternatives Trap, Latent Errors, the Halo Effect, Illusion of Control, Availability Cascade, Collective Ignorance, and a whole bunch more ….
Just GTS these phrases and research yourself
Staw and Ross (1989) Understanding behavior in escalation situations. Science, 246
Human Error and Marine Safety. Dr. Anita M. Rothblum
U.S. Coast Guard Research & Development Center
http://bowles-langley.com/wp-content/files_mf/humanerrorandmarinesafety26.pdf
I remember the photo of the GMIHC crewman running down the hill because their buggies were going to get burned up.
We aren’t every far apart in what we think. This discussion is now down to some really fine points. I don’t think we are in disagreement on any of the major factors in this catastrophic disaster.
What really pisses me off…is when people try to NORMALIZE this disaster by comparing it to other disasters.
You can’t compare what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire with any other fire in US history, even other hotshot disaster fires because of the reasons I keep stating.
South Canyon doesn’t really count as a hotshot disaster fire, it was a WF disaster fire and due to the IC having his head down working rather than managing a complex fire. And that wasn’t even his (Mackey) fault in my opinion. That should fall directly on the idiot BLM policy that states the first smokejumper out of the door is the Jumper-In-Charge (JIC).
But back on point. I think we have to compare Yarnell Hill to Battlement Creek and the Loop Fires. To say that a hotshot crew from 1976 and 1966 had any real resemblance to a modern day hotshot crew is a real stretch.
We were a bunch of cowboys who rode hard for the brand and shot from the hip, but a professional crew…we were not. The professionalization and the advanced understanding of fire behavior, should have made such an incident impossible to happen.
Gary,
There is NO photo of the GMIHC crewman running down the hill because their buggies were going to get burned up.
It is only reflected in the VIMEO video clip.
My apologies, I meant to write “vidoe” when I wrote “photo”.
I do have a brain tumor you know, so how about cutting me a little slack? Most other people do since I have gotten so old, everyone just more or less ignores me while I walk around talking to myself and cussing out the world.
Well…sometimes they do call the police, but I just badge them and so they drive me home.
Gary,
Yes, we were a bunch of cowboys and many of us shot from the hip, … a professional crew, we were not.”
Hopefully, you are speaking about YOUR Crew(s) here.
“The professionalization and the advanced understanding of fire behavior, should have made such an incident impossible to happen.”
There is no way to totally prevent these wildland fire disasters and so, all we can do is lessen them.
And one more thing, I have been cutting you slack every day since the 1980 Murdock Basin Fire, so get over it. And if you’re getting old, that’s good because that means you’re still alive and better than the alternative.
So many were so ficuated to Anastasia you were blinded by the truth.Polar bears live in the Arctic, near the North Pole. Penguins live on Antarctica and the neighbouring continents, near the South Pole.
So
I
Say
This
Because
Some
Say
I
Talk
In
Circles
yet
I
Have
Over
Time
gave
Enough
Solid
Clues
What’s
Happening
and
What’s
Coming…and
there
Was
a
point
in
the
message
and
some
day
looking
back
all these
areas
that
probably
has
not
only
offended
some
Wives
amd
others.
It
will
make
sense.
Happy Anniversary RTS-
https://youtu.be/L5fo7wpe0Ek
https://www.courthousenews.com/firefighter-demands-info-on-yarnell-hill-fire-disaster/
The case is in AZ Federal District Court awaiting the Judge to rule on the Federal Government’s Motion for Summary judgement.
This is a link to a report titled: “Civil Case Processing in the Federal District Courts” by the Institute of Advancement of the American Legal System.
The AZ District Court Filing to Rulings are listed in at least Tables 11 and 14 on pages 51 and 54 respectively..
http://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/iaals_civil_case_processing_in_the_federal_district_courts_0.pdf
Oh…and one more thing RTS. You know I am essentially writing chapter drafts here on this thread and then I flesh them out in my book draft. The whole Scott Fire story will be much better if I can name that Scott Fire Boss.
I am sure you must know him and I’m sure you think he is a Dickhead, everybody thought this guy was a Dickhead except for his mother…and I’m pretty sure she would have had some serious doubts about him.
So…he was the Forest FMO on the Coronado in 1983. He was young, very aggressive and considered a Blue Flame up and coming guy. I know he was at least a Type II (or Class II) Fire Boss and then Incident Commander and he must have been in some overhead job like Ops on one of the Type I Fire Teams.
In fact, he probably ended up as a Type I IC and he was a big enough Dickhead he probably ended up as a Director Of Aviation & Fire Management in one of the regions. And then maybe even the WO unless somebody killed his sorry ass on his way to the top. What is his name…please? And even if you don’t know him, you know who does. 🙂
Gary,
Anything for you My Friend when it comes to exposing those types.
I will do my best. I did a brief search the other day after you posted this and didn’t come up with anything that caught my eye.
The Coronado NF, back in the day, was where the SW Region USFS always sent their ‘disciplinary promotion’ candidates to, when they f**ked up on another Forest in the Region.
Gary,
From Inquiring Minds Want to Know
FIRE MANAGER HISTORY: What HotShot Crew did they start on?
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/imwtk-ic.htm
Steve Gallegos D-Coronado NF R3
Greg Greenhoe
Jeff Hogg — Area Commander from ’01 to ’05
Wow…anything?
I certainly do appreciate your help. Are you saying you think it could possibly one of the three listed above? If, so, Steve Gallegos doesn’t sound right, and I used to know Jeff Hogg, so…
For some reason, I thought it would be pretty easy because this guy really had the rep as a fast rising Blue Flame Type? Maybe he flamed out?
Maybe f*uckin’ with me did him in? LOL
I mean, being Forest FMO and at least a Type II IC should have made him well known?
Although now that I think about it, that was 25 years ago. Time really flies by when you’re having fun…and even when you’re not.
Gary You are right. WOW
I have always said even in my training of new FF.
Rule 10 should have been rule 1.
Fight fire aggressively but provide for SAFETY FIRST.
In 1972 I was on a Fire censing group for R5 That group was called SAFETY FIRSI.
FIRE IMPROVEMENT REGIONAL SAFETY TEAM.
All the rest of the Commandments and watch outs fall under NUMBER TEN it really says it all.
The rest are all cause and effect suppression decisions.
Make all decisions based on SAFETY.
Gee, Bob…I guess this will be a perfect place for me to stop blogging about the safety rules if you and I are finally in agreement on them, unless you are messin’ with me?
Will the REAL Bob Powers please stand up…
Man
I am shocked
😲
Bob?
Gary maybe he is trying to make you feel better after last night’s comments
Maybe he saw your sadness and empathizes
Wow…I do not know what to say…this beats Mika in the morning huh Gary
I doubt if you can find it but I had a long discussion with Elizabeth way back I think on here maybe on my E-Mail as well.
I have said over and over That Safety First has always been my number one Commandment/Order.
Fight Fire Aggressively but provide for safety first.
Check LCES, Weather,,whats your fire doing current and expected, act decisively, Maintain Control give clear instructions insure they are understood. All 10 in a nut shell. Always check the 18 and provide for safety first.,
Mr. Bob,
Hope you are well this year. Your comment is interesting as when I started in this business 19 years ago, Fight Fire Aggressively while providing for Safety First WAS FIRST! Then ‘those who cannot help changing, adding to, and switching around stuff’, waved their magic wand and deemed it last. They just can’t help themselves. Must be grant money involved or something? Can’t wait for my DeathBag 3.0….gonna be awesome. Not!
When I started in 1961 it was #10 when I retired in 1994 it was #10 what can I say???
It was always 10 with me too? But yes, it was really Number 1, Vietnam vets used to say…Numba 1 if something was really good and Numba 10 if it sucked, and Numba 10,000 if things were really bad. Ahhhh….memories.
I am still going to publish my photos from the Ship Island Creek Fire and the Crossman Peak Fire. I know all WF like to look at them, they may not have been on those particular fires, but they were on fires that looked just like them….it’s hard to remember which was which sometimes.
Gary,
Here is but one small yet shining example of a perfect violation of rule number 1, Don’t Do Stupid Shit:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MYENvpiv1WA
Yeehaw! That’s what I’m talkin bout, right dere…
Yes…that is a really good example. Famous last words, “Sorry I got you into this mess,”
At least they had a decent size deployment site, you know…compared to an area the size of a three car garage with at least horizontal 60 foot flame lengths and 2000 or more degree temperatures with.
“How Big Is Big Enough” and “Size Does Matter.”
i have made up some WF bumper stickers for fun, I think I will add those.
“How Big Is Big Enough” and “Size Does Matter.”
I will post a photo of my current bumper sticker when I post some more photos.
Gary,
Your slogan for bumper stickers is not a good idea. It’s a great idea! Using humor to draw attention to a topic that has not received the proper study is genius!!! But don’t stop there, the concept of how big is big enough for safety zones is vitally important for keeping wf alive & nobody seems to know the answer.. So you need to make hats, t-shirts, beer holders, key chains, cell phone cases…you know, the works. Develop a marketing strategy like yeti & you’ll have enough $$ in 2 years to build all the rock-crawling buggies you could never break.
Nahhhhh, wildland firefighters need to learn that from a formal, standardized, professional and approved lesson plan taught to everyone by qualified instructors using modern techniques and updated training materials.
Now that…is a good idea.
And gee, it looked bigger from the video…but that’s what she said.
But they don’t absorb knowledge (learn) that way anymore, Gary. Today you have 3.7 sec, on average, to gain someones attention and keep it or there on to the next tweet and/or hash tag. This is our new self-absorbed populace reality. Hey look, something shiny! Distractions, diversions…
Well THE Woodsman…you did get me motivated so I made up some mock up bumper stickers regarding THE theme I would very much like to see turned into a lesson plan by the NWFCG.
I will donate my concept etc, to the NWCG for the cause if they will get off their dead asses and do the right thing for wildland firefighters and train everyone on the concept of “How Big Is Big Enough.”
So…here are my new uploads.
1. A photo of my van with the only WF bumper sticker I have brought to production. I carry a folder of them in my van and give them out to wildland firefighters who approach me at gas stations, stores or restaurants…wherever while I am on road trips.
If the NWCG never get off their dead asses and run with my idea, I will make up a bunch of “Size Does Matter’ bumper stickers if I ever get off my dead ass. And if I ever get my bumper sticker business going,I will give out a free “How Big Is Big Enough” bumper sticker with every order.
2.A neat photo of my best friend, In Memorium, Rest In Peace Best Jeeping Buddy.
3. How Big is Big Enough – Size Does Matter mock ups.
4. Miscellaneous mock ups.
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
Oh…and one more thing. I have tried to think up some specific bumper stickers for other WF with limited results so far.
“Wildland Firefighters Do It With Long Hoses”
for engine crews.
“Smokejumpers Do It In Sticks” Nahhhh.
maybe
“Smokejumpers Do It On Speed Racks” Nahhhh.
maybe
“Smokejumpers Do It Both Ways” Nahhhhh
maybe
“Helislacks Do It At The Motel”
maybe
“Helislacks Do It In The Pool” Nahhhhh.
maybe
Helislacks Do It With Autorotate” Nahhhhh.
I have obviously got some more work to do in this area.
Gary
bumper sticker idea
too funny on helislack ones…
sounds like miners…
How about
“Smokejumpers Get The Job Done”
“I put out”
and have a pic of plane/slurrydrop or fire extinguisher in background
or
“only we can start fires”
wildland firefighters with flares
(instead of prevent fires)
“slacker”
boss turned away from ff
let me rest for a minute bro-
its late night and this is a hard one…
You sure have great ideas…
not me.
“50 Shades of Grey”
plumes in background
or
“Insane in the Membrane”
or
“Fueled by Fire”
or
“In case of emergency, pull hose”
or
for your sports people or for the recent New Years Eve ball drop mentions:
“I’m a FF because football baseball and basketball only require one ball”
or
“I’m Innocent”
or
lastly…
“A controlled burn is like a controlled fart…it can turn to crap in a matter of seconds”
Can I hear a A M E N brother…
🙂
good night
How about,
“Five seconds is a long count for Smokejumpers”
“Smokejumpers Do It On Facebook”
Woodsman and Gary-
shouldn’t we add a bumper sticker that says
Mushroom atomic Explosion image as the background and right across the Mushroom image—>
your state’s advice 21 on minutes and thereafter?
ugh
correction
“your state’s advice ON 21 minutes and thereafter?
Hmmmmm….I don’t follow?
you cannot follow?
first off I am female
second off you are a Leo
Lead the way Gary…
Another late night here—in cold Congress…Today is forecast to be MUCH COOLER than yesterday. not really…56 now…
You actually have a couple of good ideas there. Please keep em coming.
And that goes for everyone else, how about if we have a “help Gary come up with WF slogans for bumper stickers contest. And if you don’t want to post here, please send them to my email.
[email protected]
And FYI, this isn’t a shadow email, this is the email address I use for everything. I wanted anybody who wants to flame me for my attitude and the things I have written to be able to do so.
I don’t have much to hide from anyone now that I have been off the rez for so many years now and I don’t plan on ever going back except on my shield.
Which is just another statement loaded with fake hubris and is from what the Spartan women used to tell their men, “Come back with your shield…or on it!”
I really don’t have much hubris anymore…RTS really can have my balls since I don’t use them anymore. 🙂
If you look carefully at the flyover near the end of the video you will see the actual size of the “deployment zone” is really damn close to the size of a 3-car garage….0.41 acre my ass! Look at the co-dominant or dominant (full-size) pine in the middle of it. Definitely not the place to be. I’m just relieved that the effective use of shelters was not tarnished… would have been a shame. Don’t you know they save lives?!!? Hey, it’s a dangerous job & there’s nothing we can do about it. I’d also like to give a double thumbs up for the great job the HEQB trainer performed for their trainee on that fire, but I’m not that cold-hearted…. The hell I ain’t, WTF!!!! Look after your people, dumbass!
I’ve said it before, a DIVS is a huge responsibility. Kudos for the clear thinking. Umm, maybe get the fuck away from your truck with all the inflammable shit in it? Great googly fucking moogly.
That feels better. Proud to say 11 more years & I’m out! (1 less than last year)
That was such a good diatribe, I feel better just reading it.
I would tell you the time will drag by, but once it’s over…you will wonder how it ended so fast. So…I can give you one piece of advice that isn’t hollow.
Start getting your training plan angled towards logistics, supply, and even safety if you are still going to be in good enough shape to hump the line. I would say
comunications, but that job is too boring.
That whole AD gig is just about the greatest retirement gig I can think of, because in spite of what you think now…you will miss it once it is gone…but that what she said, LOL.
I have thought several times about hiring myself and van out to deliver lunches and equipment from fire caches, but then I usually just take a nap until the thought goes away.
I’m working on being more positive because some people think it’s better or some shit. Sounds weak but what the f.
OK, I should have said:
1. If your trainee dies…at least you won’t have to go through the hassle of signing his task book.
2. If my work truck has a lot of miles on it & I’ve run the dog piss outta of it anyway…besides, it will start costing some real $ to keep going. Good thing I burnt the fuck out of it both inside & out parking it next to a running crownfire, not only providing a heatsheild for my shelter deployment, the taxpayers will save money on maintenance buying me a new rig. Time value of money, ya know.
3. At least this IMT is no longer in the dark about whether a county rescue unit will or will not respond to a call.for assistance based on the ability to answer the highly complicated question of whether they have an actual patient in need of medical assistance. If we don’t know, they won’t go.
4. At least we got great video, & it actually WAS NOT ‘accidentally’ lost.
5. The flames were beautiful.
No, I really fucking mean it. The video footage was great quality. I thought I was watching one of those fire science behavior research motherfucking made up in the great white northern Canada Alberta or some shit like that. It looked like someone video shopped a couple of tall sacks of dumbshit into one of those fire behavior videos as a joke…but it was real! Its like i was there. Cool!!!
I agree,
“The flames are beautiful; but they kill or destroy everything they touch without anger or malice and without forgiveness or compassion.”
“Betrayed By Our Fire Gods”
I do understand however, that none wildland firefighters may have a hard time understand where THE Woodsman and I are coming from, so here is an excerpt from my much anticipated and highly acclaimed book, “Betrayed By Our Fire Gods” where I try to explain the love hate relationship we have we FIRE!
“Betrayed By Our Fire Gods”
Chapter 1 – Wildland FIRE
Fire is beautiful. One of my favorite memories is sitting in front of the flagstone hearth at home watching the bright flickering flames from the fireplace, especially if the ground outside was covered with a thick blanket of white snow. I remember camping out often near clear mountain streams surrounded by some of the most beautiful forests in the world, drifting off to sleep as our campfires slowly died down to a glowing beds of red hot coals.
I can still hear the pop as embers shot out from the fire ring followed by a trail of sparks as the bright flames consumed the juniper logs. I can vividly recall the distinct aroma of burning Piñon wood and see the flaming hard oak that made the fire last longer against the crisp cold night air. Clear mountain streams, cold nights, blue mountains and towering forests of western Ponderosa pine trees are some of my fondest memories from growing up in northern Arizona.
After heating a large house for several years in a rural area outside of Santa Fe with nothing but firewood however, I am now content to occasionally sit and rock my granddaughter to sleep while being hypnotized by the bright flickering flames from a gas log fireplace.
I spent almost all of my free time scouting for wood, cutting wood, loading wood, hauling wood, splitting wood, stacking wood, carrying wood into the house, building the fires, stoking the fires, hauling out the ashes and then making sure the ashes did not set something on fire either at our house or at the county dump. Not to mention constantly worrying about the kids getting burned either by playing too close to the fireplace or by touching the cast iron wood stove, or by goofing around with the campfire while roasting marshmallows. The very first word my youngest daughter learned to speak was “hot,” and she damn well understood what it meant. I am now a big fan of central heating in my home and day trips into the back country in my Jeep rather than camping out for the night.
There is nothing however, beautiful about wildfire. The only adjectives that can be used to describe wildfires are synonymous with words like devastating or terrifying. Sometimes words like awesome can be used, but never beautiful. Wildfire is a deadly enemy that relentlessly kills and consumes all life in its path of total destruction.
Firefighters have a love/hate relationship with fire. Wildfire destroys everything it touches and must be extinguished down to the last hot spot before the hard and time consuming job of “mop up” is finished. On the other hand, fire is one of the most important and useful tools in a wildland firefighter’s arsenal. because we often fight wildfire…with fire. This is just one of the many paradoxes that exist in the world of wildland firefighting.
I specify wildland firefighters fight fire with fire, because it is unimaginable that any other kind of firefighters do. I know almost nothing about structural firemen except I hope they come quickly if my house catches on fire. In my time as a firefighter, there was no relationship between structural firefighters and wildland firefighters. And frankly, that is the way we thought it should be. Our world was centered and we knew who we were and what we did better than anyone else.
This has radically changed in the past three decades with structural firefighters receiving cross training and getting more and more involved in fighting wildfires, although to my knowledge a wildland firefighter would still be a fish out of water going into a burning building wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). There aren’t any SCBA’s or any of the other highly advanced and technical firefighting equipment and support systems structural firemen routinely rely on to do their jobs. The closest thing wildland firefighters have to SCBA’s are handkerchiefs worn bandit style.
The locations of wildfires are too remote, the distances too great, areas of operations are too large and shifts are too long, and the physical exertion required is too great to make wearing breathing apparatus feasible or make it possible for wildland firefighters to carrying very much equipment at all. Although I know from personal experience a simple respirator can be a real advantage since I carried and sometimes used. I bought for myself after a few years on the fire line and when I began to experience serious problems from smoke inhalation and permanent damage to my larynx and vocal cords. If, and that is a big if, you are more or less working in a stationary position or in a limited area while mopping up a fire. If there is much physical exertion involved such as hiking through the smoke, much less up a mountain, breathing with a respirator is like trying to breath into a paper bag and you would soon hyperventilate and pass out.
Yep, I can testify to that, Wildland Firefighter Safety has always been Bob’s Number 1 priority…me? I am all over the map, so that’s why if I got Bob to agree with me I’m going to stop blogging on the rules now.
Speaking of being a gossipy little scamp, check out what I got in an email today. which us men are, we just like to call it “bullshitten’” or “shootin the breeze” or a “tailgate sesssion” or something else instead of gossiping.
It turns out that if Mrs, Lohman spends an inordinate amount of time around and communicating with wildland firefighters….some of them get the wrong idea. I never would have seen this coming!
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd6LSWDFUPh/
And one more thing…my experience on the Scott Fire didn’t end when my story did the other day since we were after all, a national resource in the middle of fighting an out of state fire when things went side ways.
There was a lengthy investigation by NIFC and Region by a team that interviewed everyone who worked with us on the fire or had information regarding the incidents that led up to the showdown and the showdown itself, that took several weeks to complete with a big report that was put out in the end. I never got a Day On The Beach and my crew was never taken out of rotation or disciplined in any way.
Fuck that Fire Boss…I just wish I could remember that assholes name. He was Forest FMO on the Coronado National Forest in 1983 if anyone knows him, I would like to get his name for my memoirs.
And guess what? I was exonerated and my crew was forgiven for pelting the Division Boss (I wrote Sector Boss the other day, but it was a division boss backed up by the line boss and fire boss) with spit cups, fruit, soda cans, and half eaten sandwiches.
Note to overhead…don’t ever put a hotshot crew’s back up against the wall or you will probably find out why they are a hotshot crew…right Bob and RTS?
I know that down deep…RTS still loves me, he just finds it hard sometimes to do so. 🙂
He remembers how we picked up his slack on the Murdoch Basin Fire of 1979 in the Wasach Mountains when he and his crew were shirkers.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BdwWnO0llz5/
Ya know…I guess the Colorado Fire Camp is one of The independent training outfits that are okay, but I’m old school who thinks Wildland Firefighting training should be done by agency employees who have been trained with updated training materials using standardized and approved training techniques.
My model is the Federal Law Enforcement Ttaining Center and individual state peace officer academies like Arizona POST.
https://post.az.gov/
https://www.fletc.gov/
I mean YOU PEOPLE don’t turn the training of your professional police officers to Tom, Dick, Harry. Eric Marsh and company that he started in his living room…do you? WTF…Over?
Here’s a scary thought, the same core group who were responsible for the biggest single fuck up in wildland firefighting history, has trained thousands of wildland firefighters in their techniques at almost $1,000.00 each including my son. Am I the only one who sees a potential problem with this system?
And of course my point is this…I still want to know who trained Cory Iverson and the four who were with him. What lesson plans did they use, were they qualified instructors, and did they use approved up to date lesson plans and techniques.
But then again…I still have the very same questions for the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Please let me share something with YOU PEOPLE your training money bought you when you paid to have me trained, for years by the best.
Every time something bad happens…the first questions that should be asked is…show me where all of their training materials are kept. I want to see everything and then interview those who had been through the same training and I want to talk to every instructor, coordinator, supervisor and manager who participated or approved their training.
But first….give me their personnel files with their training plans…NOW! I will tell you what else I want when I am finished with all of that.
Yeah, as a line supervisor, if I’m in a conflict with a shot crew it’s not only time to pause & take another look at what’s going on, the problem more than likely is with me or other overhead…and I say this not as a ihc worshipping groupy but as someone with a tremendous amount of respect for them.
Man, Gary, I would really, really love to read the report on the Scott fire. That’s one of my favorite Olde Gary stories!
Well…the whole story will be in my memoirs, if I ever get them done. The trouble started when I was ordered to load my crew up in an open truck with all of our chain saws and tools to be transported from a Drop Point to the army base and I refused.
So we hiked down the road towards town until they sent a bus, which really, really, really pissed them off, but you know as well as I do that is a big violation. Everything would have been fine…right up to the head on collision.
And yes…you are correct thank you…bless you. That was the only time in 7 years as a crew boss anyone ever challenged me, so I was shocked when it happened. The discussions would always go like this,
Me…”What do you want us to do?”
Overhead…”You are the hotshot crew boss…what do you think you should do?”
Me…”Well…I think we should do blah, blah, blah.”
Overhead…”Sounds good to me…let me know if you need anything over the radio.”
And then we usually never saw them again. That’s the way it’s done…right?
And FYI…for others, the open truck wasn’t the problem, that was often done but usually there were military transport trucks that did have benches. The issue was riding with the tools and the crew in an open truck together…that was prohibited in all of the safety manuals.
In fact…I think I was so surprised the first and only time someone challenged my authority when it came to the welfare of my hotshot crew…probably all I could say was…”Oh yeah…well FUCK YOU and the horse you rode in on. And one more thing…FUCK OFF ASSHOLES!
Which of course wasn’t well received by that Blue Flame Fire Boss who was also the Forest FMO where the Scott Fire was burning. He thought he was in charge of my crew. He was in charge of me…but not my crew. That was my job.
And this is really getting down in the weeds, but I find it interesting. Since I was the one who was cross ways with the division boss, line boss and fire boss, and not my crew, they could have hit the reset button after I was relieved of my command and told I was being sent home.
In fact, that is what they tried to do when the fire boss and line boss sent the division boss onto the bus. But my confrontation had taken place in front of the crew, it was dark, but everything that was said…or yelled was certainly heard by the entire crew.
So…theoretically, all they had to do was talk to my assistant to start over, but that is where things really went sideways for them. This was because the crew was really angry by that time, so my assistant never even stepped forward to talk to them and things went really bad really fast starting with the throwing of things at the division boss and cussing out the overhead. It was about to get worse because some guys stated moving forward to engage in a physical confrontation when all three overhead got the hell out of there…fast.
Of course I could have stopped it with one word, but since I had been relieved of my command and I was still angry, I just stood there and watched it go down.
So…that is a long story to tell you how proud I was of US Forest Service FIRE, which not only included our home forest, but BIFC and Region as well when the final decisions were made once the investigation was finished and the report was finalized.
There really wasn’t any excuse for how my crew behaved, but under the circumstances…the USFS figured what my crew did…was exactly what a good hotshot crew should have done.
But that was all done informally because the report only reported on my actions and everybody just forgot about and glossed over what the crew had done.. That is just one reason I loved USFS FIRE. It’s probably not that way anymore so…
But maybe it still is…I hope?
Woodsman,
” … if I’m in a conflict with a shot crew it’s not only time to pause & take another look at what’s going on, the problem more than likely is with me or other overhead…and I say this not as a ihc worshipping groupy but as someone with a tremendous amount of respect for them.”
Yes, definitely take a tactical pause, however, you know what is the right and safe thing(s) to do, so it may n fact be their problem, and just looking to see what they can get away with.
I know you know this one — NEVER allow yourself to be intimidated by a HS Superintendent. They do that as a matter of testing Overhead to see how far they can go.
Respectfully and professionally stand up to them if they are playing that game. Because most of them think like OPS Chiefs, they already have a plan(s) in mind. Otherwise, put the onus on them to scout things out and come up with a good plan(s) with options.
And you know this one as well. Not all HS Crews and Supts. are created equal, i.e. GMHS and the deadly YH Fire debacle.
RTS,
Good advice. Thanks! That statement I made didn’t come across exactly how I wanted and I definitely hear what you’re saying & agree. Sometimes I put myself in a dream world where everything is as it should be knowing full well it’s not. Thanks for the reality check.
Woodsman,
You need to be the atypical Overhead, because they are going to expect you to be just another “qualified,,” yet inexperienced DIVS, who doesn’t really know his ass from a hole in the ground. So, of course, you want to and must prove them wrong.
As you well know, you must maintain a consistent command presence knowing when to correct them and call BS on indiscretions or slacking as soon as possible, preferably through their chain of command. Learn to perfect the ability to chew someone out and then, if appropriate, kind of smile to let them know you know their indiscretion was unacceptable and you likely have done that yourself a time or two.
For the most part, with hopefully few GMHS-type exceptions, they know and perform their jobs really well, so take full advantage of that and allow them to be part of the solution(s), with alternative options for the expected fire behavior plan(s)..
A HS Crew’s overhead are usually rife with fully qualified and experienced operational and even some aviation Overhead, e.g. TFLD, STL, FIRB, FELB, HEQM, Helislack quals, and even DIVS. If they are willing to oblige, use their Overhead and DELEGATE with authority AND responsibility, especially during firing operations and while maintaining or creating Defensible Space rather than Structure Defense.
You MUST set the example for them to follow. Remember to tell people what to do instead of what not to do. This especially includes using and wearing your PPE properly.
Read Extreme Ownership by Jokko Willink and Leif Babin and Turn Your Ship former Navy SEALS Around by retired U.S. Navy Captain L. David Marquet.
Here’s a link for a TedTalk by Jokko Willink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljqra3BcqWM
Geez…you’re no fun!
I clicked on the link you shared on the lady who lost Eric-
I think she looks amazing and she has gone through some body changes since the YHF
and well she looks like she is on top of the world “happy” …real genuine happy…healthy happy…
and probably she just is placing it public because in the link you shared it does show her with quite a few different men standing next to her but none appear to be her husband
so that may of caused some wild land firefighters to think maybe they were okay to try and see where she was at—on that area not realizing she is private and not gonna post public certain stuff probably because of this site…
or she is just naturally like that…private or
maybe they too notice like me that she looks good after all she has gone through…
some guy just wanting a part to it because I learned this week women are God’s gift to men so maybe he thought she was gifted to him…who knows… and maybe some do not know she is married
I mean you have to admit Gary—she really is doing a great job for Eric and the foundation…and I read this comment she made from link—
“ericmarshfoundationwildland Thanks! Most people are amazing! But there are those few who push too far. Most people don’t. But this guy just was pressuring me to call him, commenting on the way we look and just a bit aggressive. It happens a few times a month. Best to just make it known that I am happily married and a widow for crying out loud, and I don’t need nor am I seeking attention. And instead of an apology, the guy seemed to blame me and was super insulted that I stood up to him. Anyway, back to business as usual. The foundation is awesome and we are doing amazing things:) ”
in that comment I saw that she said she “stood up” to the fella and I ain’t no looker like her not even close to being pretty as she is nor can I ever be… poor genetics …but I also do not get a couple times a month hit on like her (never in my life) as she stated on the comment—
well if I do get hit on
it is deadly rattlesnakes (2009)
and timing is odd I recently was paid a compliment not hit on for my weight loss…been a journey…(so maybe these are just compliments from the men…and so who knows…)
lost 81 pounds so far…I did lose more but gained some back thru Holidays and lost some…so a few pounds more to go for that 100 pound loss again…
I have no clue how a women is to handle a situation like such
( I live in a ghost town and hang out with critters and caves and very old people and read Louis L’Amour books Sonny’s sis gave me and Charles Casmir Lipinski)
except in the day when I kept females on my roster I was way too shallow and had only hot girls around so I never was bothered myself…but that phase happened because I was well sought after to airbrush them to look spot on…I knew how to light and shadow the entire body to looks it best…man or woman even rugged men I airbrushed…because they like their liquor and had the richard cranium do disease they had…so I made it appear a 6 pack and toned…not their reality.
but there were alot of moments those ladies had ALOT no matter if we went to the spa or wherever and they were always just kind to them regardless the men’s tones or behaviors and so that would be my suggestion versus doing that just appreciate the fact you are getting comments…alot of women don’t.
I, myself, just be me and that is take a ice soak and do zip but if I take the time out to get ready I can and even then I don’t bother because makeup is a waste of energy… rather be out killing me a wild animal than getting comments from one…I am too rugged and reserved that way…I rather be fishing…and not for that…
HOW DO MEN EXPECT WOMEN TO REPLY WHEN THEY ARE APPROACHED LIKE SHE APPARENTLY IS—GOOD PLACE TO WRITE ON IT IS ON THIS SITE WHERE WF COME—HOW DO YOU MEN LIKE WOMEN TO BE?
Fourth day of fast almost done and today I feel it but Holiday poundage is gone…whatever bad I did is temporarily erased and I say temporary because that scale likes to fluctuate…”motherf’er”
———————
gary said-
I know that down deep…RTS still loves me, he just finds it hard sometimes to do so. 🙂
MY REPLY: yeah I think he still loves me too even though I give him hard moments, Gary especially so late at night
I ramble the most on here…that late because what else is there to do at 3am?
“boredom stop bys”
Gary said:
He remembers how we picked up his slack on the Murdoch Basin Fire of 1979 in the Wasach Mountains when he and his crew were shirkers.
MY REPLY:
how come RTS has not shown young pics of him like you and Bob and Norb…???
I remember June 1983 Gary–Firefighters battling blazes in Chiricahuas, Huachucas…near the Methodist camp, the fire was moving away from the camp… Lee Poague maybe can help you…he is almost 90 and lives by Sonny in Alamogordo NM..shit I was 11 when that fire happened…time flies…they had so many on that fire…
Small world Joy…the Scott Fire in 1983 on the Coronado National Forest was in the Chiricahua Mountains above Sierra Vista. The fire camp was being run out of Fort Huachaca when we weren’t spiked out, which was the entire time we were there until we got sent home early because where we were was a long helicopter flight to the very top of the mountain range until we got rained out, but we were supposed to go back to finish and tie off the fire lines.
Most wildland firefighters don’t have photos of the fires they go on Joy. Cameras are discouraged and most people don’t have time or access to where the fire is for lots of reasons. That is why the most of the photos I have are so unusual and special.
I had a guy on my crew for all three years I was Crew Boss on the Coconino who was a professional photographer. He was a hippie kind of guy and a very close friend of mine. He spent the off season primarily hiking to very remote places in the Grand Canyon to take photos, although he also traveled to other remote locations.
He always had photos in the Sierra Club Calender and in other publications like that and a lot of his photos were made into post cards. The last time I heard he was photographing up in Alaska in and around Glacier National Park.
He was a senior crewman who was our equipment manager. I have a few photos I took with an instmatic camera in 1974-1977. But I stopped carrying one when I became crew boss and I don’t have any photos of the Santa Fe Hotshots because he couldn’t move there with us so I lost him. That is why so many of my photos are really professional grade photos if you look at them closely.
He (Mark Jefferson) was such a hard worker and so good, he could do the work of 1.5 Hotshots and take photos. Every year at the end of the fire season, we would have an entire evening with a slideshow of all of his photos for the entire year in our dining hall and every crewman could write down the number of the photos they wanted and then in a few weeks, Mark would give each of us our photos.
He put a little on top to compensate him for the extra work, but nobody cared, and if they did, they just didn’t order any. That is why most of my photos are of my favorite subject…me. I also tried to order a wide range that showed the job of being a hotshot in general.
Of course all of my photos spent decades in photo albums with no one ever seeing them. I mean…who could ever have seen the invention of scanners, computers, the Internet, web sites and this blog. But now it is here and I have something few other WF do…photos.
I have about five hundred Jefferson photos. He took thousands every year. Can you imagine what his photo library looks like?
Everyone who is interested should watch the video I made out of most of my photos. That is one more thing I never saw coming…a video I could make with my photos with a cool soundtrack I made up from fire sounds, helicopter sounds and a pop song that is very cool.
http://ourfiregods.com/happyjackhotshots.html
I just watched my video. All of the poor quality photos are ones I took with that instamatic camera and have my name on them.
All of the professional photos were taken with a professional grade camera Mark carried. I put his name on his photos when I made the slideshow.
At the very beginning there are two guys standing in front of my Dodge Powerwagon that was parked at the Grand Canyon. Mark is the guy on the left, there are also other photos of him including on with him using spikes to limb a tree next to our barracks. We went hiking in the canyon every year while we were laid off.
I do have two photos from the Santa Fe Hotshots. One is at the end with some of the crew around the esprit de Corps sign I had made and put in front of our offices, fire cache and training room…it is a very cool sign no one could get away with today, I made up the slogan.
The other photo is of me sitting on a log at the very end of the slideshow wearing a Santa Fe Hotshot jacket because it was cold and wet on a fire on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest at Thanksgiving time. In Washington State. It had been a control burn that got away from them. You can see black charred lines on the trees around me.
The very last photo is of me standing on a hill explaining how I wanted things done to one of my squad bosses. He is on the right hand side and looks like he is standing at attention. Maybe I wasn’t a very nice guy as the crew boss?
We were very proud of our Santa Fe Hotshot logo.It is what we called “The Three Horsemen” It has a Spanish Conquistador, an Indian Brave on a war pony, and a Anglo mountain man in the middle, which of course represented the three equal and proud races that made up the Santa Fe Hotshots.
They still use a similar loge with all three, but it is just the busts, like the head and shoulders of all three which I don’t think is anywhere near as cool as our original logo, but I’m not Crew Boss anymore. So…
I still have the original artwork that was actually done by a crewman from the Laguna Pueblo named Richard Lastyona…my mind works funny. I can’t remember what I did yesterday, but I can remember Richards name?
The chick in the bikini at the beginning is my wife. But we are getting a divorce, so….I might have to redo the slideshow?
A couple of other interesting notes…if you care? The young woman sitting at the picnic table at the shop reading a training manual near the beginning of the slideshow…is Mary, the first female hotshot on the Coconino who married the squad boss from Mormon Lake Hotshots, Rus Copp.
Check out the photo of the crewmen who were sharpening some tools using a grinder inside the shop very near Mary’s photo.
Over their shoulder, is a large photo of a wildfire on the wall. If you look at it close it looks kind of strange. And that is because it is one of Mark’s photos I shrunk down and placed over what was always in that spot.
What was there, was a nude calender…and I don’t mean a nude calender with bare breasts, I mean it was a NUDE calender of all Native American women the Hopi engine and heavy equipment operators kept there.
The photo of the nude woman for that month really showed up in the original photo…so I had to cover it up. Now….given the current time, that is pretty funny, nobody even thought about back then, including the various women who were up and around the shop at different times like engine crewmembers or Fire Prevention Techs etc.
The shop and the heavy equipment operators (who were all Hopi) were run by a Hopi foreman who was about five feet tall and five feet around everybody called The General…and he gave us Hotshots hell, all of the time and he was always scowling while he cussed us out in Hopi.
And of course things have changed again with the explosion of smart phones with video cameras, so the internet is filled with WF today doing all kinds of things.
But…I don’t think you will find much from back in my day, like I said, not only were cameras discouraged, it just wasn’t something most people did…they were too busy fightin’ fire or they just didn’t care.
Joy,
You also have to keep in mind, in the old days photos didn’t have much value. Wildland firefighters knew what fires looked like, and nobody else cared. Nobody cared about my photos for decades and you could probably make the argument hardly any one cares now. You had some photos, you look at them once, and then you put them away and forget about them. Most guys on my crew back then didn’t really buy that many of Mark
,s photos for those very same reasons. I bought more than anyone else did, because I was so into being a hotshot, but most guys were on their way somewhere else and being a hotshot wasn’t their lives, things have really changed as I keep saying. Crews are so much more professional today.
And do you know what that means?
IT MEANS IT IS JUST THAT MUCH MORE SHOCKING THAT 19 GRANITE MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS, ALMOST THE ENTIRE CREW EXCEPT FOR SAD SACK…WERE BURNED ALIVE IN THIS DAY AND AGE WITH THE HIGH DEGREE OF PROFESSIONALISM, EXPERIENCE, ORGANIZATION, STRUCTURE AND UNDERSTANDING OF WILDFIRE, FIRE BEHAVIOR. I AM STILL…DUMBFOUNDED AS OF TONIGHT. I STILL CANT ACCEPT WHAT HAPPENED ON THE YARNELL HILL FIRE!
FIRST OFF if that is YOU in the middle in grey shirt
I am FOREVER gonna be nice to you (mainly out of polar bear fears I have)— holy shit —you got crushing arms—and RTS even dares to use intellect next to those arms? whoah now we must reroute the set of balls lowered to RTS—how do you RTS challenge Gary…man, no way…HUGE girth….
Yeah you could pass for Jabba’s girth measurement—
YOU ARE SOLID…shit. I only seen this Moab arguement video and it was more mouth fire in that video—so yeah that was a shock…
GARY SAID:
Small world Joy…the Scott Fire in 1983 on the Coronado National Forest was in the Chiricahua Mountains above Sierra Vista. The fire camp was being run out of Fort Huachaca when we weren’t spiked out, which was the entire time we were there until we got sent home early because where we were was a long helicopter flight to the very top of the mountain range until we got rained out, but we were supposed to go back to finish and tie off the fire lines.
MY REPLY- so is this the same time fire with the Carr Peak south of Sierra Vista?….so what I learned about that fire was appx 70-80 FF were on that Chiricahua fire—and 30-40 on the Huachuca blaze…it was a 10 to 1 ratio Federal winning out on who was fighting it…Did you find the 7 aerial tankers to be helpful on that fire, Gary? What team was the one that went in by mules…or did some just look like jackasses…So you got helicoptered in…ok….Was Dr. Ted Putnam on this fire? Was this where the smokejumpers arrived for duty but due to the winds and steep terrain they did not use them? So the Huachucas were the focus huh? So who is Terry Dyess on this fire? Man all these 70’s and 80’s talk of fires reminds me of when my dad’s best friend the logger hated your industry with a passion…and also reminds me of Ben Franklin and YellowFront stores and Tom’s Tavern…and AJ Bayless/Alpha Beta/Lucky’s/Neb’s Market and fill the card up to get free milk…and my favorite Smitty’s where you can shop for food and ammo 😉 or Legend City…Gemco…McCrory’s, TG&Y, Fedmart, Sprouse Reitz,..Woolco, Newberry’s, Wards and Yates. and I use to go crazy dancing with the employees at Ed Debevics…miss those days….
A night out consisted of family dinner at the Lunt Avenue Marble Club. Their deep fried mushrooms were great….Blakelys gas…the great drive ins where dad smashed us all in the trunk to get in…Pinnacle Peak was a spot in the late 80’s/90’s we took business clients just to get their tie cut off….my brother and I just did castles and coasters and did the rope course and roller coasters and stuff…but do you remember when Metrocenter Mall had a below-grade ice skating rink. Watching skaters from the overlook above was the best way to escape the summer heat and I met/spent time talking as a young teen to Alice Cooper and his family and never knew who he was until my cousin walked up and “freaked out” asking for his autograph and I was actually talking chill with a famous guy; no clue…good ol days…of A R I Z O N A….where my brother met Mick Jagger at circle K….Metrocenter also had a Farrell’s ice cream parlor. My pops dad subscribed to the Phoenix Gazette (afternoon newspaper) and the Arizona Republic on Sunday….You remember when the Brass Armadillo antique mall was Angel’s – a building supply warehouse similar to Home Depot…..We ate breakfast at Sambo’s or Bob’s Big Boy or Furr’s…..You drove to Central and Thomas to have strawberry pie at Big Boy’s because it was a car hop and they brought it to your car…Thrifty’s ice cream IS MY ALL TIME FAV MEMORY…You remember when houses were built with carports instead of garages. Roofs were covered with wood shakes or asphalt shingles instead of stone tiles….still all cookie cutter visions…I remember my dad and I went to Lake Pleasant and he got drunk at that white building bar and handed me a few telephone books to sit on and the keys and said drive kid as a KID and he says STOP THE CAR—he runs so fast—my dad was VERY tall and he ran killed a javalina with his bare hands and carried it back and threw it in the bed of the truck and said drive…and he was bloody as all hell and I thought how did he get blood on him with no knife or gun? He snapped the neck to the point the blood oozed out of the mouth…he took it home and he hung it up in the carport and all the neighbors were disgusted especially Lee Miller who was long term employee to Honeywell…I remember going over to see his kids and I knocked and he said to his wife do not let her in- we have to make a neighborhood point to shun that asshole Bill …because my pops took a knife and drained the javalina on the carport then he took it to be taxidermist and the man asked him for his tag and my pops said no I just saw it and got it- no tag…the man said no you have to have a tag- it’s the law and he is a giant and was like “no, I am the law”…(and he was working for Arpaio I think then so technically…) point was the days where INDIVIDUALISM was ALIVE…more than today due to fear of fines and jail time except Sonny has never ever changed and is an individual who holds no fear and just LIVES…I think Rocksteady comes off like that too…just LIVE…You remember when Big Surf was the place to go to beat the heat. Then hitting the drive in theater to see movie across the street. Here I say I am a 30’s-60’s girl but all I remember is the good times of the 70’s and 80’s…Cheese Crisp at Smitty’s was the best…
I forgot what I was replying…oh well
I sure like memories and I am having nice ones this week 😉
in your video-
who is the injured foot guy
call me Miss Attentive
aced this—
nice.
can you?
https://youtu.be/wtbXPdCEhPk
Joy,
Yes…that is me in the grey shirt. And I did spend a lot of years in a lot of gyms lifting a lot of weights. I didn’t skimp on the Stair Master, but I think I have a water retention problem. I’m pretty sure it’s not because I eat too much food? I think it’s maybe a thyroid issue? You made me really laugh hard over the whole polar bear comparison.
That photo was taken just after I retired on the Battlement Creek Fire Staff ride where we were Subject Matter Experts. That is where I first met Dr. Putnam since he had been on that fire as a single resource smokejumper in an overhead capacity.
The guy on my right, was the lead sawyer (Hardy) and I was running the second saw for our crew on Battlement Creek. The guy on my left (Bill) was there as a crewman. who later became my Number 2 for seven years and he swamped for me when I was a sawyer.
Hardy left our crew at the end of that season and spent the next 30 years as a USFS smokejumper out of Missoula. He was actually still jumping when that photo was taken and didn’t retire until maybe five years later. Bill was the Helicopter Operations Manager on the Tongass National Forest in southeast Alaska. He is still working today.
You can see the Battlement Creek Mesa in the background and the photo was taken at a roadside memorial built and maintained by Colorado and the Grand Mesa Fire Department who took the initial suppression action on the fire before it got away from them.
As far as the Scott Fire goes, I always prided myself (as I have written many times) on being a grunt and a ground pounder and so I never knew anything about anything on fires except for what my specific assignment was and that was the way I liked it.
There would usually be three or more divisions on a big fire and maybe three or more sectors in each division. And there would maybe be three or more crews per sector. So…I just focused on the fire line I was responsible for and I let others worry about everything else.
And yes, we were on top of the mountain when the Scott Fire topped out on the and I do remember some air tankers there but I had my hands full since things were going to hell in a hand basket on our line, that fire hit our line with a vengeance in a full frontal crown fire so I didn’t pay much attention to anything else, it was kinda scary, I thought we were going to lose it and then all of our packs and gear would have been lost on the Helispot. It was one of the more exciting fires I was on.
We spiked out, eventually got rained in, helicopters couldn’t fly, so we had to hump it all of the way down off that mountain in the mud carrying our full packs and all of our tools. And when we finally get to the Drop Point, those stupid fucks told me to load my crew with all of our tools tools into that stakeside truck and it was downhill from there. So…I don’t know who else was on that fire or what they were doing, there could have been some jumpers there?
MY REPLY IS IN CAPS BELOW
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 18, 2018 AT 3:31 AM
Joy, HI GARY
Yes…that is me in the grey shirt. And I did spend a lot of years in a lot of gyms lifting a lot of weights. I didn’t skimp on the Stair Master, but I think I have a water retention problem.
WATER WEIGHT—I GET THAT
I’m pretty sure it’s not because I eat too much food?
NO WAY—I GET IT—HAVE YOU EVER DONE A 40 DAY FAST—I AM WORKING ON BUILDING TO DO IT…USUALLY BY DAY 12 OR 17 I GIVE UP—
I think it’s maybe a thyroid issue? You made me really laugh hard over the whole polar bear comparison.
SHIT YEAH- THAT IS WHAT I FIRST THOUGHT OF—POLAR BEAR…
That photo was taken just after I retired on the Battlement Creek Fire Staff ride where we were Subject Matter Experts. That is where I first met Dr. Putnam since he had been on that fire as a single resource smokejumper in an overhead capacity. YEAH I RECOGNIZED THE CONOCO GAS STATION…RIGHT…WHATEVER…
As far as the Scott Fire goes, I always prided myself (as I have written many times) on being a grunt and a ground pounder and so I never knew anything about anything on fires except for what my specific assignment was and that was the way I liked it.OH OK–
neat link
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/imwtk-ic.htm
FIRST OFF if that is YOU in the middle in grey shirt
I am FOREVER gonna be nice to you (mainly out of polar bear fears I have)— holy shit —you got crushing arms—and RTS even dares to use intellect next to those arms? whoah now we must reroute the set of balls lowered to RTS—how do you RTS challenge Gary…man, no way…HUGE girth….
Yeah you could pass for Jabba’s girth measurement—
YOU ARE SOLID…shit. I only seen this Moab arguement video and it was more mouth fire in that video—so yeah that was a shock…
GARY SAID:
Small world Joy…the Scott Fire in 1983 on the Coronado National Forest was in the Chiricahua Mountains above Sierra Vista. The fire camp was being run out of Fort Huachaca when we weren’t spiked out, which was the entire time we were there until we got sent home early because where we were was a long helicopter flight to the very top of the mountain range until we got rained out, but we were supposed to go back to finish and tie off the fire lines.
MY REPLY- so is this the same time fire with the Carr Peak south of Sierra Vista?….so what I learned about that fire was appx 70-80 FF were on that Chiricahua fire—and 30-40 on the Huachuca blaze…it was a 10 to 1 ratio Federal winning out on who was fighting it…Did you find the 7 aerial tankers to be helpful on that fire, Gary? What team was the one that went in by mules…or did some just look like jackasses…So you got helicoptered in…ok….Was Dr. Ted Putnam on this fire? Was this where the smokejumpers arrived for duty but due to the winds and steep terrain they did not use them? So the Huachucas were the focus huh? So who is Terry Dyess on this fire? Man all these 70’s and 80’s talk of fires reminds me of when my dad’s best friend the logger hated your industry with a passion…and also reminds me of Ben Franklin and YellowFront stores and Tom’s Tavern…and AJ Bayless/Alpha Beta/Lucky’s/Neb’s Market and fill the card up to get free milk…and my favorite Smitty’s where you can shop for food and ammo 😉 or Legend City…Gemco…McCrory’s, TG&Y, Fedmart, Sprouse Reitz,..Woolco, Newberry’s, Wards and Yates. and I use to go crazy dancing with the employees at Ed Debevics…miss those days….
A night out consisted of family dinner at the Lunt Avenue Marble Club. Their deep fried mushrooms were great….Blakelys gas…the great drive ins where dad smashed us all in the trunk to get in…Pinnacle Peak was a spot in the late 80’s/90’s we took business clients just to get their tie cut off….my brother and I just did castles and coasters and did the rope course and roller coasters and stuff…but do you remember when Metrocenter Mall had a below-grade ice skating rink. Watching skaters from the overlook above was the best way to escape the summer heat and I met/spent time talking as a young teen to Alice Cooper and his family and never knew who he was until my cousin walked up and “freaked out” asking for his autograph and I was actually talking chill with a famous guy; no clue…good ol days…of A R I Z O N A….where my brother met Mick Jagger at circle K….Metrocenter also had a Farrell’s ice cream parlor. My pops dad subscribed to the Phoenix Gazette (afternoon newspaper) and the Arizona Republic on Sunday….You remember when the Brass Armadillo antique mall was Angel’s – a building supply warehouse similar to Home Depot…..We ate breakfast at Sambo’s or Bob’s Big Boy or Furr’s…..You drove to Central and Thomas to have strawberry pie at Big Boy’s because it was a car hop and they brought it to your car…Thrifty’s ice cream IS MY ALL TIME FAV MEMORY…You remember when houses were built with carports instead of garages. Roofs were covered with wood shakes or asphalt shingles instead of stone tiles….still all cookie cutter visions…I remember my dad and I went to Lake Pleasant and he got drunk at that white building bar and handed me a few telephone books to sit on and the keys and said drive kid as a KID and he says STOP THE CAR—he runs so fast—my dad was VERY tall and he ran killed a javalina with his bare hands and carried it back and threw it in the bed of the truck and said drive…and he was bloody as all hell and I thought how did he get blood on him with no knife or gun? He snapped the neck to the point the blood oozed out of the mouth…he took it home and he hung it up in the carport and all the neighbors were disgusted especially Lee Miller who was long term employee to Honeywell…I remember going over to see his kids and I knocked and he said to his wife do not let her in- we have to make a neighborhood point to shun that asshole Bill …because my pops took a knife and drained the javalina on the carport then he took it to be taxidermist and the man asked him for his tag and my pops said no I just saw it and got it- no tag…the man said no you have to have a tag- it’s the law and he is a giant and was like “no, I am the law”…(and he was working for Arpaio I think then so technically…) point was the days where INDIVIDUALISM was ALIVE…more than today due to fear of fines and jail time except Sonny has never ever changed and is an individual who holds no fear and just LIVES…I think Rocksteady comes off like that too…just LIVE…Bikini Car washes…You remember when Big Surf was the place to go to beat the heat. Then hitting the drive in theater to see movie across the street. Here I say I am a 30’s-60’s girl but all I remember is the good times of the 70’s and 80’s…Cheese Crisp at Smitty’s was the best…
I forgot what I was replying…oh well
I sure like memories and I am having nice ones this week 😉
Joy,
You posted: ” …and RTS even dares to use intellect next to those arms? whoah now we must reroute the set of balls lowered to RTS—how do you RTS challenge Gary…man, no way…HUGE girth…. … Yeah you could pass for Jabba’s girth measurement— YOU ARE SOLID…shit.”
I don’t know why this is a big surprise to you. And I would change some slight punctuation by removing the “…” to make this a more accurate statement. YOU [Gary] ARE SOLID shit..
He is not solid shit all the time, just some of the time..
RTS,
I really feel like our relationship is finally making some significant progress. I really like the way you are opening up and sharing your feelings. I think we both have room to grow while working towards common goals and interests in the future.
XOXOXO
Gary,
Anything for you My Friend when it comes to exposing those types.
I will do my best. I did a brief search the other day after you posted this and didn’t come up with anything that caught my eye.
The Coronado NF, back in the day, was where the SW Region USFS always sent their ‘disciplinary promotion’ candidates to, when they f**ked up on another Forest in the Region.
Gary,
The one above mysteriously reposted from a reply above and then crashed once and posting this now for the third time, which indicates you must be f**king worth it..
I too really feel like our relationship is finally making some major progress. I really like the way you are opening up and sharing some of your innermost feelings. I think we both have room to grow while working toward future common goals and interests.
I have also included a link to a good article that may help us in our growth, especially you.
Thanks, but I will pass on the hugs and kisses.
https://www.theblaze.com/news/2014/10/21/liberals-will-unfriend-you-for-disagreeing-with-them-and-six-other-things-revealed-in-huge-study-about-how-americans-see-the-news
RTS,
I’m pretty sure this issue isn’t preventing our relationship from going to the next level. I get most of my news from Breitbart and what doesn’t come from there, I get from monitoring the Drudge Report and Alex Jones, so…I think we’re good.
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 19, 2018 AT 12:11 AM
RTS,
I’m pretty sure this issue isn’t preventing our relationship from going to the next level. I get most of my news from Breitbart and what doesn’t come from there, I get from monitoring the Drudge Report and Alex Jones, so…I think we’re good.
MY REPLY:
all media is not sharing you everything Gary…
I don’t believe the media but I take tidbits from them and fact check it
but I don’t take it at face value…
Anytime in life when I think something is pure that I read
ends up I am the laughing joke…
so I do not anymore trust what is shown to me…
Call me just too sensitive for the real world…
I can post the bumper sticker pics if you want…
I am on but I have Rim Rock bible studies from 5 to 8 pm today via conference skype
and last week I did not “pay attention” much and was writing someone else and my week proved that…
due to back channel incoming…
I am sorry if I am offending anyone lately by my late night writings—good points and hope to work on that…
as well when you placed the link to the widow’s area- it is not our world or our judgement
just felt to write what I did because only she knows what is going on there not us
yet I always felt if during the PR of ONLY THE BRAVE you never saw her husband in the public online areas
except on here someone mentioned it was on her husband’s private public profile then it vanished…
that maybe just maybe men did not even know she was even married…
and if someone says something to you in compliments or try to attempt to know you in ways you feel are inappropriate married or not or whatever your status is…
then still speak kind is all because we all are His…
aggression is not needed. We all have our flights and plights and moments…
Some quite innocent…some a Freudian slip…some just to mess/joke around 🙁 …some to boost your day 🙂 …whatever the case I learned I myself need to tame my tongue and for that I am very sorry the one(s) I offended on my fast…
I wish my eye sight was better like some…
Have a great weekend
John, new chapter please 🙂
https://www.ushotshots.com/user/dougfir777/
thanks—got it—
Gary said:
He remembers how we picked up his slack on the Murdoch Basin Fire of 1979 in the Wasach Mountains when he and his crew were shirkers.
MY REPLY:
how come RTS has not shown young pics of him like you and Bob and Norb…???
Because RTS is not prideful and vain
RTS,
Please don’t piss on my little parade and be so grouchy. I am just an old man now who isn’t making any new memories so I have to roll in the old ones. You will get here someday and then you may find more compassion and understanding in your heart.
XOXOXO
Gary,
I am not pissing on your parade, just making an observation and a comment. I am already there as well except not as grouchy as you.
I have to tolerate you, so you have to tolerate me. it goes both ways.
Unless you are in the USFS and one is tolerant only if one agrees with another’s Liberal blather, otherwise one is intolerant.
Whoa now…Joy wasn’t joking about your liberal use of “intellect”, except now I think you might be showing off.
Although I am still trying to figure out what she meant when she was wrote about “rerouting your balls?” How would that even work, and why is Joy messin’ with your balls anyway?
But…back on point, the last paragraph (this tablet won’t let me copy and paste it) above went right over my head. Whoosh!
Although I did notice you upped your game the other day when you described my posts using the word I prefer, which is
“diatribe”, rather than the cruder word…”rant.” So…I do want you to know I appreciate that courtesy…thank you!
FYI…I was giving you full credit for your post retirement gigs when I referenced some day you will join me just spending your days monitoring Breitbart, the Drudge Report and Alex Jones like I do, while daydream-in’ about my glory days.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQpW9XRiyM
Yes indeed, those are definitely good sources. I also like Wall Street Journal and definitely FOX News, with all the beautiful women, especially for their amazing minds, and their gorgeous legs.
MY REPLY BELOW
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 19, 2018 AT 12:24 AM
Whoa now…Joy wasn’t joking about your liberal use of “intellect”,
I KINDA FIGURED YOU WERE GONNA WRITE THIS GARY
except now I think you might be showing off.
DOUBT HE IS-
Although I am still trying to figure out what she meant when she was wrote about “rerouting your balls?”
I WAS REROUTING YOUR SET GARY
NOT HIS
BECAUSE MANY TIMES I HAVE SAID THE NEW YEARS EVE BALL FALLS BUT MIGHT BE YOUR SET
ON HOW YOU WRITE AT TIMES
YET NONE HAS EVER SUED YOU
AND BECAUSE I SAW YOUR GIRTH AND CRUSHING ARMS AND I HAD NIGHTMARES ON POLAR BEARS—AND YOU REMIND ME NOW OF POLAR BEARS—
I THOUGHT AND WONDERED IF RTS EVER SAW YOU BECAUSE HE CAN BE BRAZEN AT TIMES GARY AND LIKE I SAID DUE TO YOUR GIRTH I BOW OUT…
AND I WAS AMAZED THE SET HE MUST OF HAD TO WRITE AS I HAVE SEEN HIM BE
BOLD
AND
UNAFRAID
WAS ALL—WAS NOT A LITERAL SENSE YET APOLOGIZE FOR THE PERCEPTIONS…
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=have%20the%20balls
I AM SORRY GARY…
WAS VERY LOCKER ROOM LINGO…
BLAME IT ON ALL MY CELEBRITY CHARITY GOLF TOURNAMENTS I PARTICIPATED IN…
LEARNED IT THERE
WHERE THE GRASS IS GREENER….
(BECAUSE IT IS FERTILIZED WITH BULLSHIT)
SO ITS JUST ME BULLSHITTING…
TO FERTILIZE FURTHER JOKES…
SORRY.
How would that even work, and why is Joy messin’ with your balls anyway?
YEAH NOW I GET WHY I GOT WHAT I GOT THIS WEEK—
I WROTE IT FROM ANOTHER PERCEPTION BUT SURE CAN SEE HOW IT WENT THERE
WOULD IT BE BETTER IF I AM A TRANSGENDER ;)’
WHEN EVOLUTION HAPPENED THEY TOLD ME TO TURN AROUND…GARY…
SOMETHINGS GONE WRONG I WAS TOLD
…I THOUGHT THEY MEANT MY MIND…MAYBE NOT.
Although I did notice you upped your game the other day when you described my posts using the word I prefer, which is
“diatribe”, rather than the cruder word…”rant.” So…I do want you to know I appreciate that courtesy…thank you!
I NOTICED THAT TOO— HE WAS OFF THIS WEEK— MUST OF BEEN JOKING WITH YOU…HE CAN AT TIMES… 😉
That’s okay, I can’t think of anything I need my balls for at this point in my life…so, if RTS can use them, he can have them.
No thanks, I have my own set, so I’ll just hang onto them. Thanks anyway
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 17, 2018 AT 12:46 AM
Joy,
RTS made me too sad to respond to anything you said…because as usual you’re…complicated. Please keep me up to speed on Sonny’s condition on the back channel.
🙁
MY REPLY—
no way…there is no way YOU got sad on THAT…I gave the good points to Jabba…
Complex Joy saying good night…zzzz
Sonny emailed a little bit ago and he is recovering…he had his son get him out “sooner” little while ago and is recovering with his dogs and he next does the hernia thing and he confirmed when I went into his body and saw what was happening that every point I brought up was spot on…and the doctors confirmed with those diagnosis what I saw so now the Irish keeps keeping on…Amazing huh. He is cut up…and so he as to be careful but I am not gonna say that anymore…he is gonna do what he is gonna do…and he is….and always will…he was a miner and a logger and welder and probation officer and taxi driver and counselor and bartender…7 dangerous jobs and married 6 times another dangerous job…and still alive in spite of all that…so applause goes to this fella who has so many lives…
Gary said:
I am watching Morning Joe and checkin’ out Mika, I am old…not dead.
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–ULyxGFJj–/c_scale,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/kdd8xuty3djigkxymmor.gif
MY REPLY- let me guess it’s a man thing…right…is this a lesson week for Joy….geez….this site is not for the young and new…oh my.
Waking up with Mika huh—-I like her neck, Gary…she sure sticks it out there on Trump and her books and speeches
huh
by some of the videos I saw from your recent inserts…are you a masochist? I would find it quite painful to watch daily their resentful squawking— a true trainwreck indeed…I never saw the show because I am up at noon due to schedules–have not seen a morning after 6am in almost 6 months because I go to sleep at 6am—
what I saw from what little I saw was a man telling a woman how wrong she is…then back and forth it went…I can think of BETTER pre-caffeine jolts than that—
-or better than waking up to her…but that is me—I prefer the sultry looks and clean look of my ever so lovely Veronica Lake…but I am very old fashioned there Gary…I always like the 40’s….the men were such “beef cakes”….
maybe watching them makes you feel like you are in a much better darker place…YOUR HAPPY PLACE…
here is an even much darker spot for you—you should be more interested in watching our own Eric Marsh actor currently on Youtube giving himself his own wedgies nowadays… ( h t t p s ://youtu. be/CdzgUwsgKOI )
Now that’s news…huh
😉
either way that media shit is just morphed into some kind of fascination
and shit if it was not for one of you IM folks I might of spent another second on that tv but I got off that funk…I mean I never thought my fun night with nieces would less than 24 hours get my first moment to my life of incoming newness but it did and I was like a broom beating the shit out of it…so you can have Mika, Gary and I will keep with no media just my INVESTIGATIVEmedia moments is enough…
what I got from what you said was bottom line situational awareness
even from the higher ups who hide behind these rules
as well use them to protect them when need be
even when things fail and they just blame the ones on the line for not following the rules
even though like you said it’s a keep a job thing
but I do find that hard to absorb
because if I am in the black videoing and taking photos and audio recording and I say NO to my bosses order—
believe you me they are not gonna put my job out the door because I got the data to prove why I made that sound decision to not move out of the black…and stay alive
they can try all they want to do their political bullshit much like they are to me as the eyewitness to YHF…
they can have their push and deny and hide all day long or create something I am not like I saw with some authors who support a narrative…I hang out with folks 80+ years old and I am good with it because that generation you can just be you and not worry…when I ask them which came first THE SWAMP THING or THE MAN THING … they know I mean Marvel comics….marshy curiosities not sexual…and at their age if we talked man thing it usually meant prostate cancer…
anyways let’s agree that we need a “good sense of humor” to get through this here life and if you want to tell me Mika is a man thing….Than sorry about that and your toilet will glow with radium seeds…you got that to look forward to…
but I assure the truths no matter if they decide to give me some outrageous “commercial” fee because I fall under OTHER than at that point John Dougherty gets wind of that and I lay it in his lap but I think they rather play the “waiting” game….or it got lost…can you make a new one…
and I would make a new one…I persevere- on day 3 of my fast and almost the day 4 mark and well I am so very very happy
Joy,
I was just being facetious about the Mika, if you (meaning me) are bored enough you will watch almost anything. I did however, think the SNL skit was really funny. I should go back to Moab…or somewhere.
Yeah…I get the boredom and tv…they go hand in hand…
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on January 13, 2018 at 9:21 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Recently revealed, according to several WF, in September 2013,
>> several of them hiked the likely suspected route of the GMHS
>> on the afternoon of June 30, 2013. Bailing off the mid-slope
>> road down toward the BSR, and near the bottom in the lower
>> third of the slope, they located a Sky Probe antenna from a
>> Bendix King radio, similar to the one depicted in the link below.
>>
>> https://www.vincentcom.com/p-1010-super-skyprobe-oem-high-gain-telescoping-portable-antenna-part-ssp58fmk2-02b.aspx
>>
>> This is strong support for the conclusion that the GMHS traveled
>> down through the unburned brushfield on their way to the BSR.
>>
>> I do not know if any of them revealed their finding to any of
>> the SAIT and/or ADOSH Investigators
IF this is true… then that ‘antenna’ is potentially a very important piece of evidence.
Still need to know more details, however, such as whether or not the antenna showed any signs of damage.
Was it ‘burned’?
Was it ‘broken’ in any way ( as in, signs of it ‘breaking off’ a handheld )?
A lot of ‘investigators’ with their own radios and gear had been traversing that same ground between June and September of 2013. If there is no sign of fire damage, then perhaps someone dropped/lost it out there AFTER June 30.
If there ARE signs of ‘fire damage’… and if it really does show any signs of having ‘broken off’ something… then this piece of ‘evidence’ COULD lend more credence to the theory that ( perhaps ) one of the GM hotshots had taken a bad FALL during the descent into the fuel-filled box canyon… and that this might have caused the whole team to be DELAYED during their descent.
Proving that one of them had FALLEN and suffered an injury would, in no way, excuse the bad decision making which put them where they were… but it would add to the details of what happened that day and why SPGS1 Gary Cordes would later testify that not only did he KNOW they were “headed to the BSR”… but that he also felt (quote) “they had plenty of time to get there.”
The existing evidence that this *might* have happened starts with the autopsy reports and the significant blunt-force-injury BRUISES that were found on the head of Clayton Whitted.
They were the kind of ‘bruises’ that can only happen while you still have some blood pressure in your system to cause the ‘subscalp hemorrhaging ( bleeding )’.
In other words… they could have only happened while Whitted was still ALIVE.
This has all been discussed before on another InvestigativeMEDIA thread…
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: After years of delay, the Granite Mountain Hotshot autopsy records are released
Published: December 9, 2015
http://www.investigativemedia.com/after-years-of-delay-the-granite-mountain-hotshot-autopsy-records-are-released-to-the-public/#comment-319523
From one of the discussions in the comments section about the injuries to Clayton Whitted’s head listed in his autopsy report…
———————————————————————————————————-
** CLAYTON WHITTED’S FOREHEAD INJURIES
From the Medical Examiner’s report…
Clayton Whitted – Evidence of blunt force injuries include a 4×3 cm area of left frontal subscalp hemorrhage and a 3×1 cm area of right frontal subscalp hemorrhage.
DIMENSIONS…
4 x 3 cm area = 1.57 inch x 1.18 inch area ( Slightly smaller than a book of matches ).
3 x 1 cm area = 1.18 inch x 0.39 inch area ( Slightly smaller than the one above ).
Definition of Hemorrhage…
A hemorrhage may be “external” and visible on the outside of the body or “internal,” where there is no sign of bleeding outside the body. Bleeding from a cut on the face is an external hemorrhage. Bleeding into the spleen or liver are examples of internal hemorrhage.
So basically… ‘Hemorrhage’ means ‘Bleeding’ and ‘subscalp’ obviously means ‘under the scalp’.
‘Left frontal subscalp’ is referring to the the LEFT forehead, as you are facing the person, and ‘Right frontal subscalp’ refers to the RIGHT forehead, as you are facing the person.
So what this is all basically saying is that Whitted took some ‘blow’ to the forehead ( while he was still ALIVE ) that was hard enough to cause bleeding under the scalp ( but not break the skin ) in two places on either side of his forehead, above his eyebrows.
The spot on the left side of his forehead was pretty big ( 1.57 inch x 1.18 inch ).
That’s just slightly smaller than a standard ‘book of matches’.
The spot on the right side of his forehead was smaller and thinner ( 1.18 inch x 0.39 inch area ), which is the same ‘width’ of a book of matches but only about as tall as the ‘striking area’ of the matchbook.
NOTE: The Medical Examiner’s report for Whitted makes NO ATTEMPT to explain the head injury or what might have CAUSED it.
My guesses for Whitted’s head injury might be ( in order of probability? )…
1. He ‘stood up’ during the burnover itself, then passed out and fell face first onto one of those rocks that were all over the ground where they died.
2. The possibility of him trying to ‘knock himself out by banging his head on a rock, or something, DURING the burnover. This very thing has been reprted by others who have survived burnovers. When the pain becomes unbearable… it is not uncommn to consider trying to ‘knock yourself out’ in an effort to escape the pain.
3. Whitted *might* have had a fall and suffered the head injuries sometime prior to the deployment, but it wasn’t all that bad of an injury to report on the radio or request any medical attention ( at least in their minds, anyway ).
If it happened on the hike down into the canyon… it MAY have been the source of a DELAY in their hike while everyone huddled around him to make sure he was OK.
In other words… it wouldn’t have taken an actual sprain or ankle break to cause a serious DELAY while they were hiking down and completely blind to the fire.
We already know they were so unconcerned about the ‘move’ they had decided to make that they weren’t even ‘hurrying’ on that first part of their hike on the two-track, from the ‘resting spot’ south to the ‘descent point’.
That same ( false ) sense of ‘no reason to hurry’ might have persisted as they dropped down into the blind box canyon.
So any ‘fall’ on the way down… with ANY kind of injury… would have caused an unanticipated DELAY while everyone stopped to make sure that one man was OK to continue, and they didn’t realize how much trouble they were getting into with each passing minute.
NOTE: The SAIR report actually tells us that Clayton Whitted was, in fact, found lying prone ( FACE DOWN ).
But it does also say his shelter was ‘partially on him’ when he was found.
So maybe he did try and ‘stand up’, but then fell face down again and hit his forehead on the ground, causing those ‘blunt force’ injuries at that time.
From page 96 of the Arizona Forestry SAIR document…
———————————————————————————————————-
Clayton Whitted – Granite Mountain #4
3. Body Position: The firefighter was found lying prone with feet towards the northeast.
4. Shelter Use – It is unclear whether the firefighter was able to fully deploy the shelter. The firefighter was mostly deployed inside the fire shelter; the legs and back were covered by the shelter.
——————————————————————————————————-
But now… if some ‘broken antenna’ really was found on the ‘descent path’… it would increase the probability that Clayton Whitted fell *might* have fallen during the DESCENT into the fuel-filled box canyon, and not at the deployment site itself.
Any chance you can just tell us WHO these FFs were that ( supposedly ) found this antenna?
Gary said:
Therefore, the only rule that is worth being redundant with is, “Fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first”, in my opinion. That is the way I was taught to fight fire and that is the way I fought fire and the way I taught others to fight fire. Others can, and have fought fire as they have find or have found best for them.
MY REPLY- RTS, do you think Gary is right here stating Fight fire aggressively…shouldn’t the word fight be changed to LIGHT fires aggressively? Help me understand.
Smiling.
I did not see anyone raise their hands for a new chapter so we are stuck in this rabbit hole of a chapter. Who gets the role as the mad hatter?
Another chapter would be good.
This chapter is already failing to completely load in some smartphone browsers.
WTKTT,
Thanks for the reply with your details and the other insight.
I am hoping that Joy will chime in on this because she may some knowledge about this as well.
I will do my best on finding more details on the condition of the antenna, however, very unlikely on the WF identities unless they give me their okays to do so..
Recently revealed, according to several WF, in September 2013, several of them hiked the likely suspected route of the GMHS on the afternoon of June 30, 2013. Bailing off the mid-slope road down toward the BSR, and near the bottom in the lower third of the slope, they located a Sky Probe antenna from a Bendix King radio, similar to the one depicted in the link below.
https://www.vincentcom.com/p-1010-super-skyprobe-oem-high-gain-telescoping-portable-antenna-part-ssp58fmk2-02b.aspx
This is strong support for the conclusion that the GMHS traveled down through the unburned brushfield on their way to the BSR.
I do not know if any of them revealed their finding to any of the SAIT and/or ADOSH Investigators
Sonny was hospitalized in the past 24 hours- keep you posted—
My dad was always puzzled when I was a tot reading Og…that man is ingrained into the person I am, Gary
I hiked today and on the hike I made typo errors below due to sun glare and IM glitches
I came back and fell asleep thinking about your ONE RULE and as it has its point it is also dangerous to sum it up that way
Bob Powers and RTS firmly spoke of these rules so early on here on IM…
I was a pain always prodding and always asking and re-asking…
I would inquire sooooo much that I dragged it into muddy waters and back because I was like what?
So lets blame the men breaking rules RTS and Bob?…I back then pondered
but I did that because I know more data than RTS and Bob that always TRUTH will push to the forefront at His time…
but I never disregarded these fine men. They must of been like get this girl off here with these redundancy debates and inquiries
but I am am better person because of those times.
I “listened” and I learned and researched…and I am not a firefighter yet those rules are so ingrained in my daily life and I applaud and appreciate the debates and firm stand-hold of these 2 men we had over and over.
I am a better hiker because of them. A better person. I know me who gave them such a hard time is on a public forum saying this…because it is the right thing to do because you have spoken Gary to say you have ONE RULE…
Just today Gary-
I saw my leg giving out but I thought about not telling John and just push myself and I was at 2.47 miles out at that point when I saw myself pushing on and I credit RTS’s wisdom of sharing here for this week’s push…
I looked around and knew I had a lookout and I knew he was there if I needed to communicate a need if it aroused then as I climbed the hill I was looking for easiest escape route and safe areas in case I passed out or collapsed…
what those men wrote on IM is ingrained in all my walks and I am not a firefighter but I am safer because of them…
and if its ingrained than its just natural as my one foot in front of the other…
and it is not something to be remembered but lived and felt…you should know all the rules by just being a wild land firefighter and if you do not when you wake up “read them” silently and at lunch “read them” silently and at dinner “read them” silently and when you go to bed “read them” aloud. It should be a part of your fire industry DNA and each one out there’s souls…to keep you alive.
You follow them then you come home alive.
when I go outside I see the sky..the terrain..the weather…and recently there was a fire here and I called the residents to alert them and they said should I stop watching tv and I said I am here to make you aware…its your duty and responsibilities to do with the data to be safe not my duty to run to your rescue IN PERSON…and they said oh ok Joy the fire dept will send us a evacuation alert if I need to get up away from my tv… 🙁
so you all here have that ingrained in me too…keep my eye on the fire and watch the size and the color of plumes and watch weather…
YOU ARE A TRUE LEADER BOB AND RTS…and not institutionalized…those are rubbish comments of Gary…and a disrespect to the DNA…and you both.
and the 10 and 18 and lces are crucial as water is to a firefighter…or any human being…it is a dangerous role Gary is spreading this one rule because dropping down a canyon he will lack the essentials…
like when we live each day not getting our bodies NEEDS… water and antioxidants and etc…food is life…basic knowledge like the learning center LCES AND 10 AND 18…we need them…
it actually is easy…but Gary is making it very complicated by one rule but without me knowing and feeling and living with my water and the rules to live healthy…things happen to the body and it shows on my vlog the changes that happen when I don’t stay mindful…
I also would ingrain in my crew the terrain we step on know it…so many times with these research tools you see what they are doing real time on their fire tactics and yeah some are just not getting it or not trained enough or not adult enough…but there is areas needing improvements…otherwise I would not be at the level I am at trying to ensure changes are made…
Now Gary is not wrong by his ONE RULE content but its well known you do not drop down into a canyon with fire in the areas yet you also know you do not leave the black a safe zone either when there is additional data and activities happening and one can obviously see it from their standpoint…yeah so there is more than one rule…
You remind me when I cook or bake I never go by a recipe I just make from the heart of love and damn is your palette left salivating for more…I never followed rules or instructions unless I worked for Naples or a restaurant that had to have “consistency” so I had to follow their recipe rules…but my jobs respected me soooo much I was in charge of the daily specials that had no rules or recipes…mine was what people internationally came to the place for—the specials- the owners knew it too. They wanted my specials on the menu but I never could because I do from the heart and I cook with love; no recipes…Sonny can tell you I can make a steak melt in your mouth and you can cut it with a bread knife after I have worked my marbleizing magic…caramelizing was also one of my favorite things to do—I love to capture you through your tummy…always has been my passion….
anyways I was hurt when Gary was debating the rules…yes, me…I was like I can see me not a firefighter not grasping it but Gary???? Man, Gary. Seems each year when that New Years Eve ball drops…we are talking your set gets lower and lower and more brazen and not thinking too much about the future because dropping down in the canyon could be a good golden rule but there has to be more to this…because I am not comprehending…and that is not too hard…but you survived and lived through all the years you put in and you are saying ONE RULE so help me understand and feel that ONE RULE…help me disregard the DNA of set rules and learn your way…
I ask myself is Gary’s comment a good habit to adapt to FORGET ALL RULES but ONE?
Should I erase all I learned from RTS and Bob and listen to Gary…a new way…a new life on things?
I guess your reasoning I find myself at the decision corner or countering?
I love the qualities of IM and what it offers and challenges and disregards…this site on here and off here “back channel” has made me THINK not just of fire actions but life actions too…
recently a topic I had almost 6 months ago came up in another way and I am not mature enough to know how to interact so I found my self OVER analyzing a simple comment
and I did not know if I was doing it because I thought God was testing/seeing if I learned from my error (growth level)(like testing me) because at that moment did not seem like an error…shit it ain’t no different then anyone who has a vice to life may it be substance or chew or whatever makes you feel like you are alive and living…
but I felt it was not ever a comment I get incoming for my life so didn’t know what to do with the data…just say “thanks” and move along……???…on something that lays foreign to my existence. Yet yesterday what it did Gary was put a shine in my eyes, unwrinkle my brow, brought a smile to my lips, and echo in my heart and voice…I had not been able to move literally and that moment I said let’s go walk tomorrow and we did today and I USE all the rules of your industry…even the one rule one too…I am happy because of the people here sharing…it means something to me. I know it means alot to many as I get the back channel feedback…There are some who think John Dougherty will one day turn this blog into a book and I do not see it but RAISE YOUR HAND FOR A NEW CHAPTER at least…
HEY JOHN—- new chapter request please 🙂
thanks.
Joy,
If you follow sound wild land firefighting principles, tactics and strategies you are automatically following all of the rules that have been named here and all of the rules that are inherent in the job that haven’t been formally identified yet.. Naming some of them while failing to name all of them, is absurd and is the provenience of the Department of Redundancy Department and the Department of Incompleteness..
Therefore, the only rule that is worth being redundant with is, “Fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first”, in my opinion. That is the way I was taught to fight fire and that is the way I fought fire and the way I taught others to fight fire. Others can, and have fought fire as they have find or have found best for them.
You are oversimplifying what I wrote. The memorializing some of the rules but excluding others was a knee jerk reaction by those in the Chief’s Office of the U.S. Forest Service in 1957 when they started with 10 of them. And then they said, whoops and added some more. And then they said whoops and added some more. And then they said whoops and added some more. They are still saying whoops and adding them today.
I started out observing all of them on day 1 and saved all of the whoops and adding more every time someone else was killed. So….to review. IF you are following sound wild land firefighting principals, tactics and strategies all of the time, you are also fighting fire aggressively but providing for safety first at the same time.
Those who lack competence, experience and common sense need to write them down and constantly review them, but unfortunately by doing so, they are standing to close to the elephant to see the elephant and therefore putting themselves and other at risk..
Do you think wild land firefighting is the only job that is inherently dangerous? How about structural firefighting? How many of their rules are written down for everyone to memorize and constantly review? That isn’t a rhetorical question since I don’t know anything about structural firefighting and they may have some for all I know?
I do however, know about another inherently dangerous job and that is law enforcement. And the inherent dangers are to numerous and varied for anyone to write them all down for others to memorize and follow. It makes more sense to competently train those who do the job on sound law enforcement practices, tactics and strategies and then tell them something like, “Let’s be careful out there” to remind them that they should, “Fight crime aggressively but provide for safety first.”
Now….I just repeated everything I wrote down below which if you would have read and comprehended first, you could have saved me the time of repeating what I have already wrote. But since I like you….I think you are worth it. And if you don’t agree, that’s okay because when you are a wild land firefighting supervisor you can do it your way…or not.
The whole, “Hotshot Rule of One”, which is, “Stay out of canyons above or in front of a wild fire” is just being tongue-in-cheek and if you don’t understand that, I am more than happy to clue you in since I value your participation here on this thread because that is a rule that should have been written by the Department of Obvious just like, “If you feel like taking a nap near the fire line you are really one stupid dumb ass” but apparently some really stupid dumb ass did fe
el like taking a nap near the fire line and was either hurt or killed so they wrote a rule that say’s you shouldn’t do it.
But…do you want to know how disingenuous and hypocritical that rule is? That is a rhetorical question because I have been bedded down by fire team overhead in numerous spike camps on the fire line that were burned over while we were sleeping in them. Sometimes we had to evacuate the spike camp and sometimes we just waited for the wildfire to burn around us. The point is, that is one stupid rule to write down for some stupid people to waste their time memorizing.
And the reason most agencies even try to memorialize rules and put them in “General Order”, “Standard Operating Procedures” or whatever they call their internal rules and regulations is so when an employee does violate one of those rules and something bad happens, the agency can say “Hey…it’s not our fault, we told them not to do it” IF they want to hang that employee out to dry.
If on the other hand, the agency violates one of those rules or they are violated by someone who they don’t want to hang out to dry, they pretend the rules don’t exist, or don’t apply. It’s just a “Cover Their Ass” if they want to use it which is normally referred to as a CYA which stands for “Cover Your Ass.”
Like everything. It’s complicated and only simple people who aren’t capable of nuance like RTS don’t get it.
And IF you remember, or even if you don’t…I started this whole conversation by stating I have gone along with RTS and Bob up until now and showed my belly numerous times in the face of their bullshit just because I didn’t want to go down this road because it is complicated and nuanced and requires those who participate in this king of discussion to be ably to distinguish what works for them and makes sense and what doesn’t.
For example…the entire SAIR by the SAIT is an example of this issue. No one includes them believes that NONE of the rules were violated by Marsh and Steed…that is a colossal JOKE, EVERYONE, including them know Marsh and Steed violated almost all of the rule that have been written down and some that haven’t…like, “Don’t deliberately lie and deceive the fire overhead team and everyone else what you are really doing because you want to pull a fast one and get away with being wayyyyy to cute for your own good, not to mention the good of those whose lives you are responsible for.”
That’s a pretty good fuckin’ rule wouldn’t you say? That’s a pretty fuckin’ important rule for everyone to follow…right? But have you seen that fuckin’ rule written down on any of RTS’ or Bob’s lists of rules? No? How come? It’s because not all of the rules are written down…just some of them are.
So…why are the SAIT lying with their SAIR? I think there are at least three reasons and all of them are right to some extent. But that all depends on how you feel about the SAIT and the fuckin’ agencies they represent.
Here is a copy of an email I received in the back channel that describes those reasons better than I can.
“I think there’s guilt involved and an attempt to heal the living in the report not ripping GM a new one. There’s also considerations of protecting major players in the game. Call it double-cya.”
Except it is actually a triple-CYA depending on how you count your CYS’s.
Or I guess depending on your count, it is a quad-CYA, now that I re-read it, I think it has four CYS;s.
“CYA’s”
As a matter of fact, Overhead on the Hog Fire of 1977 on the Shasta Trinity National Forest bedded hundreds of WF down in a spike camp and they could see the fire, or they should have been able to see the fire, would reach the camp that night.
Our crew boss saw that it would and he pulled us out to a safe location and then we watched as hundreds of WF went running down the back slope in the middle of the night and at least one person ran into a tree and knocked herself unconscious.
So…if it is a written rule that if, “You feel like taking a nap near the fire line” is a situation that “Shouts Watch Out!”, what is it when overhead bed hundreds of firefighters down ON the fire line that is about to be burned over?
It is actually the unofficial second rule that should always be observed by wild land firefighters in addition to, “Fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first” and that is, “Watch Out for Death From Above From Overhead.”
But…if you are already, “Fighting fire aggressively but providing for safety first”, you are already ignoring Overhead when you need to so it is a Redundant Order written by the Department of Redundancy Department. Get it? It’s complicated and should only be part of an “Advanced Discussion.”
Joy,
Let me try this another way by using the original 10 Standard Firefighting Orders.
If you were a professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter, would you really need a list to tell you to keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts, know what your fire is doing at all times, base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire, identify escape routes and safety zones and make them known, post lookouts when there is possible danger, be alert, keep calm think clearly. act decisively, maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor, and adjoining forces, give clear instructions and ensure they are understood. maintain control of your forces at all times. and fight fire aggressively, having provided for safety first?
Or would you do those things because you professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter?
Would you ever say to yourself, or others…well, I was going to NOT be alert, NOT keep calm NOT think clearly. and NOT act decisively, BUT…thank God there is a rule that I should be alert, should keep calm, should think clearly and should act decisively…so I am going to do that instead?
Or are you going to be alert, keep calm, think clearly, and act decisively because you are professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter?
I know what I would do and did do when I was a professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter, I did those things because those were the common sense and OBVIOUS things to do as a professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter.
Just go down the list and ask yourself…do I need any of those things on a list in order to do them? Or are those the things I am going to do because I want to put the fire out and then go home?
But that is not to say, that everyone who goes through the training to become a professional, experienced, competent, capable, knowledgeable, etc., wildland firefighter shouldn’t be trained because those are all sound principles of competent wildland firefighting techniques, tactics and strategies.
Is this horse dead enough for you? Or should I keep beating it?
Okay…just one more point because you wrote so many things above that are really insulting to me even though you didn’t understand that when you wrote them.
Don’t structural firemen and police officers among just two professions need to be alert, keep calm, think clearly, and act decisively?
Yes…they do. Why don’t they have a similar lists that tells them that is what they should be doing?
And the answer is…it’s because no one from the U.S. Forest Service Office of the Chief, sat down in 1957 (or anyone else at any other time) and wrote such a list up for them as a knee jerk reaction to fix a problem by making a list.
The danger with that kind of list…is that IF a wildland firefighter does not keep alert, calm, think clearly, and act decisively they can use violating those orders as a means to discipline up to firing that person…IF that is what they want to do.
Now…that is once again an over simplification, but similar things happen every day to someone somewhere in this country. Law enforcement is really bad at doing that and federal law enforcement is really bad at that and people lose everything they have worked their entire lives for if someone has the ass for them…and they don’t know where enough bodies are buried as an insurance policy to use as blackmail…or whitemail.
That’s why Jesse Steed took his crew down that chute even though he knew he was putting his crew at an unacceptalbe risk. Jesse Steed knew he had to keep bringing home a paycheck and his kids and wife needed the health insuracne he provided and he worked for two vindictive and petty supervisors, one was named Eric Marsh and the other is named Darrell Willis. So Jesse Steed took his crew down that chute or canyon or chimney, whatever you want to call it because he didn’t want to lose his job or even jeopardize it.
I was faced with the same choice on the Scott Fire on the Coronado National Forest (and many other times) and thank God I was always confident enough in my position and my supervisors so I was never afraid enough of being sent home from a fire with crew after being relieved of my command for disobeying orders and that was before there was a form you could fill out in order to officially disobey orders.
And the termination letters go something like this.
To; Captain Jesse Steed
Re: Immediate Termination For Cause
On June 30, 3013, while on the Yarnell Hill Fire you did not keep alert, calm, think clearly, and act decisively in direct violation of General Order 13.1.
Your immediate supervisor, Division Alpha Eric Marsh ordered you three seperate times to obey his direct order to keep alert, calm, think clearly, and act decisively and you refused his direct order.
Therefore, you are hereby terminated from your employment from the City of Prescott, Prescott Fire Department for disobeying the direct orders of your immediate supervior and General Order 13.1.
If you disagree with this decesion, you have the right to appeal this decision to the Merit System Protection Board or whatever within 30 days, but you are going to be doing it from your kitchen table at home and your paycheck will already have stopped and your insurance cards for your kids will have already stopped working…so good luck with that you stupid fuck. You should have done what you were ordered to do, your replacement will know better next time and follow the orders that have been given to him.
P.S.,
And even if you do win when and if you appeal our decision to the Merit System Protection Board and get your job back…it will be five years from now, you will have already lost your house to foreclosure, your wife will have left you three years earlier, your kids will already be calling another man daddy, you will be an alchoholic by then and you will get A job with the City of Prescott back, but it won’t be with the Prescott Fire Department, you will have negotiated with the city attorney because you don’t have an attorney and you live in your car to take a job at your old salary minus all of the overtime, hazard pay etc, you used to earn at whatever department we want to stick you so you will be the most miserable.
Been there…done some of that and was afraid of the rest of and I wouldn’t recommend it.
Oh…and one more thing.
None of that happened because Captain Jesse Steed led his crew down that chimney as he followed Eric Marsh’s flagging into wildland firefighting infamy.
And you know the rest of the story…right?
commonly known as…
the Dweeb here
🙂
Hi Gary
http://0.media.collegehumor.cvcdn.com/97/57/f04eda52a697958fdc8ddb9c6c5cb03e-tweeting-a-dead-horse.jpg
It appears the horse is dead, Gary….
unless it is a centaur…
then you might see the head pop out
and say
“Look at me”…”I am the centaur of attention”…
but after that photo if it is a centaur he might want to change his online dating profile from the waist up…
he looks roughed up…anyways, Gary…I want to say I got it
but I am like WTH on breaking news today with David Turpin & Louise Turpin…
Seriously? I mean where was the awareness or being weary from the people who lived near them? Shit, imagine if that was one of yours being mistreated…that is messed up…And how many kids was it…man…shew…I can see that in the 1700s and that being a good thing but WTH…
http://abcnews.go.com/US/13-siblings-ages-29-held-captive-parents-shackled/story?id=52364267
here is the story to the names I mentioned
ugh
Joy,
I am watching Morning Joe and checkin’ out Mika, I am old…not dead.
So…here is the bottom line for me if I can sum it up. All of those rules and guidelines are good and should be followed. I mean, who is going to argue that you shouldn’t base your actions on current and expected fire behavior?
All I’m trying to say is that not all behavior needs to be or can be codified and memorialized by someone in order for a professional Wildland Firefighter who has been properly trained to competently fight fire using sound wildland firefighting principle, tactics and strategies to do his or her job the right way.
.And now that list is up somewhere around 50 written rules. I think Paul Gleason was on to something when he advocated condensing and simplifying those rules into a form that is more manageable.
And the reason I never led my crew down any canyon to their deaths is because I never had any petty or vindictive supervisors or managers I was afraid of and I was never afraid of losing my job as a hotshot crew boss. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned when I was flying home with my crew to Santa Fe in a jet that had been charted special to send us home from the Scott Fire, that was…concerning.
But…when I arrived in Santa Fe I went immediately to the Forest FMO who was friends with the IC who had sent us home because all of those guys were friends, it’s was one big good ole boys club and I said…Ray (Page) do you want to see me? He leaned back in his chair and said…”About what?”
I replied about being sent home with my crew from the Scott Fire. Ray swiveled around and looked out his window and said, “You can’t please all of the people all of the time” and he went back to working on whatever he had been working on when I walked in.
The reason I think Captain Jesse Steed did work for petty and vindictive supervisors and managers is because he clearly recognized how dangerous it was going to be to lead his crew down that death chute because he refused three times to do so…but in the end he did it anyway and they were all burned alive and died horrible deaths.
After I was relieved of my command on the Scott Fire, I was the only one being sent home at first. The Sector Boss then climbed onto the bus with the Line Boss and Fire Boss standing behind him and ordered my crew to get off the bus. The crew then threw spit cups, coke cans, sandwiches and anything else they could get their hands on at the Sector Boss while they cussed up a blue streak until he ran off the bus.
My crew always called me Dad, so RTS can go fuck himself and the horse he rode in on for being so insulting to me below by saying I identified with the warden from Cool Hand Luke.
So there. Nana nana poo poo to him. And FYI…I won his stupid bet because I referenced Dr. Putnam months before he did.
Fuck with the best…die with the rest.
Oh…and one more thing. I didn’t even bother to go see my immediate supervisor, who was District FMO Orlando Romero because I knew he had my back. Orlando always had my back.
P.S. Joy,
I am also being facetious about Finns and Finland. I’m just playin’ off a centuries old rivalry between Swedes and Finns hating or at least really disliking each other. Tribal divisions are strange. According to my History channel, all of us can be traced to one woman who was in Africa a really long time ago. So…can’t we all be friends? 🙂
And along those lines, I deeply regret fuckin’ with my old friend…the longest serving hotshot crew boss in history, who has certainly earned our respect for just that, and that alone.
Gary,
You posted: “Those who lack competence, experience and common sense need to write them down and constantly review them, but unfortunately by doing so, they are standing to close to the elephant to see the elephant and therefore putting themselves and other at risk.”
Negative, it ensures that we will always remember them and follow them to the best of out ability.
Watch Outs are just that., more like Guidelines, and we experience them on every fire on every shift. You cannot violate the watch Outs. They are not Rules which can be violated.
You can and should always disobey orders if they are illegal, immoral, unethical, or unsafe..
Steed did not disobey any of Marsh’s orders three times to go down the hill. Steed ultimately followed through on Marsh’s commands, however, Steed numerous times used classic ‘Mitigating and Hinting Speech’ in deference to authority because he was a Marine and Marines follow orders.
Please provide me the link where you allegedly referenced Dr. Putnam”s ‘Up In Smoke’ article before I did. Thank you
The rest of your spew and childish diatribe above is not worth responding to.
Gary,
Even though we are and always will be Hot Shot Brothers, there are times you remind me of the odious Jabba the Hut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZy6G_vz_Ng
Robert the Second says
JANUARY 16, 2018 AT 10:26 PM
Gary,
Even though we are and always will be Hot Shot Brothers, there are times you remind me of the odious Jabba the Hut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZy6G_vz_Ng
MY REPLY:
shit, first we are falling down my rabbit hole awaiting the NEW CHAPTER and the hole leads to Star Wars??? as me as Yoda and Gary as that—let me think which character RTS is?
hmmm….
going retro junk on me RTS—are ya…hard one…
so this is the throne room if Gary is this character you say….that means if going by the movie…everyone in this throne room are the vilest, most grotesque CREATURES ever conceived in the universe…oh crap…??? Don’t call Gary that…pick a new nickname please…
ok so you are gonna be either han d. solo…or obi one….is that how you saw obi? my brother was the sci fi guy not me…
hey Gary
I took the test
I am not Yoda—see:
http://www.seabreezecomputers.com/starwars/index.html?pic=rey&result=Rey
Crafty and industrious, you can turn the trash of others into creative treasure. You don’t give yourself enough credit for how talented and special you actually are.
Rey
75%
Han Solo
73%
Obi-Wan Kenobi
71%
Chewbacca
71%
Lando Calrissian
70%
Poe Dameron
69%
Qui-Gon Jinn
67%
R2-D2
66%
Luke Skywalker
65%
Yoda
63%
http://www.starwars.com/news/quiz-which-star-wars-the-last-jedi-character-are-you
THIS WAS MY RESULTS AND SOOOOOO VERY TRUE:
You’re Luke Skywalker!
Like the legendary Jedi, you are strong and capable but prefer to keep to yourself.
If you had it your way, you’d spend your days in a cave meditating, but when others need your help, you’ll always do what’s right.
Congratulations — you’re the courageous yet mysterious hero Luke Skywalker
RTS,
Ouch!
a long time ago
in a galaxy far away
I like nicknames
but jabba was harsh…??? wasn’t it RTS?
plus Gary aren’t you thin? Jabba has an enormous girth like me one year ago 😉
Jabba who is the most sexually exploited character in the film—naked the entire time…
Jabba isn’t a hero, he’s clearly a good guy trying to do right for his community. So if we look at it this way then it is a good character for Gary—
plus Gary white women love Jabba—
last I heard Jabba ate only raw veggies
BUT
Gary couldnt be Jabba
There were three puppeteers, including Philpott, inside Jabba: a little person in the tail, one person working on arm and the head and another right next to him working the mouth, other arm and tongue.
AND THERE IS ONLY ONE GARY
Jabba’s two radio-controlled eyes included dilating pupils.
AND WE KNOW GARY’S EYES ARE NEVER DILATED 😉
all funnin’ aside or whatever this was
late night boredom
WHAT CHARACTER DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
Me, it was Spock.
oh wrong movie,
it was Darth Vader.
THE LAST ONE POSTED WRONG
how???
hmmm
a long time ago
in a galaxy far away
I like nicknames
but jabba was harsh…??? wasn’t it RTS?
plus Gary aren’t you thin? Jabba has an enormous girth like me one year ago 😉
Jabba who is the most sexually exploited character in the film—naked the entire time…
Jabba isn’t a hero, he’s clearly a good guy trying to do right for his community. So if we look at it this way then it is a good character for Gary—
plus Gary white women love Jabba—
last I heard Jabba ate only raw veggies
BUT
Gary couldnt be Jabba
There were three puppeteers, including Philpott, inside Jabba: a little person in the tail, one person working on arm and the head and another right next to him working the mouth, other arm and tongue.
AND THERE IS ONLY ONE GARY
Jabba’s two radio-controlled eyes included dilating pupils.
AND WE KNOW GARY’S EYES ARE NEVER DILATED 😉
all funnin’ aside or whatever this was
late night boredom
WHAT CHARACTER DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
Me, it was Spock.
oh wrong movie,
it was Darth Vader.
Joy,
RTS made me too sad to respond to anything you said…because as usual you’re…complicated. Please keep me up to speed on Sonny’s condition on the back channel.
🙁
a long time ago
in a galaxy far away
where WHO is who getting picked on….
I like nicknames
but jabba was harsh…??? wasn’t it RTS?
plus Gary aren’t you thin? Jabba has an enormous girth like me one year ago 😉
Jabba who is the most sexually exploited character in the film—naked the entire time…
Jabba isn’t a hero, he’s clearly a good guy trying to do right for his community. So if we look at it this way then it is a good character for Gary—
plus Gary white women love Jabba—
last I heard Jabba ate only raw veggies
BUT
Gary couldnt be Jabba
There were three puppeteers, including Philpott, inside Jabba: a little person in the tail, one person working on arm and the head and another right next to him working the mouth, other arm and tongue.
AND THERE IS ONLY ONE GARY
Jabba’s two radio-controlled eyes included dilating pupils.
AND WE KNOW GARY’S EYES ARE NEVER DILATED 😉
all funnin’ aside or whatever this was
late night boredom
WHAT CHARACTER DO YOU LIKE THE MOST?
Me, it was Spock.
oh wrong movie,
it was Darth Vader.
Joy,
Oh…and one more thing. I agree with you that RTS was very harsh with me. He knows how fragile and vulnerable I am and I have asked him numerous times to be sweeter to me.
Please refer him to my post down below next to his challenge for the link he is requesting. Thank you.
Although I think we all got some great news today about our President’s cognitive skills and I no longer think he is going to be throwing his poop at reporters during the State of the Union Speech.
God Bless America!
https://www.amazon.com/Only-Brave-Blu-ray-Andie-McDowell/dp/B076M9MG17
buy yours today
Very cool. Thanks for the heads up. I am thinking about buying one just because I like watching a movie that shows just how great it is to be either a current or even former Hotshot…gotta love it, I guess? The movie does show how stupid we can be, not to mention arrogant (which often crosses the line into hubris) to boot, (which can be a deadly combination), but what the heck…any press is good press?
Anyway…I am seriously considering revealing another one of our dirty little secrets because you know…that’s kinda my job as a blogger here. I started it years ago but backed down and showed my belly after pushback from RTS and Bob and because of the fact I didn’t want to find out some young dumb ass WF who read what I wrote done went and got themselves kilt!
So I am thinking about writing the truth again and having one final epic on line battle with RTS and Bob who were trained on the Pollyanna Hotshots. And if someone does get kilt because of what I end up writing….please just don’t tell me about it.
I thought I had actuallly found a video of the Pollyanna Hotshots training while memorizing the 10 and 18, but then some woman showed up in a pair of running shorts and interrupted them. Sadly…it turned out to be an old commercial for Apple computers, but I will keep looking.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfqw8nhUwA
I also have to apologize to our President Trump…he isn’t INSANE, he just has some kind of deterioration of his mental abilities which are probably related to old age…bummer. If I am right, he is going to start throwing his poop at reporters while exposing himself and beating off life a horny monkey soon enough and then we will be able to stop arguing about what the hell is WRONG with this guy?
I am definitely going to watch the State of the Unuin Speak this year. This just keeps getting better and better as every day goes by. This is certainly a good time to be a Christian, Conservative, White person with Nordic heritage who will get to keep my large tax cuts while most of my people lose their little ones pretty soon. God Bless America!
Gary,
Allow me to offer some one/two word ques for remembering the all-important Ten Standard FF Orders:
1) WEATHER
2) OBSERVE
3) ACTIONS
4) E/R + S.Z
5) LOOKOUTS
6) RE-EVALUATE
7) COMMUNICATE
8) INSTRUCTIONS
9) CONTROL
10) FIGHT FIRE
We can work on the 19 Watch Outs at another time.
Good YouTube video clip revealing directive-style leadership and likely what your Slanted Fake HS Crew experienced under your leadership.
Thanks for sharing.
RTS,
I can’t figure out the “Slanted Fake” angle, please clarify.
I think you are finally on the right track. And if you can get the 10 down to seven letters, I think you will really have something. I have perfected my own and I got my down to remembering only ONE thing. Unfortunately, my is a lot more than seven letters, but the letters it does use, make a catchy acronym that is easy to remember.
“Don’t do stupid things.”.
Although I guess I could reverse it and make it a positive “Rule Of One.”
And I am going to drop the “hotshot” specific angle and just go with the “Wildland Firefighter Rule Of One.”
“Do smart things”
Nope…I don’t like that one. I’m sticking with, “Don’t Do Stupid Things.”
Although for the dim witted WF, maybe I should go with, to cover all of the bases.
“Don’t do stupid things, do smart things.”
Gary, it’s mo re effective to speak positively and tell people what to do instead of what not to do. So I prefer the Do Smart Things.
The Slanted Fake HS angle is payback for hour Polyanna HS angle.
I know it was payback…I just don’t get it. I know it is supposed to be insulting, I just don’t understand what the insult is?
XOXOXO
Oh…and one more thing. You have never heard of the “Hotshot Rule of One”, because I made it up. I thought you knew that and we were on the same sheet of music…for once? But alas, our synchronicity as short lived.
Okay, so if you made it up, then how am I or anyone else supposed to know what it means?
What is the “Hot Shot Rule of One?”
Geez…either you are having a real problem with comprehension or I am having a real problem communicating? Although…at this point, it has to be me because I’m pretty sure you aren’t this fucking obtuse…right?
The whole angle I was going for, until you derailed me, was all of the 28 weren’t used or even needed by any of the 43 hotshots killed (other then by individual accidents and I am tired of putting that caveat in every time, so let’s just stipulate it from now on…okay?) because they only needed to do one thing and one thing only which has never been specified except in general, vague, all inclusive terms like, building fire line downhill towards a fire shouts, “watch out dumb ass” and that is the “Hotshot (or even Wildland Firefighter) Rule of One.”
And the “Rule of One” is,
Stay out of canyons above or in front of a wild fire”, and that is where our little train left the tracks with the exact langueage, because the exact language doesn’t really matter…the point is, stay out of canyons that are either above or in front of a wild fire.
And IF that simple rule would have been followed on the Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon and Yarnell Hill Fires, there would never have been a hotshot killed on a fire in the entire history of hotshots. The score would be:
Hotshots X Wildfires
Wildfires 0 Hotshots
Okay thanks. I still don’t get how you came up with the “Rule of One” as a title or definition for this.
Definitely not obtuse …
And I come up with about 43 WF Rules, including the 10 & 18, LCES, Downhill Checklist, and the Common Denominators. And I actually have 19 Watch Outs to include Number 19, Death From Above.
Your welcome! And I came up with the “Rule of One” because apparently hotshots only need one rule instead of 28 of them. Stay the fuck out of fuckiin’ canyons above or in front of a fuckin’ wildfire!”
And yes…I do think all of the vulgarity IS necessary…it helps hotshots FOCUS. I am starting to think Marsh and Sad Sack might have been on to something after all.
All of the old rules might be “hillbilly.” According to my exhaustive research and clinical studies of all of the hotshots deaths in history of hotshots, they only needed to follow the “Hotshot Rule of One” C. 2018, G. Olson, and that is,”Hey stupid fucks….stay out of canyons above or in front of a wildfire…okay?”
So…I think we need to train hotshots on sound wildfire firefighting tactics and strategies and the. “Hotshot Rule of One” and call it good.
I think all of the other WF still need all 28 plus LCES AND the, “Hotshot Rule of One” becuase all of the reasons so many other WF are killed is really hard to nail down and for me to wrap my head around because there are so many other variables.
But for hotshots…it turns out it is pretty FUCKIN” SIMPLE!
Sounds like a kiss and makeup moment…glad to see that vs kiss ass…both have valid points.yet I would tell my kid also to be. mindful to.question authority if he is making me leave a safe area. Its like this you know its wrong …kinda like folks who cross to have affairs in life…sometimes you can do it ans make it but sometimes you can get burned so its better to not even think about sis is than to take that kind of risk. My way of thinking…
Or how ever many WF rules you come up with. There were only 28 back in my day and frankly, I gave up after seven of them. And not seven rules…seven words! It was the same principle as remembering my telephone number.
Did I ever tell you how I made squad boss? No? I was the First Pulaski on Squad One and it was at the beginning of the year and we were cutting fire line for “time” with the crew boss using a stop watch, although now that I look back on it, we were starting in the middle of nowhere in the forest and cutting fire line to the middle of nowhere, so what was the stop watch for?
Anyway….I got excited and shattered the handle of my Pulaski and I felt stupid just standing there so I picked up the Pulaski head that still had about 18 inches of broken handle on it and kept cutting line.
The crew boss made me the new squad boss on the spot. He never even asked me how many of those stupid hillbilly rules I could recite like a robotic clone who learned them by rote.
He just made sure I knew about how to fight wildfire using sound tactics and strategies and the ability to make spit second decisions faster and better than Deep Blue instantly calculating an unimaginable number of variables and possible outcomes on the run which was helped because I have adult ADHD and my people were hunters and warriors going back eons just as yours were. We are all predators, you can tell because our eyes are in the front of our heads.
Here is something for you to think about IF you can open your mind to the possibility that your way might not be the best way.
No other industry that I know of that is inherently dangerous has a lists of rules that everybody has to learn by rote. They teach sound tactics and strategies instead.
They say, and don’t ask me how the they added these up except they do have a lot of people they need to keep busy at FLETC, but they say they teach every new cadet more than 1000 new individual things during basic training.
So…let’s take a LE vehicle stop because I don’t know any other inherently dangerous things other people do on a daily basis and make those into Written Rules. And this is off the top of my head and I’m not putting a lot of thought into them, so…I probably left some things off the list.
Action….Routine Vehicle Traffic Stop Rules (after observing a traffic violation)
1. Follow vehicle for a period of time to observe them.
2. Call in their license plate to dispatch for a 28/29, Wait for response.
3. Jot down the license plate and other facts like vehicle type and color etc.
4. Activate lights in a tactically favorable and safe area if possible. Observe reaction of vehicle occupants.
5. Stop patrol vehicle safe distance behind suspect vehicle. Turn wheels toward traffic. Continually observe suspect vehicle. Radio dispatch you are exiting patrol vehicle.
6. Walk to the shoulder of the road and approach vehicle on the passenger side with flashlight etc. in non gun hand.
7. Check trunk to make sure the it is fastened down, the back of a truck bed and the rear seat for hidden or previously unseen occupants..
8. Position yourself to the slightly to the rear while assuming a Field Interrogation/Modified Weaver combat stance.
9. Introduce yourself to the vehicle occupants and tell them the reason for the stop as you ask them for their drivers license, registration and insurance papers.
10. Etc…etc…etc, so on and so forth and when you are done, be sure and tell them to, “Have a Nice Day!”
Or maybe we should just teach our police officers to do those things and a whole bunch of other things automatically without thinking about them like watch traffic and everything else that is going on around them all at the same time without even thinking about it because we taught them sound police tactics and strategies at the police academy with constant reinforcement at in-service, on the job training and certification procedures with Field Training Officers.
In other words, maybe we should train and treat them and our wildland firefighters like they are highly trained adults instead of robotic, mindless clones who learned countless written rules because somebody in the USFS Chiefs Office thought that was a good idea as a knee jerk reaction in 1957 and we have been adding to the list ever since? Just askin’?
Here is where my old work videos are posted on my YouTube channel I made because I was bored.
https://www.youtube.com/user/DeadEndPSA
Watch what this BLM Ranger does at the end of this video…do you think he is thinking about those 10 rules or any other rules? Or do you think he is following his training without even thinking about it?
His field tactics are FLAWLESS. I wasn’t in the vehicle,he was alone and the footage is from his dash camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WvosIq7a0
This is how every hotshot should do everything…without THINKING about it. All actions should be automatic because of extensive and outstanding training with constant repetition.
As I have written before…wildland firefighter training is decades behind law enforcement training…and the field results show.
Oh…and one more thing. The REASON wildland firefighter training is DECADES behind law enforcement training is because YOU PEOPLE (tax payers) put a lot of MONEY into law enforcement training and you don’t put hardly ANY MONEY into wildland firefighter training.
Almost ALL training materials are DECADES old and hopelessly outdated and frankly….most of it is a sad JOKE!
And to make matters even worse, wildland firefighting managers abdicated what little responsibility they did take for wildland firefighitnt training at one time and turned it over to either “for profit” or “non profit” ad hoc outfits. Some of which are okay and others aren’t okay.
And in any case, they are all using materials and teaching techniques that were developed several decades ago and haven’t been updated since.
I paid almost one thousand dollars for Eric Marsh and Company to train my son with the very same training the USFS gave me back in the mid 1970’s for God’s Sake!
Do you really want to know what the problem is? CAN YOU HANDLE THE TRUTH?
You fucking (FOCUS) people are the fucking problem! FIX IT!
In other words, maybe we should train and treat them and our wildland firefighters like they are highly trained adults using the limited (43 WF Rules) written rules because the USFS Chief’s Office thought that was a good idea in 1957. We have added to the list only a few times.
They work, every single time!
Memorize them, understand what they mean, mitigate the Watch Outs as you encounter them, and safely fight fire.
Pretty simple.
You are standing too close to the elephant to even see what the problem is. In other words, you are the problem…so you can’t be the solution.
If I were doing a PowerPoint presentation I would make a Venn Diagram for you and then you might be able to see the problem. Or…you could just take a few steps back and realize you what you are looking is an elephant.
Nahhhh….fuhgettaboutit, you have been hopelessly institutionalized my old friend.
Gary,
I can clearly see what is going on and definitely have the Big Picture. and definitely NOT hopelessly institutionalized.
I have been and continue to be confidently and thankfully blessed by The Good Lord by following the WF Rules that work, every single time!
Memorize them, understand what they mean, mitigate the Watch Outs as you encounter them, and safely fight fire.
It’s really very simple and very effective.
Name or show me ONE fire where the WF Rules were followed and someone was burned over, Fire sheltered up, or died from a wildfire.
There are NONE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj60OAh7O5U
Too many rules have been written, and following tragedy, added TO, that not only has made it more difficult to keep them all straight, an argument can be made that all they do is effectively help protect management from liability. At a certain point there are so many rules it’s becomes harder & harder not to ever ‘bend’ one….even just a little.
Did LCES, while formulated by Mr. Gleason so many years ago to exactly address the issue of too many rules to keep straight, contribute to the death of the GMIHC? They employed a lookout (check the box) …and almost killed him. Instead of staying in a safety zone they travelled what the bossman perceived as the best escape route to their PRE-DETERMINED ‘bomb-proof’ safety zone. In their minds were they following the rules that day of LCES? Probably. But they failed the most basic rule: Don’t Do Stupid Shit.
In order to grasp what Gary is saying it will take a very flexible open mind IMHO.
And…since we know GMIHCs decisions were not made in a vaccum that day or any other day, we can seek out both the internal & external factors that led to the outcome. Robots who can memorize safety rules isn’t good enough. Freethinkers who are not afraid to stand up to management & follow the most basic rule of all, is what’s required.
Woodman,
I disagree that too many rules have been written, and following tragedy, added TO, that not only has made it more difficult to keep them all straight,
There were NO rules added TO for quite some time now. And LCES was basically a mere simplification of the Fire Orders.
I also disagree that the WF Rules are designed to protect management. On the contrary, these are designed to protect the WF.
You posted that the GMHS “… travelled what the bossman perceived as the best escape route to their PRE-DETERMINED ‘bomb-proof’ safety zone.”
I have always had several problems with this one. First, they were IN a perfectly good Safety Zone. Second, you utilize an Escape Route to get FROM danger TO safety, so the GMHS totally perverted the meaning and spirit of the viable and specific term Escape Route.
Third, abandoning their perfectly good SZ and traveling to the predetermined BSR Safety Zone was the gist of the ‘discussing our options’ argument between Steed and Marsh.
Fourth, the “.Robots who can memorize safety rules isn’t good enough. Freethinkers who are not afraid to stand up to management & follow the most basic rule of all, is what’s required.”
I’m in total agreement here and this is the.basis of the Participatory leadership style. Unfortunately, Marsh succeeded in threatening his Crew with his authoritarian directive leadership style and they the entire GMHS buckled and went to their deaths.
In other words, the GMHS were doing just what you posted, acting like robots, and not thinking about what they were doing and the eventual likely outcome.
Gary, the Cool Hand Luke video clip fits you perfectly. You clearly identify with the prison warden …
Gary, here’s a couple in depth analyses of the whole Cool Hand Luke and authoritarian prison warden and his “What we have here is a failure to communicate”
I know that you identify with the prison warden, so they may be too in depth for you though, so heads up …, do your best if you can handle it
The Laws of God, The Laws of Man: Power, Authority, and Influence in ‘‘Cool Hand Luke’’ Univ of Puget Sound
https://www.pugetsound.edu/faculty-pages/haltom/cool-hand-luke/
Film as Art and Psychology: Cool Hand Like as Exemplar by Frank Barron
https://www.northernhighlands.org/cms/lib5/NJ01000179/Centricity/Domain/115/CHL%20Art%20Psychology.pdf
RTS,
Well, the current situation is clearly not working very well. Why? Iverson had a lookout, right? He was told ‘we’ve got eyes on you.’ So the communication check-box is good….Nome sayin?
Let me ask you something. In your words. What is the most important rule of wildland firefighting? And you can’t answer that it’s to follow all of the rules all of the time, that doesn’t cut it. If you had a crew of 18-23 year olds to take care of on a fire crew & you know they would only remember one thing under any kind a stress possible, what would you want that to be?
You must understand that I’ve been screwed by management in the past so I’m predisposed to distrust in that area. I don’t believe that rules should be thrown out or they are not valuable, I just want it all boiled down to one simple concept that anyone from a seasoned firefighter to a rookie can easily understand and abide by not matter the situation and stress involved.
Thanks
Woodsman,
Iverson’s CDF “Lookout(s)” – in my professional opinion, contributed to his demise and added to his inexplicable continued travel downslope, chasing spots,in the unburned, etc, etc, etc …by likely encouraging him to keep going. All they ever told him was they “have eyes” on him and never warned him about anything so just keep on going deeper into the s**t! The underlying message the Lookout(s) gave him was keep going.
What is the most important rule of wildland firefighting?
Tough one because the WF Rules work so well when you use them properly.
Probably take care of yourself and those you supervise and are responsible for by safely applying good sense and tactics.
Welcome to The Club My Friend. I’ve been screwed by management in the past so many times that I too am predisposed to distrust them. That’s why i depend on doing the difficult right thing to the best of my ability
I too believe that good, solid, viable rules should be maintained when valuable – as all the WF Rules are!
This is about as boiled down to one simple concept that anyone from a seasoned firefighter to a rookie can easily understand and abide by not matter the situation and stress involved, as I can get.
Dear Captain Obvious,
What we have here is a failure to communicate is just a Pop Culture reference to the difference between you and me.
That and the fact that can admit I am a Dickhead whereas you fancy yourself as a sanctimonious Richard Cranium, which you are… congratulations Dickhead.
The Woodsman summed up what I was trying to say very nicely just as Dr. Ted Putnam does here,
http://www.investigativemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/…/fire_safety_up_in_smoke.pdf
You on the other hand, delight in being obtuse in your mistaken belief that denial is just a river in Egypt rather than a summation of your slavish devotion to the obvious.
And whether it is working in a meat packing plant, a mine, law enforcement, a construction site or a convenience store, if you make a rule for everything that can possibly go wrong or ever has gone wrong that has lead to a fatality or a serious injury doesn’t make you an expert on workplace safety, it makes you Captain Obvious.
It’s just that I choose to acknowledge that fact by summing up all of those, “rules and guidelines” by stating the obvious…”Don’t do stupid things.” And even more specifically for hotshots, “Stay out of canyons in front of or above a wildfire.”
Although violating that rule isn’t what killed any of those 43 hotshots, what killed all of those hotshots is the very same thing that is going to kill the next 43 hotshots at some point and that is…”Hotshot Crew Boss Hubris.”
That is after, what killed the Granite Mountain Hotshots on the Yarnell Hill Fire…Eric Marsh’s hubris and Darrell Willis’ and many others criminal negligence culpability, conspiracy and COLLUSION in putting that career fuck up in charge of a hotshot crew.
Nothing would have saved the GMIHC from themselves on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Captain Jesse Steed tried three (3) times but he was overruled three (3) times by Division Alpha Marsh.
And once again, I was using hyperbole to make a point, I did more than learn seven letters of the rules, I learned the only one anyone needs in addition to knowing and correctly applying professional standards of wildland firefighting techniques, tactics and strategies and that is…”Fight fire aggressively but provide for safety first.”
Although my second favorite has always been, “You feel like taking a nap near the fire line…Duhhhhhhh.” I am however thinking about adding one more…”Don’t roast wieners or marshmallows in your backfire unless you have really long sticks” just for you…Captain Obvious.
Woodsman,
Another one might be:
Do your inherently dangerous job of wildland firefighting safely and to the best of your ability.
Well…that link doesn’t seem to work so just type, Dr. Ted Putnam and some other identifiers like U.S. Forest Service into any search engine and “Up In Smoke” and all of his other white papers and related articles show up.
Gary, I get it, i really do. I was the one that posted Dr. Putnam’s ‘Up In Smoke’ paper. I talk with him on a regular basis about this stuff.
I too admit to being Richard Crranium, however, I feel that it’s you that fancies yourself as a sanctimonious Dickhead, so congratulations Dickhead.
It’s okay to disagree and have a different point of view
Captain Obvious,
Thank you Captain Obvious.
RTS,
Yes, we both know the effect Iverson most likely felt from being assured that ‘we have eyes on you.’ But how many out there believe if they just check the box they’ll be fine. Lookout: check. Communications: check. Escape route: just run back the way you came: check. Safety zone: this 20’x30′ clearing looks good enough: check.
You know it, I know it but how many new young folks know it? That’s the problem. What’s obvious to us is not across the board to others. It’s a failure of training & breaking it down into what will provide results under stress each time, every time across the wf community.
Thanks for not taking the easy way out in answering the question. It is a lot to think about, isn’t it?
Oh and one more thing.
I hate to sink to your level Captain, but if anyone wants to put the research into it, I am sure they will find that I was the first one to post any of Dr, Putnam papers here including “Up In Smoke.”
And as you know, I have frequently talked to Ted several times over the past few years while we worked together on an analysis of the “ Battlement Creek Fire”.
So…nana nana poo poo to you.
Woodsman,
How about this compound sentence:
Perform your inherently dangerous wildland firefighting tasks to the best of your ability, monitoring the weather, after observing the fire, to make your best estimates of current and expected fire behavior, while posting lookouts and providing escape routes and safety zones, after re-evaluating those choices, while clearly communicating these intentions, controlling your forces, while aggressively and safely fighting fire..
Now you’re just being silly. Still needs a lot more boiling down. You’re going the wrong way, man! You should stop worrying about leaving something out (institutionalized knowledge) but instead be certain to include what’s most important…… & the key is that it has to be reliable under stress for all wf.
Gary,
How about you putting the research into it since you are so sure you will find that you were the first one to post any of Dr, Putnam papers here including “Up In Smoke..”
Gentleman’s bet. I say I posted it before you.
“So…nana nana poo poo to you.”
REALLY?! That’s the best you can do? A man that supposedly was a Federal LE Officer that carried a gun and arrested people?
Pretty friggin’ immature and childish and then some …
Woodsman,
You MUST include basic things like weather and communication and more. There is no other way
That’s not the best I can do, but it is better than you deserve.
Oh…and you’re on. I just don’t trust you to do the research, so WTKTT would have to do it. And I don’t know if he has as much time to waste on you as I do?
Gary,
Here’s ahead start for you, so see if you can do any better to prove your point.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-investigation-ignored-major-mistakes-by-the-state/#comment-4941
I misspoke. Hotshot hubris killed the last 34 Hotshots. IC incompetence killed the 9 Hotshots on the South Canyon Fire.
RTS,
I’ll see your bet and call,
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-the-granite-mountain-hotshots-never-shouldve-been-deployed-mounting-evidence-shows-2/#comment-1957
There are so many great adjectives to describe how wonderful it is to be me in this day and age of Trump White Nationalist Bigotry I forgot some important ones such as Straight, Male and really sweet…covered by Federal Blue Cross/Blue Shield insurance plan my former employer stills pays three quarters of the cost of.
So I don’t even really notice health insurance cost increases. Now, most of you either couldn’t or didn’t want to do what I did to earn my retirement package because we all started at the same place, more or less and you choose other paths.
But still….it’s pretty sweet and when the rest of my people get kicked out of the state exchanges and lose their government safety net, it will just be too bad for THEM PEOPLE because elections have consequences and THOSE PEOPLE chose …poorly (Indiana Jones – Templar Knight quote).
I don’t even have to tell anyone I have an affinity for Mormons so people like that bigot Reverend Franklin Gramhan and most of the Fundalmentalist Charissmatic Christian Leaders won’t discriminate against me because the obvious racial terms to describe my people originally where “Sqaureheads” and thought we were extra dumb. But compared to most, I mean really….how hurtful are those things anyway? And we have even lived those down, I mean…I don’t even remember the last time somebody called me a Squarehead to hurt my feelings.
And besides that, my President and I even come from the same gene poool originally, I mean Scandinavia people where extra restless immigrants from Northern Germanic Tribes, so…we’re good! Most of the rest of you people…are fucked!
But still…my years with my beloved U.S. Forest Service (FIIRE) where dominated by those who were non white people. They were Hispanics and Native Americans and they treated me as one of their own.
So…I got to stand up for them when that stupid man who is masquerading as the President of the United States spews his racist, bigoted, disgusting rants.
And I can appreciate recent immigrants because they pick the fruits and vegetables I eat, clean the hotel rooms I stay in, do my yard work (I hate to mow a lawn, can’t stand the two cycle exhaust anymore or particulates in my throat) and build most of the houses I have lived in and have cooked the food I have eaten out and cleaned my dirty dishes because Americans just don’t want to do that kind of work…including me and my kids.
Gary, how about the Slacker Fe HS instead?
OK…now that one I get…thank you so much.
XOXOXO
Yep…things are really looking up for my people. I think this chain migration thing could really work out for the Nordic people. I would like to sponsor some family members, but I can’t find any who want to move here.
I mean…like, Denmark is the happiest country in the world, nobody from Sweden wants to move here IKEA, Saab, and Husquvarna have full employment and they ask some people on the street in Norway if they wanted to come here, they just laughed and walked away. WTF…OVER?
I am going to put some feelers out in Iceland, but don’t get your hopes up. Maybe we can get some vitamin D deficient people from Greenland….nobody in their right mind wants to live there…am I right?
Historically….I think realistically we only have one real shot at getting some Nordic types to move here. We are going to have to look to Finland. But…I don’t think even the Finns (and we know how THOSE PEOPLE are) are going to come here and pick fruit or harvest vegetables, clean our motel rooms, wash our dishes in restaurants,or clean our office buildings, or cut my damn grass! Maybe they will work in our coal mines….but we don’t have any openings there.
I wonder if we can get some of those forgotten, poorly educated, low paid blue collar hillbilly redneck crackers from those Red states who voted that reality TV actor to deconstruct the damn country to come do my damn yard work? Fuck me! What am I going to do now, this ain’t funny no more?
Oh yeah….and just try to get a job at Volvo and see how far you get!
Now this…is funny. I know this is going to surprise you, as my closest friends and confidants, but I do watch Morning Joe and they do a drop dead perfect Mika and Joe. Check it out.!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mZXNqic_Zi8
Whoops.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AiyZ92_JZxA
Especially Mika…I have to admit…I think she is kinda hot the way she always sucks on her Starbucks straw ans squirms in her seat, but she kinda looks Nordic so it’s not my fault, its hereditary.
Oh…and one more thing. I have watched some specials on Iceland. The women there are all HOT…and it a sex free for all. You what I mean…Dean.? The men ain’t cumin’…here!
Thomas Fire Fatality on December 14, 2017
CDF Green Sheet
The Wildland Fire lessons Learned Center LLC would not post, so just go to the LLC website for it
17-CA-VNC-103156 California Southern Region
SUMMARY
On December 13, 2017, a CAL FIRE Engine Strike Team (STEN1), with a leader
(STL1) from the San Diego Unit (MVU) was assigned to Branch III, Division X of the
Thomas Fire above the community of Fillmore in Ventura County, California. On the
morning of December 14, 2017, a Fire Apparatus Engineer (FAE1)and four Fire Fighter I’s (FF1, FF2, FF3 and FF4) from STEN1 were engaged in the placement of a hoselay in support of a dozer line with fire established above the line. At approximately 9:27 AM, while attempting to suppress spot fires below he dozer line, FAE1became entrapped and suffered fatal injuries. The four firefighters on the dozer line retreated up their escape route without injury.
INCIDENTAL ISSUES/LESSONS LEARNED
Steep terrain, hazardous weather (erratic winds,record low RH, red flag warnings) and heavy fuel loading made access difficult and fire behavior extreme. The Fuels and Fire Behavior Advisory
for the Southern California Geographic Area Coordination Center, dated December 15, 2017, states
“Fire behavior that has been observed on the Thomas Fire as well as some of the other recent fires,
has been extreme. Fires are actively backing downhill and into the wind, in both the fine dead fuels, as well as the heavier chaparral. The 100-hour dead fuel moisture is normally in the mid-teens, but values of around 2% have been commonly observed. Fires have exhibited extremely high resistance to control, and retardant in many cases has been proven to be ineffective. (This is a testament to the
terrain, fuels and fire conditions FAE1 faced, on the morning of December 14, 2017.)
A regular review of the Foundations of Safety for Wildland Firefighting is warranted. The Standard Orders and Watch Out Situations were developed in 1957 after fires cost firefighter lives. The Common Denominators were published in 1978after careful analysis of previous fatal fires.
One spot along the dozer line was safe enough to pick up. When there were spot fire(s) that
prevented safe travel back to the dozer line, a re-evaluation should have taken place.A change in he current or expected fire behavior,that changes tactics, requires a tactical pause and re-evaluation of he situation.“Is the plan still good,with viable identified escape routes?”
“And what is the risk versus gain?” Provide for Safety First,so we can “Fight Fire Aggressively”.
Please GTS the WF LLC and Incident Reviews of even the Thomas Fire Green Sheet.
Classic Sundowner / Santa Ana winds, aggressive downslope / downhill fire behavior, increased spotting, decreasing and local winds prevailed, high nighttime temperatures followed by warms days, very low RH values, high Energy Release Component (ERC) values, decadent and thick chaparral, the WF running into the unburned fuel into a drainage, and died. He did not attempt to use his fire shelter.
The color photos included in the report are fairly revealing.
Classic Rattle Snake Fire 1953 similar sun downer winds. Ran down hill overtaken by the fire. We have trained and trained on these fires in northern Ca.. Yet here we are again. 4 went to the black I guess he headed for the orchard?
And I guess this was the worst I have been expecting. And since I don’t have any deep appreciation or understanding for how complex the world of wildland firefighting has become, I probably should keep my opinion to myself, but then I would be betraying my values as a blogger on this thread, so I am going to give it anyway.
And here it is, “WTF…Over?”
I am just not used to having only one firefighter dead, I think there either should have been more dead, which would have made this tragedy all that much worse multiplied by the number of additional fatalities, or none at all which would have made this a close call instead of a catastrophe.
The only time I know of a single WF being killed (as I wrote downstream) was on the Buchanan Fire that had been the Buchanan Prescribed Burn before it went to hell in a hand basket and on the Ship Island Creek Fire.
On the Buchanan Fire, a single WF from a Type II crew left her crew without telling anyone where she was going (which was probably to relieve herself) and therefore was alone when the fire blew up and out.
On the Ship Island Creek Fire, there were actually two overhead together in a saddle on a ridge when the fire blew up and out and they were burned over in fire shelters so the man who died wasn’t even alone. I have some photos of the ridge and saddle I will post later for those who may be interested in seeing what the fatality area looked like.
So…here is what I would be looking for in an investigation. Why was this man alone and where did his training (and that of the other four WF) fail him? In other words, I don’t believe this incident wasn’t an accident, I think it was probably a screw up.
Oh…and one more thing. As I have written before, I think wildland firefighters are like grapes, they should come in bunches…in life and death or serious injury. No wildland firefighter should ever find themselves alone on a wildfire.
Whoops,
“I don’t believe this incident WAS an accident, I think it was probably a screw up.”
I usually do proof read my posts, I just miss a lot of mistakes.
Red flag warming. Fuelscand fire advisory but no heightened sense of awareness, tried to action spot fire by himself?
WTF ?
over
??
I agree completely.
WTF!?
Classic Sundowner / Santa Ana winds, aggressive downslope / downhill fire behavior, increased spotting, decreasing and local winds prevailed with decreasing Sundowners, high nighttime temperatures followed by warms days, very low RH values, high Energy Release Component (ERC) values, very early morning aggressive fire behavior decadent and thick chaparral, the WF running into the unburned fuel into a drainage, chasing multiple spot fires alone, and died. He did not attempt to use his fire shelter.
Classic CDF. Fight fire and ignore all the cues, W/O’s, indicators, warnings, and everything else, until you get burned over.
Here is a link for the classic Carl C. Wilson research paper titled: “Fatal and Near-Fatal Forest Fires – The Common Denominators” (1977).
http://wildfiretoday.com/documents/CommonDenominatorsCarlWilson_1977.pdf
Please note the Southern CA fires in Table 1, right off the bat has the 1971 Romero Fire on the Los Padres NF and strong Sundowner winds pushing the fire downslope.
Note also the fires where the Santa Ana winds either strengthened or weakened and the local winds prevailed – just like on the 2017 Thomas Fire
Gary,
The Buchanan RX Burn went awry due to aerial ignition into the Ponderosa Pine timber pockets below the WF resulting in what I refer to as aerial induced fire behavior because it cannot be replicated by hand. The intensity of the intense run was so strong that it burned the boots off the WF’s feet.
On the Ship Island Fire, a DIVS and a Safety Officer stayed on the helispot and considered it a Safety Zone even after piling all the gear and equipment on the helispot into the center. These stacked items included flammables, nylons, etc.
Supposedly, they had told all the Crews to leave the area and seek safety elsewhere while they stayed and ultimately deployed fire shelters on the helispot-considered-Safety-Zone.
Obviously, the flammables burned very intensely and one of the Overhead had no gloves or wore no gloves and was unable to move around and away from the additional heat sources and ultimately burned to death. The other Overhead had and wore his gloves and safely accomplished the heat avoidance.
We worked for this fella on a fire years later and he was still pretty gun-shy and messed up from the incident.
You were there and I wasn’t so you experienced it first hand …
I look forward to seeing your photos
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on January 8, 2018 at 4:54 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Thomas Fire Fatality on December 14, 2017
>> CDF Green Sheet
>> The Wildland Fire lessons Learned Center LLC would not post,
>> so just go to the LLC website for it
>>
>> 17-CA-VNC-103156 California Southern Region
Thank you.
Here is a link to the page for the Thomas Fire Entrapment FATALITY that contains this latest report along with all the other related documents that have been published ( so far )…
Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center
A lesson is learned when we CHANGE OUR BEHAVIOR
Thomas Fire Entrapment Fatality( 2017 )
Incident Date: 12/14/2017
https://www.wildfirelessons.net/orphans/viewincident?DocumentKey=eae947bb-4440-472b-9e38-cd825563e0a5
And here is a direct link to the newly published ‘Green Sheet’ document…
https://www.wildfirelessons.net/HigherLogic/System/DownloadDocumentFile.ashx?DocumentFileKey=8d7098f8-eafc-90bc-7d79-fd70cdf246fa&forceDialog=0
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> The color photos included in the report are fairly revealing.
Yes. They are.
According to the photos… the actual location where Cory Iverson died is…
Decimal Latitude: 34.436277
Decimal Longitude: -118.957608
If you ‘cut and paste’ the following line ( including the comma ) into the Search Bar of either Google Earth or Google Maps… you will get a ‘red balloon’ right on the spot where his body was found ( at the bottom of that ‘gulch’ )…
34.436277, -118.957608
The report DOES mention what has already been reported about Cory Iverson having been in the 25th hour of a 24 hour long work shift when he died.
He and his engine crew had been working 24-hour-on / 24-hours-off shifts on the Thomas Fire since December 5, 2017… until his death 9 days later on December 14.
On the morning he died… Iverson had already completed another 24-hour shift but was then asked to ‘stay on the line’ to do a hoselay for a dozer line.
What’s really painful to read in this report is how LONG it took from the moment Iverson knew he was in deep trouble to when he actually died… how CLOSE he was to safety that whole time… and that many people were just WATCHING him desperately try to make it to safety.
From the report’s own ‘timeline’…
9:10 AM – Iverson leaves the dozer line he was standing on ( alone ) with only his ‘scrapiing tool’ to attack a spot fire that was ( supposedly ) just a mere 20 feet off the dozer line.
9:15 AM – The spot fire erupts and Iverson is cut off from the dozer line. He heads southwest, parallel to dozer line and through the green trying to get to safety.
9:20 AM – Iverson himself calls for ‘Air Support’ on the TAC channel.
9:25 AM – FC1 is now telling Iverson ( on the TAC channel ) to “Get out of there”.
9:27 AM – FC1 declares a MAYDAY on the TAC channel… “MAYDAY – Firefighter DOWN”.
9:27 AM – FC1 immediately clarfies his MAYDAY with… “MAYDAY – Firefighter TRAPPED”.
9:28 AM – Three helicopters ( Copter 1 and 2 CWN choppers ) all report actually seeing Iverson still retreating dowslope through the green trying to make it to safety.
9:30 AM – FC1 can also see Iverson this whole time, and now reports seeing him FALL and then loses sight of him. Copter 1 also sees Iverson FALL… but also reports then seeing Iverson get back up and continue running downslope. This was the last known ‘visual sighting’ of Iverson.
9:40 AM – The approximate time of death for Cory Iverson at the bottom of a gulch.
So from 9:15 AM through ( approximately ) 9:40 AM ( a full 25 minutes ) Cory Iverson was ‘trapped’ and ‘on the run’ through the green and just trying to make it to safety.
And for most of that time ( at least 15 minutes ) he could be SEEN by other firefighters and helicopter pilots desperately running through the green and trying to make it to safety.
He died of burns and smoke inhalation… and made no attempt to deploy his fire shelter.
Followup…
Here is where it was originally reported ( by a CALFIRE Fire Chief ) that Cory Iverson had already completed a full 24 hour work shift before he was asked to stay on the line and keep working the morning he died…
KPCC 89.3 RADIO – SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Article Title: Friends, family celebrate the life of firefighter Cory Iverson
Published: December 23, 2017 – By Brianna Flores
https://www.scpr.org/news/2017/12/23/79239/cory-iverson-funeral-celebrate-thomas-fire-friends/
From the article…
——————————————————————————————-
Family, friends and colleagues gathered Saturday morning to celebrate the life of San Diego Cal Fire engineer Cory Iverson.
The 32-year-old firefighter died in the line of duty on Thursday, December 14 while battling the Thomas Fire.
San Diego Cal Fire Chief Tony Mecham said Iverson and his strike team were finishing up a 24-hour shift and were scheduled to be taken off the fire line. But the team was asked to continue working when the fire began to threaten the city of Fillmore.</b?
An autopsy found Iverson died from burns and smoke inhalation. Officials previously said he died after some sort of accident but they have not released additional details. A serious accident investigation team is looking into Iverson's death.
—————————————————————————————–
WTKTT,
And thanks for posting the Wildland Fire LLC link … once AGAIN
And how about one or more of his fellow WF telling him repeatedly that he “had eyes on him.”
What good did that do, except maybe encourage him to keep going.
He supposedly spent several years on a reputable Southern CA HS Crew, so that even makes the whole incident even more mind boggling. WTF?
This is a recent (January 7th) Wildfire Today post on tracking devices titled: “Field tests of tracking devices for firefighters.”
http://wildfiretoday.com/2018/01/07/field-tests-of-tracking-devices-for-firefighters/#comments
Read the comment from Aloysious calling BS on the whole thing.
And I guess this was the worst I have been expecting. And since I don’t have any deep appreciation or understanding for how complex the world of wildland firefighting has become, I probably should keep my opinion to myself, but then I would be betraying my values as a blogger on this thread, so I am going to give it anyway.
And here it is, “WTF…Over?”
I am just not used to having only one firefighter dead, I think there either should have been more dead, which would have made this tragedy all that much worse multiplied by the number of additional fatalities, or none at all which would have made this a close call instead of a catastrophe.
The only time I know of a single WF being killed (as I wrote downstream) was on the Buchanan Fire that had been the Buchanan Prescribed Burn before it went to hell in a hand basket and on the Ship Island Creek Fire.
On the Buchanan Fire, a single WF from a Type II crew left her crew without telling anyone where she was going (which was probably to relieve herself) and therefore was alone when the fire blew up and out.
On the Ship Island Creek Fire, there were actually two overhead together in a saddle on a ridge when the fire blew up and out and they were burned over in fire shelters so the man who died wasn’t even alone. I have some photos of the ridge and saddle I will post later for those who may be interested in seeing what the fatality area looked like.
So…here is what I would be looking for in an investigation. Why was this man alone and where did his training (and that of the other four WF) fail him? In other words, I don’t believe this incident wasn’t an accident, I think it was probably a screw up.
Great, my copy and paste didn’t work this time so now I have to retype my entire response.
Yeah…well, I think both you and Aloysious are dead wrong. In this day and age with the widespread availability and low cost of GPS tracking devices. every wildland firefighter should be wearing one on large complex fire.
When the Special Forces soldier was killed in Africa, it still took two days to find his body a significant distance from where they apparently thought it should have been and it sounded to me like the bad guys found him first, which would have been as bad as it sounds and he was wearing a body tracking device.
The only people who would think it is a bad idea for WF to wear GPS tracking devices in this century are either Luddites or shirkers. just sayin….
Gee…what if the some of the Granite Mountain Hotshots would have just been seriously injured as one hotshot who lived on the Battlement Creek Fire was? Don’t you think it would have been a good idea to be able to find them sooner rather than later which would have been serendipitous rather than just plain dumb luck for what very well could have been life saving measures to be taken?
Oh…and one more thing. As we have discussed on this thread many times, most if not all large complex wildfires are potentially dangerous and always dynamic events for at least the first 36 to 48 hours and sometimes for the entire duration the wildfire is out of control. They are always kinda serious and potentially deadly versions of Abbott & Costello”s, “Who’s On First” comedy routine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg
I think having GPS tracking devices on wildland firefighters, especially those who are the tip of the spear (to borrow a military term) is as much of a no-brainier as having a standardized emergency call, which is just INSANE things haven’t progressed in that area since back in the day.
I was after all, with a hotshot crew who was inserted by helicopter into a remote sector of a large BLM desert wildfire and then forgotten about for a couple of days until a returning supply helicopter flew over the ridge were we on and landed to ask us who we were? I didn’t know they had lost us until that happened, but I was glad they found us when they did…accidentally.
I will post some photos of that area as well for anyone who doesn’t know what a large complex wildfire usually looks like in the Sonoran and Mohave Deserts (this particular fire was in the Mohave Desert). When I post those photos, ask yourself the following question, “If I were lost out there for a couple of days or maybe even longer in high daytime temperatures without any water, would I like to be wearing a GPS tracking device…or not?”
I can also think of a lot of really good reasons, strategic planning options and logistical benefits to having GPS locators on some if not all resources on a campaign fire in addition to the obvious tactical and safety reasons.
The only people I may not put them on would be Type II crews, but I would have them on their Crew Liaison Officers and crew bosses at a minimum. And I am certainly including all overhead, engines and their crews in the “minimum mandatory” mix.
Or better yet, here is the updated version of the skit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0Jg7pvVzKk
Real time beacons do no goid when wff have their heads up their assets.
Teach them fire behaviour and awareness not relying on big brother techno crap
Gary, since these writers think I’m the town drunk maybe they would send me some money to buy more booze with.
I only have had 3 Guinness Stout in the last couple weeks.
One today that I didn’t quite finish cuz I was having this pain.
So I bought two six packs and I might spread them out for the month and then again I might drink the bastards all at once just for the hell of it.
It’s great to be a f****** drunk and be written up that way in the books motherfuckers want to say.
Yeah if they can ruin your reputation well enough then your words don’t mean s***. and in Joy’s case they tried a lot of s*** but it ain’t working worth a tinker’s damn.
The sad part of this is that Joy and I witnessed the situation of that day.
Once that fire exploded at about 11:30 there was absolutely no reason to have men on the line.
It was a situation once that fire hit that dry Manzanita that we were watching 50 to 100 foot flames and even longer flames laying down nearly parallel to the ground as that fire moved toward Peeples Valley and by 12:30pm up the Harper Canyon Hill.
Everyone had to know that was looking at the situation that if the wind changed and you happened to be flanking the fire your life would be snuffed in a few seconds or whatever time it takes to burn you to death which might be minutes if you’re in one what Gary Olson calls turkey roasters, but what Forest Service wants you to call Fire Protection blankets or something of the order.
Of course all the writers and so forth that know so much about firefighting have skirted the issues that caused these deaths. They have label me a common drunk and and Joy they have worked every angle to shut her up.
But the facts are that we actually fought our way through that very brush they dropped into early morning as we were headed up to the fire Edge that was in the rocks on top of the mountain. And I mean almost within 10 feet if not right on top of where they died later in that day. And in that very area brush we were having to get on our bellies many times to get through the brush.
We were often finding ourselves working like in a labyrinth where we were having to backtrack and find another way to get through the brush.
There was so much old dead growth among the green that you add all kinds of problems trying to penetrate that stuff.
The hours it took for us to get through it we’re quite exhausting. There was no possible way to run in that stuff and been a logger for some time myself, I can tell you a chainsaw is not much help at all in situations like that. I called those places bear wallows because you can see where bears and other wildlife have had to wallow through it.
But the truth is photos are worth a thousand words in this case. Joy took over 1500 photos that day but did you know the forest boss wasn’t too anxious to get them when we offered to turn them in.
It seems they’re not too anxious to know anything but what they want to say.
You have over 1000 years of experience speaking on investigative media buy some of the finest Minds working to expose the truth here.
Most of these people are involved in firefighting and many of them have Beyond 20 years experience in running Crews as well as those on the line experience.
Everyone here in this site agrees that there were gross errors made that caused the demise of those young men.
Careless bosses we’re top of the list for the reason they died.
Good God you don’t want your son or daughter working for someone that would risk their lives needlessly just as Marsh and Steed did those 17 young men under their care.
You can label me what you want but what I s a w and Joy recorded with her camera can give no other conclusion. I am sorry for Marsh and his subordinate, but if they have done one thing good here, it is to show us that we need to take a very close look at those bosses that are willing to risk lives on the fire line needlessly.
Certainly those young men are heroes that went to their death and I for one still choked up when I think of them or speak of them. I know what it is to lose a son and I know what it is for bosses who carelessly risk those that are under their command.
Shame on these movies and books that continue to promote a lie. You can denigrate me or Joy or those people that promote the truth and there are some very honorable people you attack, but you will never change the truth.
However, your actions in hiding the truth from the public and from people working in the forest fire sector they sure to allow these type unsafe practices and dangerous type bosses to continue to kill their young subordinates.
Charlie, let’s all take a moment to
underline this
or
highlight it
or whatever one does…..or just sit back and barely SKIM and relax as I share….or reply…or ramble
Has one director
or
author
made the vow
or
promise as we have
since day one
to ensure to push the
facts forward to public light
versus beliefs and opinions and narratives only
even if it means exposing areas like we seen FRAUD …
and we did not do that just for the 19 but all fallen
as well for the ones on the lines who yet do not have the courage or safe feeling to come forward and just say it like it is…
and for all people who lost property/homes because they put too much trust that they fight fires to suppress vs what we keep seeing and they keep blaming and YES some do not yet GET what defensible space means as a homeowner but then again some of this industry burning certain areas do not get it either…
so maybe when allowing fires to expand think about who you are allowing this fire to expand to is all I am saying…just this week the county and HOA are responsible from the street to my external wall but if you drive past then you will see the ugliness on my area except my property external wall areas because I do not allow any type of fuel to lay between me and my space…especially knowing how they handle fires nowadays…so the external county/HOA street is ugly but my area and that is because I do not trust the fire folks to suppress the fires anymore so I make sure there is no fuel even if it is THEIR JOB to rid of the weeds I do not wait for them to do it—-I just do it…plus that keeps rattlers from hiding in the brush and foxes too…safety matters!
Sat, Jan 6, 2018 at 7:54 AM a back East man in the fire industry, Charlie, walked away from YHF with this to feel and say:
Charlie, you mention fire blankets but you forgot Zack Ashoor and your hike with him but here is what one said this morning on that topic of Zack:
“In my honest opinion I don’t believe it is practical to wear any type of breathing apparatus as a wild-land firefighter other than what is already available on the market today. I look at it as a “risk vs. reward” type of thing.
If you are wearing a cumbersome breathing device this will add to heat and physical stress on the firefighters bodies which is already a huge problem.
The answer to me is not to put firefighters in situations where breathing apparatus are required.
As firefighters we often will try to do something even if it is futile in nature as opposed to just standing by.
There is a cultural thought of “firefighters don’t just stand around” That seems to be what gets us into trouble too.”
then he went to add his thoughts about YHF—-
“As far as my conclusion on the YHF. I think Marsh either directly or indirectly ordered Steed to move the crew. I think he put a lot of pressure on himself to perform and that translated to a feeling of “we gotta do something!”
In the end as the Div Supt. Marsh was responsible for everything that happened on his division.
As crew Capt. Steed was responsible for everything that happened on the crew in the absence of the crew supt.
I don’t want to lay blame on the dead but the fact is in the chain of command you accept that responsibility when you are in a position like that. You are responsible for the safety and welfare of your subordinates! That is the cold hard fact.
In regards to the active winter fire season in the southwest this year. In my opinion it is just a really bad year. Sure there are other environmental factors but when you have so many people living in a fire prone environment and so many potential sources of ignition unfortunately this is the result.
I guess the phrase “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it” applies. I have seen first hand people living in the middle of tinder dry forests that do little to nothing to take steps to safeguard there property from wildfire…just my two cents..I don’t mean to come off as insensitive, I apologize if it sounds that way…”
If you lived under my Leo father’s roof then you better know Shakespeare as he quoted him oh too often…and his antic dispositions…my father in his deep Staten Island voice would say “Joy, you talk in riddles and I have not the time nor energy to participate in this circle cuckoo-talk, matter of fact you remind me like this Hamlet play itself, all an act…is it? If not say it just say it….say it kid”
and I would turn around and just SAY IT not even yet a teen staring up to this giant man – my dad and I said firmly with fair respected tone:
“Dad, I am done taking your calls from your boss and if you do not want to work around Arpaio and your co-workers than you take the calls but I am done being your voice secretary to say you are sick- you do it”…
so I learn so early on just saying it is not always easy or recommended with certain Leos
so I GET some of the folks on the fire line…Altho’, you’ve oft covered the potential dangers to me and Sonny you on the line that day
I do understand the dangers of speaking up too…
Unfortunately, there’s not enough discussion on this topic…of the elite who fight fire with fire or their actions…and I am not speaking about the Four Horsemen either…
“To Be or Not to BE…”…that is the question I have for those NOT in the SAIR or ADOSH reports—and when will YOU be…
There’s a lot more to ponder, of course, and only very few forums seem to have anything current on this…they can hide but I SEE their shadows peaking out while they are in hiding…
when will one of us strike a chord for those who know more…
who can I feel is safe/trustworthy and consider germane and pertinent to my neck-of-the-woods?
I am concerned that others in the industry at the high up levels who met in person never realized these areas are currently happening.
Gary is right when he talked about the hiring system — no different in the field I was in either when I had to hire my staff… sometimes you get what you get but I also put alot of training and women manipulation and my staff all these decades still keep in touch…when I went to get a massage Sonny’s counselor met them and she was impressed the warmth level—that’s because to me always LIVES MATTERS! and safety too.
Charlie, we can talk about your “drinking” and shit to one another or others (just funnin’)
just like its okay for certain ethnic areas want us to be clear, we are focusing here on a narrow part of the phenomena, namely, those camaraderie uses of the en word….and varied shades and tones as one uses the word I because I am white avoid to even type the word out…So to talk about you and your Irish ways…. “as a term of endearment.” …but as well when I seen too much of a good thing… derogatorily, offensive…so it is perception and delivery one wants to share their point across and I am sure it felt comical in John’s presentation to him and I guess he was trying to reach his audience and well…who are we Charlie…we have no clue who his audience was except his friends apologized to us due to his words in presentation so that has to tell you the audience coming to us and even one of his team apologized to me for his words in presentation so that told me something too…should you too Charlie…do not worry about that and I won’t worry about my flaws…we all are imperfect…
The basic idea is that when some person addresses another by the expression, he or she is attributing certain characteristics and/or traits to the statement’s target.. how do we explain appropriated use…our world Charlie is so silly that when enough people (or the right person or persons) says something in a certain tone then that sets a stage for BELIEF but you and I do not have to worry or fret for we have F A I T H in the T R U T H.
Now- I wish this item was around when I cared about this area…technology is too cool:
https://www.onetwocosmetics.com/presentation/index_010318.php?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIlY-qtITF2AIVRheHCh3mBApwEAEYASAAEgKWsfD_BwE&utm_expid=.gf1xhbK6QHSxN2aXwmICng.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fgoogleads.g.doubleclick.net%2Fpagead%2Fads%3Fclient%3Dca-pub-8101658338626046%26output%3Dhtml%26h%3D250%26slotname%3D9732434677%26adk%3D1779591782%26adf%3D1480696129%26w%3D300%26loeid%3D38893312%26url%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fafricanamericanenglish.com%252F2010%252F10%252F22%252Fwhy-black-people-can-use-the-n-word-a-perspective%252F%26ea%3D0%26flash%3D28.0.0%26wgl%3D1%26adsid%3DNT%26dt%3D1515300006879%26bpp%3D12%26bdt%3D3195%26fdt%3D13%26idt%3D16%26shv%3Dr20180102%26cbv%3Dr20170110%26saldr%3Dsa%26prev_slotnames%3D2743834722%252C6953390117%252C2410798561%252C6027172911%252C8419352374%252C7832836572%26correlator%3D680206048743%26frm%3D23%26ga_vid%3D645240720.1515300004%26ga_sid%3D1515300004%26ga_hid%3D1536434866%26ga_fc%3D0%26pv%3D1%26iag%3D15%26icsg%3D2%26nhd%3D2%26dssz%3D2%26mdo%3D0%26mso%3D0%26u_tz%3D-420%26u_his%3D3%26u_java%3D0%26u_h%3D864%26u_w%3D1536%26u_ah%3D826%26u_aw%3D1536%26u_cd%3D24%26u_nplug%3D5%26u_nmime%3D7%26adx%3D300%26ady%3D3253%26biw%3D1519%26bih%3D760%26isw%3D300%26ish%3D250%26ifk%3D3331026987%26eid%3D21061122%252C38893302%252C191880502%252C20040061%26oid%3D3%26nmo%3D1%26ref%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.com%252F%26rx%3D0%26eae%3D2%26fc%3D528%26brdim%3D0%252C0%252C0%252C0%252C1536%252C0%252C1536%252C826%252C300%252C250%26vis%3D1%26rsz%3D%257C%257CoeEbr%257C%26abl%3DCS%26ppjl%3Du%26pfx%3D0%26fu%3D20%26bc%3D1%26jar%3D2018-1-7-4%26osw_key%3D1035151896%26ifi%3D7%26dtd%3D28
good night Charlie-
Always remember be proud to be Irish…
be more proud you still breathe with all your health stuff
even though those docs want to rush you for more surgeries…
if anyone has had heart disease and blood clots in leg..tummy and lungs (hip issues) and you so bad want to do a hernia surgery for relief— that too is a personal choice…for me I would have to rule out does this doc need a new Mercedes or does he give a shit of I live or die…
let’s not let another year pass making bullshit resolutions and JUST DO THEM once and for all
zzzzzzz…night
Charlie, they mention GROUPthink…I call it EXPANDthink myself…
pause
commercial time
https://youtu.be/N8fkjTjM-lE
wrong commercial ad—this was the one Charlie:
https://youtu.be/jcXaR3V38Zw
Sorry Charlie!
Some of those who took advantage of both your and Joy’s good nature should have been more appreciative and respectful.
Oh…and one more thing. If, when and how much you may or may not do anything is a right you have earned at this point in your life, just as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. So…
And FYI…we, RTS and I are not debating whether “participational” or “directive” leadership styles are the best way to supervise an appropriately trained and experienced workforce who meet or exceed all of the KSA’s, (knowledge, skills and abilities) required for the job in question, which are the key buzz words for every successful federal job application.
We are debating whether participational or directive leadership styles are the best way to supervise the average hotshot crew, which is usually comprised of at least 50% of FNG’s (Fucking New Guys). Of course I agree with RTS that participational leadership is not only the correct way, but the only way to supervise a workforce who has all of the KSA’s for the job they are hired to do.
I did after all…supervise about 12 percent (4 guys LOL…we were a pretty small outfit) of all of the Special Agents who worked for the BLM as a Supervisory Criminal Investigator. All of these agents had an average of more than 15 years of experience and had been hired from the DEA, U.S. Customs Service or the Border Patrol because there was such a strong emphasis on counter drug investigations and operations in Arizona during the years I worked there.
Gary,
“You posted: … the more I research the issue and write about it, the more ridiculous I realize this controversy is because it would be impossible to run every hotshot crew that has ever been in existence, is in existence now, or will ever be in existence until YOU PEOPLE start hiring hotshot crews like you hire your structural (not volunteer) firefighters …”
I think I agree with you on these points. First, there is no ONE right way to run a Hot Shot Crew. And second, if the Feds could hire WF after vetting them properly without all the PC BS to hire Rainbow Crews, then I agree.
“… except for the Payson Hotshots when RTS was in charge because that crew was his special pet project he devoted his life to creating in his image.”
They were kind of a special project because that was my job. As far as creating them in my image, I totally disagree with you. We followed the ways of many accomplished and renowned Warriors using a mix of directive and participatory leadership based on the Crew make-up, the circumstances at the time, whatever.
“… how about this time we focus on getting people to FUCKING FOLLOW all of the rules and guidelines we already have that have been developed and written in the blood of wildland firefighters over more than the past 100 years….what do you say?”
I say I totally agree with you on this and always have. We required that you know them and follow them to the best of your ability.
I will never concede to the Easter Bunny thing because that sets you up for total Groupthink.
“… except for the Payson Hotshots when RTS was in charge because that crew was his special pet project he devoted his life to creating in his image.”
Now you know this was just me being me…you know, a certified Richard Cranium. But since I know you love me just the way I am, more or less, okay…mostly less, so…I don’t want to change who I am at this point. I just wrote that because it is actually the polar opposite of what you value the most, which is an emphasis on the individual…I think?
Now…the only thing I find disturbing about what you think is this whole Easter Bunny thing. There aren’t…nor have never been any bunnies in any of my scenarios, Easter or otherwise. But…if you visualize a bunny in yours, I would be willing to work on that with your at least try to recommend someone who might be able to help you.
I have never been very successful in explaining the nuances of what I valued the most, but it wasn’t on the individual…unless it was. For example, I have said many time that what makes a hotshot crew a hotshot crew, is that the sum of the total is greater than the sum of its parts.
And everyone brings their own individual characteristics, strengths, unique skills and life experiences to the crew. The easiest examples are someone will be a car mechanic, or know how to repair small engines, someone else will be proficient at welding, rock climbing, hydraulics or helicopter operations. Some will be deep thinkers who can resolve complex problems, others will have exceptional upper body strength and make good First Pulaski’s, whereas one of the most valuable skills to bring to a hotshot crew is Emergency Medical Technician training up to and including working in hospital emergency rooms, while others will have strong people skills, natural leadership abilities, be peace makers or be someone others can coalesce around, while others will have strong organizational skills for special projects, or have exceptional communication skills and of course every crew needs the person who can scrounge around and find whatever the crew needs. You also need a good mix of hell raisers and those who can follow the rules, college students or graduates, ex military, experienced construction workers with a variety of skills and those with an interest in fire science, etc. And then all of those people can come together and transform into Myrmidons…except when they don’t need to be to best accomplish the particular task at hand, it’s…complicated. And I am really hesitated to even use the Myrmidons analogy because that description probably fits your worst case scenario for what I think.
And although I am interested and concerned about all wildland firefighter serious injuries and deaths, I have written before I focus the most on those involving hotshots. I have also written that I consider myself a student of only four fires, the Loop Fire of 1966, the Battlement Creek Fire of 1976. the South Canyon Fire of 1994 and now the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013.
And out of those four fires, there are really only three of them that relate to flawed hotshot wildland firefighting tactics that resulted in the deaths in question, in my opinion. And that is because the deaths on the South Canyon Fire as I’m sure you know, aren’t related to hotshot tactics per se, but are more related to a confused mix of standard wildland firefighting strategies managed by an engine supervisor and the jumper-in-charge who alternated as the Incident Commander which resulted in no one being in charge…I think?
But in any case, if you look closely at the other three fires, which account for all hotshot deaths in history that are not related to random individual accidental deaths, they can all be traced to a single cause. And that is working in chimneys, or chutes, above a wildfire, which I find very interesting and revealing. Furthermore, in all three of these fires, the specific danger was clearly identified by many of those present, including all three hotshot crew bosses in a timely manner prior to the tragedies. Which is something I find to be completely inexplicable and very sad.
In the case of the El Cariso Hotshots on the Loop Fire, several other crews who were present on that fire actually refused the assignment to go into the chute to construct the hand line above the fire the overhead wanted done. I think I remember Bob saying one of those crews was the Oak Grove Hotshots but it was before his time.
But anyway…Gordon King then agreed to take his crew into the chute above the fire to build the line and then the fire did exactly what apparently many others were afraid it would do. So…in my opinion hotshot hubris is what killed 12 El Cariso Hotshots and seriously injured (burned) almost everyone else.
In the case of the Mormon Lake Hotshots on the Battlement Creek Fire, Tony Czak clearly recognized the danger they were in and he sent most of his crew to the predesignated safety zone but kept a small burn team consisting of a squad boss and two crewmen with him to finish burning out their line directly above the backfire in a huge canyon and then the fire made a run up a smaller canyon and cut off the escape route entirely.
They literally watched the backfire come at them for hours and then they tried to time their pullout shortly before the fire reached their position thinking they could outrun it. And they could have except for the separate run it made up the smaller canyon.
So…in my opinion, hotshot hubris and working above the fire in a canyon is what killed the three Mormon Lake Hotshots and seriously injured (burned) the fourth.
And I think we all know now what happened to the Granite Mountain Hotshots on the Yarnell Hill Fire, although I think there are still some particulars I don’t know yet?
So…in my opinion, hotshot hubris and working in front and above the fire in a canyon is what killed the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots.
I think we could sum up everything hotshots need to know about safely fighting wildfires based on our 70 year history in really simple terms, such as;
“Don’t do stupid things, e.g., working above or in front of a wildfire in canyons.”
Or maybe we could say;
“Keep your hotshot hubris in check.i.e., if what you are thinking about doing looks really dangerous or if others have told you what you are thinking about doing is really dangerous, it probably is so you shouldn’t do it.”
Which I don’t really like because it is complicated and has so many words to specifically describe what you shouldn’t do. So we could simplify it by just saying, “Keep you hotshot hubris in check.” or simply, “Don’t do stupid things”?
Or how about using the rule of one except changing it into a compound sentence;
“Keep your hotshot hubris in check and don’t do stupid things.”
Yes…I like that one. We could even expand it to everyone else by simply changing one word and adding another.
“Keep your wildland firefighting hubris in check and don’t do stupid things.” Except it really gets a lot more complicated when you add in all of the variables and other reasons a lot of other wildland firefighters were killed or seriously injured which really takes away from the “Rule Of One.”
I think Paul Gleason was on the track with his LCES. But I like the Rule Of One even better because it’s easier to remember. Or how about;
“Stay out of canyons above or in front of a wildfire.”
That is pretty simple.
*
Gary,
Excellent lesson! You started with this: “Keep your hotshot hubris in check and don’t do stupid things.” and then finished with the POSITIVE version by telling WF what to do, instead of what not to do – “Stay out of canyons above or in front of a wildfire.”
Excellent!.
How about adding this? Stay alive – Stay out of canyons above or in front of a wildfire.
My humble apologies for the Bunny thing. I first type these posts out in a Word document because there is more space, I can copy and paste, and other benefits. And then there is also the dreaded Auto-Correct thing. That and not proof reading it before posting is all I can think of.
It was unintentional. I meant no disrespect.
It’s okay about the misunderstanding over the bunny, I would have even worked with you on including a bunny if you wanted one, I don’t want to be a judgemental person in my Golden Years. But…back on point, I think our informal working group has arrived at a something that is a final product which is something I have always wanted which is a…purpose.
I’m not saying this is the final or only product, because there very well could be more. But in the meantime, this is something we can point to as a positive result from our efforts…points we can put on the board.
And once again, it’s not that I don’t care about all wildland firefighters and the reasons they get killed, but once you add engine crews, helitack and smokejumpers and others, there are just too many variables for me to wrap my mind around…the problem is just too big and complex to deal with in this format.
I do think however, we have distilled the reason why all hotshots have been killed on wildfires in the entire 70 year history of hotshots, excluding random accidental deaths from things like falling trees, etc. And for our purposes, I think we can even include the deaths of the 9 Prineville hotshots on the South Canyon Fire.
The only thing that makes them an outlier is who was responsible for them being where they were, doing what they were doing and why they were doing it because their crew boss wasn’t involved in the decsion making process and the squad boss was following the direction of whoever was on charge at the time of the incident, which was either the local BLM engine supervisor or the USFS jumper-in-charge Mackey and I think it was Mackey.
But…the basic circumstances were the same. Hotshots were constructing hand line in a canyon above the fire. There are unique variable in each fire like the size of the canyon, the strength of the wind event, the steepness of the topography and significant preheating of the lower crowns (whatever that is called?) of Gamble Oak and larger trees,. etc.
But there are also a lot of similarities like time of day, RH, middle of summer which was late June to early July etc, but that is getting down into the weeds and not particularly relevant to what we are talking about here.
The size of the canyon and the strength of the wind event doesn’t matter either because the bottom line is there was enough wind to cause the fire to go to hell in a hand basket in the canyon the hotshots were in above the fire in question, regardless of its size. I think it was really extreme on the Yarnell Hill Fire because it was a relatively small canyon and very high winds?
So…anyway, I really like your improvement on the basic, “Rule of One” C. 2018, Go, I always suspected your extensive experience in wildland firefighter safety, training and tendency to be a brainiac would pay off some day…it’s just been a very long, in addition to a mentally and psychological arduous journey.
Your addition is catchy, yet retains what I like most of all…it is simple and the entire rule is contained in a single sentence so it will be easy for hotshots to remember. And most important…it would have been 100 percent effective if it would have been followed based on all hotshot deaths in the history of hotshots to date.
Here is the total body count to date not counting serious burn injuries.
* Loop Fire of 1966, 12 El Cariso Hotshots
* Battlement Creek Fire of 1976, 3 Mormon Lake Hotshots
* South Canyon Fire of 1994, 9 Prineville Hotshots
* Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots
Grand Total…43 hotshots
Citizen Hotshot Safety Working Group Recommendation.
Include the “Hotshot Rule of One” in all future hotshot and basic wildland firefighter training.
“Stay(ing) a(A)live – Stay (Keep) out of canyons above or in front of a wildfire.”
It really sounds simple and detractors might say it is just stating the obvious Which it is…but once again, if this simple and obvious rule would have been followed, there wouldn’t have been ANY (excluding random individual accidents) hotshot deaths in the entire history of hotshot crews. Which is really sad once you recognize that simple fact by distilling the direct cause of all of those deaths down to its lowest common denominator.
And once again…in three out of the four cases, all of those who were killed or watched them die were aware they were working in a canyon above or in front of a wildfire and clearly recognized the danger. I don’t know if anyone was aware of the danger those who were killed on the South Canyon Fire recognized and discussed the danger they were in or not?
If we didn’t try to make the distinction of the situation the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew was in, we wouldn’t even have to say “in front”, of a wildfire, we would only have to say, “above” a wildfire. And the canyon they actually died in….was above the wildfire in the end, but maybe that is getting down into the weeds again and it would be better just to leave it as it is?
I got lost again and didn’t point out the significant problem of pre drying out the fuels was on the South Canyon Fire. I think I remember that is called the “understory?”
And the suggestions in the parentheses are just that…my suggestions. Somebody has to make the final call and you are in the WF loop, how about you make it?
And I don’t remember all 28 WF rules and I am too lazy to look them up. Is the Rule of One specifically mentioned anywhere in the 28? I guess it must be by at least inference or deduction…or whatever?
Or maybe it was the overstory that was dried out and preheated when the understory burned? The point is…it sounds like that canyon went up like a Roman Candle with a lot of WF in it constructing hand line above the fire.
I did look all of them up and the Hoshot Safety Rule Of One isn’t specifically mentioned. There are some that have a warning from witch it can be inferred, or it is implied, but that is obviously not good enough.
For example,
In the 18 situations That Shout Watch out
9. Building fireline downhill with fire below
The copy and paste feature on this iPad is hard for me to use, but here they are.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders
The NWCG Parent Group just approved the revision of the Ten Standard Fire Orders in accordance with their
original arrangement. The original arrangement of the Orders are logically organized to be implemented systematically and applied to all fire situations.
Fire Behavior
1. Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.
3. Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.
Fireline Safety
4. Identify escape routes and make them known.
5. Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
6. Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
Organizational Control
7. Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor and adjoining forces.
8. Give clear instructions and insure they are understood.
9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.
If 1-9 are considered, then…
10. Fight fire agressively, having provided for safety first.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders are firm. We don’t break them; we don’t bend them. All firefighters have the right to a safe assignment.
The 18 Watch Out Situations
Fire not scouted and sized up.
In country not seen in daylight.
Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior
Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
Instructions and assignments not clear.
No communication link between crewmembers and
supervisors.
Constructing line without safe anchor point.
Building line downhill with fire below.
Attempting frontal assault on fire.
Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
Weather gets hotter and drier.
Wind increases and/or changes direction.
Getting frequent spot fires across line.
Terrain or fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.
Feel like taking a nap near fireline.
Courtesy of National Interagency Coordination Center (NIC
10 10 Standard Fire Orders & 18 Watch Out Situations
The 10 Standard Fire Orders were developed in 1957 by a task force studying ways to prevent firefighter injuries and fatalities. Shortly after the Standard Fire Orders were incorporated into firefighter training, the 18 Situations That Shout Watch Out were developed. These 18 situations are more specific and cautionary than the Standard Fire Orders and described situations that expand the 10 points of the Fire Orders. If firefighters follow the 10 Standard Fire Orders and are alerted to the 18 Watch Out Situations, much of the risk of firefighting can be reduced.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders
The NWCG Parent Group just approved the revision of the Ten Standard Fire Orders in accordance with their original arrangement. The original arrangement of the Orders are logically organized to be implemented systematically and applied to all fire situations.
Fire Behavior
1. Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.
3. Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.
Fireline Safety
4. Identify escape routes and make them known.
5. Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
6. Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
Organizational Control
7. Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor and adjoining forces.
8. Give clear instructions and insure they are understood.
9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.
If 1-9 are considered, then…
10. Fight fire agressively, having provided for safety first.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders are firm. We don’t break them; we don’t bend them. All firefighters have the right to a safe assignment.
The 18 Watch Out Situations
Fire not scouted and sized up.
In country not seen in daylight.
Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior
Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
Instructions and assignments not clear.
No communication link between crewmembers and
supervisors.
Constructing line without safe anchor point.
Building line downhill with fire below.
Attempting frontal assault on fire.
Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
Weather gets hotter and drier.
Wind increases and/or changes direction.
Getting frequent spot fires across line.
Terrain or fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.
Feel like taking a nap near fireline.
Courtesy of National Interagency Coordination Center (NIC Fire Orders & 18 Watch Out Situations
The 10 Standard Fire Orders were developed in 1957 by a task force studying ways to prevent firefighter injuries and fatalities. Shortly after the Standard Fire Orders were incorporated into firefighter training, the 18 Situations That Shout Watch Out were developed. These 18 situations are more specific and cautionary than the Standard Fire Orders and described situations that expand the 10 points of the Fire Orders. If firefighters follow the 10 Standard Fire Orders and are alerted to the 18 Watch Out Situations, much of the risk of firefighting can be reduced.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders
The NWCG Parent Group just approved the revision of the Ten Standard Fire Orders in accordance with their original arrangement. The original arrangement of the Orders are logically organized to be implemented systematically and applied to all fire situations.
Fire Behavior
1. Keep informed on fire weather conditions and forecasts.
2. Know what your fire is doing at all times.
3. Base all actions on current and expected behavior of the fire.
Fireline Safety
4. Identify escape routes and make them known.
5. Post lookouts when there is possible danger.
6. Be alert. Keep calm. Think clearly. Act decisively.
Organizational Control
7. Maintain prompt communications with your forces, your supervisor and adjoining forces.
8. Give clear instructions and insure they are understood.
9. Maintain control of your forces at all times.
If 1-9 are considered, then…
10. Fight fire agressively, having provided for safety first.
The 10 Standard Fire Orders are firm. We don’t break them; we don’t bend them. All firefighters have the right to a safe assignment.
The 18 Watch Out Situations
Fire not scouted and sized up.
In country not seen in daylight.
Safety zones and escape routes not identified.
Unfamiliar with weather and local factors influencing fire behavior
Uninformed on strategy, tactics, and hazards.
Instructions and assignments not clear.
No communication link between crewmembers and
supervisors.
Constructing line without safe anchor point.
Building line downhill with fire below.
Attempting frontal assault on fire.
Unburned fuel between you and the fire.
Cannot see main fire, not in contact with anyone who can.
On a hillside where rolling material can ignite fuel below.
Weather gets hotter and drier.
Wind increases and/or changes direction.
Getting frequent spot fires across line.
Terrain or fuels make escape to safety zones difficult.
Feel like taking a nap near fireline
I think the ones that have a message from which the Hotshot Rule Of One can be extrapolated from are to vague to be useful…obviously, with all hotshot deaths in history being specifically caused by their failure to observe and follow the Hotshot Rule Of One. So…
Gary,
I am going ahead and proclaiming my ignorance on the “Rule Of One” that also seems to be the “Hotshot Rule of One.”
What is that and what does that mean? I’m sure I know the answer once you reveal it, just not a phrase I have used.
I still know ALL the WF Rules by heart and in order too …
Dear RTS,
I would be lyin’ if I wrote I am not deeply disappointed in your most recent response. It is however, going to take me some time to think of the right thing to write in response to your response.
But…I just wanted to let you know how much you have disappointed me in the meantime. I know this was not your intent because you are a better person than than your response suggests, but I suspect you may not be a brainiac after all.
In fact…you might be as dumb as a bag of hammers, or at least as unimaginative and open to new ideas as a box of rocks.
Oh…and one more thing. There have been times that not everyone knew what was rattling around inside my head…so I guess the problem could be me? Nahhhh…no way!
Gary on the Loop fire it was the Chilao Hot Shots. I believe Bear Divide as well.
Also El Cariso had another burn over 5 or 6 years prior on the Cleveland NF. The Wounded duck was truly their Mascot.
Right thanks Bob
All Storied Hotshot Crews from the Cradle Of Hotshot Civilization!
So if I was a hotshot…there is something about Norb’s professionalism that has always striked me as unique and without a doubt worthy of accolades and I would as a hotshot learn about my Sup before taking a job and I would for sure have pick ed Norb’s crew because he has proven himself to be one of the neatest people in leadership. He has no ego so to me that should be taught too when training leaders…check egos at the door…just my 2 cents…
I’m not talking about egos in general yet focused in on the glazed brown hued noses ones who have egos in that industry so don’t misfilter what I say Norb as the non ego and you all are…that’s not the case…just feel ego should be checked at the door because that too can save lives was all I meant
Joy,
It’s more complicated than that and I don’t think you should assume that getting on any hotshot crew is easy just because I have written so much about the high turnover rates and the level of inexperience on any given crew at any given time.
The only thing I can say is that, “Personnel works in mysterious ways” What you are saying is that if you wanted to be a professional basket ball player, you would find which team has the coach who you like the best and then sign on with that team. It works that way if you are somebody like Michael Jordon, but for most aspiring professional basket ball players…they just hope they get picked up by somebody and most…don’t.
Here is my best example of just how screwed up federal personnel is and just how frustrating and disappointing they can make the entire process in pursuit of what they think is important, which may or may not make any sense, but it usually make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
I have told the story of how I went to Santa Fe to start a new hotshot crew and that four former Happy Jack Hotshots went with me and it is only because they were there that I was successful…probably. All I know is that I would not have wanted to try it by myself.
I was the ONLY one who received any preferred consideration whatsoever. In fact, the Coconino National Forest simply transferred my Official Personnel Folder to the Santa Fe and both offices filled out some forms and suddenly I was there with a paid move.
That happened in January of the year I left the Coconino, although since I was only guaranteed 6 months of full time employment at the time myself, I was actually laid off when my transfer went into effect. Had I not gone over at the very same pay grade, the Santa Fe would have to have advertised the position and I could have been beaten out for the job by, Oh…I don’t know, probably several hundred other people including disabled veterans who had only worked on the east coast for the National Park Service taking money for admission at a National Seashore and nobody would have understood why except somebody somewhere in the personnel office but it could have been any number of personnel offices at several levels. It gets really complicated and very difficult to successfully manipulate and even the very best manipulators aren’t always successful and then the system melts down…at least if you are me or the guy who wanted to hire me on the Santa Fe to be his new hotshot crew boss.
Now for the rest of the story. There were actually five former Happy Jack Hotshots who wanted to go to Santa Fe and could because most couldn’t because of a lot of personal reasons…like their families, girlfriends or wives worked or were going to college in Flagstaff, Arizona.
So anyway…all five of those other guys had to apply to go to work for the Santa Fe National Forest just like everyone else who wanted to work for the Santa Fe National Forest without receiving ANY consideration except for me searching through hundreds of names hoping theirs were high enough on the list using a complex point system only THEY understand.
But you can’t get to number 87 until number 88 through number 100 are hired by you or somebody else. It gets really bad if the people you want to hire are much further down the list and everybody above them are disabled veterans who have never worked for anyone except the National Park Service on the east coast taking admission money at an entrance station.
But there are dozens, if not hundreds of them and they all had all the time in the world and all of the imagination to FLUFF up their applications with lies or gross exaggerations that make all of the fee station attendants at the National Sear Shore on the East Coast look they are God’s gift to a hotshot crew in Santa Fe New Mexico and personnel doesn’t give a darn what your needs or wants are, they only care about their needs and wants which are NOT in alignment with yours.
So anyway…one of the five guys I was counting on didn’t even make the certification….period. Personnel suing their algorithms didn’t rate him as qualified to be a hotshot on the Santa Fe even though he had prior hotshot experience on the Coconino and nobody knew or even cared why that happened.
I mean, we cared and he certainly cared, he and I were both devastated, but personnel didn’t care and there was nothing anyone could, or would do. So anyway….he became a bank manager instead, which probably worked out for him in the end, but it was a blow to my plans…I needed him. Then the next year a fifth guy who had been in the Peace Corps finished his time and he joined us, but I never got the original fifth man.
Oh never mind….I don’t have the patience or ability to explain to you just how bad the system is and you don’t have the patience or ability to comprehend just how bad the system is. I don’t have the ability to comprehend just how bad the system is is and now I have given myself post traumatic stress just thinking about dealing with federal personnel officers, rules, regulations and laws again.
Joy,
It would be better and produce superior hotshot crews if hotshot crew bosses could hire whoever they wanted to like I think the Granite Mountain Hotshots could do. But…that can lead to problems like…I dunno, say somebody just wanted to hire Fundamentalist Charismatic Christians or whatever….that could be a problem?
Or if somebody didn’t want any women, Gays, Hispanics, Black people or White people of Nordic descent, Mormons or big guys who eat too much food, drink too much water and can’t take the heat…that could be a problem as well?
So…I guess we should just leave personnel alone with the understanding there are pretty good reasons for their stupid algorithms, rules, regulations and laws and just work within the system and have hotshot crew bosses produce the best crews they can given their limitations and restrictions?
I have usually been harsh and opinionated on this blog regarding issues I feel strongly about. I have also however, always. tried to retract or apologize when I have been proven to be out of line. Well…another such time is now upon me and I am aghast…yes, aghast. Which is not a word I have ever used in a sentence before now, although I have read it in sentences others have written, but not from this century.
Anyway, wayyyy downstream I wrote that I thought the First Lady of our great nation was a Slovakian or a Slovenia whore, I can’t remember which? I was offended that Melanie didn’t want to live in, “This Old House”, because it wasn’t good enough for her, so somebody had to pay, was reported, one (1) million dollars a day extra in additional security costs so she could continue to live in New York City on 5th Avenue.
I was also disappointed that she has never held the promised news conference to produce the documents to prove that she didn’t enter this country illegally to take work from American whores. Although a Great Wall that Mexico paid for wouldn’t have stopped her from being a ”espalda mojada” because she arrived by an intercontinental airplane on a “tourist visa” to work illegally in this country as a “model.”
But now…I find out she was in on the joke from the very beginning of The Donald’s self promotional tour masquerading as a presidential campaign and she had been promised he didn’t have a chance to win by Donald Trump himself, because nobody in his camp, including The Donald himself didn’t think enough people would actually vote for him for President Of the United States…then they did and ruined the joke.
So anyway, come to find out Melanie was very distraught and in tears when he actually won because she knew first hand how fucking INSANE that crazy old man is and just how much of a clear and present danger he represented to the rest of us. So…I can’t be mad at her, it want her fault. It was my peoples fault, so I actually feel complicit. #poorlyeducatedbluecollarlowwageforgottenamericansfromredstateswerentreallysupposedtotakehimseriouslyandactuallyvoteforhimbecauseitwasjustafuckingselfpromotionalcharade…whoops
Oh…and one more thing, I am still working on my response to RTS regarding which is the better way to manage a hotshot crew, by participational or directive leadership because the more I research the issue and write about it, the more ridiculous I realize this controversy is because it would be impossible to run every hotshot crew that has ever been in existence, is in existence now, or will ever be in existence until YOU PEOPLE start hiring hotshot crews like you hire your structural (not volunteer) firefighters except for the Payson Hotshots when RTS was in charge because that crew was his special pet project he devoted his life to creating in his image.
Kind of like crazy Colonel Kurtz, you know…”We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won’t allow them to write “fuck” on their airplanes because it’s obscene!. I’ve seen horrors… horrors that you’ve seen. But you have no right to call me a murderer. You have a right to kill me. You have a right to do that… but you have no right to judge me. It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means. Horror… Horror has a face… and you must make a friend of horror. Horror and moral terror are your friends. If they are not, then they are enemies to be feared. They are truly enemies! I remember when I was with Special Forces… seems a thousand centuries ago. We went into a camp to inoculate some children. We left the camp after we had inoculated the children for polio, and this old man came running after us and he was crying. He couldn’t see. We went back there, and they had come and hacked off every inoculated arm. There they were in a pile. A pile of little arms. And I remember… I… I… I cried, I wept like some grandmother. I wanted to tear my teeth out; I didn’t know what I wanted to do! And I want to remember it. I never want to forget it… I never want to forget. And then I realized… like I was shot… like I was shot with a diamond… a diamond bullet right through my forehead. And I thought, my God… the genius of that! The genius! The will to do that! Perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure. And then I realized they were stronger than we, because they could stand that these were not monsters, these were men… trained cadres. These men who fought with their hearts, who had families, who had children, who were filled with love… but they had the strength… the strength… to do that. If I had ten divisions of those men, our troubles here would be over very quickly. You have to have men who are moral… and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling… without passion… without judgment… without judgment! Because it’s judgment that defeats us.”
Which is cool…but you won’t find any other hotshot crew bosses willing to do that because they are either like Bob, who used that job as a “carrier” move in order to move up the food chain to a good job and career, or like me. And In my case once again, I was not only an accidental hotshot, I was an accidental hotshot crew boss because I was the last man standing and they yelled, “Hey you…yeah you fatso, you’re in charge until we find somebody better. In the meantime, try not to fuck it up…too bad, okay Cupcake?”
And since YOU PEOPLE are to fucking cheap to do that because you want a lot for a little and have been successful in getting it so far, you think, “Hey…why buy the cow if I can get the milk for a ridiculously discounted rate?” So…I keep deleting my white paper on the subject because I feel like I am writing, why 1+1=2, why 2+2=4,why 3+3=6…etc. in other words…I am reluctant to spend so much time writing something so obvious that will insult your intelligence, although it has never bothered before now.
I kind of got lost there a couple of times and didn’t finish my thought, well…actually I finished my thought, I just didn’t finish it in the appropriate paragraph. But…I’m pretty sure you got the gist of my argument. You can’t run a hotshot crew or any other wildland firefighting crews except for maybe some engine crews, helislack crews and all smokejumper gaggles (see…disorderly group of noisy people) because most of them are former Hotshots by “participatory leadership!”
Or…to put it in simpler terms for the dim witted, the fucking turnover rate is too fucking high because the job sucks, unless you are like Bob and you are simply using the job as a stepping stone to one of the greatest careers youwill find anywhere.
News Flash…Dateline Olympia Washington…The experience level of the average crewmember of the Granite Mountain Hotshots was an anomaly…because they weren’t restricted by onerous personnel federal or even state personnel rules, regulations and laws…thay were actually above average because they could play “loosey goosey” with ALL of the rules and even hire ex felons who snorted coke and committed crimes to support his habit (that wasn’t the ONLY crime he committed idiot…that was just the ONE he got caught committing) because he was a fucking loser and couldn’t either get or keep a good job and so the another alcoholic former (maybe “former”, maybe “current”) controlled pharmaceutical addict self identified with him and gave him a chance to work four or five years to prove he deserved a second chance, but thought he deserved one after three or four months so he could have what I never did…time with his family.
And so once upon a time…the Granite Mountain Hotshots did what all hotshot crews are trained and conditioned to do, they started looking for Easter Eggs because the man they respected for his abilities and experience as a hotshot crew boss under extremely dangerous and fluid conditions by the name of Jesse Steed announced, saddle up boys…it’s Easter.
Don’t over analyze it asshole…it’s what the Greeks called a parable.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable
Whoops…I was too tired two finger typing on this damn machine to properly state the most salient point of my entire diatribe, which I prefer over the cruder word…rant.
And so once upon a time, on June 30, 2013…the Granite Mountain Hotshots did what all hotshot crews are trained and conditioned to do. They immediately started looking for Easter Eggs because the man they highly respected and trusted with their lives for his abilities and experience as a hotshot crew boss under extremely dangerous and dynamic conditions by the name of Jesse Steed announced while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire as they were kickin’ back and very comfortable and safe on a ridge in the black overlooking and appreciatively watching one of the Great Creator’s most magnificent displays, a firestorm of Biblical proportions, “SADDLE UP BOYS…IT’S EASTER!”
And I didn’t beat the horse called”Why did Steed do that?” to death again, but I have beaten the very same horse to death a number of times over ypthe past four years…so I don’t want any clueless asshole, even one by the name of John Maclean, to bullshit a bulshitter with the Great Lie that is the Granite Mountain Hotshots couldn’t stand to merely sit by and watch so they were driven by the overwhelming urge to take what their crew boss declared an unacceptable risk three (3) fucking times, but finally acquiesced to because his egotistical and very vindictive supervisor who had a huge chip on his shoulder and wanted to prove everyone wrong, ordered him to follow his flagging down a death chute that everyone knows to stay the fuck out of ever since Gordon King killed 12 members and seriously burned most of the rest of the El Caruso Hotshots on the Loop Fire Of 1966 and they started writing the rules and regulations that were written in the blood of crispy critters from the lessons learned over more than 100 years, starting with the 10 Standard Fire Fighting Rules. And then it happened again and again, so they wrote the 13 Situations That Shout Watch Out. And then it happened again and again and again, so they added 5 more Situations That Shout Watch Out! And then it happened again and again and again! And so Paul Gleason said, hey nobody under stress or any other time except for some anal retentive former members of the Oak Grove Hotshots because they were potty trained by their mothers using a magnum handgun can remember 28 (it is well known that the average person can only remember 7 things at a time…hence 7 digit telephone numbers) rules or guidelines depending on which side of the debate you come down on, so he came up with LCES. And then it happened again…but this time it was really bad on the South Canyon Fire many people mistakenly call the Storm King Mountain Fire and Tom Allen (BLM Associate Director, BLM Washington DC Office who I personally knew quite well, and Les Rosenkrance, who I also knew quite well because I worked for him as the BLM State Director in Arizona said, “Hey…wait a minute, every time this happens, we react by coming up with more wildland firefighting rules and guidelines, depending on which side of the debate you come down on and we already have more than anyone can remember except for a few anal retentive former members of the Oak Grove Hotshots can remember…how about this time we focus on getting people to FUCKING FOLLOW all of the rules and guidelines we already have that have been developed and written in the blood of wildland firefighters over more than the past 100 years….what do you say? Well…fuck it, we’re in charge so we are going to do it our way regardless of what you assholes think! Both Les and Tom were pretty good managers and Tom retires as the BLM Alaska State Director and Les retired as the Director Of NIFC, even though Les is a former smokejumper, but you know…fuck it!
Whoops…I’m only going to correct one (1) mistake because it’s the only one that is important. It was the El Cariso Hotshots on the Loop Fire Of 1966, not the El Caruso Hotshots…damn Apple spelling corrective feature. and yes…I do know I could turn it off if I wanted to bad enough.
Oh…and one more thing in the category of trivia and Pop Culture minutia I like to include with my posts for extra debate credit.
The reason I always like to write “written in blood over more than the past 100 years” is because wildland firefighting time began with the creation of the U.S. Forest Service in 1905 under the guidance of Gifford Pinchot. Our creator who now has a forest named after him where I fought fire back in the day…on the Gifford Pinchot.
Kind of like time began for everyone else when Jesus Christ was born, as in B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (Anno Domini) which means “in the year of the Lord” and is taken from the full original phrase “anno Domini nostri Jesu Christi”, which translates, “in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ” when using the Julian and Gregorian Calenders to label or number years…Booyah! I’m on a fuckin’ role this afternoon. Somebody got a good nights sleep last night…your welcome!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Forest_Service
FYI…because you are indeed my closest friends and confidants and I don’t have any secrets from you…and to build my own street creds to emphasize just how much of an insider I was and therefore know what the fuck I’m talking about as opposed to people like I dunno….John Maclean, I’ll share with you just how well I knew the former Associate Director of the BLM Washington, D.C. Office (the number two person in the entire BLM) and the retired Director of BLM Alaska, Tom Allen.
I spent an entire afternoon sitting on a shop stool in a bay in Tom’s son’s garage (who happened to own the shop I took my cars to in Phoenix, although that was a random coincidence, small world) telling him about all of the corruption and misconduct I had personally witnessed and been involved with in my official capacity as a Special Agent for the BLM.
Nobody can tell me squat about being a hotshot or being an insider! There are plenty of people however, who can tell me what the, “Hail Mary” plan on the Yarnell Hill Fire was that made Eric Marsh take such a reckless and unacceptable risk that ended up killing his crew.
Tom Allen was actually the one who said we shouldn’t make any more rules or guidelines our wildland firefighters don’t follow because the Executive Summary for the South Canyon Fire Investigation was presented to him by the head of said investigative team, Les Rosenkrance…who just happened to be my state director at the time.
Oh…and one more thing. That World Class Asshole Dudley Do Wrong said he hates it when the, “Crazy Conspiracy Theorists” come out of the woodwork…or whatever the fuck he said, it was something like that.
That stupid asshole doesn’t have any idea how many bodies I buried for management. And that includes U.S. Forest Service management. Management often thinks just because somebody has a badge and a gun and happens to work for the same agency they do…it’s their job to do the black bag jobs for them.
And well…you have to pick your battles, you can’t die on every hill, there are just too many of them.
Well…just one more, I hope. That is why there are U.S. Forest Service Special Agents and USDI Office of Inspector General Special Agents. I myself have been investigated twice by USDI Office of Inspector General Special Agents but I never did a, “Day On The Beach”, which means I never did anything wrong, or they never could prove I did anything wrong. Somebody has to investigate the investigators.
Fuckin’ Dudley…he thinks I don’t know his job was to bury the bodies for management regarding the YHF SAIT SAIR…stupid fuck? Who the fuck does he think I am…or was?
Whoops, I forgot one. I was investigated three (3) times by USDI Office of Inspector General Special Agents. And I came close a few other times, but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades, ROTFFL! 🙂
Double whoops…I wrote that wrong, too much thinking and typing today., I am wearing myself out. I need a nap before I go to sleep for the night.
“…but I never did a even one day, “On The Beach”, which means I never did anything wrong, or they never could prove I did anything wrong.” So…
Olde Gary,
There’s so much here I don’t know where to start.
So, you’re saying that shot crews are run authoritatively by design & as such rely on responsible bosses/supervision to ‘keep em in the upright position.’ I agree. Apart from the longest running hotshot supe of all time, an oulier, a non-conformist (whom I respect for that), crews are run ‘my way or the highway.’ Now, that doesn’t mean a crew member will never question actions taken on a fire, but let’s be honest, is anyone other than a squadie or a very experienced senior crew member ever going to actually have the serious opportunity to do so? I don’t think so.
I’ve worked with somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 shot crews over the years and while they are all unique in their own right, they share many commonalities – the supe rules. I regret that I’ve never had the opportunity to work along side Payson because I really want to know if they are an outlier.
Additionally, you’re saying the problem lies in that in the aftermath of tragedy, as an institution we create more rules to later be broken when the original rules were never followed in the first place? Are you also saying the problem is institutional and as such the wildfire community is almost 100% devoid of the willingness (or ability) to repair itself while also being totally against those on the outside to have any opportunity whatsoever to have a seat at the table to discuss needed change?
The first step is to admit we have a problem. We have a problem.
I’ll keep it up on my end until I retire. Will anyone listen? Nope. Not as far as I can see.
Yes…there is a lot to unpack there. That is my most favorite buzz phrase from last year…”so much to unpack.”
THE Woodsman wrote,
“So, you’re saying that shot crews are run authoritatively by design & as such rely on responsible bosses/supervision to ‘keep em in the upright position.’ I agree. Apart from the longest running hotshot supe of all time, an oulier, a non-conformist (whom I respect for that),
crews are run ‘my way or the highway.’ Now, that doesn’t mean a crew member will never question actions taken on a fire, but let’s be honest, is anyone other than a squadie or a very experienced senior crew member ever going to actually have the serious opportunity to do so? I don’t think so.
I’ve worked with somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 shot crews over the years and while they are all unique in their own right, they share many commonalities – the supe rules.”
Yes…that is indeed what I am saying. You get it. The crew boss rules…or if the crew is broken down into squads or smaller modules for special assignments like small dispersed lighting fires…the squad boss or senior crewman rules. Or in the case things go to hell in a hand basket and the entire crew command and control structure has disintegrated, which does happen some times…the Senior Crewman rules.
Anybody but the new guys they just hired, which are about 50 percent of every hotshot crew because the turnover rate is so high. Unless they find themselves alone…and in trouble, which can also happen. In which case, they are just going to have to step up to the plate and swing for the fences because often the right thing to do in common sense and everyone there has had been trained in the basics.
It is however, much better with the “professionalization” of today’s hotshot crews because there are a minimum of 7 full time positions. Back in the day, my day…hotshot crews were often built on one (1) full time position (the crew boss) and sometimes one or two more which were the squad bosses.
THE Woodsman wrote,
“Additionally, you’re saying the problem lies in that in the aftermath of tragedy, as an institution we create more rules to later be broken when the original rules were never followed in the first place?”
That is exactly what I am saying. Up until the deaths of an entire squad (nine) of Prineville Hotshots, two helitack and three highly experienced smokejumpers on the South Canyon Fire…the wildland firefighting community (management) responded to every tragedy by making more rules and guidelines when we already had to many to remember and too many people weren’t following them anyway.
This was managements attempt to feel good about what they were doing while what they were doing was the equivalent of applying a band aid to a sucking chest wound and calling it a day. Tom Allen broke that viscous circle and they haven’t done it again since 1994/95.
Although now they seem to do nothing except cover up the screw ups, just like they did on the Battlement Creek Fire. This even occurred on the South Canyon Fire because Dr. Ted Putnam refused to sign off on the latter, even though they persuaded him sign off on the former as a member of the SAIT by promising him they would implement institutional and structural changes in the way we did business, but then they promptly broke their promise to him.
THE Woodsman wrote,
“Are you also saying the problem is institutional and as such the wildfire community is almost 100% devoid of the willingness (or ability) to repair itself while also being totally against those on the outside to have any opportunity whatsoever to have a seat at the table to discuss needed change?”
Yes…that is exactly what I am saying.
And he said,
“The first step is to admit we have a problem. We have a problem.”
Can I get a hallelujah? Can I get an amen?
Whoops….forgot a really important point. Nobody on any of my crews were ever afraid to tell me I when I was making a bad call…but frankly, I never did except on the Valdez Fire. And I have admitted my mea culpas on this thread for that one.
As I have proudly written many times on this thread, my crews always called me “Dad.” And that started my first year when I was 23. Nobody called the two crew bosses before me Dad. They were respected, but we didn’t call them Dad. A good dad doesn’t ever risk the lives of his charges, or forbid anyone from telling him when and if he makes a mistake.
The very first fire I ever took my crew on as their crew boss was actually just off our district near Mormon Lake. Our District FMO and my immediate supervisor, the man who made me a crew boss, was also on the fire as the Fire Boss.
After our first shift…he told me, “I want you to bed your crew down here (pointing at the ground) and be ready to go tomorrow morning by 0600. How does that sound to you?”
I gave him my standard response, “Sounds good!” Richard then looked at me like I was as dumb as a bag of rocks and he said, “That sounds like shit to me!” And Richard never raised his voice and very rarely ever used a cuss word, in fact…that was the first one I ever heard him use. He didn’t have to, when Richard spoke, people listened.
Richard went on to say, “Your barracks is just 12 miles down the road where you have a cook to feed your crew dinner and cook them breakfast, and you think eating rats tonight and tomorrow morning by bedding them down here, “Sounds good.”
That was a teachable moment for me from an old school wildland firefighter. Richard was telling me that he expected me to stand up to anyone…even him, when looking out for the best interests of my crew.
I never made that mistake again and I paid for it by being sent home with my crew, the Santa Fe Hotshots, from the Scott Fire in 1983 on the Coronado in Arizona. But I didn’t back down from even the Line Boss and Fire Boss together. Richard would have been proud of me, if he ever heard of that incident, although he was retired by then so he probably didn’t.
And even when I was discussing my failure on the Valdez Fire with one of my former squad bosses after the Yarnell Hill Fire…he said he was okay with what I did because I made the call. But it really wasn’t okay…the entire crew had to run for our lives, in a crew line…together.
Stupid Fuck Dudley was wrong when he wrote that you get to do that 99 times out of every hundred and get away with it. I would like to know what hotshot crew he ran while pulling either an Eric Marsh on the Yarnell Hill Fire or a Gary Olson on the Valdez Fire 99 times and getting away with it.
You might get away with it a few times…maybe? Nobody gets away with it 99 times out of a hundred. And like WTKTT wrote at the time, even if you do…you only get to die once, now that is…logical.
Here is a GREAT photo and Richard and I. It is really hard to tell whether Richard is angry, happy, surprised, disgusted, sad, afraid or joyful in this photo because his facial expression never changed and he always spoke in a quiet voice.
I am guessing however, from my body language and facial expression that I am not particularly enjoying our conversation, nor am I eager to answer him because I am not making direct eye contact, I have my hand in front of my mouth and I am looking up to my left while I try to remember an acceptable answer to whatever question Richard is asking me as I try to tap into the memory part of my brain for recall while he is speaking.
http://www.ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
I shouldn’t have written, “crazy Colonel Kurtz” because in doing so I glossed over and missed the whole point of the movie. Colonel Kurtz was one of the few people who wasn’t crazy in that scenario. He saw the situation as it really was with brutal honesty.
And so if you take my anology and follow it through to it’s logical conclusion, RTS is one of the few people who is still part of the system who isn’t crazy and is being brutally honest to himself and his values and ideals.
Mike Dudley and his ilk are the crazy and dishonest ones. RTS is just wrong about how most, if not all hotshot crews are managed other than his old crew because he was willing to put some real effort into creating the perfect hotshot crew…in his image.
I kind of got lost in my diarptribe on one point I want to drive home. The Granite Mountain Hotshots weren’t chomping at the bit to bail off that ridge. Look at the last photos and video taken of the crew. It was their normal day off after a long stretch, it was hot, they were tired, thirsty and most of them were hung still hung over if not still under the influence. They would have been more than happy to sit on that ridge and watch that fire storm go by and then move towards the ashes to help pick up the pieces.
They were good Hotshots, not suicidal heroes looking for a place to die. Only one man fit that description in that scenario. None of them should have ever been on that fire that day. And one of them should not have ever been on any fire leading a hotshot crew. There is a long list of complicit people who knew that and that is the story none of them want you to know.
It is the same story that was acted out by Gordon King and Tony Czak and now they are joined in wildland firefighting infamy by Eric Marsh. So…like THE Woodsman wrote, until we first admit there is a problem, we can’t hope to FIX IT!
Whoops, I should have written something about RTS’ vision of TRYING to create the perfect hotshot crew, not my vision. You already know my vision of the perfect hotshot crew;
They should stand up, water up, tool up, saddle up, line up, shut the fuck up, listen up and then hump up the mountain.
Although just for the record, I don’t think I ever told anyone to shut the fuck up, but I do like hyperbole to make a point! And I don’t ever let the facts stand in the way of a good story…or making a good story even better. ::)
Woodsman,
Happy New Year!
You posted that the HS Crews you have worked with “… are all unique in their own right, they share many commonalities – the supe rules.”
I agree totally with this whether directive or participatory leadership.
Someday, you will have the opportunity to work along side the Payson HS and come to realize that they are an outlier.
Yes indeed, we have quite a problem in the entire upper echelon WF community and culture.
Please keep it up on your end until you retire. I’m listening and so are many others. They’re just not as open about it as some of us. And NOBODY is as open about it as Gary.
You will hopefully avoid having to endure many of the trials and tribulations of speaking truth to power, trying to make worthwhile changes, have solid friends and trusted coworkers that will stand beside you and support you and and give you wise counsel.
Remember one of Winston Churchill’s sage counsels:
‘You have enemies? Good. That means you have stood for something in your life.’
That is my favorite Churchill quote, because damn…I have made some enemies in my life and I like to believe it was worthwhile.
And like I have said many times, I share with you so much because you are indeed, my closest friends and confidants. In addition to thr fact I am off the reservation and I’m never going back! 🙂
And of course my second most favorite one is,
Winston Churchill once said, “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.”
Joy, http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470954
I disagree with some of what you said. I think everyone who is anyone in WF or related to WF reads this blog. I don’t think most of those check here on a regular basis or even very often…but they do check. This has been proven time and time again over the past four years with reactions we get here, in emails, and on other sites that include all of the social media platforms where the Yarnell Hill Fire is being discussed or those who have an interest in the fire live their social media lives.
This was most recently clearly demonstrated by what our old friend Full Sail wrote. He said he came here to check us out after reading a reference to this site in his official capacity at work that was within their internal communication. I ask him (here on this blog) what the context was, but he never answered my question. But the point is…he came back here to check up on us because this blog was referenced in some kind of official communication. Perhaps the reason he didn’t respond to my question is because by answering, he would have identified the agency he works for?
For example, if the past indicates what is presently happening, and I believe it does, Holly NEIL’S WF posse emailed her about my recent blunt force trauma attack on John Maclean. She then reported it to him and he came here and read what I wrote as she did. I only hit on the low hanging fruit from his presentation because frankly…I couldn’t listen to very much of it because I found his demeaning, arrogant, condescending and ignorant tone and attitude…made me throw up a little bit in my mouth and pissed me off at the same time.
The same thing is going to happen again because of what I am writing now. And besides that…do you think a professional and very successful author like Mr. Maclean is going to ignore a source like this while researching material for his book? Even if he doesn’t agree with what we have said, this blog is by far the most complete and exhaustive study and collection of facts pertaining to the Yarnell Hill Fire that exists.
I know they have to sort through some of our chaff…or maybe even a lot of our chaff in the process. But…the information and a through analysis of it by a wide range of subject matter experts that include the questions and points made by intelligent and inquisitive readers who aren’t connected to the WF community is here and easily accessible from wherever there is an internet connection, for free.
So…don’t worry, THEY are keeping tabs on this blog, even if all they want to do is feel good about how stupid and wrong they think we are. Although we can’t be wrong about everything…since we use the shotgun approach while firing in all directions which include within our own circle. : )
And I am going to bring this discussion back to my favorite topic…me. There isn’t anybody out there who could look at my education, training, experience, knowledge, skills and abilities and conclude I don’t know what I am talking about. I know what a judge would think and do if I asked for a search warrant based on my “information and belief” given my background. And I know how much weight a jury would place what I testified to under oath regarding what I believe to be true based on my background.
If I am wrong…then may God help the system because whatever else I am, I am a product of that system. And I represent millions of dollars (including salary and expenses for on the job training) that you people paid to get me up to speed to deal with a wide range of problems you either didn’t want to deal with, or couldn’t deal with yourself.
Hells bells…you people paid about 20 grand a year just for me to have a take home vehicle for 18 years (usually a Tahoe, but I could order whatever I wanted every two years) just so I could get up in the middle of the night, or the weekend or in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner and respond to whatever your problem was without first going to the office to pick up my rig and equipment. I wore out at least 9 different vehicles during just my time as a special agent.
And I am by the way, a FLETC trained, certified and experienced Wildland Fire Investigator. I was IT…there were a lot of times I was all you had. I can’t be easily dismissed now just because I am retired and I can tell you what I really think. You may not like how I say it, or what I say…but in general you can’t argue with the validity of what I say without completely undermining the system you completely depend on. Whether it was a thin RED line, or a thin Blue line…I was YOUR line.
Oh…and one more thing. Thank you for the honor of serving you for more than 30 years. I would do it all over again. And I know RTS, Bob and many others who participate here feel the very same way I do, including those who haven’t retired yet like THE Woodsman. May God Bless America (and our Canadian friends)!
As a matter of fact, I just reminded myself of a “no foolin’ story” about responding to one of your problems at a moments notice that happened to me when I was a uniformed law enforcement officer (the ONLY one) for the Santa Fe National Forest. And that was when I didn’t even have a full time take home vehicle.
Although I was often authorized to take my US Forest Service rig home if I either knew or strongly suspected I might need to response quickly. All US Forest Service LEO’s now have really bitchin rigs they do take home with a full light bar, sirens, spotlights, PA system, shotgun and AR-15 locking gun racks etc. with full LE markings. Mine was NOT like that because those were the, “In The Beginning” years.
The Santa Fe National Forest maintained their Forest Fire Cache of fire supplies, several warehouses for other disciplines like surveyors, heavy equipment operators, the hotshot offices and crew headquarters and even the horse stables for the horses the Forest Range Conservationists used for official business along with several good old fashioned “bone yards” where everything was stored in fenced in areas that wasn’t kept inside a warehouse.
This complex was in the middle of Santa Fe bordered by one of the St. John’s College campus’ in Santa Fe, the New Mexico National Guard Artillery Battalion (hundreds of them were captured when the fort on the Philippines island of Corregidor fell at the beginning of WWII for the U.S. and many of them died or were executed during the Batann Death March. And the rest spent the war in Japanese prison camps, so that event is remembered every year in Santa Fe) and a city park that includes a huge soccer field where we did physical training and running every day as hotshots.
All of that complex, including the land the college campus occupies, was originally a giant military hospital complex during WWII. And the old buildings and warehouses the Forest Service used were part of the original hospital or the support for it. It was a great place for a hotshot headquarters the Santa Fe Hotshots still use the last time I checked. And it was all surrounded by an 8′ industrial grade chain link fence.
At the very back of the complex, which was actually outside of the chain link fence, the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Laboratory maintained an original house for what…I don’t know since I never saw anyone there? But there were a lot of old nasty chemicals stored there inside that old officers quarters.
So anyway, we went through a period of time when a cult, or a coven, or just a bunch of degenerate Devil worshipers were meeting there where they sacrificed animals (cats and dogs) and some of them were tortured to death by using those chemicals and then burning them at an alter while they carved pentagrams and similar symbols into everything.
And I was determined to catch the little bastards in the act…but they would show up very infrequently and obviously during off hours…like in the middle of the night. So I got a bunch of sensors that were activated by different methods because false signals can and are a real pain in ass to deal with. These sensors included those that used infra red beams, motion detectors and trip wires to be activated. And then a creepy metallic voice would come over a monitor and identify which sensor was going off with an, “Intruder Alert, Sector 9.” That last part was just fluff to make the story better, they really just gave the sensor number.
This went on for a few weeks with nothing but a few false alarms. And then on Christmas Eve, at exactly the stroke of midnight…all hell broke loose on my home monitor and every sensor was going crazy, all at once. So naturally, I thought okay, this is it…this is big one. So I jumped in my beat up old Honda Civic hatchback and raced across town for the complex with my .357 magnum revolver and some speed loaders just in case I had to kill the whole damn coven. I also had a big black police style flashlight that is the reason the U S Border Patrol calls Undocumented Aliens, TONKS. And that is because that is the noise they make when you hit them on the head with that kind of flashlight.
Due to my inexperience and reluctance to ever ask anyone for assistance (like Santa Fe PD) as a result of my U S Forest Service upbringing that conditioned and trained me to believe that only weak people who are unsuitable for the job in the first place ever ask for help or admit they can’t handle the situation with the equipment and personnel at hand.
I had also responded to so many false alarms when just some of the sensors were going off randomly in the preceding weeks, I was just geared to go by myself. That is one thing that experience can teach every person because you eventually realize and relearn that in spite of the history, tradition and culture of the agency, or more specifically the FIRE people within that agency, not everything can or should be handled with just the equipment and personnel on hand and sometimes you do need to ask for help. And if you do…it’s okay.
But I wasn’t there yet…so I went on to that pitch black compound and then into that pitch black house (the electricity wasn’t turned on) alone. I had never been so scared in my life and I swear to God…if some dumb ass kid would have stepped out from a closet, I would have blown a hole right through the middle of him with those .357 magnum hydra shocks at point blank range, I would have been able to put my arm right through him…or her.
And then I would have been in big trouble because I went in there by myself and created the conditions that resulted in some persons (maybe some college kids) death, even if that person would have been a witch or warlock, or a whatever. So anyway…it took me about an hour to begin clearing that house room by room and thank God no none was there by then, that I could find anyway and then they never came back, but they had been there that night.
Case Status; Closed pending further leads. Maybe they saw that huge stainless steel Smith and Wesson .357 magnum revolver (Model 66) with a four inch barrel shaking in my trembling hands and figured the party was over? 🙂
Reply to Gary Olson post on December 27, 2017 at 5:52 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> If I am wrong…then may God help the system because
>> whatever else I am, I am a product of that system.
>> And I represent millions of dollars (including salary
>> and expenses for on the job training) that you people
>> paid to get me up to speed to deal with a wide range
>> of problems you either didn’t want to deal with, or
>> couldn’t deal with yourself.
>>
>> Hells bells…you people paid about 20 grand a year just
>> for me to have a take home vehicle for 18 years (usually
>> a Tahoe, but I could order whatever I wanted every two years)
Just thought of a great title for at least ONE of the books that you really ought to write…
“Thank You For My Service”
Thank you, great title.
Clarifications
1. The 20 grand you paid every for me to have a take home vehicle was not the total cost of operating said vehicle. That was just the extra they calculated it cost to allow them to be taken home.
They would periodically go through spasms of threatening to take them away or make us pay tax on the 20 grand. But in the end after they completed their cost benefit studies, they would leave things as they were.
I kinda hoped they would take them away except for when I worked in downtown Phoenix because I drove a long way to work and the underground parking place was really nice. And that is because they were so many restrictions on how those vehicles could be used, and tha only thing they could be used for was official purposes even though they had “cold plates” on them and you couldn’t tell they were G rides because they had undercover grill lights, siren and PA system.
So…if you ever needed to make a stop on the way home you couldn’t because if you got in an accident…the mandatory one time misuse of a government vehicle penalty was immediate termination.
2. I could order any type of vehicle I wanted, specify the color and the options, but the actual vehicle would depend on who had the GSA contract at the time. It was usually Chevrolet, but there were a few years I drove Broncos and one Ramcharger.
I also usually had a Tahoe, but that Cougar we totaled was mine, I tried a Crown Victoria one time because I was driving so many highway miles and I felt sporty one time, so I had a Monte Carlo for a while. And I even had one bad ass jacked up Suburban with a really bitchin lift kit.
All of the US Forest Service LEO’s vehicles I have seen are 3/4 ton full size pickup trucks with lift kits on them, oversized off road tires and big winch bumpers with winches. BLM Ranger vehicles are very similar and they also take those home.
As far as wearing them out, like l have written before, you people own a lot of land scattered over vast areas and the BLM alone manages 200 million acres on your behalf that is worth hundreds of trillions of dollars counting all of the subsurface minerals.
The New Mexico State Office for example, manages over 13 million in New Mexico alone, but they also manage several hundred thousand more acres in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and the vast Aneth oil and gas fields in southeast Utah. It takes a lot of driving to get around to protect your land holdings.
3. I am not suggesting you have to accept what I say based on my experience, I am simply saying I can’t be easily dismissed without at least considering what I think.
Everyone is free here to step up to the plate, identify yourself if you can and at least cite your background and experience to support your position and tell us what you think. Hell bells…Joy argues with me about everything and never accepts what I say at face value and sometimes she dismisses me no matter what I say.
We also usually beat every horse to death and then we keep beating the dead horse just to make sure it’s dead while we consider every possible angle and alternative explanation.
For example, by the time RTS and I get done arguing, or I should say debating over whether hotshot crews should be run by participatory versus directive leadership, it will be time for hell to freeze over, but you will be free to most likely decide I am right. But if you are smokin’ crack…you might side with RTS? Or, you are free to come up with your own theory and put that forward for discussion.
4. And as far as my arrogance bordering on hubris goes…you don’t want those who man either your thin red or blue lines not to be confidant they can handle whatever comes out of the tree line do you? I am far from alone with my sense of self worth and confidence.
Take Bob for example, he is convinced he was God’s gift to the Oak Grove Hotshots and he never even cut Hotshot fire line, but that doesn’t stop him from being all he can be and don’t even get him started on his Air Attack qualifications!
And RTS likes to give me a hard time about my ego, but does he come off as an insecure person who lacks confidence in himself to you? I mean…he is wrong about the best way to run a hotshot crew, but he is pretty damn confidant about his position on the subject anyway even though it really doesn’t make much sense.
And the same thing goes for Norb, THE Woodsman and Rocksteady, there isn’t anyone here who doesn’t believe in themselves and their WF abilities. It’s an industry wide phenomenon.
So…don’t be afraid to come out of the shadows and bitch (non gender specific) to our faces, we can take it. Tell us why we are stupid and wrong and maybe you are right and everyone except for Joy may change their minds and in the end, we will have a better product to leave for future generations. I think there are some young people out there today who may eventually want to know the real reasons why their fathers didn’t come home from work on June 30, 2013.
I never felt I was Gods Gift to Oak Grove. It was a job a Great job and I would do it again. And yes I cut line as a Hot shot Squad boss on at least 10 fires with Chilao HS. So I spent 3 years with Oak Grove HS. By 1972 I had 10 years cutting line and working with Engines. I have a grunt background too. In Calif. you did not get to the 6 or 7 level with out Crew Boss Rating and Engine Foreman.
R3 was different RIGHT????
OH YA as asst. I also cut line ran chain saw brush and fell trees. Through dirt dug trenches and Moped up. I wasn’t the Superintendent. I worked with the crew just like any other foreman.
So I assume you are trying to pull my cord.
Also as RTS said below I was a Ass Hole when it came to Safety and grab ass games while on duty. Like you my basic training as a supervisor came from a Master Sargent during the first 4 years with the Forest Service.
So I guess I was a directive Supervisor.
Now see…I knew you could punch up that story, it’s gotten a lot better with my help! Your welcome.
But since I was God’s gift to both the Happy Jack and Santa Fe Hotshots, I guess Bob and I aren’t that much alike after all?
Thank God. We cant all be the same.
I still love you man…even if you are different! In fact, you might even be one of a kind?
Merry Christmas from me
and our hearts go out those loved ones with best wishes for Christmas holidays
And may the Irish God bless everybody.
Happy New Year!
And the same to you and yours Sonny, except I pray Odin and all of the Norse Gods bless you as well. I have also asked Odin for a “killed in battle” waiver for you as well so we can meet and drink in the Great Hall of my people in Valhalla some day. Odin knows how many battles you and I have both valiantly and bravely fought. He understands it’s not our fault we weren’t actually killed in any of them because we damn sure tried our best.
No Joy, there aren’t any good movies on…just some movies. The only thing worse than retirement is going to work. But…if anyone does feel sorry for me, please remit funds immediately and I will go back to Moab ASAP to work some more in battling my Jeep up and down those big red rocks in your name!
Although interestingly enough, I did find a documentary last night on Netflix about “The Big Burn” in Idaho of 1910, which I have mentioned several times on this blog that I am going to watch tonight. I am letting you know about it just in case you have never been bored enough to scroll that far down in their documentary library.
As usual, I have been depending on WTKTT to supply me with pertinent updates on the situation regarding our brother Cory Iverson. I am expecting the worst though, because those fighting wildfires are like grapes, they should come in bunches. And the fact that Cory was alone when he died, tells me automatically there was a big screw up some where, but we shall see…eventually I hope.
I mean…usually more than one WF are killed in any single incident and I think having only one die is in itself an anomaly? The last one I can think of off the top of my head, is the Buchanan Prescribed Burn that got away and was declared an escaped wildfire.
I used to work for Les Buchanan on the Santa Fe who was the architect of the burn, although it happened many years after I left my beloved U.S. Forest Service. Les was the best Fire Behavior Analyst in the nation and probably the world, so I do know that fighting wildfire….even wildfires that were once controlled burns is inherently a dangerous job…but still?
And I may not understand how all current hotshot crews are managed, but after four years of being a student of how the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew was run, I think I understand them as well as anyone could who never worked with them. And that is because like I have written before, I recognized a long time ago, they were in many ways a mirror of my crews. Starting with the fact that both Marsh and I were called “Dad” by our crews. Although in my case, different variations of that honorary title were also used such as “poppa” or “pappy.”
And in both of our cases, we didn’t create the system, we simply played the hands we were dealt. Most of YOU people created it, or it was created for you and in your name, so you own it. In addition, I do have a news flash for you as well…there are a lot more hotshot crews out there just like Granit Mountain and my old crews who are operating on borrowed time thanks to almost everyone’s refusal to even acknowledge the problem exists, much less take affirmative and meaningful corrective steps and preventive actions to do everything they can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Because as I have also written many times…once is an anomaly (the Loop Fire) twice is a coincidence (the Battlement Creek Fire); but three times is a pattern ( the Yarnell Hill Fire).
And yes…I do understand Cory was probably working with an engine on that fire, but normally being killed in bunches also includes engine crews….see the Esperanza Fire.
Oh…and one more thing. If I find out Cory died because he was not trained in the limitations of his fire shelter and he deployed it in an area that wasn’t survivable, I am really going to be…upset.
FYI – And as a reminder, Sonny worked in the same underground uranium mine where my father was killed.
I remember early on learning about brotherhood from hikes with Fernanda Santos of NY Times
and listening to Phillip Maldonado and others about the GMHS and your fire industry of brotherhood …
we are all members of the same Divine family. We have to understand the needs of other individuals in order to assist them as part of our service to one another.
As we learn to give, so must we also learn to receive, thereby achieving the necessary balance for our lives….so what does it mean really that Bill Gabbert did not post your comment…why take the energy to call names vs call out what it is he did not post…
to me the essence of life is not who can or who cannot but ensuring when you cannot, I can…or when I cannot, you can…that to me is brotherhood…so help me understand when these men were on that mountain top same as me and they have this brotherhood then why in error in which way their directional paths ended up happening —why remain and burn out in a dense vegetation box canyon around you versus running to those boulders…there is a serious element I am not understanding after all these years…we know what Bruce and others saw…why not share…put the litigation and liabilities aside and just share…those who have not shared who should will understand I really did give them a chance and there will be no turning back…sorry…I know everything I have done has come back to me with repercussions…You cannot escape the consequences of your actions. What you do comes back to you. Alright…you all have the greatest Holidays— Merry Christmas and Happy New Year—Gary had the right idea—where is my blanket and dvd….movie time….good night
Sow a thought
you reap an act.
Sow an act,
you reap a habit.
Sow a habit,
you reap a character.
Sow a character,
you reap a consequence.
Wildfire today…
Bill has banned me from posting…
35 plus years fighting fire and the bald headed chicken pluckers won’t let me post reality..
Typical head in the sand… Nothing to see here.. move on..
What a dick…
Jason Hershberger – FF/EMT came by the water company when I was talking with Bri and he shared to us his popcorn from h t t p s:/ / http://www.chefsshoppe.c o m /popcorn-menu/ (Pizza) (try also Beer)
—it does take like pizza from Chicago versus pizza flavored
h t t p :/ /wildfiretoday.c o m/ is a nice area — great place to visit for data to then go reach other data..alot of my foias made could not be possible if that site did not exist (also “E” is the core to my knowing of foias) because it was a great learning tool and still is to further my education on the industry plus I do love alot of the aerial data…I am infatuated with the aerial areas indeedbecause of my family roots.
so I am sorry your comment never made it…yet you can make it here and post link to where it was to be on wildfire today.
maybe he is on Holiday vacation and has comments set on moderation only
and has not viewed it yet
and not yet posted…that could be an option
but I really cannot see him until it is fact checked that he banned you unless he said it behind the scenes direct to you said you were banned
but maybe it was just the comment not you that was not posted…
so what did you say—you already said bald headed chicken pluckers on IM and was not banned so what got you allegedly banned on WildfireToday?
Inquiring minds want to know….
I was taken back you of all folks used “what a dick..”…https://youtu.be/heBvS3NajiY…
what it sounded like to me was when I use to jump the gun on Holly Neill on wildfire today and here vs going direct to her behind the scenes back in 2014 when she wrote that article but I believe it was because early on people got in my ears but Holly was amazing as she did not have to explain anything to me but she lives far away and she spoke to me “in person” to go over the things I was getting incoming….
so I Rocksteady have jump the gun at times on areas versus breathe in and breathe out and just chill but at times this whole fire stuff can get at me and it can be REAL frustrating…especially when books/films come out that I have document that prove they are just another narrative area (sigh)
and I am praying the presentation of John MacLean was just a light hearted insert and he learned from it that there is a bigger platform he is to fill then just comic relief of a tragedy and as well fact check data and really get to know certain areas as if it was without a doubt ingrained in him…
his opinion on us was just to be “funning” but the disturbing parts was taking the purity out of my original photos and sharing his story which did not match to that weekend so maybe he did not spend the proper time with me because I have alot of data since that weekend that solidifies my testimony no matter the glaze of anyone….
I can guarantee there is no entity at this date that can challenge me as I have been pure…and with eyebrow raised on left with confident certain elvis curled lip look…and as well very well documented at this point too….while others made movies and books I went fact digging….and will never make a profit but I will hope to see change in the way they do these fires—
Purity is NOT about what one decides NOT to do…it is about bringing forth T R U T H S
even if you like someone or do not like in this research on fires (YHF or any) and they do wrong you expose all areas to properly assess…I have exposed my flaws as well fixed my problem areas and currently publicly displaying it all publicly in a manner that is a challenge for me but I want to continue to show ; guarantee not for ego…could care less…The essential thing is to be honest.
There is many times I pre-warned certain areas and they do not realize the world is ever-changing and if I got funds outside what I need to buy diapers and house stuff— if my day comes when I have added funds or endless funds then I will guarantee my monies focus would be a huge exposing party internationally because I believe and have faith and hope that people are just living life avoiding some very important realities…and I do seem to think some are just now waking up…
when you said what a dick…Rocksteady…not to cock block ya but I just want to know a little more data…I guess because I do…
Thank you, thank you, thank you Rocksteady for letting us even know though a comment did not make it over at Bill’s—I have had that happen at times…but there was always an explanation…
Just wanted to say I love what you’re doing. So powerful. Alot of people do not even know how amazing you are…I DO…you have rippled your way into my life and I thank you so much…Merry Christmas…Joyeux Noël…eh…
I looked up bald headed chicken pluckers and this was all I could find:
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bald%20Headed%20Chicken%20Fucker
THAT’S CRAZY
Is that Canadian talk? Is there a whole village of these folks Rocksteady?
soft smiles-
🙂
He banned me 2 years ago.
Welcome to the CLUB
There are certain comments if you feel need to be addressed then just back channel him because I was very shocked when I saw some of my own comments did not make it right away due to moderator system and when they did it was edited but it is his site and his audience so the way to address that is not form a club but say the link you commented and what comment did not make it….when I hear clubs…I envision nothing good comes from it and no lessons learned…bring up the areas he is not allowing…that’s the important part. ESPECIALLY for people like Diane Lomas and myself who do not have the background like you 2…us people need to know what’s being filtered.
I cannot see a man who spent his life in the industry and retired and still educating folks and making the dedicated time for the world deserves the label WHAT A DICK…
breathing in and out on this one but then again I have been like that on here…frustrated…you never saw me even call John MacLean a dick or what a dick or anything to that nature because I know he used actual words and just made it his way…no different than a moderated system site putting out only certain stuff…if you made a comment to Bill with proper source versus humble opinion I do see him posting and when the exposing party of mine happens I do see him selecting what he needs of my content to cover it yet I know it will be placed out in best way he needs to..
So I did get moderated but I won’t be saying join the club…
Bob did have that happen too and I did forget the explanation that was given but it was discussed.
Rocksteady…again what was left out on wildfiretoday that Bill rejected or has not yet seen the comment due to Holiday moderated system vacation
He Banned me because I disagreed with him. He said he would not allow his Blog to be like IM. I guess he thinks he is more pure.
Bob Powers-
this has zip to do with his site being more pure-
come on.
really,
Would you allow your wildfire page you made have alot of the stuff that lays on IM…for sure I would edit alot of JOY A COLLURA’s comments-
and some of Gary’s rants on RTS and Bob and vice versa
but who cares
“whatever”
it is his page
I am proud Bill never gave up on sharing a webpage on your industry and I wish more men like yourselves had a site—
oh yeah Gary does: http://ourfiregods.com/
Gary, would you let me or one of the GMHS loved ones write what we wanted on that link above without your say?
hee hee
You missed the point Joy. He absolutely dose not like any negative reply’s………….. He will not agree to even allow me back if I do not say any negative things. spent several Emails to him about this.
He is a Ass Hole. Its his blog he can do what he wants. When it comes to Granit Mountain they get a free pass just like the investigation No one did any thing wrong. ..
Wildfire Today
I went fishing (digging) to see what is going on with this topic.
Comments are closed is quite often found on his page not like here where a year later the same thread is open.
Then I began to search for Rocksteady
to see what area could of made him state what he did
because Rocksteady is the coolest so I am thinking there has to be something to it IF he is saying THAT about Bill….
Bill Gabbert always came off as a man who wants the world to talk about widlfires education and news and opinions—I guess I was taken back that he would ban someone…maybe some sensitive topics maybe…
and I felt Bill wanted to discuss HOW can we make these FFs safe out there so Jim Roth and David Turbyfill and others like them do not have to face this again
so I did find a few comments from our Canadian commenter
and you know what it confirms to me Rocksteady is spot on…
he is right so maybe things did happen outside my rainbows and unicorn outlook on life so I apologize Rocksteady and the rest here-
it is just I have alot of respect for Bill as it showed in my replies and felt maybe there was more to it
but I believe Gary Olson’s book on the hybrid FF really will show alot we need to know…right Gary…will it be in Chinese?
So anyways Gary—no I am not a 拍马屁 (pāi mǎ pì)….just a gal who has alot of admiration for alot of you fellas who are taking the time to share about fires so us people not in the industry can learn….I appreciate you all so much…Like you said I am one hard one to deal with…
some day some day (maybe)- 有钱就是任性! (yǒu qián jiù shì rèn xìng!)
last statement I saw by
Rocksteady says:
November 26, 2015 at 5:10 pm
Totally preventable.
Do not, ever, put your people in that sort of a vulnerable position.
Wrong on so many levels…
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/11/22/twisp-river-fire-report-released-as-injured-firefighter-leaves-hospital/
rocksteady says:
August 20, 2015 at 3:24 pm
Sometimes the best thing to do during extreme fire behaviour, is to do nothing at all.
Condolences to those lost and injured…
h t t ://wildfiretoday.c m/2015/08/20/not-enough-firefighters-available-for-the-70000-acres-burning-in-the-twisp-washington-area/
Rocksteady says:
February 15, 2016 at 8:21 pm
Killing 3 firefighters is not acceptable….
(Review of the 2015 wildfire season in the Northwest)
I just want to say Charlie “Irish You A Merry Christmas”…may each sunrise hold more promise and each sunset hold more peace for you…enjoy…
Joy,
The answer to that question is totally irrelevavt because I do not have a blog on my website where anyone can comment about anything including a public discussion, or debate about the Yanell Hill Fire.
If I did however, I would certainly encourage those who disagreee with me to post there, I would however, like to know their background so I can ascertain how much weight to put on what they say and I would like them to explain why they disagree with me giving specific rationale.
Yeah but you must agree/admit
Wtktt
is
just an avatar but a lot of the reason people keep coming back is for the one who is not known of their background who has given very resourceful data
Agreed?
Yes…but WTKTT doesn’t claim any particular expertise, especially in wildland firefighting. What he has always offered is information, intelligence and analysis based on pure logic.
If he is not Artificial Intelligence, he is at least some kind of extraterrestrial alien like First Officer and Science Officer Spock of Starfleet Command who lacks human emotions.
If however, we were studying a failed mission of the USS Enterprise and WTKTT was offering any of the above mentioned services based on his service to the Federation, I would expect him to state his specific and related credentials.
This, however Gary, is inconsistent with the fact that the significance component of appreciation appears to require the positive capacity for emotion and in the history of this site WTKTT has indeed had emotions—many times showing his gratitude to us.
Many times he has said thank you
and showed the EMOTION “appreciation”-
more than once…
and significantly I do remember
WantsToKnowTheTruth says EMOTIONS
on November 28, 2014 at 8:58 pm
with his gratitude of words…
gratitude has its origins as a distinct emotion. Typically, the feeling lasts for only a few seconds, as a recognition of the intentional, beneficial actions of others.
Gratitude is a personality trait, a mood, and an emotion.
it is argued that gratitude/appreciation, a central theoretical concept in many contemporary approaches to competence, has important emotive components that are seldom sufficiently recognized or acknowledged.
I want to take the time out and recognize and acknowledge I believe WTKTT has emotions…and has shown them here.
Happiest New Years…it is such great year… 🙂
Hmmmmm, whenever a machine that has been programmed to say, “Thank you” to me, actually says “Thank you” to me, I don’t take it personal or attribute that automatic response as human emotions being present in that machine.
Nor am I saying WTKTT is always right in his analysis, sometimes it’s a case of garbage in…garbage out, other times it is probably just a flawed or incomplete programming that doesn’t account for some variables.
IBM’s Deep Blue finally beat reigning World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, but it didn’t happen until the mid 90’s. And the good Lord knows our task of sorting out the truth of the Yarnell Hill Fire is harder than beating Kasparov because there are so many layers of lies, deceit, and obfuscation by almost everyone.
But…WTKTT does a pretty good job (unlike me) in keeping the normal human emotion dips out of his work on behalf of an ungrateful wildland firefighting community. Emotions like anger, grief, revenge, pettiness, and even happiness. It’s all pretty much matter of fact…or “Just the facts ma’am” as Dective Sergeant Joe Friday always says.
And I expect to get extra debate points for all of the Pop Culture references and obscure facts that I manage to include with my posts. It makes them more interesting…don’t you think?
Rocksteady, welcome to the Banned by Richard Cranium Bill club. Have you noticed there is no substantive Wildfire Today mission statement or real poster or Author Guidelines?
He banned me long ago for anything that was at all controversial, especially if it had to do with the YH Fire and the GMHS.
Gary O- come on now—“honey hush”—that’s rough—I see Bill in a different way and no I do not have my head up my ass or my head so high up in the skies nor am I glazed above the Northern Lights…I appreciate his site and the energy to keep it going and again HIS site so who cares if it is not a freedom to share like here…I do not care….I doubt Bill ever reads here even if he was led here…I would think he would think why waste the energy or feed into it— you all feel the way you do and that’s it….just like John MacLean feels how he does and how irrelevant the hikers were June 30 2013 and that we “oh my” took photos and the way he said it made it sound off like we were ordered off the mountain…we were not just that specific area so they can drop slurry drop…but he made it seem like a wrong versus being proud that we historically showed the placement of terrain and vehicle and people and that red flags me as strange too because in the end John MacLean will see how relevant I become to that tragedy thanks to his recent encouragement. I have already set in motion some areas to come to commercial fruition….and I will give him all the credit….but never in this do I have any ill thought or action for anyone…this is a tough journey…my only focus is to keep pushing facts and TRUTHS to the forefront…never will change…
MY REPLY IS IN CAPS THROUGHOUT AND BOLD BUT NOT MEANT TO MAKE STATEMENT JUST SO YOU KNOW WHO IS WHO
Robert the Second says
DECEMBER 22, 2017 AT 2:47 PM
Rocksteady, welcome to the Banned by Richard Cranium Bill club. Have you noticed there is no substantive Wildfire Today mission statement or real poster or Author Guidelines? I DID REMEMBER HE USE TO HAVE A BIO PAGE ON THERE AND SO MAYBE IT IS GOING THROUGH CHANGES. WHATEVER THE CASE IS PLACE YOURSELF RTS WHO KNOWS ALL KINDS OF FOLKS IN THE INDUSTRY AND YOU STARTED YOUR OWN WILDFIRE WEBSITE NOT HERE ON IM AND YOU STARTED TO SEE ME ON YOUR SITE WRITING WHATEVER I WANTED…I CAN GUARANTEE YOU IF I HAD A SITE I WOULD NOT ALLOW ME ON THERE AT FREE WILL BECAUSE I RAMBLE (sigh)…I WOULD EMAIL MY EXPECTATIONS FOR ME AND EXPECT IT TO BE SUCH WAY SO CLARITY IS SHOWN VERSUS CIRCLE TALKS OR WHATEVER THE CRAP I DO. (woo hoo) I CAN GO OFF ON TOPICS LIKE POPCORN AND ALL KINDS THAT HAVE ZIP TO DO WITH YHF BUT YARNELL DID FACE ANOTHER FIRE LAST NIGHT…THE PURDUE FAMILY LOST THEIR HOME….SONNY AND I HELPED THEM MOVE THERE INTO THE HOME JULY 2013 SO IT WAS SAD TO HEAR THIS NEWS ON SUCH A VERY COLD NIGHT….THEY HAD SOMEONE ON THE SCANNER TALKING (FF) CHAOTIC AND JIBBERISH AND NOT COHERENT AND LOCALS WERE LIKE ????? WHAT’S GOING ON ???? (RIGHT NEAR MANZANITA….22860 S Lakewood Dr-.82 ACRES…GONE FOREVER THE HOME…THESE FOLKS IN THEIR 70S DISPLACED RIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS…SEND THEM YOUR PRAYERS TO PO BOX 335 YARNELL AZ 85362) BUT INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW CAN A LOCAL ASK FOR RADIO TRANSMISSIONS THEY HEAR ON THE SCANNER- IS THEIR A TRANSCRIPT OR JUST AS YOU HEAR IT- THAT WAS IT…NO FIGURING OUT WHAT CHAOS HAPPENED????…THEN I SADLY HAVE TO REPORT YET AGAIN ANOTHER DEATH…REMEMBER THOMPSON WHO WAS CRIMINALLY CHARGED FOR THE BURN BARREL THIS SUMMER…WHAT A MESS FOR HIM…AND DURING THIS ARRAIGNMENT MOMENTS…HIS WIFE LEARNED SHE HAD A VERY BAD CANCER SO BAD SHE IS NO LONGER WITH US ANYMORE…I AM GLAD I AM ONE OF THE LAST ONES TO GET ONE OF HER BEAUTIFUL SNAIL MAIL LETTERS OF HOW SHE WAS GLAD THE 2 OF THEM SPENT MORE TIME TOGETHER TRAVELLING…NICE…YEAH I DO RAMBLE BUT IN THOSE RAMBLES USUALLY HAVE A WORD OR 2 THAT HAVE ANY MEANING…USUALLY :;
He banned me long ago for anything that was at all controversial, especially if it had to do with the YH Fire and the GMHS. I UNDERSTAND HIS POINTS THERE— IT IS HIS PAGE AND WOULD YOU RTS ALLOW ANYTHING ON YOUR PAGE IF YOU HAD ONE? I KNOW I WOULD NOT HAVE ONE SO FREE LIKE IM…JUST FOR AN EXAMPLE…I POSTED MY VLOG BECAUSE MY VLOG IS INCOMING STUFF AND SO I SET IT TO PRIVATE RECENTLY BASED ON INCOMING STUFF WE HAD SO I FIGURED THE WORLD DOES NOT NEED TO KNOW THAT BUT MY BROTHERS AND FAMILY CAN OR THE WEEK I SPENT TIME WITH SOMEONE SONNY KNEW GROWING UP AND THEY DID NOT WANT ME SHARING OUR VISIT SO THAT ONE IS PRIVATE BUT NONE OF THEM ARE ON PRIVATE BECAUSE I WANT IT PRIVATE IT WAS USUALLY TO RESPECT ANOTHER EITHER FROM HERE OR A GMHS LOVED ONE…BUT I DO PREFER TO JUST SAY IT ALL BUT I KNOW SOME AREAS SOME PREFER TO KEEP PRIVATE AND BACK CHANNELED AND THROUGHOUT THIS I CANNOT TELL YOU THE MANY PEOPLE I HAVE GIVEN THE REAL NAMES YET ARE AVATARS AND THEY WILL GO TO MY GRAVE AS JUST AN AVATAR AND I RESPECT THEM AND THEIR PART IN THIS SO YES AT TIMES I DO BELIEVE IT SHOULD BE WITH GUIDELINES AND I THINK IT DOES STATE IT SOMEWHERE BUT I DO NOT THINK ALL OF YOU ARE BANNED JUST MAYBE SOME CONTENT…YOU ALL HAVE THE RIGHT TO FEEL AS YOU DO BECAUSE YOU HAVE ALOT OF YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY BUT MAYBE BILL GABBERT CAN BACK CHANNEL YOU ALL WHERE HE DOES NOT SEE IT FITTING INTO THE SITE AND WHY OR MAYBE HE IS BUSY DOING WHAT RETIRED FOLKS DO AND DOES NOT WANT TO SPEND SO MUCH ENERGY ON YHF AND STUFF WHEN HE SEES HOW IT IS ROLLING WITH NARRATIVE FICTIONAL BOOKS THEN THE MOVIE…I WAS GLAD WHEN DONUT WAS ASKED ABOUT THE RATTLER SCENE- I WANTED THAT TO BE SHOWN SO PEOPLE “AWAKE” SAW THERE IS MANY AREAS THAT MOVIE HAD FACTUAL ERRORS—HAS ANYONE AND I ASK SERIOUS TAKING THE TIME OUT OF YOUR LIFE TO FACT CHECK AND SEE THE SURVIVOR’S DONUT’S BACKGROUND AND WHEN AND IF HE GRADUATED AS HE STATED IN BOOK AND MOVIE—HOW MANY CERTIFICATIONS DOES DONUT HAVE LAYING IN HIS FILE? (IF ANY?) HOW MANY OF YOU PERSONALLY HAVE IN HAND THE PAYROLL RECORDS OR ANYTHING TO FACT CHECK WHAT IS BEING FED OUT…SPEND LESS TIME DOGGING ONE OF YOUR OWN IN THE INDUSTRY AND BE GRACIOUS WE ALL HAVE A PLACE LIKE INVESTIGATIVEMEDIA TO SHOW GEORGE CARLIN HE WAS WRONG WHEN HE SAID HE LOVES AMERICA – WHERE THE FREEDOMS USE TO BE BECAUSE JOHN DOUGHERTY LETS US ALL SPEAK OUR WAY AND DOES NOT SAY I DO NOT LIKE YOUR STYLE AND OFF YOU GO—HE DOES TAKE AND REMOVE FOLKS WHO HAVE HASSLED HERE BUT AS WELL BEHIND THE SCENES AND THOSE WERE VERY FEW IF ANY…SO TAKE TIME OUT AND DONATE TO JOHN TO SHOW YOUR APPRECIATIONS FOR YOUR FREEDOMS HERE…
Bill Gabbert is without a doubt a real douchebag and an embarrassment to all former hotshots, even R-5 hotshots and the fabled Oak Grove Hotshots. I think he should be banned for life from ever telling anyone he was a hotshot. I however, am very proud of the fact that I never gave him a chance to ban me, because I never thought his blog was worth any of my time. I learned a long time ago, you should never cast your pearls before swine.
In case anybody is wondering what I am doing this weekend other than watching movies half the night and napping half the day….I am working on a MOAP as a rebuttal to my old friend RTS.
I am however….taking my time because like many of our discussions, the best methodology for running a hotshot crew has really taken on an inevitable pattern of circular arguments. In fact, other than RTS and I disagreeing on whether he and his crew were shirkers on the Murdock Basin Fire of 1988 high up in the Wasatch Mountains and we had to pick up their slack, our disagreement on this subject is probably first on the list.
I do think however, it is worth spending some time on because the answer to this question is THE underlying reason why a hotshot crew marched in front of a firestorm of Biblical proportions. I am just hoping I don’t get distracted…again.
In the meantime, here is a YouTube video from one of the best movies ever made (that I was recently reminded of) just make you smile. And if we don’t communicate before Christmas….I want to wish all of the participants here a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzsNh3-FnHQ
OK…I get two links so here is one more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncbEucjsNFU
Like I said…I’m more the Big Joe type.
The RTS comment I am struggling to respond to is here;
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-473351
Oh…and one more thing. Speaking of douchebags, wayyyyy downstream, I told WTKTT that I thought the hotshot crew in the movie about Granite Mountains, called Granite Mountain “douchebads”, instead of what he thought they called them.. We were both wrong…after watching the movie I heard them call the crew, “deuces”, which must be a slur based on the fact they were a Type II crew instead of a Type IA?
I personally never heard that slur used during back in the day, but we established a long time ago that my hotshot experience differs quite a bit (I started off saying I thought it was pretty much the same) from what is happening today.
What do you think RTS…is Big Joe a “participatory leader” or a “directive leader”?
Joy…I give up, why did you need to know if I speak Chinese?
Whoops,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQM9JSux3Ew&index=42&list=PLXZ9rVmNvNrqHhE2VWVhb9rjcCNfBceXy
OK…just one more, I hope.
I found a clip of how a hotshot crew that is run in a “participation leadership” style looks like on R&R.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwqxrY59RqE
Full Disclosure
None of my comments are intended to disparage, sully, or otherwise cast a shadow on the vaulted reputation of RTS or the storied Payson Hotshots. After all, they did have the coolest hardhats in the nation, nay I say…the world!
Sgt. Oddball and his boys could be all business when there was work to be done!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC4lVoCFZvk
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> I found a clip of how a hotshot crew that is run
>> in a “participation leadership” style looks like on R&R.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwqxrY59RqE
He is SO PROUD when he says…
“These are my boys!”
Hilarious.
Gary,
I think Big Joe would be a “directive leader’ because that’s all he seems to know, however, he might work out to be a good “participatory leader” with time and experience and challenges.
Smooth seas don’t make good sailors. African or Chinese proverb depending on Internet hit
by the time your book is published it is possible you might want it to be written in Chinese is all 😉 soft giggles
With Donald Trump as our President, I should write it using Cyrillic script. With him running the country, Russian is probably the language of the future.
Reply to Gary Olson post on December 22, 2017 at 9:42 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>>
>> Oh…and one more thing. Speaking of douchebags,
>> wayyyyy downstream, I told WTKTT that I thought the
>> hotshot crew in the movie about Granite Mountains,
>> called Granite Mountain “douchebags”, instead of what
>> he thought they called them..
>>
>> We were both wrong…
>>
>> after watching the movie I heard them call the crew,
>> “deuces”, which must be a slur based on the fact they
>> were a Type II crew instead of a Type IA?
Yes… we were both wrong.
The actor playing Eric Marsh ( Josh Brolin ), wasn’t insulting his own crew by calling them “losers” and/or “douches”.
The insult he was using was, in fact, the word “deucers” ( as in… just a lowly Type 2 crew ).
The word they put in Marsh/Brolin’s mouth could have been ‘carrots’ and the point I made previously about all this still stands.
At that point in the movie… the script writers needed to showthat THEIR ‘Eric Marsh’ felt like just being a lowly Type 2 crew was like being the dirt beneath the feet of the illustrious, glorious, super-duper ‘Type 1’ crews.
For the 2 hour movie plot to make sense… the screenwriter(s) decided that movie-goers had to be made to believe that Type 2 crews were, essentially, worthless.
And it worked. People left the theaters believing that.
Even the line out of Marsh/Brolin’s mouth about how his lowly, Type 2 crew (quote) “won’t even be able to set foot on the fireline” was complete and total horseshit… but helped to drive THEIR little fillum along.
For a movie that said it was supposed to be ‘honoring’ ALL Wildland Firefighters, they still found a way to INSULT the thousands and thousands of brave, ass-busting men and women on Type 2 crews all over the nation just to push their own 2-hour plotline along.
Shame on them.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> I personally never heard that slur used during back in the day,
>> but we established a long time ago that my hotshot experience
>> differs quite a bit (I started off saying I thought it was
>> pretty much the same) from what is happening now.
Someone ( anyone? ) correct me if I am wrong… but I don’t think anyone is actually using that phrase today, either.
I think that was just something screenwriter Ken Nolan ( who also wrote the script for the military movie Blackhawk Down ) ‘made up’ just for the movie.
The only thing in any Dictionary ( Regular, Slang or Urban ) about ‘deucers’ would be stuff like the following…
1. Someone who weighs over 200 pounds.
2. A double-shot of hard alcohol.
3. Going to the bathroom for a ‘number 2’ versus a ‘number 1’.
4. Hitting a baseball really, really hard.
5. Getting arrested for a DUI / DWI.
6. A two dollar bill.
Yada, yada.
Nothing about it being commonly used by any organization to refer to the status level of any kind of ‘crew’ or ‘unit’.
Scriptwriter Ken Nolan just needed a quick derogatory phrase for ‘Type 2’ Wildland Crews… and seems to have just made up the slur ‘deucers’ for the movie.
In his first ADOSH interview, Darrell Willis was asked to give a brief synopsis of how the original Prescott ‘Crew 7′ Fuels Crew ( local work only ) turned into ( first ) a Type 2 crew… and then ( later ) into a Type 1 crew.
Willis’ says it was simply all about proving that the ‘business model’ could work, and that the crew could PAY for itself.
The way Willis describes it ( to the ADOSH investigators ), is that once they proved being a Type 2 crew could end up ‘making a little money’… then the decision to go for Type 1 status was just a “What the heck” next step to the better MONEY that can be made being a Type 1 crew.
Nothing ‘heroic’.
Nothing about it being anyone’s ‘dream’.
Nothing about any dissatisfaction about just being a Type 2 crew ( ‘deucers’ ).
It was just a logical ‘Why not try it’ BUSINESS decision.
A way to make MORE MONEY and keep the program paying for itself.
From ADOSH’s first sit-down interview with Darrell Willis on August 19, 2013
PDF page 38 ( of 62 pages )…
Q1 = Barry Hicks, ADOSH investigator
A: Darrell Willis, Prescott Wildland Division Chief
————————————————————————————
A: And so Eric came to work for us a full-time employee and we talked about it and we got to the Type 2 IA level, uh, and we were able to prove the business model worked. We could make a little money, we weren’t gouging people. Under the National contract for, uh – we were charging less than the National Type 2 IA crews. We said, “Well, gosh, we got – we got full-time employees, we got this, we’ve got equipment. Why don’t we go to the next step?”
Q1: Mm-hm.
A: – take it to the Type 1 status. We had the full time employees, we – we met everything and so we did a – a year of, uh, training as a training crew in 2007. Had three s- different superintendents go along with us on, uh…
Q1: Who – who were those?
A: Jeff Andrew was one. Uh, he’s with Prescott.
Q1: Uh-huh.
A: Um, I’m trying to think who the other guy was. There was two others, and I can’t remember the other two. But they…
Q1: So they essentially went on assignments with them and – and signed off…
A: Just watched them.
Q1: Signed off on their task books as accomplishing all the things their…
A: The Interagency Hotshot Crew has a standard – uh, guidelines. And they have to be evaluated in these certain areas, and they did those evaluations.
Q1: Oh, okay.
————————————————————————————–
Followup…
Notice in Darrell Willis’ summary above ( to the ADOSH investigators ), that he never mentions Duane Steinbrink… Prescott’s FIRST Wildland Division Chief.
Regarding the MOVIE that was made… there has always been ( and still remains ) a lot of confusion about the ROLE these TWO men played ( Steinbrink and Willis ) in the creation of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
At no time in the movie is there ever any mention of anyone named Darrell Willis.
At no time ( in any of his ADOSH interviews ) does Darell Willis EVER mention anyone named Duane Steinbrink.
In his ADOSH interviews… Darrell Willis takes COMPLETE credit for the creation of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and makes it sound like every decision to move ‘up the ladder’ from a local Fuels Crew, to a self-sustaining Type 2 job-out crew… to ( finally ) a high-dollar Type 1 Crew was the result of ;decisions; being made by JUST him and Eric Marsh.
In the MOVIE…. the opposite is true.
The MOVIE contends that this ;up the ladder’ movement was ONLY the result of decisions being made by someone named Duane Steinbrink in conjunction with Eric Marsh.
Darrell Willis was the top-level Prescott Fire Chief when HE ( Willis ) decided to create the position of ‘Wildland Division Chief’ in the Prescott Fire Department… and it was Willis himself who ‘hired; Steinbrink to be Prescott;s FIRST Wildland Division Chief.
Whatever organizational decisions Duane Steinbrink was making as that FIRST Wildland Division Chief still had to pass muster with his BOSS… Darrell Willis.
The MOVIE goes nowhere near that reality.
I still think the reason there is absolutely NO mention of anyone named Darrell Willis iin the MOVIE is because Willis himself probably REFUSED permission early on for his ;name; and.or ‘likeness’ to be used, in any way, shape or form, in this blatant commercialization of the Yarnell tragedy.
As for Willis himself choosing to NEVER mention the name ;Duane Steinbrink’ in ANY of his various interviews… I think that was Darrell Willis simply just trying to keep Steinbrink ;out of it and spare HIM from being dragged in for any post-tragedy interviews.
Duane Steinbrink SHOULD have been officially ‘interviewed’ by both the SAIT and by ADOSH investigators.
He never was.
The term “Duece” to refer to a Type 2 Crew is common and has been in certain circles for several years now.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on
December 23, 2017 at 11:27 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> The term “Duece” to refer to a Type 2 Crew is common
>> and has been in certain circles for several years now.
Thank you.
So perhaps screenwriter Ken Nolan had access to these ‘certain circles’ and didn’t make that up after all.
Just curious… what ( exactly ) do you mean by :”certain circles”?
Only certain regions and/or certain parts of the country?
Only ‘management circles’?
Something else?
The screenwriter was definitely not making it up
Only within the Western US WF and no ‘management circles that I am aware of.
Thanks again.
Gary said:In case anybody is wondering what I am doing this weekend other than watching movies half the night and napping half the day….I am working on a MOAP as a rebuttal to my old friend RTS.
any good movies worth watching?
**
** R.I.P. CORY IVERSON – UPDATE
**
** HE WAS ALONE WHEN HE MADE HIS OWN MAYDAY CALL
The wagons have fully circled regarding the death of Cory Iverson at the Thomas Fire.
Officials are still not releasing ANY details of the circumstances surrounding his death.
Not even to his family ( except for one detail… see below ).
But at least two things have ( apparently ) been confirmed.
1. Autopsy results say Cory Iverson died from “thermal injuries ( burns ) and smoke inhalation”.,
2. Cory Iverson himself was the one who sent out his own MAYDAY call that morning before he died… and he was ALONE when he did so.
Unlike their wildland-only firefighter counterparts… these HYBRID wildland firefighters from municipal fire departments ARE, in fact, fully trained and rehearsed on how to make a proper MAYDAY call if/when they need to.
The ’cause of death’ from the autopsy results first appeared in the LA Times.
The confirmation about the MAYDAY call ( that it was Iverson himself sending it ) comes from the mother of Iverson’s widow, Ashlee…..
KSBW – Channel 8 – Salinas, California
Article Title: Wife of fire engineer killed in Thomas Fire is from Carmel Valley
http://www.ksbw.com/article/wife-of-fire-engineer-killed-in-thomas-fire-is-from-carmel-valley/14443052
———————————————————————————————————
Cory Iverson was married to Ashlee Iverson.
Ashlee’s mother Gwen Urgo. “I never thought something like this could happen,” she said. The family is “doing the best we can,” Urgo told KSBW Action News 8.
Cory Iverson was an engineer with a state engine strike team based in San Diego. He had been with the state since 2009.
“All we’ve heard is that he sent out a mayday and he was alone,” Urgo says.
Fire Chief Ken Pimlott of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection has not provided any details about the death but said it was under investigation by an accident review team.
———————————————————————————————————
This statement from deceased firefighter Cory Iverson’s mother-in-law sort of ‘jumped off the page’…
Ashlee Iverson’s mother, Gwen Urgo, said…
“I never thought something like this could happen,”
Seriously? Never?
That statement represents quite a ‘disconnect’.
What did she think he was doing when he went to work?… even during the seven years he spent working for the Elfin Forest ./ Harmony Grove Fire department?
Just washing and polishing the engines?
Given the quantity, size and ferocity of the wildfires this season ( especially in California )… it’s a miracle even MORE firefighters haven’t been killed.
Agreed there.
How many READ INSTRUCTIONS when you buy an item?
Does it DEPEND on THE ITEM?
I think you do Gary- I think you read the instructions plus the ones in other languages.
and there was a family member who use to tell me he wished women especially me came with instructions and at age 6 I would say to him why bother- what man really reads instructions….and what lady is meant to be understood….
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8b/5c/e7/8b5ce7febcb0c4b435ce03869164cf91–writing-humor-writing-tips.jpg
Elephant in the room is an English-language metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk that no one wants to discuss, or a condition of groupthink that no one wants to challenge.
I do want to challenge the DNA of the fire industry but over time I see only select few who even get WHY I desire such…over time I became to understand that some rather think of me as a slinky…”I don’t do very much and quite useless but throw me down some stairs and see them smile and be entertained…” just like a slinky offers-
At least I am not the Armenian man who seen 2987 already or Andrew Basiago….I do not even give a crap if one reads or listens to me but I did hope my photos told the true story but then there is John MacLean and that taught me different..that my photos can tell someone else’s story that has factual errors as it was presented…
I am proud to state the Arizona Attorney General just funded me today some monies so I will be turning some areas into commercial foias and I thank them for the large amount of cash on a settlement that was reached… now that was the best Christmas gift ever…
Feliz Navidad….Geseënde Kersfees….
Christmas Mubarak (کرسمس مبارک)….. Eid Milad Majid (عيد ميلاد مجيد)…
Vrolijk Kerstfeest… Frohe Weihnachten
for you Gary….Sheng Dan Kuai Le (圣诞快乐)
Mele Kalikimaka
Keshmish ya’at’eeh
Quite fitting for your terrain
Navajo
I sure love the Chinle Spider Rock indigenous folks…learned A lot about life from them.
Dine bizaad bihoosh’aah.. Do hozho diist’ada ndi bihoosh’aah.
Diné bizaad doo shił bééhózin da
tôi không thực sự nói tiếng việt
ຂ້ອຍບໍ່ເວົ້າພາສາລາວ
Kuv tsis tshua hais lus Hmoob
我不會說中文，但是謝謝你，聖誕快樂
**
** R.I.P. COREY IVERSON
Not many details yet… but ( apparently ) some similarities to Yarnell.
1. Working in steep terrain with ‘draws’ and ‘canyons’.
2. Sudden weather change / wind shift.
3. Crew unable to reach a safety zone.
4. Crew was then ‘overrun by the blaze’.
But ( unlike Yarnell and the Granite Mountain Hotshots ), at least someone knew how to make an actual MAYDAY call.
BBC NEWS
Article Title: California firefighter dies as Thomas blaze rages
Published: December 14, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42361964
———————————————————————————————————-
A California firefighter has been killed by a wildfire burning across Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.
Fire chief Ken Pimlott said the victim was apparatus engineer Cory Iverson, 32, a father-of-one whose wife is pregnant with a second child.
Iverson was part of a crew battling the Thomas Fire, one of six major blazes currently raging in the state.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire) did not give out any more details about Iverson’s death, but it followed reports earlier in the day of a fire unit being overrun by the blaze near the town of Fillmore.
Radio traffic between firefighters and their controllers on Thursday morning gave a glimpse of the terrifying reality of tackling this monster blaze.
“Fire is coming right at you,” said one message as units in the Fillmore area on the far eastern edge of the wildfire were ordered to pull back.
The weather had apparently changed suddenly, posing a threat to the lives of the firefighters in the area.
There were reports of a MAYDAY call
A rescue helicopter was scrambled and controllers attempted to contact a firefighter who was said to be “down” in the area.
The confirmation that a fire engineer had died came quickly. The man’s family have been told of his death.
———————————————————————————————————-
Other articles put the actual time the MAYDAY call went out at 9:30 AM, Thursday morning.
Just a few days ago ( in response to Diane Lomas’ question about whether ‘Breaking in on Arizona 16’ constitutes an actual ‘Mayday call’ ) I said the following…
———————————————————————————————————-
Following the settlement of the 12 Yarnell wrongful-death lawsuits… Arizona Forestry ‘blew off’ any requests from the family members to implement any kind of ’emergency radio protocol’.
There would be NO official ‘recommendation’ to finally implement any standard emergency ‘Mayday’ radio procedure ( or its equivalent ) in the world of wildland firefighting, even though 19 lives were lost at the Yarnell Hill Fire and we can HEAR them being unable to properly declare their own life threatening situation.
So… to this day… ( and even right now in California ) you have structural firefighters ( who are also trained to participate in wildland firefighting ) battling fires in the Wildland Urban Interface right alongside regular wildland firefighters…
…but while the ‘structural’ FFs are all fully trained in the use of the ‘Mayday’ radio protocol… their ‘wildland firefighter’ counterparts STILL haven’t been instructed or trained on how to issue a ‘Mayday’ call because both State and Federal Wildland Firefighting managers still all have their collective heads firmly embedded in their collective asses.
———————————————————————————————————–
**
** MAYDAY CALL CONFIRMED
Daily News
Article Title: Firefighter killed while battling Thomas fire identified as San Diego CalFire engineer
Published: December 14, 2017 at 10:46 am
Updated:: December 14, 2017 at 5:03 pm
http://www.dailynews.com/2017/12/14/firefighter-sounds-mayday-alert-as-thomas-fire-rages/
—————————————————————————————————–
Firefighter sounds MAYDAY alert as Thomas Fire Rages
A firefighter from San Diego has died while battling the Thomas fire in the Fillmore area of Ventura County, officials said Thursday, Dec. 14.
The firefighter, identified as Cory Iverson, was an engineer for Cal Fire based in San Diego, officials said. Authorities have not yet released details on how the accident occurred.
Earlier in the day, officials confirmed a firefighter sounded a “mayday” alert while working the fire…
“Something did happen,” said Cal Fire deputy chief Scott McLean just before noon. “We’re trying to gather information as we speak … we’re in the fact-finding phase at the moment.”
A mayday call “means a firefighter is in trouble,” McLean added.
“It’s a very fluid situation,” McLean said.
The Ventura County Fire Department confirmed the “mayday” call earlier Thursday.
Unconfirmed reports suggested the firefighter had been working in the 1700 block of Grand Avenue in the city of Fillmore.
Kuredjian added that “our helicopter was dispatched to assist.”
—————————————————————————————————-
thank you wtktt
https://sofrep.com/81884/army-marine-corps-want-big-changes-infantry-arsenals-congress-seems-board/
Gee whiz Joy, I guess the military should hire you!
Gary, its not the military that should hire me…its everyone.
Im no expert
but I do believe if I pull my trigger
which is engraved LOVE GOD…
one connected shot should keep them down for good
not 3 or 4 shots.
That’s why its the future… 6.5 mm Grendel
God Bless the 2nd Amendment
And our troops especially our snipers…
Thank you for taking the time to understand me. Now I hope we can get back to YHF.
Who is Eric Conrad Jackson? My scrumpled up napkin I tossed but had this chicken scratched on it… napkin says Conrad. Besides US Forestry wff 7 years…Science Teacher 8 years…PFD ff…UofA 88 to 93 (biology)…what’s the tie to Timberline foods and is that a food line for the fire industry…did he ever live in Tucson in the 90s…he just sounds so familiar…but I have so many napkins over time that when we were at events I would overhear folks talking yhf and very early on this man was mentioned and always wondered what was his tie in this whole dealio and to Brendan…Diane Lomas learned with Paul that going direct has not always been easy in this…so I always have his name on hmmm anyone know anything about why someone was talking about him tied to yhf? It could of been a simple thing but I always had gut to research more…so I would not know where to begin because isn’t PFD just structural or all the entities now becoming both wildland and structural even PFD?
That procedure fits into my definition of switching out parts. If I wanted to shoot a 6.5 Grendel, I would just buy a rifle that shoots that caliber because by the time you buy the the entire upper, you could almost buy a complete rifle. And then you would have two rifles, one as a backup.
But all of that is a moot point anyway, the point is, our world turns on the 5.56 and 7.62 NATO rounds. And until the 6.5 Grendel is adopted by the U.S. military and NATO, you will be better off investing in standard rifles that shoot either 5.56 or 7.62, rather than waste limited resources on an intermediate cartridge.
And even after that happens, you are still going to be better off with the 5.56 or 7.62 because once you are no longer competing with the military, those guns and bulk ammo will be even cheaper because most people will be chasing the latest and greatest…the 6.65 Grendel.
Because like I already wrote. If I am ever facing a problem that can’t be solved with a 5.56, a 7.62 or a 12 gauge slug/00 buck, I am going to pull up my pants and go home anyway because for me…that party will be over anyway.
Here is the bottom line, but I don’t expect you to buy it because you are…stubborn You don’t like being in a box and you color outside the lines. I don’t…or at least I prefer not to.
“Proponents assert that the Grendel is a middle ground between the 5.56×45mm NATO and the 7.62×51mm NATO. It retains greater terminal energy at extended ranges than either of these cartridges due to its higher ballistic coefficient.[2] For example, the 123 gr (8.0 g) 6.5 Grendel has more energy and better armor penetration at 1,000 meters than the larger and heavier 147 gr (9.5 g) M80 7.62 NATO round.
In order to obtain ballistics that are superior to the 7.62×51mm cartridge, a weapon with a longer barrel and firing a heavier bullet is necessary. To achieve the same results from shorter length barrels, even heavier bullets are needed.”
and
SERBIA is in process of adopting a rifle made by ZASTAVA ARMS [16] in 6.5 mm Grendel caliber as main armament for its armed forces. USA manufactured rifle in 6.5mm Grendel caliber will also be adopted in armament for special forces units after it passes testing in Technical Testing Center. Three types of 6.5mm Grendel ammunition produced by PRIRVI PARTIZAN UZICE SERBIA will be tested for use with these rifles.
I’m pretty sure SERBIA isn’t even a member of NATO. So…I’m going to stick with Sig Sauer 5.56 and 7.62 since I have moved up form Colt.
https://www.sigsauer.com/products/firearms/rifles/
I will however, pass along what you have written to the Pentagon. And I do admire your enthusiasm for experimentation and thinking outside the box, I just don’t want to emulate it.
Oh…and one more thing.
The reason I am so critical on John Mclean, other than he made fun of Joy and Sonny…is because he has swallowed the hook, line and sinker in addition to drinking the Cool Aid from the agencies, the Yavapai County WF Cosa Nostra and Mrs. Lohman and her posse by blaming the deaths of the crew on the lie that the crew left the black willingly so they could reengage the fire. Which is BULLSHIT!
The discussion between Marsh and Steed was all about Marsh ordering them to beat the fire to the ranch so Marsh could save the Wildland Fire Division and the crew from the City of Prescott’s budget ax. There was going to be plenty of good work a hotshot crew could safely do if they would have waited another 30 minutes and they could have hiked all of the way down in the black. That nasty type of fuel burns hot and fast, but it doesn’t stay hot for very long.
It is obvious to me the crew did not want to go down by their reaction to the discussion. That was not a hotshot crew who was willingly following those orders. The scowls on their faces and the one guy spitting in disgust tells me everything I need to know.
In addition to that, I have information that I believe to be true, that Captain Steed refused to follow Marsh’s orders at least two times and only acquiesced on the third time.
I believe the Steed was ordered to take the crew down the chute against everyone’s better judgement and in violation of almost all of the WF rules and guidelines in addition to common sense becasue Marsh had flagged that route when he went down.
So…fuck Maclean and his posse.
And as a reminder, I still think the reason Marsh miscalculated the crew’s descent time was because he based it on his time, either forgetting or not taking into account that for every second he lost due an obstacle, the crew lost more than 19 seconds.
That adds up to some real minutes after a few delay’s due to what I have called the “accordion effect” of how a hotshot crew hikes through rough terrain in single file.
But Steed and the crew knew that there was an unacceptable chance Marsh was ordering them to their deaths. And they didn’t go due to either Group Think or the Abilene Paradox. They went because that is what hotshots do…they follow their crew boss, which like I have written several times, has always worked out except for three shifts in the history of hotshot crews.
Maclean is also full of shit comparing comparing Mann Gulch to South Canyon and trying to come up with an acronym that has anything about structures or houses in it.
There weren’t any structures on the Loop Fire, the Battlement Creek Fire or the South Canyon Fire and those are the only fires that should be compared to the Yarnell Hill Fire.
He isn’t comparing apples to oranges, he is trying to compare fruits to vegetables.
John Maclean is ignorant of hotshot history or what it means to be a hotshot and what makes a hotshot crew…a hotshot crew.
Whoops…I forgot I call it the “Slinky Effect” not the “Accordion Effect.”
And as a preemptive strike against my old friend RTS…there is one thing that he was known for, is known for, and will always be known for.
RTS is different, he is an anomaly, he marches to the sound of a different drum (a Native American drum in his case), he colors outside the lines and thinks outside the box…he is to one of a kind and they broke the mold when they made him. He is to the world of hotshots what Oddball was to Kelly’s Heroes.
Oddball: Hi, man.
Big Joe: What are you doing?
Oddball: I’m drinking wine and eating cheese, and catching some rays, you know.
Big Joe: What’s happening?
Oddball: Well, the tank’s broke and they’re trying to fix it.
Big Joe: Well, then, why the hell aren’t you up there helping them?
Oddball: [chuckles] I only ride ’em, I don’t know what makes ’em work.
Big Joe: Christ!
Oddball: Definitely an antisocial type. Woof, woof, woof! That’s my other dog imitation.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/kellys-heroes-the-best-quotes-ever-we-know-this-is-going-to-make-you-smile.html
And just to be clear, Maclean is ignorant of not only the history of hotshot crews and what that means, he is clueless regarding the culture and the tradition of hotshot crews as well.
As I have written before…all hotshot crews can trace their lineage back to the U.S. Forest Service. There are regional, agency, and even local variations and differences between hotshot crews. But at the core of their culture, ethos, and values…the things that make all hotshot crews stand up, water up, tool up, saddle up, listen up and then hit the fire line can be traced back to the Angeles and Cleveland National Forests in 1947-48.
Go back and review the work history of the key members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew, that crew was built on a U.S. Forest Service foundation even more so than many “other” hotshot crews.
Who do you think wrote most if not all of the current standards? As goes the U.S. Forest Service…so goes the wildland firefighting community. They are always the 800 pound silver back Mountain Gorilla in the meeting.
The U.S. Forest Service respects and values all of their partners…but they set the standards that every other agency follows and seeks to emulate. Period…end of story.
FYI Joy…for people who think the 5.56 under performs and have lots more money to spend on ammo than I do, I have already mentioned the next great thing that is nicknamed the “5.56 Killer” and that is the 300 Blackout which is explained pretty good here;
https://www.blacksheepwarrior.com/an-argument-for-300-aac-blackout/j
Never mind, that Link isn’t working…just Goggle it, the Internet has lots of articles and videos on it.
Gary,
I agree with almost everything above. I take issue with two things.
1) “And they didn’t go due to either Group Think or the Abilene Paradox. They went because that is what hotshots do…they follow their crew boss, which like I have written several times, has always worked out except for three shifts in the history of hotshot crews.”
It’s not that you’re wrong, I just disagree with you on your reasoning there, because not all HS Crews blinding follow “do what your f**king told to do” orders.
2) The Slinky or Accordian effect generally comes in to play hiking UPHILL.
Like it said,I just disagree with you. It’s a matter of Professional Opinions..
And one more thing, I’m pretty sure you missed this one yesterday.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-473335
And there are SEVERAL research papers coming to the same conclusions.
RTS,
I think the “Slinky Effect” comes into play anytime there is an obstacle in the path that forces the crew line to pause.
I explained this is in great detail way back downstream, when a rock, heavy brush or any other obstacle blocks the path of a hotshot crew hiking up, down or on level ground, it creates a ripple effect through the entire line that is compounded by each and every person in the line.
For example;
If the first person takes five seconds to clear the obstacle…the other 18 all have to wait that 5 seconds before they can proceed. But once the obstacle is cleared, the first person resumes a normal pace. But now 17 are waiting another five seconds for the second person to clear the same obstacle.
Once the second person clears the obstacle, that person resume a normal pace, but they are now their normal safety spacing plus 10 seconds behind the first.
Once the third person clears the obstacle, they resume their normal pace but they are now their normal safety spacing plus 15 seconds behind the second person.
By the time the last person clears the obstacle, they resume their normal pace but they are now their normal safety spacing plus 1 minute and 35 seconds behind the leader.
If they encounter 10 five second obstacle’s without the leader ever stopping and waiting for everyone to catch up, the last person will be their normal spacing plus almost 16 minutes behind the first.
But the leaders of most hotshot crews will pause every few minutes to regain the integrity of the single file crew line, which subsequently results in the slinky effect.
I guess I don’t understand why you think that happens regardless of whether the terrain is up or down? I think that phenomenon is dependent on whether there are any obstacles in their path, not on whether the terrain is up or down?
Thank you for the link, but I don’t normally read things like this;
“… regardless of the gender composition of the groups significantly lower quality decisions arose from groups with a directive rather than a participative leader. … and [their] findings suggest that in terms of decision outcome quality, good leaders encourage open inquiry to yield diverse alternatives for problem solutions.”
…because it makes my head hurt. I’m more of the “Big Joe” kind of guy. So…ask yourself, would Big Joe read that research paper, or would he just say, “Well, then, why don’t you just shut the fuck up and get back to work and leave that kind of thinking to the people who are getting paid to be research brainiacs?”
I am pretty sure I agreed with you a long time ago that although a participative leader style may be be preferred to the directive leader style, that just isn’t how hotshot crews are run.
You lived and operated in what I now understand was an academic and psychological workshop that masqueraded as the Payson Hotshot Crew. I knew the Payson Hotshots to always be a respected crew, so it must have worked out for you.
I think all hotshot crews however, now that you have retired, are based on the “cult of personality” leadership style. Hey…don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t invent that system, or create hotshot crews to function that way, I am merely a product of that system.
I’m sure you knew Van Bateman back in the day. Do you think he was a participative leader or a direct leader? I only mention him because he was always help up as the Gold Standard for a hotshot crew boss on a forest where the entire FIRE program was based on a “cult of personality” around Forest FMO Bill Buck.
That is just the way it was…and the way I think it still is. I’m sure you knew all of the Coconino hotshot crew bosses back in the day. Bob Smith from Blue Ridge, an ex Navy SEAL who had served in Vietnam, Ed Hollenshead who retired as the R-5 Director of Aviation and Fire Management, Biggy, Milford Suida, Mark Zumwalt and we know all to well about the history’s of Gordon King, Tony Czak and Eric Marsh. Which one of those guys do you think was a participative leader as opposed to a directive leader?
I’m not saying you’re wrong…I’m just saying you were unique and one of a kind. I was the standard, run of the mill, cog in the machine type, I took orders and I gave orders and the giant wildland firefighting industrial complex machine made up of people just like me….heaved forward.
Whoops…”I guess I don’t understand why you think that happens IRRESPECTIVE of whether the terrain is up or down?
Although who I used to know really is inconsequential. You must know dozens of current and recently former Hotshot crew bosses. You are in a perfect place to know if a participative or directive leader is the current standard?
You should also know whether or not most, if not all current and recently separated crew bosses ran/run
“Cult of Personality” crews like we know Marsh did?
I would guess that there have been at least some improvements, because there have been dramatic improvements in the professionalization of hotshot crews in recent years as I have written several times?
As you know, things were very different back in the day as far as a very high turnover went, which as I have freely admitted was far more responsible for my dramatic rise through the ranks than my abilities as a hotshot.
But in any case, it is very clear to me that whatever the current situation is…Eric Marsh missed out on those memos and the studies you used. because Marsh ran his crew based on his cult of personality more than even Bill Buck, Famous Amos, or Jeff Denepont, trained me to manage a hotshot crew.
Gary,
Trust me, I am clearly familiar with the Slinky thing.
Most of my experiences with this were when climbing uphill and there were occasions with obstacles in our path, and likely some going downhill at times.
If Big Joe had any brains and was looking to get smarter, he would read the research paper. And if he said: “Well, then, why don’t you just shut the fuck up and get back to work and leave that kind of thinking to the people who are getting paid to be research brainiacs,” then he is following the path towards Groupthink.
There are literally scores of research papers verifying the benefits of a participatory leadership style and opposing the directive style, which leads to taking a Trip to Abilene or Groupthink.
Yes, we did discuss the various leadership styles. And once again, both directive and participative styles occur. I have worked under both leadership styles and chose participative. When I worked for Bob, I thought he was an asshole with his directive leadership.
Not initially, but yes, we lived and operated in a Team Member style of leadership and except for a few minor struggles, it worked fine. You considered it an “academic and psychological workshop that masqueraded as the Payson Hotshot Crew.” You are entitled to your opinion. Yes indeed, the Payson Hotshots were almost always a respected crew by other Crews. Not so much by certain IMT’s where we refused unsafe assignments and such or refused to be “Team Players” and “go along to get along.” That’s Groupthink.
I had to look up the “cult of personality” leadership style. So, no way did we practice that form of leadership and the articles and papers I read spoke out against it as being a poor form of leadership, more like dictatorships and authoritarianism. You say you didn’t invent that system, or create hotshot crews to function that way, and neither did I.
So then, you are saying you are “a product of that system,” a product of this so-called “cult of personality” system?
I absolutely think Van Bateman was a participative leader back in the day. And you may be correct that the Coconino fire program was based on a “cult of personality” around Forest FMO Bill Buck. I don’t know because I never worked for him outside of fire assignments.
Yes, I knew and enjoyed working with Bob Smith from Blue Ridge. Ed Hollenshead and I,never got along after the Dude Fire debacle and ensuing coverups, .The feeling was and still is mutual. I remember Biggy, Milford Suida, and Mark Zumwalt and their leadership style varied with some choosing one style over the other, but definitely not all directive.
I know the history of Gordon King and Tony Czak but never knew them or worked with them personally, so can’t tell you about their leadership styles.
I worked with Crew 7 under various leaders prior to them becoming the GMHS. Marsh and the GMHS only after leaving the Crew in 2007, and certainly heard of his exploits and how others distrusted him. He was most definitely a strongly directive leadership style.
I appreciate the compliments and yes, I was NOT a “go along to get long and don’t rock the boat” Team Player. Yes indeed, I took orders and I gave orders and I also questioned orders and refused orders plenty of times if they were unsafe, illegal, immoral, or unethical. And even several if they were just plain stupid.
Yes indeed, the giant wildland firefighting industrial complex machine was, and still is, made up of people just like you. All Hot Shot Crew Superintendents were ‘created’ by the system that we had to work in so that we could safely mange or Crews, our ultimate responsibility.
The leadership styles of current and former Hotshot crew bosses vary between the numerous leadership styles, including some that are less than acceptable in my view. Many of these young supervisors want to be everyone’s ‘friend’ and that is definitely NOT a good leadership style. And I do not know whether or not most, if not all current and recently separated crew bosses ran/run “Cult of Personality” crews like we know Marsh did. I would tend toward saying no on that.
.
It is very clear to me that he certainly was privy to, and had access to. “those memos,” case studies, fatality and shelter deployment reviews, lessons learned, and much more that we all used. He just never actually heeded and learned the lessons they taught.
They practiced a much different brand of leadership based on their attitude and actions toward securing their Crew vehicles on two other fires, prior to the YH Fire, where other resources had to get involved in order to save them from burning up.
Then you have the classic safety attitude regarding the Fire Orders with McDonough and his comment that at least one of the Fire Orders (#10) was ‘old, it’s hillbilly, and we are smarter than that, much smarter.’ Third year Crewmembers do not come to those conclusions on their own. That had to have been spoken of on a regular basis or he/they were coached.
Gary,
“The greater the perceived social pressure and the greater the perceived control, the more likely will the individual perform the behavior”
(Ajzen, 1985; The Theory of Planned Behavior Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 1991)
Tried answering this down below…haven’t hard time posting so doing it here…on cell
Sports stadiums? I thought they were promising the horizon on the ocean and the beautiful sunsets…so you do not swap parts you just swap the
Complete upper receivers to whatever ammo is available…just 2 pins…the parts are in the upper receiver…swap your 5.56 upper for 6.5 upper or 7.62 x39 upper. Good night…not well tonight.
WTKTT,
Thanks for the post and the details, with more to follow.
According to WF on the Thomas Fire, in the same Division, these guys were part of a contingent firing off a road as the fire was aggressively backing down the hill. Chaparral only backs downhill when fire weather and fire behavior conditions are just right. You can take that hearsay for what it’s worth.
And I think we agreed back when we talked about this before, that the MUNICIPAL Fire Departments always had and used a MAYDAY protocol. It was the WF that needed to adopt and recognize and use it, right?
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on December 15, 2017 at 10:28 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> WTKTT,
>>
>> Thanks for the post and the details, with more to follow.
>>
>> According to WF on the Thomas Fire, in the same Division, these guys were
>> part of a contingent firing off a road as the fire was aggressively backing
>> down the hill. Chaparral only backs downhill when fire weather and fire
>> behavior conditions are just right. You can take that hearsay for
>> what it’s worth.
Copy that. Thank you.
Some articles are reporting that no details will be released until the
Ventura County medical examiner’s office finishes the ( required ) autopsy.
>> RTS also said…
>>
>> And I think we agreed back when we talked about this before, that the
>> MUNICIPAL Fire Departments always had and used a MAYDAY protocol. It was
>> the WF that needed to adopt and recognize and use it, right?
Correct.
It’s been part of municipal/structural firefighter training for decades… but the ongoing problem is that even firefighters who are TRAINED to call a ‘Mayday’ are often reluctant to do so because of the well-ensconced “We are all heroes and we don’t make mistakes’ mentality / culture.
This article was published by ‘Fire Engineering’ a full year before the 19 Granite
Mountain Hotshots died in Yarnell…
Fire Engineering
The Protocol of the Mayday Call
Published: 01/01/2012
http://www.fireengineering.com/articles/print/volume-165/issue-1/departments/real-world-rit/protocol-mayday-call-full.html
From the article…
———————————————————————————–
According to the results of a 2009 survey of 187 firefighters across several Midwestern states, most firefighters felt that their coworkers wouldn’t know when to call a Mayday. Almost half said they would not call a Mayday even if they were in a flashover or a backdraft. The research project, “Human Factors Affecting Mayday Decisions,” asked questions that, although not scientifically developed, were intended to determine how firefighters decide whether to call a Mayday and how comfortable they were with calling one.
One of the research project’s more positive results revealed that about 92 percent of firefighters felt they knew how to call a Mayday; at a minimum, this means that we are doing our jobs with regard to Mayday training. Unfortunately, these same firefighters said they felt only about 50 percent of coworkers know when and how to declare a Mayday. So, although we are training our people, we aren’t making sure that they have faith in each other’s abilities.
Are we so unwilling to admit that firefighters sometimes get in over their heads that we don’t want our people to call for help? Maybe we just aren’t encouraging it because we naively think it will never happen. Maybe we hope that if we never talk about it, it won’t happen. As for being judged, looked down on, or made fun of by your peers for calling a Mayday, get over it. If you are in trouble, call for help.
How will firefighters begin to call for help when they need it? Start by changing your organization’s culture. Support and encourage Mayday training as well as firefighters calling a Mayday when needed. Also, develop a safety culture that eliminates all opposition to Mayday decision making. Reports and logic both indicate that a lack of safety culture contributes to firefighter LODDs. Removing these cultural roadblocks will lead to safer organizational operations. Help everyone to understand when, why, and how to call a Mayday. Have them train on it repeatedly so they won’t get it wrong in a real-life scenario. Once you’ve done that, figure out why your firefighters aren’t calling Maydays. When doing a postincident analysis for an incident where a firefighter should have called a Mayday but did not, talk about it with that firefighter. Find out why he did not call for help, and use this information to train the rest of your firefighters.
———————————————————————————–
I found the research paper/survey titled: “Human Factors Affecting Mayday Decisions” with a subtitle of: “Will they call for help when they need it?”
And it was written by the author (Robert N. Goplin) of your article when he worked for the Green Bay (WI) FD. It’s 76 pages long and details the whole thing.
.https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=695453
John Macleans presentation at the 2016 Wildfire Conference held here in BC last year..
https://vimeo.com/209478600
ok. I dreamnt about you last night (actually I slept 6:51am until 10:56am)
so funny time you show up-
I also dreamnt I was at one of Eric Marsh’s Gala events and this one reporter was telling one of the loved ones something as I clicked “record” and said what about this desert walker character you say and as the reporter went on I saw myself telling the bleachers do not tell points quite yet to the reporter and it became viral all the documented stuff too premature and I about sunk in my world…one of the hardest things for me is knowing data like I do and I wish even John MacLean would invest in some additional data and public records and I am about to watch and reply to this video as I did skim it and felt it was worthy enough to drop some events to the day and reply my humble opinions to the video so funny timing of your post since at 7am I was dreaming of you rocksteady….
Routine Housekeeping & Thoughts For The Day For Joy
1. I do remember reading The Woodsman’s post that included his reference to carrying two drip torches. I believe he was referring to the large and rather heavy drip torches that are typically used for large prescribed fires to emphasize the fact that he would always put himself forward for the most difficult assignments and arduous tasks.
So…if you are asking me if I did the same the answer is…yes. My history as a hotshot speaks for itself. No one is assigned to be a swamper for the sawyer, that is the hardest and most unpleasant job on a hotshot crew. And I was a swamper…enough said.
I yield the floor to RTS, his brother Bob and every other WF who has posted here or anywhere else pertaining to every other WF position and their knowledge of, and experience regarding those jobs.
But…I refuse to take a backseat to anyone regarding being a hotshot. I was never the ideal hotshot because I was too fucking big (as RTS has written, he said Hotshots like me ear too much food, drink too much water and can’t take the heat, which is the truth…so how fucking good do you think I had to be to overcome those prejudices from almost everyone?) or some might say too fucking fat, but my dedication, enthusiasm, and refusal to quit managed to compensate for my shortcomings.
And once again, the reasons I take this position is because I started as the second to the last Shovel on a hotshot crew on the second squad,,which is the least important position on a hotshot crew. And three years later I had volunteered and worked in every other position on a hotshot crew and ending up as the Superintendent.
There are very few people who can say the same thing, and I did it for the love of the job, not because it was a “carrier” move as Bob always says…it wasn’t even a career move for me since I considered my time as a hotshot merely a youthful fling with my WF mistress with my drug of choice…pure adrenaline while I delayed starting my career in law enforcement. Unfortunately…I became an adrenaline junkie in the process and I have been suffering terrible withdrawal symptoms ever since I retired.
For example, if I understand Bob correctly, he started on a hotshot crew as the Number 2 on Oak Grove without ever working as a crewman, much less a sawyer! And then he only did that job for two years as a carrier move before moving on up the foodchain. I am not taking anything away from Bob…I am simply pointing out the differences in our career paths, while wondering how somebody became the Number 2 on a hotshot crew with that history (R5 standards maybe?)
It never would have worked on the Mighty Coconino…of that you can rest assured. The path to a hotshot leadership position on the Coke went right through the hotshot gladiator school of hard knocks.
And…my good friend from the old days RTS never writes about his experiences as a hotshot swamper or sawyer, so I’m assuming he doesn’t have any. Once again…that isn’t intended as a slight, it is just as a reminder of my hotshot resume.
And who can forget my main claim to fame…being the youngest hotshot (Bob tried to take that away from me with Lyn Biddison’s record, but The Woodsman proved him wrong, Lyn went to the highest levels as a fire god, and I was never more than a grunt and a ground pounder, but my record as the youngest hotshot crew boss will never be broken…because Hotshot crew bosses now have to be highly qualified now with many, many years of experience as opposed to how it was in my day…”Hey you…you’re in charge until we can find someone better!”) crew boss in the history of hotshot crews AND the fact that I founded a new hotshot crew from the ground up…with a little help from my friends.
So yes…I always carried 2 drip torches and everything else that needed to be humped up the fucking Mountain. Nowadays it looks like they have little tiny plastic high tech drip torches for pussies (non gender specific) to carry, so carrying a dozen of them wouldn’t be a big deal.
2. As I have written before, you are without a doubt, one of the most naive, hard headed and difficult people I have ever tried to help and you are never going to change, but here is some more good advice anyway.
I agree with you that that FUCKING ASSHOLE wannabe WF John MacLean used you as a “colorful character” and the butt of his presentation jokes to further his career as a WF wannabe and author. He is NOT a nice person or a good person…you should NOT like him, he used you (and Sonny) and then threw you away. Holly and her husband are no different…or at least Holly is as a wannabe WF but never really was.
I don’t know anything about her husband except he used you too…and then threw you away. Quit letting people use you, throwing you under the next bus and then writing about how much you like them and what good people they are.
John Maclean is nothing more than a good author whose main claim to fame is that his father wrote a book about WF and he has used that notoriety to gain access others can’t get to write his own books.
You ask is he an WF EXPERT? FUCK NO! He is a clever parrot who can taught to regurgitate key phrases while he pursues his fraudulent goals of being a recognized WF expert. He is a good and successful AUTHOR…nothing more.
Alister MaClean is a good author as well…but no one is really going to send him on Special Ops or to save the world, but we can enjoy his literary work and his fantasies.
FYI…you can’t sue Maclean or anyone else because you aren’t a wealthy person who has money to burn (about 100 grand to START with) for filing a lawsuit against them, nor can you show any monetary damages because of their libel and slander, which is a key element of that kind of lawsuit. And as far as your emotional distress and psychological damages…who the hell can tell what those are with you, much less put a dollar amount on them. (Just kidding, you know how much I love you).
3. I am tired of two finger typing, so I am going to keep this one short. You asked about what kind of book we can expect from Maclean. We can expect a FICTIONAL one.
Maclean has completely prostituted himself and compromised his objectivity in exchange for access and be allowed into the defensive Wagon Circle of Mrs. whatever the fuck her new name is and her posse, the Yavapai County WF Cosa Nostra (Our Thing) and the YHF disgraced pick up sand lot collection of misfits and used to be’s fire team.
JOHN MACLEAN AND HIS POSSE ARE APOLOGIST FOR THE BIGGEST FUCK UP IN WILDLAND FIREFIGHTING HISTORY! Reading his book on this subject would be a complete waste of time unless you want some well written fiction,
And by the way, I am living proof it is very hard to sue someone for libel and slander…I have been doing everything I can to get somebody to sue me over this bullshit for four years so I can spout off in court, but I can’t get any takers. John Maclean is a fraud, a con artist and a charlatan, in addition to being a phony and a really good bullshit artist. Fuck him and his posse, I would use his book on the YHF to wipe my ass with but I’m not going to spend any money on it. Maybe I will wait and buy one at a charity book fair and then use that one to wipe my ass with?
Any more questions?
Oh…and one more thing. I didn’t really write any of that for Joy or anyone else. It was all just filler so I could tell the world what I think of the phony, fraud, charlatan, in addition to bullshit and con artist artist, but pretty good author John Mclean, in addition to his fucking posse of no nothings.
Joy…what is it with you and Alan [Sinclair ?] anyway? Why do you feel sorry for him and like him? What the fuck has he ever done worth talking about? As far as I know, he is another apologist, a wanna be, a gadabout and a gadfly? Who cares about him? Never mind….I don’t really care because I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter and it’s not important because he’s not important or matter.
I didn’t like Mclean talking trash about the two people who were witnesses to wildland fire history being made…while he just pretends he knows what happened that day.
If you talk the talk…you had better walk the walk. I learned that as a walk on to a hotshot crew after I was hired to be a Fire Prevention Technician, which has about as much real world worth as the title suggests..more or less.
I was an accidental hotshot…and then I was an accidental hotshot crew boss. But it was one helluva E Ticket Ride! And I would do it all over again….except I would try harder to get it right next time! .
Whoops…”in addition to his fucking posse of KNOW nothings.”
I was taught to type using phonetic sounds..
FYI…info pertaining to an earlier discussion. Like I said, this model of gun (M4) completes me. What would I be willing to give up in order to prevent another Sandy Hook shooting by a mentally unstable person who everyone who knew him, knew he was unstable like the mother he murdered who had bought him the gun so she could bond with the little whacked out freak of nature? #Complicit
Unfortunately…giving up my M4.’s won’t help. There are wayyyyyy more than 3 million of them in circulation now.
The last time I bought one with an LE discount (gun manufacturers love to get their tools into the hands of LE so they give out sweetheart deals to make that happen) you bought a Colt or a Colt, or a Colt.
Then came Bushmaster and Olympic Arms and now everyone else like the Singer Sewing Machines company making .30 carbines during WWII.
Now EVERYBODY is making them including the start up company Sad Sack is schilling for…WTF? In those days…you had to pay way more than a grand for a Colt, about a grand for a Bushmaster in dollars 20 years ago…and now you can buy a Colt for wayyyy under a grand in today’s dollars.
They are almost giving the “Black Rifle” away, although now it comes in every color under the sun including pink.
Very few people who want to control that weapon have any idea just how bad it is…how easy they are to obtain without any paperwork being submitted to anyone or how cheap they are, or they would just go home and curl up in a ball because if they outlaw that gun tomorrow, it will take wayyy more than 100 years to get the supply of them off the market.
Outlaw the ammo and you might have a little better luck. The last time they outlawed them, all it did was drive the price up to wayyyy over two grand and I made a lot of money which I rolled back over into a new collection after the dust settled. Hey…I admitted I love that nasty little gun.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/14/health/ar15-rifle-history-trnd/index.html
Whoops…I should have written “dollars from 20 to 30 years ago” in retail dollars, not what I paid. : )
And I live the M4 above all others, but there are many variations I love almost as much. And for you other gun nuts out there who love the Black Rifle…I owned a Colt H-Bar Elite AR -15/SAS/DMR Sniper Rifle one time…until I was offered so much money for it I couldn’t say no.
Sighhhhhh…”l LOVE”. not…”I live.”
good to see the model of gun (M4) completes you.
I like to say the future is 6.5 mm Grendel
I like the way it performs..
that is what is great about the grendel- it fits in your M4 magazine well
after 450 yards it has more energy than a .308
less wind drift than a .308
and less drop then a .308
and less recoil…
and it fits in a standard size ar-15 not a ar-10 size
it stays supersonic a lot longer— 200 yards further than a .308
Yeah I may be hard headed Gary and difficult but 5.56 is lacking for a military cartridge and I am good on the line…a keeper there… 😉 so forgive the rest… 😉 “please”
I was thinking about how John who was not there and I was
and I have reported FROM THE BEGINNING
on that final time with Marsh (9:08am)
who came down from top from talking to some fella and it was THAT talk he said in a fatherly tone if he ever could have one- “you cannot be in this spot because they want to make a drop and we are not geared up for it”…He looked at Sonny and said “better me to tell you then…” as he tilted head above “someone else”…we said sure…
and headed down and passed the rest of his crew (9:18am) as I made the comment “my jobs over- shew- your turn”
as we tried to get to the bigger boulders so I could use the restroom “finally” hiding…HE NEVER SAID ON ANY TALKS SAID GET OUT OF THE AREA OR OFF THE MOUNTAIN AND NEVER ONCE SAID WE COULD NOT TAKE PHOTOS BECAUSE WE SAID IN FIRST TALK (8:07 to 8:11am) OUR REASON FOR GOING UP WAS TO GET CLOSER PICTURES OF THE FIRE…SOOOOOOO IF HE HAD A PROBLEM WITH IT THAN WHY NOT TELL US THEN AT THE BASE ???? OR IN PHOTOS WHEN HE WAS TYING RIBBONS TO BUSHES…
that part of the presentation is so off and just his thoughts of it all…
you know what is terrible…he could of said Joy took pics of the vehicles and the terrain and thank God she did so we can understand it better but not I had some nervous tick (THAT IS MADE UP SHIT THERE)
for everyone knows that day I had my camera swung on me and I have a photo of me up there to prove it up until 10:30am then it was in my backpack until Sonny said take a photo of this and that…
Thank you for that “food for thought” Gary and I will reply below-
Number one. Routine Housekeeping eh…might need a one of those famous Wildland firefighting tools to clean this up like a Husqvarna 380BTS or an unmanned drone or better yet a Hoover WindTunnel Multi-Cyclonic Vacuum.
Thoughts for the day—I wish I could carry a thought than maybe my vlogs would carry some interest— (soft giggles)
The insert about torches and Woodsman was the bleachers who seems to nap more than sleep…but he made the inquiry on Woodsman
Many folks have wished RTS did write more as he pushes more into retirement about his experiences because he has a long history and a neat position- safety officer– pretty cool I think—and I do not think RTS was ever a part in any lemonade or Kool-aid stands Gary…in my research he is a good guy too 🙂
Gary, you know HOW there is posting glitches to this site- earlier I “almost” opened a can of worms on Donut.
Had this site posted it versus the 7 glitches and attempts and I gave up…
now I have reached legal assistance to get the proper way to do this because when I do—it will be here at this IM page and I think that was God covering my ass earlier…man
when I told one of the people what almost happened even he was like whoah…I know…
Donut, it is coming…I gave you plenty of time and I did…Sorry buddy—I feel for you and I do…
and if I had the extra funds I would of already turned this into a commercial situation
but I have to address some areas on you…in my opinion it is very necessary…if it was not for John Maclean’s presentation I would not even thought to Donut
so thank John for it
so yeah I am going to have to take my Holiday funds from Santa if any and turn a foia into commercial…
sorry Brendan…I am…I kinda was hoping this was coming from you…sheesh I do…shaking my head…
once its out Donut no turning back and I am not the only one aware of this so you know…man…
the way I look at it is I am withholding data knowing this and it is not right…
and its only withheld because of how I obtained it and I need to switch it to right format…
I was hoping one of the lawyers gave a shit in this and it was gonna be turned over to them
and hey John Dougherty you are media and if you want to open a can of worms I have it here…
come visit…
we can thank John’s presentation for waking up my senses to the data…
—————————————–
Gary are you talking about the man who died due to injuries sustained in a vehicle accident in Albuquerque couple years ago on legacy? Where they state:
Lynn followed in the footsteps of his father, who was a wildland firefighter with the Civilian Conservation Corps and later on the Angeles National Forest in the 1930s. He later cited his dad and two other veteran “fire dogs” as his role models, noting they had the common traits of being “tough and fair to all” as well as being direct and decisive.
Lynn was hired as a fire tanker crew member at the age of 16, and throughout the rest of his career, his specialty was aviation and fire management. He joined the U.S. Navy in 1945 and served with the Seabees in the Philippines until the end of World War II. He promptly resumed firefighting on the Angeles National Forest in California, where he went on to work his way up the ranks, but always keeping involved in the trenches. By 1953, he was among the first “heli-jumpers” who dropped into fire zones from helicopters.
Not shying from academics, Lynn went to the University of California at Berkeley in 1948, studying forestry until he graduated in 1951.
Lynn advanced to district ranger and fire control officer positions in California, and was regularly dispatched to fires all over the country. It was during these years that Lynn played an instrumental role in developing an “incident command” system for the agency that involved establishing standing fire management teams. In 1968 he moved to Forest Service Region 3 in Albuquerque, where he became Regional Fire Director. He left 12 years later for his last posting with the Forest Service, as Regional Fire Director for Region 5, based in San Francisco. After retiring in 1982, ending a nearly 40-year run with the Forest Service, Biddison worked as a representative for Firetrol, a company that provided fire retardant products to agencies in the U.S. and other countries.
Lynn was a proud and loyal Forest Service soldier well after retirement. He played a big part in organizing a retirees reunion in Albuquerque that was held in the days following the car crash. He was a driving force in an effort to establish a National Museum of Forest Service History in Missoula, Mont., a project that is still in the works.
———————————————
without a doubt, I agree I am one of the most naive, hard headed and difficult people but I am a work in process and a survivor and an optimistic person…and I own up to it yet I do not hide like some on the line have…I stick with it…I am still here (like it or not)
I never said John MacLean was a “F” “A” wannabe WF but I did say as I am not in the industry “learning” the industry and I am innocently not facetiously asking who can who make the person an expert- that is all…no cuss words in my delivery at all…
I am asking it like how I became known locally as the desert walker because everyone “saw” me walk 76 miles a week in a desert and Charles Casmir Lipinski stated “Who the “f” are you on my property down there? and I replied “Cheese and crackers who is asking me such in such a way?” and he replied “a pissed off angry old man that this lady thinks she can just come on my property.” as he walked closer he realized I was on an easement and he had no say- he said he saw me every day almost walk from somewhere and I explained I walk from Congress to Wickenburg Filiberto’s than back home and he said that is far- I do not believe you—I told him the many stops I make along the way and one day he can drive by and see I am of truth and he sure did…he would in a way I will never forget…he gave me the label desert walker and it just stuck…but who gives a person labels was all I really meant because I like seeing leadership folks and seeing how they got there…but experts was always a hard topic for me…I know quite a bit on culinary yet I would never lay claim as an expert—to me labels like that means feeding egos is all…sorry how I feel…maybe its wrong how I think…maybe there is folks deserving to be labelled experts…I shot alot and I am really well advanced in my techniques and even the labelled experts call me an expert beyond them…but I also lived and learned from some of the old rugged best gun slingers…I still keep in touch daily with Clark Gable’s stunt man…he is a great man…he was in my fav tv show The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp—I miss that show and Combat was my other tv show—I actually liked Tour of Duty too…I am not into the bubble gum shit shows of today so don’t name any off—I won’t know it…Also Sonny is very good with a rifle..(sorry Sonny not so much the pistol folks…soft giggles)
I did not feel used by John just wanted him to match his presentation words correctly to my photos that did not get the courtesy credit I requested as the link shows it as title of page there where the photos laid.
I still think he is a good man.
I doubt I helped further his career by being in the presentation Gary—that was too funny—
now I do think he has been around some of the MOST elite folks in your industry and I think many would never even question or comment or just let him say what he wants to my photos- it’s his show
but I do not like when I am hood winked with a surprise like that and it confirms what people of very high elite areas have shared to me then it was like I hope people see through it and do not buy into it…that was all.
I enjoyed his book that he gave us the hikers. I also think others enjoy his book but many told me over time read it with the understanding that what is presented is not always how it was behind the scenes so I say oh ok…
I could not say on a daily basis if he is nice or not like you stated yet on the hike and the cafe and all my experiences he was beyond kind and warm and truly someone I can see others looking up to throughout life and he took time to gt a stubborn splinter out for me—
he came off as this quiet type fella much like Michael Kodas but he radiated he was a numbers man—so I would not be shocked if he had a side kick job that he worked in accounting…I can see that…
I really think he is a great man and that is for reals…something very neat about him…
now Holly she always has come forward and make things right and never liked to leave things wrong if there was an air of it surfacing and both Sonny and I think the world of Wayne her husband…when you mention them that seemed very facetious and not heartfelt from you…How did Wayne use us? He was the MOST influential in teaching the hikers on the ground in person what we saw from our eyes and put into what firefighter do out there…he really took alot of energy helping us absorb it…neat man.
They threw me away? I do not know if that needs an answer but threw me away…they did not throw hard enough—I am still in Congress…can they throw me harder next time where I land in Alaska 😉
you are something else…about letting people use me…yeah I have officially simmered down on who is in my space…
it was shocking Gary to see Rocksteady’s insert video link that I had removed and I think due to recordings I have I think they will leave it lay that way—some recordings I do not think they want to surface especially if a book is due out…it will not make me look bad at all but it will on them…
I think it is kind of cool he is the kid to Norman…and so I do not how to reply to that…yes on him being an expert and your reply “OH MY”
I have no intentions of ever suing anyone in my lifetime—one of my doctors is quite relieved of that too 😉
I hope it is not fictional the book but I will call out any area publicly that is fictional with in it—I want someone to give a shit about T R U T H- it matters.
that one paragraph is your thing—ain’t going there… 😉
Now for Alan Sinclair- yeah I saw on the hike..I know…and yes I do feel and mother freaker my eyes swelled up with heavy tears just now when I think to that hike and yeah he has to live on in the industry and I know inside he is making a living and getting his kid to make a living but inside you get him around a campfire on late night and with mother nature earth with paradise city ( https://youtu.be/GhUKuNRInSE ) blasting in the background and yeah this man faced a loss big time so yes I do feel bad for him…Sorry he had to see this in his lifetime…really…I feel bad for him more than alot of the folks….I saw the pain…it’s real. Real deep.
I also did not like when MacLean spoke on us when I was hoping to see a classy presentation and fill the holes in with better stuff then the hikers and the way he presented it…agreed there. I expect MORE from him…indeed I did and do-
phonetic sounds? what is that?
——————————————————————————
Now that you got it off your chest and me too on MacLean…can we get back to business- YHF 😉
like this man said to me about MacLean…
I wish I had time to read all the messages but maybe at 4 to 5 am at the close to my day but I did read some of the folks and some the fire industry messages and let me share to you some words shared:
C.B. stated: “Good morning Joy, only you could answer those questions about that day. GOD put you there to document the facts and the families will have their questions answered along with the peace and closure as a result. Reminds me of a children’s game when the first one whispers into the second child ear and on down the line and at the end the statement is totally changed much to the surprised participants. Then the discussion begins to find who started the change and no one wants to admit it. Well, I hope that the truth will finally be disclosed for all and the proper people held accountable. Rise above the good opinion of other people and don’t be drawn into playing others games or trying to figure out their motivations. Stay objective and factual. Take your emotions out of it, defensively and offensively and remain the incredible lady you are. Have a great day.”
—————————
firefighters thanked me for being so courageous to file that claim to remove video and some who did not see it yet—it is still behind the scenes available…did you think I would file a claim without documenting it…come on now…
———————
Thu, Dec 14, 2017 a
———————
Thu, Dec 14, 2017 a
t 12:19 PM Daniel Perrakis and Kendrick Brown (Fire Research Scientists
Natural Resources Canada – Canadian Forest Service, Victoria, BC, Canada and
Co-Chairs (past), Wildland Fire Canada 2016) stated “Hello there,
We are very sorry you were upset by the content of our video. Wildland Fire Canada 2016 was a Canadian conference held last year in Kelowna, BC, designed to bring together wildfire managers, researchers, firefighters, and the public to discuss issues around community and landscape resilience to wildfire. Some of the keynote presentations were filmed during the conference and uploaded to Vimeo. John McLean was one of our keynotes, and gave a very informative and touching presentation which most attendees felt was one of the conference highlights. As a keynote, he was responsible for the content of his presentation. We will be in touch with John and hope he will reach out to you to resolve this concern.
The conference was a non-profit event, as are the videos; they are only there for education and information purposes for the public and are not making any money for anyone. The video of John’s presentation, as of last night, had been viewed 42 times in total in the 6 months it has been up. Other content from the conference (including the links to other videos) can be found at wildlandfire2016.ca.
We received your email last night and went to remove the video this morning, but saw that Vimeo had already taken it down. We have also deleted all links and references to the video from our website. We will not repost this video or presentation. We never had any intention of violating anyone’s rights; our sole intent for this video was for educational purposes relating to a tragic event for the international wildfire community. ”
——————————————————————-
and I replied I am not upset just request photo courtesy credit and facts tied to my photos was all and any communications made to Vimeo or them they can share to John…I like John…just have to express and keep it pure— and when you speak in front of a large audience and anyone who privately or on here on IM saw that privately shared link it is specific throughout captions and on title YOU MUST GIVE ME COURTESY CREDIT if my photos are used and I only have 9 folks that are tight and are my family/friends that were excluded not even Sonny had the rights to use my photos without courtesy credit; a man I spent 6 years around…so yeah due to the odd layers of that presentation I had to have them remove it. And after watching the presentation I would question if John MacLean could even lay in a friends label even though all his emails came off that way and he even called me his friend and source on Wed, Jan 7, 2015 at 10:38 AM when he heard about a certain situation that arose and hoped I could let him be out of the loop on it- I did keep him separate.
They can dispute it yet I have enough documentation that I think it will lay quiet.
I mean in the state of Arizona I have been recorded time after time without the person telling me in the aftermath of the YHF (ill mindedly throwing me under the bus) so I began doing it too;recording. I think the one conversation alone from one of his team members is enough that I have faith he will leave it alone. That is a conversation I think he would not like to see daylight.
I am not looking for monies or apologies just Gary USE FACTS and photo credit is all- That is it…and talk fire data- I have given enough that you do not have to add the other layers…the photos tell the story if you use them in order and correctly and add mine along with the homeowners and others on the line that day
—————————————-
another incoming message I got —>>>Wed, Dec 13, 2017 at 7:30 PM
“This author is full of himself and talks down about others”
I will close that each day I go out and walk…I have this song on my mix…
One foot in front of the other…
h t tp s:/ /youtu.be/xo1VInw-SKc
by the way Gary— do you speak Chinese? I need to know…
OK…if you forgive it so can I. I haven’t heard of the 6.5 mm Grendel and I am a gun nut like I am a Jeep nut, which means I shoot em and drive em, I don’t work on them and I am not a ballistics expert.
BUT….that being said, I have some serious doubts about loading a 6.5 mm cartridge into a chamber that is .556 and engineered to either fire commercial cartridges in the .223 or the NATO 5.56×45 mm or both of them.
The 5.56 military already is as hot as anybody should be shooting out of an AR 15 and has thicker brass walls than the commercial .223 Remington does. I would have even more concerns loading a cartridge into an AR 15 that can either mimic or out perform a .308 simply because I like face the way it is, (more or less) and I don’t want to have the charging handle or bolt assembly embedded into it. There is already a head spacing problem shooting the .223 in a 5,56 with the thinner brass and the explosion causes the brass to distort.. What are you…nuts?
That’s is one thing about federal LE, they are really big as in your ass will be fired, definately sued and maybe even criminally prosecuted for using ammo that is not factory ammo and manufactured to stringent standards and issued to you. And the same exact thing is true for no modifications whatsoever to any firearm carried on the job…hone the trigger, shoot somebody with it…once is is torn down by the BATF&E lab as part of every shooting investigation…lose everything and maybe go to jail.
And…there is plenty of cheap surplus NATO 5.56 ammo out there that is hot enough to destroy just about anything with a projectile moving at 3300 feet per second and if you are worried about heavy brush or want to shoot engine blocks, move up to the 7.62 NATO.
That is what the shooter in Las Vegas was mostly using because his victims were further away. The shooter in Miami nightclub used the new high speed low drag 300 Blackout at point blank range, (no wonder the death toll was so high) but most mass killers just stick with the .223 or 5.56.
You like living life on the edge to compensate for your cookie cutter house and what you consider to be an unflattering image as a housewife. I like living in a box and following the rules while I color inside the lines. Or at least I did until I was driven off the reservation…now I am a wild card and a loose cannon.
Yep…that was Lynn Biddison who went to the top as a primary fire god and a highly respected legendary figure in the WF world . Except for people like Bill Buck, to be a fire god, you have to be a Regional Director of Aviation and Fire Management like Lynn or a Regional Coordinator like the man who made me into a hotshot…Hub Harris.
Other than those type of people, you need to be a Type I Incident Commander, in my opinion to meet my definition of a fire god. To determine if a fire figure is a true fire god…just ask yourself the following question.
Can this person impact the lives of hundreds or even thousands of WF on any given day?
And if the answer is yes, for good or bad…then that person is a fire god.
Lynn Biddison is however…most respected and renowned because he is on record as being the SECOND youngest hotshot crew boss in history of hotshot crews at age 24.
Lynn’s record however….is somewhat questionable because he was a crew boss of a California R5 hotshot crew and well….we know about THOSE people don’t we?
Lynn became a hotshot crew at the age of 24, which is one year older than the youngest hot shot crew boss in history. That distinction goes to Gary Olson who was 23, even though when he was made crew boss they told him, “Hey you…ya you…you’re in charge until we find somebody better. In the meantime….try not to fuck it up….okay Cupcake?
And I said I didn’t know anything about Wayne. I just think Holly’s theories are wacked out and she is an apologist for Marsh and part of Mrs. Lohman’s inner circle of enablers and cronies.
No…I don’t speak Chinese, just Laotian, Vietnamese and I can get by with Hmong. Why do you ask?
And finally typing or spelling words phonetically means you do it by how they sound, which can really screw people up when they are learning how to speak English. For example…if you are spelling the word “know” phonetically, you would spell it “no”, like I did.
I think that’s it, but if I missed one, I will try and pick it up later or you could repeat the question or issue. Have a nice day! ; )
Gary,
I agree with most of all you posted down below and it was most confusing on where to answer some of your posts.
Lynn Biddison was a great man and a great mentor, even though he was from California.
‘Back in the day,’ on the Oak Grove Hot Shots in 1973, we only had two Homelite XL-12 chainsaws. The rest of the cutting tools were strap Brush Hooks, amazing tools. I too started out as a shovel and worked my way up to a Brush hook, and an honorable position at the time.
I was both a sawyer and a swamper on a Hot Shot Crew in the 1980’s.
I am conditioned to keep my guns and ammo stock with no modifications. If I am ever facing a problem that can’t be solved with a standard .556, a 7.62, or a 12 gauge slug, I am just going to pull up my pants and leave.
But…I still question using the same lower and bolt carrier group to shoot rounds like that because once again, I like my face without any parts from my gun embedded in it. But…I certainly admire your enthusiasm for experimentation.
Right on brother hotshot sawyer! From your posts over the past four years I thought you worked just one year on Oak Grove with our brother Bob and then you were born again as the Payson Hotshot Crew Boss for the next 26 years.
This just goes back to our age old argument, which one of us has the bigger junk. And even if you do…I will insist that it doesn’t matter because I use mine so much more skillfully than you do.
I guess it really just comes down to you holding the record for being the longest serving hotshot crew boss in history versus my being the youngest hotshot crew boss in history…who also founded a new hotshot crew. Mike Drop!
I obviously also didn’t like you writing that you discriminated against people who look like me in your hiring practices just because you think we eat to much food, drink too much water and can’t take the heat even though I agree with you as everyone else would.
Which again begs the question…just how fucking good do you think I had to be to walk on to a Mighty Coconino Hotshot Crew under Bill Buck and end up as it’s crew boss three years later facing that level of prejudice in the WF world? That’s why I can relate to women and gay men…I wasn’t wanted either, but I proved everyone wrong…including you brother.
Gary,
You posted: “This just goes back to our age old argument, which one of us has the bigger junk. And even if you do…I will insist that it doesn’t matter because I use mine so much more skillfully than you do.”
Okay. And,how do you know that you used yours “so much more skillfully”” than I did?
You also posted: “I obviously also didn’t like you writing that you discriminated against people who look like me in your hiring practices just because you think we eat to much food, drink too much water and can’t take the heat even though I agree with you as everyone else would.”
A good WF supervisor ‘discriminates’ every day in his or her position, but not in the legal sense of the word. It’s quite legal to ‘discriminate’ against large WF applicants that eat too much food, drink too much water, and can’t take the heat.
For being the self proclaimed youngest and roughest and toughest HS Supt. in the West from the alleged Mighty Coconino, you sure come across as what they call a “Snowflake” these days. .
Wikipedia ‘Snowflake’ definition
“Snowflake as a slang term involves the derogatory usage of the word snowflake to make reference to people. Its meaning has varied, but may include a person who has an inflated sense of their own uniqueness, has an unwarranted sense of entitlement, or is easily offended and unable to deal with opposing opinions. Common usages include the terms special snowflake, Generation Snowflake, and snowflake as a politicized insult”.
I have always admitted how sensitive, vulnerable, and fragile I am to my closest friends and confidants.
You’re like most men…you just don’t listen! You and your brother Bob have always been harsh with me and I will appreciate it if the two of you start being just a little bit sweeter towards me.
Oh…and one more thing. I never said your discrimination was illegal…I just said I didn’t like it. I also said back then and most recently I agreed with you.
Now who’s the snowflake…Snowflake?
It’s certainly not me. Just following through on the agree to disagree thing. Thanks for clarifying things and letting me know. You’ll be just fine, it’s okay to be a Snowflake.
Gary,
An interesting research paper for you if you are interested, concluding that “… regardless of the gender composition of the groups significantly lower quality decisions arose from groups with a directive rather than a participative leader. … and [their] findings suggest that in terms of decision outcome quality, good leaders encourage open inquiry to yield diverse alternatives for problem solutions.”
In other words, the “directive” – shut the f**k up and do what I tell you to do” method is inferior to the ‘participative’ leader. Feel free to read the paper to better understand this.
I don’t think you’re wrong, I just disagree with you.
Groupthink: Deciding with the leader and the devil
Chen, Zenglo; Lawson, Robert BAuthor InformationView Profile; Gordon, Lawrence R; McIntosh, BarbaraAuthor InformationView Profile. The Psychological Record; Heidelberg Vol. 46, Iss. 4, (Fall 1996): 581
. https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/212668876?pq-origsite=summon
Who said anything about using a 5.56 barrel…I said it was lacking…
Of course you use a 6.5 barrel
How can you put a bigger bullet thru a smaller hole?
And a different bolt
Same carrier
And a metal magazine with a 6.5 follower
There is a lot of new cartridges that outperform the 5.56
Check out .22 Nosler and .224 Valkrie
And yes they use different barrels
Food and guns are my thing and widdling
And if you want to shoot those particular cartridges, why wouldn’t you just buy a gun that shoots those cartridges in the first place rather than substituting all of those gun parts?
And besides that, you do know that during the Zombie Apocalypse that is coming, the whole point is to have weapons that can shoot standard ammo that is readily available.
Plus the fact that when you build up your stockpile of ammo for the apocalypse, you can buy bulk full metal jacket .556 and 7.26×45 NATO…right?
And good luck finding those oddball rounds after Day 1 of the New World Order and Muslim jack booted thugs from the United Nations who arrive in black helicopters start putting God Fearing White Christian Citizens in FEMA concentration that are currently disguised as sports stadiums. : (
AHHH but you just. while I did not start on a Hot Shot crew I did start on a Dist. Engen for two years. Spent a lot of time on the working end of a shovel/McCloud/ and Yes a Chain Saw on the Sequoia NF. I even had the duty of packing those old metal 5 Gal Pumps. I ran a chain saw summer and winter
we Did thinning during the winter. Used the old Home lite 870 with a 36 inch bow bar. By the time I was a Eng. Foreman GS 5 I was a certified Faller. Lots of lighting Fires on the Sequoia.
I put in my time just did not start on a HS crew. .
Okay brother Bob…you win. In any case…I have always acknowledged that I stood on the shoulders and followed in the footsteps of men like you.
Especially those from the cradle of hotshot civilization…SoCal. You bad boys see the standards for the rest of us to emulate! God Bless you old timer!
I would just lighten up on the whole “I stated out as a hotshot supervisor in a hotshot culture where not even squad bosses work and then I only stayed two years before I leveraged that experience into a better job on up the ranks, in fact…I just did the hotshot thing as a carrier move, not because I loved the job.”
It makes guys like me question your dedication to the culture…guys that started at the bottom and worked up to a position like you walked into because that means you NEVER cut line as a hotshot…get it?
I’m just thinking of you and giving you some good advice on how you can fluff your story. You were a big shot in the other jobs you did like air attack…but to grunts and ground pounders like me…that don’t mean jack shit.
Almost all Asst. Sup. were already GS6 Tanker Foreman or other GS6 positions. Required a Crew Boss Red card and Past supervision.
Not more than 2 newbies were hired per crew. You had to have a minimum of 1 year as a FF to apply for a crew in Calif.
I also had 10 details on 10 fires as a Squad boss Chilao and 90 days as a detail as asst. sup Oak Grove Prior to Applying for the Job as Asst.
That was the way Calif. worked we also had 25 person crews.
Rocksteady,
Thanks for the 2016 BC Wildfire Conference presentations.
I consider Mr. John Maclean to be an accomplished, published author on wildland fire fatalities – certainly NOT an expert by any means.
His spew on the alleged ‘Climate Change’ was troubling because it has absolutely nothing to do with the GMHS dying on YH Fire June 30, 2013. I never drank and never will drink, the Climate Change (formerly known as Global Warming), kool-aid, which I believe to be junk science along with tens of thousands of skeptical and unbelieving scientists..
Dually noted RTS.
Good topic.
How does one know an author is an expert in what he claims in presentation?
There were many throughout the entire video factual errors and encouraged false leads.
How much attention was he paying to copyright law when he created slides for his presentation without crediting the origin?
I feel like when people mention “climate change” in a speech it is like they are gonna get published and get grants…and accolades…and a huge pat on the back and maybe a front page coverage….as the new world WFFs go in with 2 torches shouting “CLIMATE CHANGE,, AMEN!”—“Hoorah”
There is an awful alot of narrative concerning JOY A COLLURA’s private life and personal decison making capabilities that may or MAY NOT be true leading to insinuations that could lead under certain circumstances to litigation.
And all that odd personal inserts- what did that have to do with YHF clarity?
When you listen to the air to ground pilots they were all about “no joy”…but when you listen to John MacLean it was ALL ABOUT JOY
??????
If that is what he is presenting in this video on YHF—
I wonder HOW MUCH editorializing humor will be in the book or factual errors and encouraged false leads.
I encourage everyone to fact check now that I see this kind of rubbish.
YHF is a serious matter.
This is not Shakespeare people…we do not need comedy within a tragedy told in a public fire industry presentation-
19 men died-
Capture the video for it is in process to be removed.
Also WORLD NOTIFICATION-
so when google hashtags JOY A COLLURA — Yarnell Hill Fire Photos — Eyewitness to YHF
(by the way all you folks early on 2013 when you hiked me and asked me odd real estate stuff because you assumed I was a realtor…I was not online except hikeaz.c o m and the zazzle.c o m/congress _arizona* but to fill you in there is MORE THAN one JOY COLLURA in this world…(14 I know I of) one is 69 out of WI and likes gardening…one is 63 and is married also to a JOHN and SHE IS THE REALTOR out of FL…one is 45 out of PA…but let me close on this topic that is why you see me add “A” to my name
because there is only ONE JOY A COLLURA…(good thing too)
Due to the odd layers of the presentation of JOHN MACLEAN
I am requesting from this day forward from his team and retroactively (Per photo) must have my permission to use my data in any format unless it laid public already which a lot is out public but regardless it has always been well known to always give me photo credit and to obey copyrighted laws which this presentation failed. and to fact check data before placing it out.
And what does that have to do with the YHF and clarity- his inserts on us?
I feel it was unbecoming.
Not knowing me…. watching video
would you guess I have known my husband since 88’…dated in 91′ and married in 93′?
always been together…I just did not like the 5am to noon sleep pattern due to his work so took some adventures so I could get up early mornings versus sleep them…and other reasons…
and how is this insert in tone made appropriate for a long term marriage tying me to this older man Tex? Tex is classier than that and would not bed with a married lady especially some fat chick.
Would John like that if someone said that about his wife or family
if someone hiked with his wife (non-sexual but the guy would like to)—
that was dumb and to have a room laugh…what was even funny…real dumb.
I hiked John— should I tell you how far and details like such…come on really…
there is alot of reason I am asking for video to be removed and you will see just a glaze of some here…
I was Tex’s legal volunteer VA caregiver and AZ state legal POA and known him from Aug 2011 to Aug 2017 as he has had 7 heart attacks/leg thrombosis/stomach aneurysm concerns.lung blood clot and major heart disease and bad case of melanoma.
How can I address this author who if you read my emails from him came off more as a person who appreciated us and thought to us with adoration and admiration and calls me a friend and a source.
??????
why didn’t John MacLean talk on the presentation how we have found more data and evidence on our hike with him (pink ribbon tape) or as shown in photo below we took the time out of our lives FREELY to share the natural watering holes that were closer than the Hidden Ranch spot…and invested alot of our time for his crew which was more than just him and Holly Neill and Alan Sinclair… many more …. see in this photo we show in the background the watering spots to John:
https://plus.google.com/u/2/photos/112068160404980104272/album/5922175655744920065/5945430306147784514?authkey=CNDDgaG_gt2UAQ
https://plus.google.com/u/2/photos/112068160404980104272/album/5922175655744920065/5945426485700223522?authkey=CNDDgaG_gt2UAQ
and even Murry early on alerted our world to JOHN MACLEAN Thu, Sep 19, 2013 at 8:01 AM when he said to us “Sonny, Again, I’m really interested in what you’re doing with this fire investigation. I’m wondering if the fire writer, John Maclean has shown up down there. I’m sure he will, but wondering what story he would write. This is very important what you are doing–I suppose you know that, but for firefighters it is really the case. So, keep me in the info. loop. All the best, Murry Taylor”
Yes we did not know WHO John was prior to Murry alerting us.
I bet the world did not even know this—
on Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 7:39 AM Willis wrote this to us—
Joy,
Wayne and Holly are special people who are set on finding out the truth. I trust them as well as John Maclean and provided them anything they wanted or needed from me. Thank you for spending time with them and giving them the details you have. I am committed to the truth on this tragedy as I know you are. Again, thank you for the e-mail and your encouraging words. I truly hope God blesses you. DW
I never got any negative vibes off them all EXCEPT people current and retired in the industry since December 2013 cautioned us about this crew and I thought why ???
I think in my humble opinion John was being light in his presentation and a hidden roast too because there is some errors when talking for example “squelching” area— he said that was area squelched; yes to 1 pic but other pic was Harper Canyon not an area squelched also he named 2 photos to be around noon and that is not accurate so I am factual when I say he needed to not use my photos and give false data to the public…and at 1:10pm we NEVER said the word SOUTH…hand gesturing our movements was said to Marsh a little after 8am not as it was shared in presentation.
..my take on presentation:
20:06 marker John, we walked from Prescott towards Yarnell recently before this hike events and we hiked Friday and Saturday too so YES WE WERE ASKED TO GET OUT OF THAT FIRE AREA SO THEY COULD DROP SLURRY DROPS…never was directly told to GET OFF THE MOUNTAIN just that area so they could make their drops because we were not geared for it…the photo you show we left THAT SPOT at 1:11pm but had not YET left the ridge or Weavers but were heading out and it took a couple hours later to go Sonny’s way (WHICH IS TODAYS GMHS MEMORIAL TRAIL STATE PARK)…
.20:17 that is misleading FOR REALS…we never saw Eric up close again at 1:10pm…we saw him hours before and was told to leave that specific area so they could make a slurry drop because we were not geared for it…never was told to leave the Weavers…and also we never ever said SOUTH…the very first meet and greet he asked best way to fire and Sonny told him and then we said our intentions and he never said TURN AROUND on the 1st meet and greet or 2nd but he did ask what way we were going and I pointed never even said SOUTH…I said after getting a few pics for the locals because Sat. the YFD said it was all under control so we were getting a few pics then I pointed to away from the fire to the 2 track ridge with a right to left movement with my right hand pointing…
for almost 40 minutes Sonny took off and left me not 10 minutes…and JOHN MACLEAN…Joy DID NOT PLOP ON THE GROUND— I have bilateral peripheral neuropathy and I was wearing snakeboots and I had hiked from Prescott to almost Yarnell recently before this weekend and I was already just that week documented over more miles than you do in a year on a HOT week WITH edema flairing up so let’s not make me LOOK LAZY with the PLOPS ok…I wanted to check my feet out for they hurt alot…so I took my boots off…we never said SOUTH…and I did not say I was tired; I got tired in the wash by Acri’s area the most and that is facts but above the Helms I was just HOT and missing the WATER Sonny took for the 40 minutes not 10 minutes…I just needed to check my legs but Sonny was aggravated because he saw that fire and he wanted to get the hell out so I said go on…I think he came back because he realized he left with the pack with all the waters in it and realized if he did not go back and get me he may get a murder charge but he did not callously leave me to die and he took my bag thinking I would hurry up and follow since he took my bag…we were both overheated….and we disagreed on where to go down because I wanted to go the cattle tank way and Sonny wanted to go less vegetation
…by the way the whole mention of SENIOR MATCH; why???…I WAS NOT LOOKING FOR A HIKING PAL…truth…Kat in June 2011 asked me to look at her profiles…I do not do internet then…I said NO…July she reasked…NO…she wrote down the link and she made me a profile to sign in on because she said she knew I did not want to waste the time doing that so she did it NOT ME (investigate the ip address who signed up and confirm I am right) and I was waiting for my hubby to get home and I peaked at her profiles way early in the morning 3rd week in August 2011 and I laughed SOOOO hard at Sonny’s profile and it is still all on there for anyone to view….I sent Kat a comment and said maybe he would 2 step with you…I emailed him about history…numismatics…guns…and our hikes…and one time he came and got me for the hike BUT because he got pulled over by the cops that night my husband picked me up because we learned Sonny did not carry good insurance and that matters to us in case of an accident …call us cookie cutters I reckon…but we began hiking adventures West of the Grand Canyon and then it carried on to other areas— for him it was good at times to have company but I was too much the motherly kind…yet there was and will always be that dysfunctional emotional layer only because of the roots of our beginnings as kids…we were like 2 kids out there but hell at times we did have the label “the old married couple…he’s old and I am married” but we were never anything traditional or normal just a thing where we both loved the outdoors so intensely and so much…the twist or failure happened when I misunderstood a loved one and their path and I am glad looking back it all unfolded as it has because I like being in Congress—we have the most wiggley hearted folks…learned alot more than I could ever in a book living off the land with Sonny…yet from this point forward I have to learn to understand cookie cutter life again…there was alot of layers to me knowing Sonny and yet I am not made to know anyone 24/7…how could I do all that when I am married? Which you do not see John even mentioning on that presentation that I have known my husband since 1988 and dated in 1991 and married in 1993…if a newbie saw that presentation there is no talk of my husband and that long history I still have with him…but my husband has this God awful ODD schedule and it is not easy to live those weird hours—my sleep times are 5am to noon…and I am a morning person so yeah I really did like the wake up times hanging with Sonny…but it was WEIRD to see those jabs on me from John MacLean so now when his friends told me John is making front of you…I see….but knowing John MacLean it is not to be misleading or mischievous just being light hearted I hope ???
7:28 Eric is on right photo…
I do not have a nervous tick and Sonny is WITNESS that on June 30 2013 I had my camera in my backpack and Sonny would ask me to take it out so BLAME SONNY because he wanted the pics not me….I am given the less than professional respect…but maybe because I am a housewife hiker…who cares…but I am still gonna correct areas…we ain’t famous figures…funny…yes we did some endurance hikes…huh…
at 13:28 when John mentions winds…what about the Lewis crew interview I had that shared more than that…what about their tactics on the fire…because the homeowners have shown me a well bedded down fire and they have documents showing folks up there Friday and Saturday…just because the crew is quiet—there is a story in the photos of the locals and some of the people that were there for the fire even the Lewis prison crew. 14:32- some WERE over-fatigued and there is proof of that.
19:04 marker was a joke for Marsh and us to see—that was fudged up moment….we actually saw the reactions of that moment…that is where you see the photo of them at bay where he does not show you but John has that photo—the men at rest. AND I did NOT LOSE 1000s plus photos—they were stolen….John is identifying my mystery man???? he has opened the can of worms….
there is plenty more—
yet I am tired.
I have other areas to work on…
I like John. I like Holly. My heart breaks for Alan.
All I ask when people watch that presentation that there are areas that are not anything but glorified editorializing and inaccuracies…
Now due to so many books that are already out that did not fact check with the eyewitnesses—
I think I need to make a public statement on any future areas of books due out or whatever platform—-any area using us in their whatever it may be—
Both the hikers sincerely request that you adhere to the following conditions of use:
(1.) each separate photo and or cropping or graphic editing of the same intended to be incorporated in any/all forms of presentation to others, requires both eyewitnesses written permission as well look at final product to make sure nothing of value was removed from photo to mislead.
(2) Captions are to be fact checked and agreed upon by us, also, it is important to note, that research by other parties into the causes and conduct of the YHF, independent of your own efforts, continues to this day, as such, subjective coloration or snide remarks, casting adverse aspersions on, either, mine or Tex’s character and or conduct with respect to my overall first person witness “credibility” and or the “veracity” of specific statement content (attributed to myself or Tex) will not be tolerated.
Your apparent preference to frame mine and Tex’s words and character as being, little less than, comedic relief is demeaning and only succeeds in providing your audience with a false perception of TRUTH and FACTS , the video presentation (https://vimeo.com/209478600) as it stands, serves as little else than a pretension of absolute truth and might, otherwise serve as the basis of claims constituting libel or slander. This instance might have, easily, been avoided…had you and your team taken the opportunity to fact check with us, aforehand.
side note: I do have a recording from one of his team members apologizing to me in person and I exclude this person and they know who they are- I exclude them from being any part to this presentation yet they too must follow above request now thanks to John-
Special thank you from people in the industry who tried to find that video for a long time from the West Coast to East Coast in the USA and they personally thank Rocksteady of another country for showing the hikers this video. We too thank you. I heard third party stuff over time but it was nice to see this video as it helps me prepare for the future of his book that we all have longed to read…
the only ones who will see my video this week will be ones who are added on to email list for it will be set to private so I can really share more to my family and friends…
Sorry, this video is unavailable
Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the video WFC2016 – From Storm King Mountain to Yarnell Hill: Common elements of multiple fatality wildland fires. John Maclean. as a result of a third-party notification by Joy A Collura that claims this material is infringing on their copyright.
This video was removed on Thursday, December 14, 2017 At 9:46 AM. A public record of this claim is available here.
when you posted above it ended with HERE
so here is the HERE:
https://lumendatabase.org/notices/15566632
DMCA (Copyright) Complaint to Vimeo
SENDER
Joy A Collura
[Private]
, , ,
Sent on December 14, 2017
RECIPIENT
Vimeo, Inc.
[Private]
New York, NY, 10011, US
Received on December 14, 2017
SUBMITTER
Vimeo, LLC
OTHER ENTITIES:SUBMITTER
Re: Unknown
SENT VIA: UNKNOWN
NOTICE TYPE:DMCA
ACTION TAKEN:Yes
Copyright claim #1
KIND OF WORK:Video
DESCRIPTION”WFC2016 – From Storm King Mountain to Yarnell Hill: Common elements of multiple fatality wildland fires. John Maclean.”
ORIGINAL URLS:
ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING URLS:
https://vimeo.com/209478600
TAGSvimeo, video
JURISDICTIONSUnspecified
button that is clickable:
Create DMCA Counter Notice
**
** NOW YOU CAN GET YOUR OWN COMMEMORATIVE ‘GRANITE MOUNTAIN ASSAULT RIFLE’…
** CO-DESIGNED BY BRENDAN MCDONOUGH
The madness continues.
Brendan McDonough has worked with a company called ‘Battle Tested Equipment’ to co-design a new ‘commemorative’ ‘Granite Mountain Assault Rifle’.
Yes. You heard right. ASSAULT RIFLE. ( AR-15 style ).
The first 19 are being ‘raffled off’ with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the ‘Wildland Firefighter Foundation’.
I kid you not.
https://www.facebook.com/brendan.j.mcdonough/photos/a.464554590378071.1073741828.463942307105966/910280829138776/?type=3&theater
On that page on McDonough;’s PUBLIC Facebook site…
PHOTO: Brendan McDonough holding one of the new Granite Mountain commemorative assault rifles.
PUBLIC COMMENT ( by Brendan McDonough )
——————————————————————————————————-
Had an amazing time with Battle Tested Equipment today, using flamethrowers, shooting machine guns and launching bowling balls, but most importantly we had a great day honoring our veterans and first responders. We raffled 2 of of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshot Memorial rifles with many more to come to benefit the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. I had the opportunity to safety test fire the first memorial rifle and will safety test fire the remaining 18 rifles. You can buy raffle tickets through Battle Tested Equipment. Check out my Instagram for videos (at)donut_928!!! #freedomfridays #flamethrower #machineguns #tributerifle #gmihc
———————————————————————————————————–
Brendan McDonough also posted the following message on his public Facebook page when the new ‘Granite Mountain Assault Rifle’ first became available and verifies that he himself helped ‘design’ this assault weapon…
———————————————————————————————————-
Brendan Mcdonough – November 5 at 9:16am
Battle Tested Equipment has created an amazing tribute rifle for my 19 Brothers. The owner George took a great sense of pride and dedication to ensuring the rifles were authentic and honoring. We worked hand in hand to make sure this rifle was a true tribute.
They are donating 100% of the proceeds from the first 19 rifles to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. They are also donating 50% of the proceeds from rifles 21-9999 to the WFF as well as other NonProfits.
These rifles are 100% hand built in Phoenix Arizona using Battle Tested components made by proud and free Americans. These rifles feature our mil spec receiver sets and our lightweight free float hand guards. We also used our match grade 5.56 barrels, Nitride Bolt Carriers, Recoil Management System and 3.5# Match Trigger.
To learn more on how to purchase raffle tickets or purchase a rifle check out Battle Tested Equipment on Facebook, Instagram, and there website https://www.bte-usa.com/
———————————————————————————————————-
You. Just. Can’t. Make. This. Shit. Up.
Dumbfounded, I am…dumbfounded. I would really like to share my thoughts other than just that word about this latest very disturbing development with you….who are indeed my closest friends and confidants. But I can’t…my mind is blank right now except for the word…dumbfounded.
Well…that’s not exactly right, my mind is actually swirling with a veritable kaleidoscope of confused thoughts. Kind of like a “Clockwork Orange” confusion as in a, “Why did they make this movie?” bewilderment, breakdown in logic and the natural order of things.
I mean…the last time I heard about Brendon McDonough, he was a relapsed cokehead rookie hotshot with a criminal record who is best known for wandering around on the Yarnell Hill Fire looking for the right spot to be burned alive who thought he deserved to move up in life after a few short months on a hotshot crew because he wanted to spend more time with the daughter he accidentally fathered because his condom broke..
How sweet. Here’s another true story from my time on the job. When my oldest daughter turned 23, we had a family birthday party for her during which she said, “You know dad, this is my first birthday I remember you being here for.” She made this statement without sarcasm, bitterness or rancor, but rather as a simple statement of fact.
Yes…being away from home is tough while doing those kinds of jobs, but until everything people who do those jobs get paid to do happens close to home, it comes with the paycheck and now…retirement : ) . And if you can’t accept those conditions, don’t apply for those jobs…bitch! (non gender specific)
Wait…I have sat here long enough reminiscing about my glory days that the right words to describe how I feel about this latest sad chapter in the aftermath of Yarnell Hill Fire have finally come to me. Those words are…”non sequitur.”
The disconnect in my brain between a firearm manufacturing company named, “Battle Tested Equipment, commemorative Granite Mountain Hotshots assault rifles, and Brendon McDonough writing, “These rifles feature our mil spec receiver sets and our lightweight free float hand guards. We also used our match grade 5.56 barrels, Nitride Bolt Carriers, Recoil Management System and 3.5# Match Trigger.” is just too wide for my mind to bridge and confusing except for the words…”non sequitor” as in, “it does not follow.” WTF…Over?
U.S. Forestry employee and SAIT Co-lead Mike Dudley said ( publicly ) that as far as ignoring the rules of the profession and dropping into a blind box canyon full of explosive fuel with no lookout and less than 1/2 mile in front of a wind-driven, spotting wildfire goes…
…that “99 times out of hundred things things will turn out okay”.
You only get to DIE once.
Eric Marsh himself also said, in his own employee evaluation report just a few months before he and the men in his charge would all burn to death…
“It is a challenge for me to run a program that has minimum standards that I am unable to meet”.
So in order for this to be a ‘true’ Granite Mountain Commemorative Assault Rifle…
…does that mean it just barely passes safety standards and might fire okay for a while… but then it will suddenly blow up in your face and kill you?
Well…given the fact that Sad Sack helped them design the rifle and he thinks the rules are hillbilly and don’t have to followed because they are so much smarter now…I would say who knows what standards were used in their design and manufacturing process?
So a catastrophic failure of their commerative firearm is not only likely to happen, it is just a matter of time. And when it does finally happen, no one will be surprised and just shrug and say, “ I always knew it was going to happen sooner or later.”
The other word I thought of to describe my feelings is, “inappropriate.” But then again, perhaps Sad Sack has been following the progression of and techniques utilized in the marketing of GMIHC and YHF memorabilia by the Eric Marsh Foundation For Wildland Firefighter Safety and has noticed how loose their standards are in doing anything to make a buck…so he figures, “why not, who cares?”
I mean…Mrs. Lohman is offering her photos for sale and she is going to donate 20% of her profits to the foundation. And I don’t even know where to start with her mixing the whole saving the horses thing in with their goal of saving future wildland firefighters from supremely arrogant and egotistically driven supervisors like Eric Marsh who will put their career advancement before the safety of their firefighters.
And besides that, I had wayyyyy to much experience with dealing with the wild ferrell herds of mustang horses and burros whose ancestors were left by the Spanish Conquistadors who now roam public lands and are protected by the Wild Horse and Burro Act. All because Congress designated the BLM as being the primary enforcement agency of that act.
Unfortunately….those animals are kinda like the rabbits in Australia and since they don’t have any natural predators who keep their population in check and they breed like rabbits while overgrazing and tearing up public lands…my sympathies to save horses were severely tested and as far as I am concerned..we should sponsor all you eat buffets for the French. I mean…”They Shoot Cows Don’t They?”
And that way we could start to pay down all of the new national debt we are getting ready to put on the national credit card to give corporations giant tax breaks even though they are already sitting on historically record amounts of cash.
I would say 99 out of a 100 never make that choice when they have 400 Ac. of black. One made the choice and 19 died.
Agree.
You have to love that phrase that Mike Dudley so casually used when he was speaking to that roomful of firefighters on June 20, 2014.
“99 time out of a hundred”.
Anyone who coins that phrase is actually saying…
“The odds are one hundred to one.”
That doesn;t mean ( as some people think ) that you can do something risky 99 times and only on attempt one hundred will your risky behavior bite you ( and the people in your charge ) in the ass.
It means it could happen on ANY attempt.
What if the FIRST time you roll that one-hundred sided dice they come up snake-eyes?
You only get to DIE once.
The only cure is prevention.
If you want to gamble… go to Vegas and use your OWN money…and NOT the lives of the men/women whose lives you are responsible for.
Well said for the both of you.
Regarding Bob’s comment: “One made the choice and 19 died.” I would add that yes, ‘one made the choice and 19 men,’ with a select few of the GMHS knowing this was wrong, and yet all under the dangerous influence of Groupthink, followed each other down the steep slopes and chutes filled with decadent chaparral, into a deadly bowl at the worst possible time.
And FYI, I am still not surrendering my original position that all hotshot crews with the exception of the Oak Grove Hotshots under Bob, the Payson Hotshots under Fred and possibly a few other hotshot crews who might also have been infected with the even more potentially deadly malady for Type 1A crews known as “individualism”, which is also commonly called, “what about ME and what I think” fallacy have flourished under “groupthink”, which is also known by the more common hotshot name of, “Shut the fuck up and do what you are told to do, when you are told to do it, how you are told to do it and for as long as you are told to do it, or until somebody under whose authority you are laboring…tells you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing and start doing something else” which is the very definition of what it means to be a hotshot while managing to capture the very essence of what it means to be one of the best of the best.
That was how I was raised to perform on a hotshot crew, and that was how I raised every crewman on my hotshot crews to behave. That is the hotshot way…and the right way. If you would have ever been able to examine what was in the thought bubble over my head up until it was my job to think about what I should have been doing as a hotshot…you would have seen a blank, empty bubble. That is because I was not only trained to follow orders…I instinctively knew that the senior crewmen, the squad bosses, but more likely my crew boss knew what I should be doing better than I did. That was why they were in charge and I wasn’t. I also instinctively knew that fighting wildfires is much more of an art than it is a science because of the very dangerous, highly volatile and dynamic circumstances hotshot crews can find themselves in at any given moment while battling a wildfire where split second decisions may mean the difference between life and a really bad death which in my book includes being burned alive where you would find yourself coughing up chunks of your charred lungs so hard the frenulum in your mouth would no longer connect your tongue to the back of your mouth.
The system I describe has been very successful and has managed to make sure every hotshot has gone home (not in a body bag, not counting random accidents) after countless fires for 70 years now except for 12 members of the El Caruso Hotshots on the Loop Fire of 1966, 3 members including the crew boss of the Mormon Lake Hotshots on the Battlement Crref Fire of 1976 and 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots including their crew boss on the Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013. I believe the deaths of 9 Hotshots from the Prineville Hotshots on the South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain is an anomaly because they were under the direction of an Incident Commander and not their crew boss at the time they were killed. I will take those odds any time and be willing to bet not only my life on, that gamble, but the lives of those I love as well.
Therefore, I firmly believe ”Shut the fuck up and do what you are told to do, when you are told to do it, how you are told to do it and for as long as you are told to do it, or until somebody under whose authority you are laboring…tells you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing and start doing something else”, which is also known as the, “If I want any shit out of you…I will squeeze your head” Hotshot Crew methodology is the correct way for every hotshot crew to operate…period.
Any questions?
Oh…and one more thing. If there is anyone out there who is still following this blog who is thinking about trying to get on a hotshot crew. and make it, .you had best follow my model rather than the fantasy that Bob and Fred have pushed for four years now.
If…on the other hand, you want to have a very short career as a hotshot? Just start off by explaining to your squad boss and crew boss how important you are as an individual, just how fucking Special your mother thinks you are, how many good ideas you have, and how many Blue Ribbons you earned in your life as a successful “Participant.”
Be sure and let me know how that works out for you, because I would like to conduct a scientific experiment to evaluate and determine just how ridiculous and unsuccessful the Oak Grove Hotshot Way actually is when applied to real life.
I am pretty sure I couldn’t get a job as a laborer on a construction site or any other job for that matter and have that work out for me. How about playing for a professional, college or sand lot team? Do you really think the coaches want to hear about whatever is rattling around inside your head?
Fuck me…can we at least bury that stupid idea?
On the contrary, your “Shut the fuck up and do what you are told to do, when you are told to do it, how you are told to do it and for as long as you are told to do it, or until somebody under whose authority you are laboring…tells you to stop doing whatever it is you are doing and start doing something else” is the very essence of Groupthink.
And then there is the amazingly successful, Israeli Defense Force’s “10th Man” doctrine. Allegedly, if 9 people in a room agree on a certain thing it is the DUTY of the 10th man to disagree.
“Following the Yom Kippur War (1973) which took Israeli military intelligence by surprise, institutions were put in place to reduce the chances that group think and overly dominant commanders would prevent diverse opinions from reaching decision makers or from being initiated at all. One of these was a unit often referred to as the devil’s advocate office.
“As described by Yosef Kupperwasser, who used to head the Research Division of the IDF, in Lesson’s From Israel’s Intelligence Reforms.
:
“The devil’s advocate office ensures that AMAN’s intelligence assessments are creative and do not fall prey to group think. The office regularly criticizes products coming from the analysis and production divisions, and writes opinion papers that counter these departments’ assessments. The staff in the devil’s advocate office is made up of extremely experienced and talented officers who are known to have a creative, “outside the box” way of thinking. Perhaps as important, they are highly regarded by the analysts. As such, strong consideration is given to their conclusions and their memos go directly to the office of the Director of Military Intelligence, as well as to all major decision makers. The devil’s advocate office also proactively combats group think and conventional wisdom by writing papers that examine the possibility of a radical and negative change occurring within the security environment. This is done even when the defense establishment does not think that such a development is likely, precisely to explore alternative assumptions and worst-case scenarios.”
Sources: Deep Politics Forum, KING’ORI, Lifehacker.com.
Well…I guess we are just going to have to agree to disagree. I will continue to pray to the fire gods for your redemption and eventual salvation because I think you are worth it!
Gary,
It’s a very simple and permissible conclusion to draw on your “Shut the fuck up and do what you are told to do …” rant. It is Groupthink.and certainly encourages it at a minimum.
So yes, we will have to agree to disagree and because I am right.
Yes…it is.
You heretic! May the fire gods have mercy on your soul.
And like I wrote four years ago…everything I think is “ generally speaking”, because there are exceptions to everything.
For example, when I was a crewman…I decided how to use the tool they put in my hands, but I did it like I was trained to use it, generally speaking. And if either the Lead Pulaski or the Last Shovel yelled take more, I decided how much more I should take.
If one of them yelled, “take less”, I determined how much less I should take, because that wasn’t an exact science either.
And I tried at all times to watch my spacing to do everything I could not to amputate the foot of the person in front of me and to reduce the chances the person behind me amputated mine.
It got a little more complicated when I became the Lead Pulaski, and then a swamper for the sawyer, then a sawyer, then the second squad boss, then the Number 2 and finally the crew boss.
But it was still pretty simple…all I had to do was follow the examples of those who came before me, because I also instinctively knew how important tradition, history and culture…in addition to TRADITION was to a U.S. Forest Service Hotshot Crew.
And when the National Park Service started the very first “other” hotshot crew, the Arrowhead Hotshots back in my day, they did the same by following the example of the U.S. Forest Service Hotshots they hired to start that crew and so on and so forth.
One hotshot crew begat the next, all of the way back to the cradle of hotshot civilization in SoCal…on either the Angeles or the Cleveland National Forests in either 1947 or 1948…who the fuck knows?
GARY SAID:
For example, when I was a crewman…I decided how to use the tool they put in my hands, but I did it like I was trained to use it, generally speaking. And if either the Lead Pulaski or the Last Shovel yelled take more, I decided how much more I should take.
JOY’S REPLY:
what about Woodsman and his 2 torches—how many did you carry Gary? how many did you bring back “empty”?
I guess I missed that one?
But…we never used drip torches to either ignite backfires or for burning out pockets of unturned fuel. We only used fuses, which are large road flares and I think they are also called “railroad flares”?
We did however, use drip torches exclusively for broadcast or prescribed burns and for burning cat or hand piles.
As far as the fire line went, the standard issue number of fusees for everyone except for the swampers or sawyers to carry was two when we weren’t expecting to need any for planned burn operations. Those were for emergency use if things went to hell in a hand basket.
For planned operations that were built into the shift plan, we carried as many fusees as we could manage or were available to us, because you can never have too many fusees.
It’s a little more complicated than that because we often ignited backfires and did burnouts independent of planned operations because their were no plans, Plans Chief (Operations Chief -Plans…I think) etc. yet because that usually happened during the first 36 hours (or more) on the fire line when the fire was being managed by Chaos.
So…when flying out we would often take the case of fusees we always traveled with because fusees were never available where we were going yet.
Just like nothing else was available on the fire yet either. That is what made Hotshot crews…hotshot crews. They showed up ready to hit the fireline independent of anything anyone else was doing or had done.
And…Hotshots could be sent out to independently operate safely and productively without any support or oversight from the fire team, who was working as hard as they could to bring some order to complete chaos…without worrying about hotshot crews pulling a Marsh behind their backs.
That is the lasting damage Eric Marsh did to every hotshot and every hotshot crew in the nation…now and forever.
Oh…and we would take all of the extra supplies we traveled with in addition to the case of fusees with us as well.
Those supplies were In addition to everyone carrying their own water and food supply based on their projected needs for the first 36 hours. We also took out extra saw gas, cases of rats, headlamp batteries and cubes of water, etc. if it was possible depending on how we were going from a base heliport or drop point to were the flames were or other place we were starting from.
There are an infinite number of variables that come with every wildfire, which is why the fire gods created hotshot crews in their image.
I mean…think about it. Hotshot crews have worked countless shifts in the worst conditions imaginable on countless wildfires over the last 70 years and only three of those shifts have ended in what I would call a catastrophic way. Which are pretty good odds…I think.
And I guess I am going to have to revise the military equivalent for a hotshot crew, if there is a military equivalent because fires don’t aim while shooting back from Marine Infantry, to a Special Forces (Green Beret) A-Team during small fires where Hotshots go out in modules rather than in squad or crew strength and during the time period complex wildfires are being managed by Chaos.
I am however, sticking with any WF comparison to SEALS (if there is one) as belonging to the smokejumpers.
isn’t funny…when I was just learning about the industry
Murry Taylor- he was our first person in the start of your industry to talk with us-
http://www.jumpingfire.com/author.html
he is a hoot. Some have other names depending who is speaking but he laid it straight to us from the get go-
Hybrid Norb explained the BEST in person though and Dr Ted Putnam almost another year older is still on Mann Gulch…
correction—
isn’t it funny not isn’t funny
I think it is time for a boiled with skin on banana
and I think Alaska Smokejumpers are the elite ones— after seeing all the different industries I have humble preference to the neat stories of those- and probably because Sonny and I were next to go to Alaska when the YHF happened and I had to stay for doctor visits….so probably because I get lost in their stories like reading an old western…
Murry A Taylor will be 77 this Spring and yet you hear him talk—he does not seem that age—
This once in blue moon kinda guy Murry I will never forget…the planning and the selecting…maintaining the proper equipment, getting your body and mind into the right condition and that was not for smokejumping but for the artistic flair of deer hunting— Sonny knows all too well what he was saying for he fed his own family as a kid…I just listened…
Murry is more rare than a lunar eclipse…there is something to be said about the ebb and flow because without him entering the picture I do believe both Sonny and I would of went on with our lives and away from the YHF but it was HIS WORDS that stuck with us…as I like to be tethered to the ground both Sonny and Murry soar freely into the sky…
Since 2011 the back and forth nature of the mountain man and desert walker sort of kinda created this elastic bond which certainly gets stretched to its limit, yet somehow remained unbroken with both of us sacrificing along the way…we are no longer on the trails for Sonny is soaring in the skies and I am well grounded to Congress…yet the foundation is there- we are in it to see the YHF and other fires get their TRUTHS told…
But had to say something Gary when you said what you did on smokejumpers…
I also like Charlie Moseley (CJ-62) who died at 73 in April 2014…Moseley spent many years working for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management as a smokejumper fighting forest fires in Oregon and Alaska and also worked for Air America in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. He sure was the best- He really loved Sonny and how we trailed…he called us and kept in touch the most out of everyone…
then there is the super cool Johnny Kirkley that John MacLean is really the core reason I got to meet all these fine men…thank you John…
http://johnmacleanbooks.com/SmokejumperMagazine0714.pdf
I mean John introduced us to Dr Ted Putnam and Wayne and Holly Neill and Stephen Pyne and Charlie and Johnny Kirkley…and someone behind the scenes and not yet fact checked or confirmed but even EN has been told to me to be tied and never formally told to me from John or EN but I never even bothered to ask either because I don’t much need to know so it is rumored third party that maybe my intro calls from EN in the start (2013) was from him and makes sense because it fits in with all the others coming in the pic same time…but Efran and weather channel was John Dougherty…what a journey hearing so many stories but yeah I do like the Alaskan stories and maybe just maybe I will get there some day…
Mmmmmm….boiled banana with the skin on…one of my favorites.
You said something, but you didn’t say anything about the Woodsman and his two torches, what is that about.
As far as Alaska jumpers being the best, that isn’t what I have always heard. Of course I heard it from U.S. Forest Service smokejumpers from the lower 48 and they were talking about BLM jumpers in Alaska since there aren’t any USFS jumpers in AK and there aren’t any BLM jumpers down here except when they exchange those on details I guess.
So anyway, I always heard AK was where the sick and old jumpers go to die because up there the trees don’t grow over 5 or 6 feet tall and all of the landing zones are flat and very soft tundra to land on.
But…like the Woodsman say’s, WTF do I know? I never flew the friendly skies…I just humped it up the mountain as a ground pounder and a grunt.
And as far as jumpers being the ones to be compared to SEALS, I was just trying to explain which box I think they are in because people like to make those comparisons to the military to help themselves and others understand how firefighting works and what the different types do.
The think smokejumpers are the SEALS because they are higher trained than Hotshots are, their physical fitness standards are higher and they tend to be older and more experienced WF who are often former Hotshots. But mostly because they go to small remote fires they handle on their own and never suit up on fight large project as smokejumpers, they only do it as overhead who just happen to be smokejumpers and that was how Dr. Putnam ended up on the Battlement Creek Fire.
It’s complicated, but it is all part of what I have always seen my job on this thread…explain stupid stuff to outsiders ad nauseam while I write my book on this thread by drips and drabs.
to answer you Gary about torches:
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-473012
In other words, almost all of the interior of the Great State of Alaska where the fires burn is nothing more than vast, empty tundra with small stunted trees from the long and very cold winters.
As you know…I am a native Alaskan and most people are disappointed to learn the only remarkable thing about most of Alaska is just how fucking big and plentiful mosquitoes are among the hundreds of thousands little lakes surrounded by nothing but flat marshes and tundra except for more small lakes surrounded by some more flat marshes and tundra…with a few stunted trees thrown in.
My advice…stick to southeast Alaska except for Denali or if you are willing to go as far north as the Brooks and Alaskan Mountain ranges, but by then you will be above the Artic Circle where it really gets ugly.
Generally speaking….Alaska sucks.
I met some of the finest people in our hikes, people you want to add to your friends list because they are the front-liners and heroes that America looks up to.
That’s what makes it’s so hard to see the truth hidden from public view since that truth would save many lives in there future firefighting efforts.
Just as Doctor Ted Putman, psychologist and smokejumper, puts it quote
“it is sad when reputations are put before lives. Joy’s journeys with you will always remain a fascination.”
If the limits were stretched many times but the experiences are invaluable.
There’s much more to this life then that cookie cutter Realm can understand.
Thanks for the Post.
I have tried alot of times to post this
and it says DUPLICATE yet not posted
ugh
ok 😉
thank you Gary for that insight—so grimm
Gary I am looking for back country and off beat paths to Alaska…or Katmai for salmon but I would not challenge a bear for a shot at one…but sure like the ice caves too…
Yes Sonny to answer you- invaluable…priceless— yet it was our opposing values as I am a water sign and you are a fire sign that we had to work diligently to find common grounds…the great outdoors was just that; our common grounds. Trying to conform to one another’s lifestyle literally goes against our very natures….both head strong… you always gave me the feeling like a bird whose wings have been clipped and I always felt we both knew at a distance the value in what we embarked on because you never knew about state land permits
And if you want to really KNOW history most these folks hired on have their own interesting colorful pasts yet they get to gladly give you a ticket and tell you ignorance is not recognized–
-know the law….
Recently Dan J. said to these prospectors they can do this and that and after they left I told him I know you are almost 90 and a retired Yavapai sheriff but he is not up on the current laws himself I explained…
Recently I hiked a city boy with Danielle, Grace and Annie and he said we cannot go in that area we are all illegal and the girls all stepped in and said no Joy has us all good and Joy has not only written permission of the law but even private land owners permissions….
Yes I do.
There is a cold case investigation going on in my desert and one of my vlogs is on PRIVATE with email invite only because I did not want to publicly embarrass an officer of YCSO for what I found of his/hers that should be on them at all times and with the timing a few weeks back of the PV police chief missing his weapon 4 days without knowing it—
I thought lay low
but I knew it was not a prospecting event YET no proper identification or boundaries or taping was done for it is highly a dangerous spot they now created
so I reported it and they temp. taped it
but it is not properly handled still as I travel the area the tape was taken down…it is a high level liability on their part on state land area 1.3 miles away from the nearest home and about same to the elementary school…
they expect us to follow the law but not them…so again to my point Sonny alot of these folks in charge are not doing right themselves but it does not matter— tickets and fines made and you are in court doing a bullshit so you did learn from me do not be ignorant—
Remember Sonny they were going to give you 6 felony counts that one time until I flashed them your credentials that I carried with me because I knew you would tell them you were grandfathered in….
We both learned alot on that long journey path and wishing you only the best wherever life is allowing you to soar…
but I want the world to know Sonny is beyond borrowed time with all those stents and 7 heart attacks and leg thrombosis and a stomach aneurysm concern and heart disease so bad and this couple cm blood clot on your lungs…and not attending that melanoma…you are just not properly caring for it and maybe you are ready to see Ted but remember He has the plan…maybe it is Ted Putnam you gotta see not your son 😉
For each petal on a shamrock may you feel the Irish blessings-
and as time unfolds may the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty….
Dia dhuit mo chara…saol ghrá
h t t p://w w w.telegraph.c o.uk/travel/destinations/north-america/united-states/alaska/articles/alaska-most-beautiful-state-in-usa/alaska 14/
h t tp s://w w w.adn.c om/resizer/pCW5ITxxUPC95Hm9PXBsZ1JC4b8=/1200×0/s3.amazonaws.com/arc-wordpress-client-uploads/adn/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/27091050/wild-ice.jp g
(I SHOULD be getting a commission from the state for how many people I educated and they purchased one)
(also do know there is the FREE permanent hunting card for disabled veterans h t t ps://w w w.azgfd.c o m/PortalImages/files/licenses/specialLicense/specialLicenseUpdated/Disabled%20Veterans%20License%20Application%20052016.p df )
(h tt p
s:/ /land.az.g ov/sites/default/files/Individual-Family_Printable_Permit_Application_0.pd f )
and the very NEW PROGRAM most have no clue about because they LOVE to sleep out on BLM but the new thing is EVEN BLM has joined in on this money making permit situation-
h tt p s:/ /w w w.blm.g ov/programs/recreation/passes
h ttp s:/ /www.blm.g o v/node/7475
even Forestry is a part in the permit stuff but you know that Sonny by all the many warnings when you were once a logger—no, Sonny not for wood— enjoy: ht tps://w w w.fs .fed. us/visit/passes-permits
Let us not forget the OFF THE GRID folks— a permit for you all too—they call them Long Term Visitors To An Area—ht tp s:/ /freecampsites.ne t/bl m-ltvas/
Do not collect wood, even downed wood, in the desert for your campfires or any other purposes; please leave it in place, as it provides necessary habitat for desert wildlife.
Long Term Permit
Valid for the entire season or any part of the season which runs from September 15 to April 15. Is valid for all winter LTVAs in both California and Arizona.
Cost $180 (about $0.86 per night)
Short Term Permit
Valid for 14 consecutive days from the purchase date.
Cost $40 ($2.86)
Off-Season
Between April 16th and September 14, you may stay at an LTVA for up to 14 days. There is no fee to do so.
——————————————-
Arizona Winter LTVAs (2)
The permit fees for Arizona Winter LTVAs are the same as the California. However, unlike CA LTVAs, AZ LTVAs are not free in the off season. A $10 per vehicle fee for day-use, $15 per vehicle for overnight use, or $75 annually per vehicle, for up to 5 people per vehicle is charged. $1 per additional person over the 5 person limit. The maximum stay is 14 days in a 28-day period.
La Posa LTVA
Located approximately 2 miles south of Quartzsite, this is the most popular of the LTVAs. Every winter, Quartzsite transforms from a sleepy little desert town to RV Central. The population normal population of a few thousand surges to 1.5 million people as people come for the rock shows, car shows, swap meets and the RV show.
10 vault toilets (handicap accessible), dry dump station, dump station with water, water station (eight faucets), trash services, some paved / improved roads, dance floor and ramada.
This is the largest of the LTVAs at 11,400 acres in size. It’s flat landscape is sparsely vegetated with plants such as Creosote bushes, Palo Verde trees, Ironwood trees, Mesquite trees and various species of cacti.
Cultural sites, rockhounding, watchable wildlife, unique desert scenery, solitude, hiking opportunities and security.
Imperial Dam LTVA campers at Imperial Dam LTVA
RVers camping at Imperial Dam LTVA
This LTVA is located a distant 22 miles from services in Yuma, but that hasn’t kept it down. It’s thriving. There is definitely a sense of community here. Volunteers set up organized activities available such as yoga, music performances, race car meets, hiking, aerobics classes, cookouts, model airplane groups and even a lending library dubbed “Liberry”.
Grey water dump sites, two restroom facilities with outdoor showers, black water dump site with water, trash removal, ramadas and dance floor/music performance area.
The campground is approximately 3,500 acres in size, flat landscape, sparsely vegetated with plants such as Creosote bushes, Palo Verde trees, Ironwood trees, Mesquite trees and various species of cacti.
Cultural sites, rockhounding, watchable wildlife, unique desert scenery, hiking opportunities, security, fishing, boating, and swimming.
Summer LTVAs (4)
All of the summer LTVAs are located in California on the eastern side of the Sierras. They are just off of the scenic Highway 395.
Long Term Permit
Valid for the entire or any part of the season -first Saturday in March through November 1st.
Is valid for all summer LTVAs in California.
Cost $300 (about $0.86 per night)
Short Term Permit
The summer LTVAs do not offer them. You must pay by the day.
Cost $5/day camping fee.
Off-Season
The BLM’s summer LTVAs are closed between November 2nd and the first Friday in march.
————————————————-
I know you are freely crossing the USA but I am thinking of the big burro mountains you once took me to and the whole Senator saving us that night…and your roots and
EVEN in New Mexico you have to have a permit Sonny—see:
New Mexico State Park Pass
Cost: $180 for residents
$225 for non-residents
Primitive camping is free with the New Mexico State Park Annual Camping Pass which is good for one year from the date of purchase.
Website: h tt p :/ /w w w.emnrd.state.nm.u s/SPD/FeesPermits.html
Sonny? OMG…it’s great to hear from you…how are you doing, all things considered?
And as far as how I’m doing
very good.
Pull my pump out of the well
been laying my floor in and getting ready to paint the house.
I went to town today bought myself to six packs Guinness Stout and had a couple of them
I finally got around to celebrating my birthday couple days after and have been doing so since this morning.
Went hunting rabbits in the Mesquite and drove probably 30 miles of dirt road
did see one rabbit but by the time I got my rifle up to take a shot he was gone and I thought that’s good cuz that’s the only rabbit I’d seen in 30 miles probably be a tragic thing to kill the only rabbit on the desert.
The desert and I love each other but I sure hate running over Mesquite.
I do have one flat to fix and all it is is a slow leak from Mesquite thorn.
My big German Shepherd barking and driving me crazy so I’m going to call him in the house.
The Catahoula seldom barks unless a person shows up but the shepherd seems to hate coyotes.
And it is good to hear from you Gary Olson
as well he’s done so much 2 make people realize how screwed up the investigation was and how few really know the truth that went down causing the deaths of those 19 young soldiers.
I think all fireman or heroes in a way but there were a few that should never have been bosses since they’re tragic and careless action risking their Men’s Life needlessly cause those deaths.
I had a little bit of a cry today thinking about them as I wrote about them to a person in the Philippines.
They are still in our hearts and bless their efforts despite the situation that caused their deaths.
*
wtktt-
what is the closest mega burn sized grass fire or forest fire that has come to where you live such that you have been able to observe at first hand and not just on tv all the perimeters of wild fire and what did you think of how it was being conducted? was it a state run or federal run fire? I am asking you vs the others because we understand the others have been on the line so I am just trying to learn how close you or your town have been to being affected by a wild fire? That was one of the questions the locals wanted to know –
Does your town participate in going to other states like ours and make money and get free vehicles? Do they do defensible space there? have you/your area ever had to evacuate? In your area was slurry drop aftermath/consequences ever complained about or even these silly ideas and concepts of burns within a burn operations?
Reply to Gary Olson post on December 3, 2017 at 1:55 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> Dumbfounded, I am… dumbfounded.
An ‘Assault Rifle’ only has one purpose.
It is specifically designed to KILL whatever is on the business side of it in an expedient and efficient manner.
It obviously has not occurred to these idiots that maybe ( just maybe ) the family members of any/all current or future wildland firefighting deaths would be horrified to know that some of the support money they might be receiving has come from the sale of deadly Assault Weapons.
But I guess that’s what can happen to your brain after you wolf down far too many 2nd amendment twinkies and chase them with a few too many gallons of red/white/blue kool-aid.
The ‘Battle Tested Equipment’ public Facebook page is here…
https://www.facebook.com/BTEUSA/
Just yesterday… they posted the following…
—————————————————————————————
We are only 22 Tickets away from the next raffle for the Granite Mountain Hotshot Tribute Rifle which we are hoping raffle off this week. Tickets for the Rifle are available for sale on our Website using this link https://www.bte-usa.com/hotshotrifle
———————————————–
Notice that the NAME they chose for their webiste page to purchase tickets is ‘hotshotrifle’.
The photos of the Assault Rifle accompanying that post show the following ‘inscriptions’…
On one side of the weapon…
HOTSHOT MULTI GMIHC0001
All ‘serial numbers’ will apparently begin with ‘GMIHC’ which, of course, stands for ‘Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew’.
On the other side of the weapon…
IN HONOR OF THE 19 HOTSHOTS LOST
LAST ALARM 6/30/2013
BTE / USA
PHOENIX / AZ
Other posts on their public Facebook page say the ‘plan’ is to sell a minimum of 200 raffle tickets for each of the first 19 Assault Rifles at a price of $20 per ticket.
So that’s $4,000 for each of the first 19 Assault Rifles.
Assault Rifle with serial number 20 ( GMIHC0020 ) is being ‘donated’ to Brendan McDonough himself, free of charge.
For Assault Rifles 21-9999 ( they plan to make at least 1,000 of them ) the retail price will be $1,395 ( One Thousand Three Hundred and Ninety-Five dollars ).
They are using PayPal to sell the raffle tickets ( and the Rifles themselves ), and here is just one public exchange about that on their public Facebook page…
——————————————————————————————
Public comment from: Michael Anthony
( Your Paypal ) Link doesn’t go to cart brother …
Public Reply from: Battle Tested Equipment
( George Urmston is President of BTE )
…unfortunately we have to use PayPal for the payment processing…. It is probably you however if you say it isn’t you then we will be forced to burn that motherfucker down and only accept cash for the raffle…. Kindly let us know….
—————————————————————-
“We will be forced to burn that motherfucker down”
Charming. ( Can you say… ‘Terroristic Threatening’ ? )
This is all beyond ‘inappropriate;. It goes all the way to ‘disgusting’.
If there’s anyone left at the ‘Wildland Firefighter Foundation’ that has a shred of integrity they should immediately issue a press release stating that they will REFUSE to accept ANY of the money from the sale of ANY of these ‘Granite Mountain Assault Rifles’.
Ditto for all of the ‘other firefighter non-profits’ ( which they fail to list ) that they say they will also be donating Assault Rifle sale money to.
I suppose a public apology from McDonough for even being stupid enough to get involved with such a hair-brained money grab would also be in order… but yea… like that’s gonna happen.
He is doing his own share of eating the twinkies and downing the kool-aid.
Notwithstanding the ongoing moronic McDonough’s actions, I think the same can easily be be said for the other camp. I guess that’s what can happen to your brain after you wolf down far too many anti-second amendment twinkies and chase them with a few too many gallons of rainbow colored kool-aid..
Assault weapons are functionally identical to many other common hunting and target rifles Assault weapons sometimes share cosmetic similarities with military weapons
Typically assault weapons fire low or intermediate power cartridges
No functional features uniquely distinguish assault weapons from their “sporting” counterparts.
Because there is no consistent definition, comparison of data from different political and legal jurisdictions is impeded and legally defining assault weapons as a class is impossible.For example, despite California’s ban of over 60 models of assault weapons, cosmetic changes in banned guns allow the legal sale of functionally identical weapons.
Please refer to the Johnson TD. Report on a Survey of the Use of “Assault Weapons” in California in 1990. Office of the Attorney General, California Department of Justice. September 26, 1991 study documenting the minuscule prevalence of assault weapons amongst crime guns.
More New York City police officers were attacked in 1992 with roach spray, wood chisels, fire extinguishers, radio amplifiers, or any other of a readily available array of household objects than were attacked with assault weapons according to: Cerar JC, Deputy Inspector and Commanding Officer, New York City Police Academy, Firearms and Tactics Section, New York City Police Department. 1992 Firearms Discharge Assault Report. New York City Police Department. 1993. p. 7.
Assault weapons are increasingly used in national and international target competitions sponsored by the International Practical Shooting Confederation, the US Practical Shooting Association, and other groups. The varied and extended courses of fire and the movement of the target or the shooter in these competitions demands the ergonomics and capacity of assault weapons, even for the highly skilled competitor.
Our Constitution’s Second Amendment grants our citizens the natural right and the common-sense duty to protect themselves, their families, their communities, and their property. The use of assault weapons by citizens in community defense can be demonstrated. During the Los Angeles riots made memorable the video footage of law-abiding shop and homeowners using guns, including assault weapons, to protect themselves, their families, and their property. Determined display and appropriate use of their protective weaponry was effective. No major American city can claim freedom from similar riots and the associated deaths and damage.
As several national studies show, including the definitive study by the National Institute of Justice and studies commissioned by gun-prohibitionist organizations, guns do protect good people; they are used defensively by law-abiding citizens at least 606,000 to 2.4 million times per year — as many as 75 lives protected by a gun for every life lost to a gun — lives saved, injuries prevented, medical costs saved, and property protected. This exceeds all estimates of criminal misuse. Using a gun to resist a crime or assault is safer than not resisting at all or resisting with means other than firearms. Guns not only repel crime, guns deter crime as is shown by numerous surveys of criminals. Arguably, when faced with mob or gang violence or multiple assailants, assault weapons represent the most appropriate means of protection.
Where the powerful images of children and innocent bystanders injured by guns are concerned, any analysis of the exaggerated extent of the problem is met with, “if it saves only one life….” Since protective uses exceed criminal misuses, a gun ban impacts more on compliant, good citizens than upon criminals. One must admit, therefore, that a good citizen’s life lost because a gun was absent is at least as valuable as a vicious predator’s life lost because a gun was present.
Regarding the the myths of police protection, it has been argued than guns are not needed by citizens because they are protected by the police and the military, including the National Guard. In view of the current crime rate, the effectiveness of that protection can be rightfully questioned. A significant, if not majority, of police activity involves “mopping up” after the crime has already occurred. Research suggests that police apprehension offers less deterrent to criminals than the threat of encountering an armed victim.
Statutes and legal precedents are clear that the police only have a responsibility to provide some general level of protection to the community at large. Police are under no obligation to protect any individual, even if in immediate danger. An oral promise to respond to an emergency call for assistance does not make the police liable to provide protection.
The withdrawal of police protection from riot-torn areas of Los Angeles and the two-day delay in putting National Guard soldiers on the streets of Los Angeles exposed the illusion of public protection. Additionally, it is disturbing to recall that armed citizens had to protect themselves from the police and US National Guard soldiers who were looting in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo. Throughout American history we have innumerable examples of crime, terrorism, civil disorder, and natural disasters, where the police and military forces have been unable or unwilling to protect citizens, often for racist or political reasons. One can rightfully question the wisdom of reliance upon the police or military in times of trouble.
While certain state and federal gun controls may be constitutional, gun prohibitions are clearly unconstitutional. The US Supreme Court has explicitly protected an individual right to keep and bear arms, especially and explicitly protecting military-style weapons, “part of the ordinary military equipment….” Some have erroneously believed that the Second Amendment reference to “militia” designates only a right of the National Guard; however, the National Guard is only one component of the militia because: “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age… and under 45 years of age.” — United States Code, Title 10, Section 311(a). Though the debate often focuses on the Second Amendment, current and historical legal scholarship finds support of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments and natural rights theory.
The constitutional authorities cited above, and others are quite convincing of the inherent, irrevocable right to self- protection against criminals, rioters, and tyrants. The right to keep and bear arms — and ammunition — is essential to that self-protection and has nothing to do with duck hunting or subjective assessments of “legitimate sporting uses” of guns.
In Switzerland, the army sells a variety of machine guns, submachine guns, anti-tank weapons, anti-aircraft guns, howitzers and cannons. Purchasers of these weapons require an easily obtained cantonal license, and the weapons are registered, In a nation of six million people, there are at least two million guns, including 600,00 fully automatic assault rifles, half a million pistols, and numerous machine guns. Virtually every home has a gun.
The above cited from numerous anti- and pro-gun sources.
Hmmmm? Sporting rifles built on the AR-15 and M16 platforms typically are chambered in one of two calibers with some oddball ones like the 9mm and the new one, the 300 Blackout, which is designed to be on par with the 7.62×39 mm Soviet.
The .223 Remington and the hotter military version in 5.56×45 mm NATO and the larger 7.62×51 mm NATO which is similar to the 30.06 Springfield and the civilian 308 Winchester are however, by far the most common calibers for “assault” rifles AKA…sporting rifles.
Some rifles can shoot both the military and the civilian versions of these calibers, but not all of them can without risking catastrophic failure of the firearm, so…be sure and read your owners manual before you buy a bunch of ammo and start blazing away.
The .223 and the 5.56 have muzzle velocities of more than 3000 feet per second. And the 7.62 and 308 Garand have muzzle velocities just under 3000 feet per second.
So…my point is this, both rounds are designed to make little holes going into a human body, then they create a cone shaped cavity that explodes or displaces organs with the resulting shockwave because the human body has so much water in it and then make really big holes when they exit the body.
You can say a lot about all of these calibers, but saying they are low to intermediate power cartridges…definitely isn’t one of them. The high velocity of the bullets fired from all of these cartridges is what makes them so deadly. And the maximum destruction they are designed to inflict on flesh make them unsuitable for hunting, IMHO.
And on top of that, if the shooter is using ammo with lead in them (which are outlawed by the Geneva Conventuion) that mushroom instead of the full metal jacket rounds used by the military, the resulting damage to the target will just that much worse.
Law Enforcement ((and hunters) use the lead versions for two reasons, to make sure the intended target is destroyed and because the lead bullets will explode and disintegrate upon hitting the intended target or walls etc. and stopping there instead of destroying an unintended target several blocks away.
I guess what I am trying to share with you is that I am not a gun owner…I am a gun nut. And I love the AR 15 in the M4 variation more than any other gun…it completes me. And I am convinced I need at least one for the Zombie Apocalypse that I know is coming sooner or later.
And I know all of the reasons why I shouldn’t own one, but I also know all of the reasons I why I should. I also know all of the reasons every American should have the choice of whether to own one or not.
But with all of that being said, it is impossible for me to forget that a madman legally owned one and used the weapon that was specifically designed for the military to kill and maim enemy soldiers on a battlefield as quickly and efficiently as humanly possible at a range of up to 100 yards and a lot further than that with random fire using ammunition that was specifically designed to do as much damage as possible to the human body with bullet spalling and fragmentation while creating huge cone shaped wound channels by causing devastating body cavitation using high velocity hydroponic shockwaves that instantly convert human flesh, blood, bone, muscle cartilage and organs into piles of goo at point blank range on 20 babies and 6 educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.
And I can’t help but feel…complicit. And I don’t think another variation of that same weapon should be used to commerative the deaths of the GMIHC.
I also don’t think any of this would be happening if Mrs. Lohman and her posse of enablers hadn’t created such a entertainment circus in the aftermath of our national tragedy.
That…I don’t feel complicit in because I have done the best I could to introduce some realism into the mix…even though my efforts haven’t had the slightest effect on even slowing down the circus train much less stopping it.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on
December 4, 2017 at 12:16 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Notwithstanding the ongoing moronic McDonough’s actions…
>>
>> ( snip )
>> Typical “You can pry my cold dead hands” argument(s). See above.
>> ( snip )
So… just to be clear… I take it you APPROVE of the proceeds from the sale of ‘Assault Rifles’ going into the coffers of organizations that supply financial support to family members of deceased or injured wildland firefighters?
Without them even being made AWARE that is where some of the support money is coming from?
Let me make it easier for you…
Just check ONE of the following boxes…
[___] Hell yeah ( I approve.).
[___] Money is money. Who the fuck cares WHERE it comes from
[___] Hell no. ( I disapprove ).
[___] Hell no. ( I disapprove ).
Thanks for the clarification prompt
And thanks for the clarification.
BTW… I am a lifelong gun owner… and I am more than familiar with a lot of the research you were quoting above.
But I still think the Wildland Firefighter Foundation ( and any other wildland firefighter support organization ) should ( publicly ) REJECT any of the proceeds from this stupid “Granite Mountain Commemorative Assault Rifle” nonsense.
Yes thanks and BTW, I knew that. I wanted to make it much more clear for those uninformed, that actually drink the rainbow colored kool-aid.
You can have the last drink of kool-aid on this one.
All I wanted to know was how you actually felt about the proceeds from the sale of Assault Rifles going into the coffers of Wildland Firefighter support groups.
Okay then, I do not drink the kool-aid
Is “ breaking in on Arizona 16” the same as a mayday call?
Diane-
this sounds like yard 16- DOC lingo—
where you getting this stuff—
is this data tied to the sadly new CA fires or the YHF?
Joy,
It’s from the Yarnell Hill fire when Granite Mountain was trying to get help from air attack and were using the words “breaking in on arizona 16”
so frequency line—
I am not ignoring your question just asking folks that were on the line back channel and or people who know that lingo—
Diane,
“Arizona 16 is the Airguard frequency, an emergency frequency that all aircraft have programmed into their radios and monitor. It appears the Granite Mountain crewmember thinks he is breaking in on Arizona 16 but he is on the air-to-ground frequency”
SAIR page 27.
In my career there was never a set standard on woodland fires for communicating an emergency. The most common was “break for emergency traffic”, this would let all the firefighters putting the fire out via the radio( sorry I couldn’t resist) that something with a high priority was taking place so stay off the radio. Was that the best way, probably not and if something positive comes out of this entire tragedy maybe it will be a solid “mayday” procedure. I have been out of the business for almost four years so maybe it’s in place, if not it needs to be!
Diane,
This is from the SAIT SAIR on page 27.
““Breaking in on Arizona 16, Granite Mountain Hotshots, we are in front of the flaming front.” 9”
“9 Arizona 16 is the Airguard frequency, an emergency frequency that all aircraft have programmed into their radios and monitor. It appears the Granite Mountain crewmember thinks he is breaking in on Arizona 16 but he is on the air-to-ground frequency.”
Reply to Diane lomas post on December 6, 2017 at 1:43 pm
>> Diane lomas asked.
>>
>> Is “ breaking in on Arizona 16” the same as a mayday call?
Nope.
As RTS already pointed out… ‘Channel 16’ ( also known as the ‘Air Guard’ channel ) is labeled in most Incident Radio Communications plans as an ’emergency channel’, but just starting a radio callout with “breaking in on 16” in no way constitutes the ‘declaration’ of an actual ’emergency’.
Below is what Arizona Forestry’s own official ‘Radio Communications Guide’ has to say about using the ‘Air Guard’ channel.
NOTICE that while it DOES say that the ‘Air Guard’ channel CAN be used to declare an actual ’emergency’… it can ALSO be used for ‘other things’ such as the simple call, recall or re-direction of aircraft.
So just because a radio call is initiated on the ‘Air Guard’ channel doesn’t automatically mean the caller actually has any kind of life-threatening EMERGENCY.
The Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management
Wildland Fire Radio Communications Guide
Version: 2.0
Revised: March 20, 2017
https://dffm.az.gov/sites/default/files/documents/files/2017%20ADFFM%20Radio%20Communicatins%20Guide%20and%20Channel%20Plan.pdf
———————————————————————————-
Air Guard channel ( 16 ) usage:
Tx/Rx168.625 tx pl tone only- 110.9- there is not pl tone on the receive.
Most agencies follow the prescribed standards for Air Guard being the last channel on a group of frequencies, usually on channel 16 on each group for radios that are configured for 16 channels per group. This prescribed standard of an AIR GUARD channel was developed so that in the event of an emergency, a user could turn the radio channel knob to the last channel and place an emergency call without looking and searching for an emergency channel.
The AIR GUARD channel CAN be used for all of the following:
Air-to-Air emergency contact and coordination, Ground-to-Air emergency contact, Initial call, recall, and re-direction of aircraft when no other contact frequency is available.
————————————————————————————
So even if you make a callout on the ‘Air Guard’ channel… you would still need to DECLARE you are in a life-threateniing situation ( if that is the reason for the callout ) using either the standard MAYDAY protocol or its equivalent.
All of that being said… RTS has also already pointed out that Jesse Steed’s initial radio callout of “Breaking in on Arizona 16” was NOT actually taking place on the actual “Air Guard” channel 16.
Steed was making the call on just the regular ‘Air to Ground’ channel ( 10 ).
Steed may have ‘thought’ he had set his handheld to transmit on channel 16 before making the call… but he had NOT.
So there was no way for anyone hearing that initial callout on that Air-To Ground channel to KNOW ( for sure ) he was in any-kind of actual life threatening situation.
Steed ( and Robert Caldwell ) had NOT been trained how to properly DECLARE their own life-threatening situation on ANY radio channel.
When the ‘settlement’ of the 12 wrongful-death lawsuits was finally announced the actual ‘Settlement Agreement’ contained a provision that was added by the family members REQUIRING Arizona Forestry ( ASFD ) to consider adding the standard ‘Mayday’ call ( or its equivalent ) to their wildland fire radio training courses.
Here are some excerpts from that official ‘Settlement Agreement’…
————————————————————————————
6. State Forestry Division Practices
Plaintiffs ( family members ) provided the Arizona State Forester ( Jeff Whitney ) a list of proposed improvements in wildland fire safety. The Forester agrees that wildland fire safety is a high priority, and has already begun to implement improvements on his own.Through discussion and negotiation, Plaintiffs and the Forester compiled a list of items that the Forester agrees to do or is already doing in the spirit of improving wildland fire safety, learning from the Yarnell Hill fire and helping to make Arizona a model for wildland fire safety. Those items are attached as Appendix ‘A’ to this Settlement Agreement and Release.
APPENDIX-A – Page 1 of 4
What ASFD is REQUIRED to do:
7. ASFD will evaluate including a formalized emergency radio procedure in its Communications Plan.
————————————————————————————-
Sounds good, right?
Sounds like Arizona Forestry was (now) perfectly willing to ‘learn’ something from the needless deaths of 19 men in their own workplace, and that (finally) adding a codified ’emergency radio procedure’ to their standard communications would be a perfectly reasonable place to start… right?
Not so much.
In the very same APPENDIX-A of the ‘Settlement Agreement’, Arizona Forestry had a paragraph that says they had ALREADY considered ‘Item 7’ and they had ALREADY decided NOT to do anything about it because ( in their opinion ), adopting the standard international ‘Mayday’ emergency call procedure would just be too ( potentially ) confusing.
Here is that other paragraph further down in the same ‘Settlement Agreement’ document where they ‘blew off’ this request from the family members…
————————————————————————————
What ASFD has already done:
32. Plaintiffs had requested that ASFD discuss use of a “Mayday” button on all radios with IDIP. Unfortunately, upon further review, ASFD reports that large fire organizations ( Type 1 or 2 ) would not be subject to IDIP recommendations. They operate their own incident level dispatch. This type of system coming off a Dispatch console would only reach Initial Attack resources. Use of a “Mayday” would be on a single frequency that may not reach all personnel or would not be directed at appropriate resources thus adding more confusion rather than removing. If it generates a blanket “Mayday” across all frequencies, this can cause issues at incidents that may not be involved in the “Mayday” situation.
————————————————————————————
So that was the end of that.
There would be NO official ‘recommendation’ to finally implement any standard emergency ‘Mayday’ radio procedure ( or its equivalent ) in the world of wildland firefighting, even though 19 lives were lost at the Yarnell Hill Fire and we can HEAR them being unable to properly declare their own life threatening situation.
So… to this day… ( and even right now in California ) you have structural firefighters ( who are also trained to participate in wildland firefighting ) battling fires in the Wildland Urban Interface right alongside regular wildland firefighters…
…but while the ‘structural’ FFs are all fully trained in the use of the ‘Mayday’ radio protocol… their ‘wildland firefighter’ counterparts STILL haven’t been instructed or trained on how to issue a ‘Mayday’ call because both State and Federal Wildland Firefighting managers still all have their collective heads firmly embedded in their collective asses.
wwtktt said ” both State and Federal Wildland Firefighting managers still all have their collective heads firmly embedded in their collective asses.”
Joy’s reply: since I am always not understood—some will understand this–
go raibh maith agat, wwtktt. Tá tú an ceann is fearr.
Just a quick reminder…
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”
Winston Churchill
Churchill’s refusal to give in, even when things were going badly is what I remember about him…We need a new Winston Churchill more than ever some may feel…Everywhere we turn, we see discord, uncertainty and potential disasters…Everywhere is peril, and yet we have a government riven by discord and personal ambitions…sad huh….https://youtu.be/69rDtSpshAw…yet in all this judging how is it wwtktt when I ask for a general word YARNELL tied to an entity because I need to sift through all data and not sure I can be specific …How can I even be a TOPIC in 2017 tied to a legislative level for abusing public records when I do not know the industry and kept it general and asked for all emails with certain names and as well YARNELL but not limited to just the incident 6.30.13…How can they decide to tie my name JOY A COLLURA to have their counsel try to get me for abuse when I am a tax paying civilian asking for PUBLIC RECORDS and when they hired a company to do this they get a bill for $3800 and are not pleased because they cannot ask me to pay that bill they seen…I am confused where I lay in being abusive when the entity in 2014 said a statement on Shrine Rd. and I am making and taking the time to fact check that data.
Joy,
Can you tell us what the statement about shrine rd was?
No.
Can you tell me firstly Diane when I heard something and I want to fact check it first before placing it public with statement and person who said it…do YOU think I would place it out on IM where I know obviously what’s going on here…but heck I will start December off by saying Happy Birthday to all December borns…and in loving memory happy bday Deford and Zup-
Please tell me what is, “obviously what’s going on here” because I am dazed and confused.
I hate to engage because next step is Gary will be working on a MOAP but my reply—-
“Can’t do it, I’m way too toxic. I have been too aggressive on this site to ever be considered a reasonable, logical, prudent, and honest broker of facts who can work within the system for reasonable changes.
I have made way too many enemies. Based on my experience, you can either be an astute and politically savvy operator who can work with the system, or you can be a caustic bomb thrower who uses hyperbole and “colorful” language to make certain you get your point across, but…you can’t be both.”
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-472828
oh yeah forgot the “source” to my reply 😉
FEBRUARY 5, 2017 AT 12:17 PM was said on here—
This is the ‘issue’ that still includes the fact that there is clear evidence of a potential ‘coverup’ on the part of Arizona Forestry ( and US Forestry ) in the aftermath of the Yarnell tragedy, the details of which can ONLY be fully known if/when this case is ALLOWED to PROCEED.
I can state THIS…why stop with that entity…look all over to make a proper assessment—
Who would be stupid enough to write something like this nonsense on a public blog?
Wait…oh no. : (
Excellent and memorable Winston Churchill quote. Thanks for sharing.
NEWS FLASH…DATELINE UPDATE….OLYMPIA, WA.
Well…for the “whatever it is worth” category, the movie “Only the Brave”, or as I like to put it, “Only the Dumber Than a Bad O’ Hammers”, and in Eric Marsh’s case, “Shit For Brains” for killing his crew, just left the theater here in rainy Olympia, Washington, ground zero for the nations only Rain Forest…I think.
Whoops, forgot about southeast Alaska, how could I? It had a really long run here, or at least a lot longer run than I expected given the reports from WTKTT that the movie wasn’t doing well at the box office. A lot of other movies have come and gone in that same time period. So…
Oh…and one more thing. In reference to my second favorite bone to chew on.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lowest-income-americans-bigger-hit-161206148.html
What about the Unaffordable Careless Act ?
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2013/11/12/unaffordable-careless-act/
Well, the experts say…that even if they put $50.00 (for example) in the pockets of the dim witted angry old blue collar uneducated (my degree is in Police Science which is only one step up from uneducated) white men (people like me) they are going to take $200.00 out of their other pocket.
Don’t get me wrong…I am on your side. You know my health insurance is part of my retirement package (I have a so-called Cadillac Plan, thank you American Taxpayers) and since I make more than $75,000.00, my taxes are going to go way down…and stay down.
The 1.5 trillion that is going to be added to the deficit, I will never have to pay back…so it is all good. And since our economy is humming along with near full employment and Goldman Sachs is foreseeing a 4 per cent growth next year, a stimulus package for the wealthiest among us and corporate America is unnecessary and will never generate enough growth in the GDP to outpace the hole this plan is going to blow in the federal budget.
But…I’m with you brother and the man representing us in the White House, because I am like you…Conservative, Christian, White, Old, Angry, and in the upper tier of those who a lot of people consider well off, although I am like everyone else and I spend it as fast as I get it like a drunken sailor.
God Bless America! You and me…we are on top of the heap and **** everyone else…right? And as far as those who get kicked off their health insurance and have to start going back to the emergency rooms to be treated where it costs several times what it would cost to treat them in their primary care physicians office…insurance rates will continue to skyrocket, but we can afford it, because our insurance is underwritten by Uncle Sugar by about 75%..
Is this a great country or else…at least for you and me! What Would Jesus Do who gives a ****, we got ours?
Matthew 25:40 ►
Verse (Click for Chapter)
New International Version
“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
New Living Translation
“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’
English Standard Version
And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Berean Study Bible
And the King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
Berean Literal Bible
And the King answering, will say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did it to Me.’
New American Standard Bible
“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
King James Bible
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
Holman Christian Standard Bible
“And the King will answer them, I assure you: Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.’
International Standard Version
The king will answer them, ‘I tell all of you with certainty, since you did it for one of the least important of these brothers of mine, you did it for me.’
NET Bible
And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’
New Heart English Bible
“The King will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And The King answers and says to them, ‘Amen, I say to you, as much as you have done to one of these my little brothers, you have done that to me.’
GOD’S WORD® Translation
“The king will answer them, ‘I can guarantee this truth: Whatever you did for one of my brothers or sisters, no matter how unimportant [they seemed], you did for me.’
New American Standard 1977
“And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’
Jubilee Bible 2000
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brothers, ye have done it unto me.
King James 2000 Bible
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Since you have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.
American King James Version
And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me.
American Standard Version
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.
Darby Bible Translation
And the King answering shall say to them, Verily, I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.
English Revised Version
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least, ye did it unto me.
Webster’s Bible Translation
And the king will answer and say to them, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it to me.
Weymouth New Testament
“But the King will answer them, “‘In solemn truth I tell you that in so far as you rendered such services to one of the humblest of these my brethren, you rendered them to myself.’
World English Bible
“The King will answer them, ‘Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’
Young’s Literal Translation
And the king answering, shall say to them, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye did it to one of these my brethren — the least — to me ye did it.
And I am going to take a shot in the dark here and assume that “theburningplatform.com is on par as getting your information from Alex Jones is?.
But once again…don’t get me wrong…I think Mr. Jones makes a lot of really valid points for people like you and me…brother.
I know God loves you and me more than most other people because we are on Top O’ The Heap, you know…because we are Conservative, Christian, White, U.S. Citizens and have guaranteed health insurance we get for a fraction of the cost of the actual plan that all other retirees would have to pay.
I like being me…and being you wouldn’t be bad either. We won the Rat Race! It was touch and go for both of us a few times….maybe more than a few times for me, ROTFL, but I did make it.
Now I get sit in my recliner and bitch (non gender specific).
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=granitemountain.htm
Only The Brave
Domestic Total as of Nov. 26, 2017: $17,856,353
Distributor: Sony / Columbia Release Date: October 20, 2017
Genre: Action Runtime: 2 hrs. 13 min.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 Production Budget: $38 million
Total Lifetime Grosses
Domestic: $17,856,353 83.8%
+ Foreign: $3,462,483 16.2%
= Worldwide: $21,318,836
Oct 20–22 5 $6,002,665 – 2,577 – $2,329 $6,002,665 1
Oct 27–29 7 $3,502,095 -41.7% 2,577 – $1,359 $11,992,152 2
Nov 3–5 9 $1,920,075 -45.2% 2,073 -504 $926 $15,300,542 3
Nov 10–12 12 $936,889 -51.2% 1,207 -866 $776 $17,060,805 4
Nov 17–19 18 $242,406 -74.1% 363 -844 $668 $17,655,285 5
Nov 24–26 31 $95,814 -60.5% 134 -229 $715 $17,856,353 6
Widest Release: 2,577 theaters
In Release: 38 days / 5.4 weeks
The Players
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Actors: Josh Brolin
Miles Teller
Jennifer Connelly
Jeff Bridges
Taylor Kitsch
James Badge Dale
Genres
Genre Rank
Fire / Firefighter 10
Charts
Chart Rank
All Time Domestic 3,504
Top Movies in the Past 365 Days 101
Opening Weeks 2,739
Worst Openings – Saturated 74
Opening Weekends 2,804
Smallest Drops, 2,500+ theaters (Saturation) 582
Smallest Drops, 2,000+ theaters (Very Wide) 853
Smallest Drops, All Wide Releases 2,112
Charts (Premier Pass Users Only) Rank
Opening Weeks Adjusted 3,668
Worst Openings – Saturated Adjusted 45
Worst Openings – Very Wide Adjusted 138
Opening Weekends Adjusted 3,777
wow my first non Yoda comment Gary above
a first for everything
may be a shocking week of happy surprises if I can pull that off—what else is in store?
Also update on Weavers in order for a surviving spouse or family member to receive Federal Benefits they must sign that they will not sue the government to collect the benefits. All work related Fatalities.
Here’s an interesting story about Tom Ashcraft and his wife doing good things in honor of his GMHS son Andrew Ashcraft and their efforts to Firewise properties in Prescott.
However, the article erroneously gives the GMHS credit for something they did before the 2002 Indians Fire, as “Hotshots” before they were a certified Type 1 HS Crew in 2009..
“From tragedy comes a place to start healing. Project Andrew, Healing Haven spring up in Prescott neighborhood”
https://www.dcourier.com/news/2017/nov/20/tragedy-comes-place-start-healing/
Andrew Ashcraft didn’t join the GMIHS until 2011…. so he *may* have had something to do with whatever ‘assistance’ was provided building the pond… but nothing to do with the 2002 Indian Fire in that area.
In 2002, Andrew Ashcraft was still just a ‘junior’ in high school.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Obituary for Andrew Sterling Ashcraft
Published:: September 11, 2013 6:02 a.m
https://www.dcourier.com/news/2013/sep/11/obituary-andrew-sterling-ashcraft/
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2017/11/17/former-nau-professor-melissa-ann-santana-accused-stalking-members-hotshot-fire-crews/874467001/
Are there any developments with Fred’s lawsuit?
It’s in the Summary for Judgement phase waiting for the District Court Judge ruling
Thank you RTS
Case 3:17-cr-08284-GMS Document 1 Filed 10/28/17 Page 1 of 39
US District Court District of of Arizona
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/show_temp.pdf
Interesting …
Interesting is one word for it, but it wouldn’t be my first choice, I don’t think I could make up a story that crazy?
I mean c’mon….Special Agent Sophia Fong gives the entire story line a whole new angle. Because believe me…she is not your average USFS Special Agent and makes the entire story just a whole lot more…interesting. I would like to meet her, she took that entire case to the whole next level…very impressive!
Mrs. Santana may have just a touch of the crazy, but I’m not a medical professional.. so…
On another note (& at the tremendous risk of glossing over the wack-job stalker story) I couldn’t help but lmao at another AZ local news story:
Headline:
“Prescott Valley PD looking for chief’s gun after he left it in bathroom”
Really?
The PD is now turning to the public to help find it…didn’t realize it was missing for 4 days…
…my random low-value contribution for the day…
Woodsman,
Give yourself more credit. Hopefully, helping out here with a link to the subject of PVPD incompetence. for those that may be too lazy or whatever to GTS,.
https://www.dcourier.com/news/2017/nov/20/pvpd-chief-leaves-his-gun-restroom-search-continue/
Now THAT is another another funny story. I don’t know why so many people dis this blog, we exchange all kinds of interesting stories and facts here…bunch of haters.
Well….as someone who carried a full size Sig Sauer handgun (progression…P226 9mm, P229 .40, P228 9mm and last but not least, a P239 .40, plus several different variations of a Smith & Wesson Model 36 ending with an Airweight in an ankle holster, plus two full extra magazines and a pair of handcuffs and if you know guns, you know that every chance I got as the years went by, I got a smaller and lighter one) for 18 years and an even heavier Smith and Wesson 66 revolver for four years before that in a side holster.
I can tell you first hand that managing those heavy beasts can be a real problem when nature calls if you are not at the office. So…I can at least empathize with the Chief even while I am smiling. : )
And FYI….not dropping any of that stuff on a dirty floor and causing an accidental discharge (AD) was always a challenge, so…please be kind. And then putting it all back together without an AD without leaving any of it behind was another challenge.
Now….here is another funny story. There once was this little guy who worked for USDI OIG and he was using a public toilet. One day the guy in the stall next to him said, “courtesy flush”.
The little agent didn’t react and so the guy then yelled, “Courtesy Flush”, The little agent still didn’t react because he wasn’t sure what was going on and so the guy banged his fist on the side of the stall and screamed, “COURTESY FLUSH ASS HOLE!” The agent still didn’t react…so the guy climbed up on his toilet seat and leaned over the top of the stall to yell at him again.
The only thing was, that little agent was sitting there holding this really big black gun in his hands and he instinctively pointed it at the man in reaction and then the man suddenly forgot all about the courtesy flush and couldn’t get out of that bathroom fast enough!
Now forgetting about your duty weapon for four days, that’s another whole different issue. Although I had to go retrieve a guy’s gun once from a motel after he realized he didn’t have it after he got home…about 400 miles away.
I also know of this other agent who left his gun in a booth at an adult theater one day. But everything turned out okay in the end…his gun was recovered after it was used in a robbery because the prostitute the agent had been with had found it after he left and sold it for drug money.
He was a BLM Special Agent for a short time…but he had been hired from the DEA, so I always thought of that one as a reflection on the DEA. And it was just about what I would expect from the majority of DEA agents I worked with over the 22 years Those cowboys ride hard and play even harder, kind of like the Secret Service does…or did..
One that was not funny was the young woman who was shot and killed a couple of years ago on that pier in San Francisco by an Undocumented Alien (UDA). The gun that was used to kill her had been assigned to a BLM Special Agent who had left it in his personal car that day and the UDA had broken a window to steal whatever was inside it.
I was really happy to ditch all of the big Sigs when I retired and was able to switch to baby Sigs (P239’s 9mm). Some people think carrying a gun is a good idea, but very few people realize just how much trouble and responsibility comes with that privilege until they try it, especially if you will get in deep trouble IF you don’t have it with you.
There are a lot of things that can get an agents badge and credentials pulled, and then he or she is fired. And then no pension Joy likes to bitch about us getting.
Lots of people are jealous of a federal pension….until they find out what they have to do get one like Fred, Bob and I earned. And then they go and find something else they would rather do. And if you are lucky….or good, or better yet…lucky and good, you make it to the finish line and then yes, life is pretty sweet…thank you taxpayer!
I saw your random low-value contribution Woodsman….and raised you.
Oh…and one more thing. I hope you, my closest friends and confidants have a very Happy Thanksgiving! I for one, am happy to have this blog to vent on.
And I am especially thankful I am old, angry, Christian, male, white of Scandinavian and northern Germanic descent, my health care is tied to my retirement package and NOT Obama Care because my taxes are going way down if the Republicans have their way very soon.
And most importantly…. since I make more than $75,000.00 per year, those taxes aren’t going to go way back up in a few years like they will for my people…the white blue collar workers from Red States (Trump voters) who are very soon going to get a really good fuckin’ from the Pied Piper (Putin’s Bitch, non gender specific) they are following off the cliff like lemmings.
And since I will be dead when the huge bill comes due in terms of our national deficit….I will never have to pay any of that money back.
Like, I said way back when on this blog, I am really scoring since Putin’s Bitch got elected! Thank you….angry, white, blue collar, low wage, Christian workers of this country.
I owe you more than one, but I will NEVER have to pay you, Hee, hee, LOL, ROTFL laughing my ass off!
You people lose…you love your state health exchanges, but you hate Obama Care…stupid people! You are going to lose it all!
God Bless America!
All that is seriously awesome although I can’t find anything that convinces me that it’s OK for an Leo to misplace his service weapon for 4 days. Get off the thin blue line bullshit. You & I both know you’re way better than that.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Love,
Woodsman
That confirms at least ONE person who goes by the moniker of The Woodsman (as opposed to A woodsman) doesn’t read my meandering, random, spontaneous, convoluted, musings masquerading as posts on this blog.
I said, “Now forgetting about your duty weapon for four days, that’s another whole different issue.” So….as you see, I did not give that idiot a pass. I always liked the scary bed time stories they told us at the academies and at our yearly in-service training refresher.
Why…I still remember this one about this LE from a small town who went to draw his service weapon on his Big Day when his fate selected his number at random and it wouldn’t come out of his holster and he was immediately shot dead by the bad guy.
When they did the post mortem, they discovered his gun COULDN’T be removed from his holster. they estimated it had been in the same holster without ever being removed for ANY reason for more than 20 years and because of moisture, accumulated material and decay, the gun and holster had essentially become fused as one.
At least I had to qualify twice a year (and was encouraged to shoot in between with lots of free ammo) with my primary hand gun, backup, shotgun and AR-15 (or whatever I was using at the time, sometimes it was a full auto Sig rifle or MP5 sub-machine gun, thanks again to you taxpayers for all the expensive ammo you bought me since we had to qualify with bullets than cost more than one dollar each, no seconds allowed for quals).
Oh…and one more thing. For those of you who are old enough to remember that warm shower you got in 1986 from trickle down economics? That was really someone pissing on you head and the piss trickled down over your head and torso.
And furthermore, you are in luck, you are just about to get another warm shower. I hope you enjoy it because I will be one of the chosen few will be pissing on your head while I ask, “Is the water warm enough for you!” ROTFL
My apologies for my lack of understanding your post. As you were, Big Buddy.
Hugs,
Woodsman
(Hey, it’s thanksgiving, I’m feeling sentimental)
PS: free boolits rule!
Gary Olson says
NOVEMBER 22, 2017 AT 4:53 PM
Now THAT is another another funny story. I don’t know why so many people dis this blog, we exchange all kinds of interesting stories and facts here…bunch of haters.
Well….as someone who carried a full size Sig Sauer handgun (progression…P226 9mm, P229 .40, P228 9mm and last but not least, a P239 .40,
———and in another area I scrolled ———–
At least I had to qualify twice a year (and was encouraged to shoot in between with lots of free ammo) with my primary hand gun, backup, shotgun and AR-15 (or whatever I was using at the time, sometimes it was a full auto Sig rifle or MP5 sub-machine gun
JOY’S REPLY:
West German stamped slide Sigs are still head and shoulders above the poor quality milled slide Sigs that they make today so be glad you are retired on your pension-
The P225 grip is still one of the best ergonomically produced pistols ever.
The AR-15 chambered in 6.5Grendel is the way to go nowadays and out-performs 5.56 and even the .308 past 400 yards.
You talk guns and I was like I gotta come one here and say Happy Thanksgiving there Gary—
I am going to have to engrave Gary on my pistol…to remember this moment…too bad I only have a pot metal Gennings nowadays— and your better than that to put it on my lousy gun like that— your name belongs on something alot better like a Lorcin or a Jiminez—
😉
oh and 1 more area— gotta crash—zzzzz
I just got home and I thought hmmm if I was Gary and I had to choose between FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR HIS GUN…I bet Gary would choose his gun and then he would say whatever the hell he wanted BECAUSE HE HAD THAT GUN 😉
I had a lovely time with someone Sonny grew up knowing and then my brother and his family –
long Holiday drive and wanna sleep but couldn’t when I heard you talk guns…but then I bet you are wishing that DARN CAVE MAN BACK IN THE DAY never taught us ladies to speak… 😉 but he did 🙂
Sometimes we look for inspiration in the wrong places. In my opinion it’s not just the obvious like the genius in the world like Einstein — take Yoda Gary—-
“Do or do not. There is no try.” said Yoda
So true. You can’t ‘try’ to do something. Try and pick up a pen now. Go on. Try to do it.
You can’t.
We can only take action when we commit to ‘doing’. Trying simply does not exist.
—————————————————-
Gary Olson says
NOVEMBER 22, 2017 AT 4:53 PM
Now THAT is another another funny story. I don’t know why so many people dis this blog, we exchange all kinds of interesting stories and facts here…bunch of haters.
There are a lot of things that can get an agents badge and credentials pulled, and then he or she is fired. And then no pension Joy likes to bitch about us getting.
JOY’s REPLY:
this blog is dissed because it has so many areas where people just be who they were born to be and are individuals expressing themselves some uniformed…some not so much…then me YODA imitator…and then there is AI…I reckon that is why but mainly because from the start BEHIND THE SCENES IF YOU GET FOIAS AND PUBLIC RECORDS then John D and RTS have been the focus in many of emails that I read and those 2 asked the wrong or depends who is looking because I DO FEEL SOME QUESTIONS are crucial and not wrong but RIGHT….
Thank you for these 2 men for asking the questions—I did not feel so alone when I began to too—
——-
I have no problem on pensions—some are WELL EARNED AND DESERVED yet there are some that silver spooned through the system in my humble opinion and their noses are quite the brown hue as they retired— “just saying”
Joy,
I still own a couple or three or maybe four Sigd that are stamped “Made in West Germany”
Other than that…I don’t know what to say other than you are one of a kind and a reel keeper even if you are to hardheaded to give up your FOIAS, I guess if I went to that much time, trouble and expense, I wouldn’t give them up either.
And yes…I remember Stella.
it has nothing to do with time and monies but who is on the other end that I am reading about and after ONE comment on HERE getting me into a court setting—I just want to avoid there little good old boy room again…so it is avoid-ability…I see now how I can be treated locally…over non-sense.
when I dig…I dig…and well don’t want my hole to be mistaken by them for something else 😉
Trivia—- First women Hot Shot 1976 Los Padres Hot Shot Crew.
She also became the first Women Smoke Jumper in 1981.
Woops Her Name Was Deanne Shulm.
Do you know which base, how long she jumped for and what she did after that?
I guess what I am asking is do you know if she was a lifer and was able to leverage that experience into moving up, or over, or whatever? Or maybe that wasn’t her plan or interest?
Yes But don’t have the Info looking for it.
Hope you’re well, Bob.
Deanne Shulman apparently was the first female hotshot & first female jumper out of McCall. According to my cursory glance, it wasn’t without challenges. She retired in 2011 from the USFS International Forestry Program. So to answer old Gary’s question: Lifer.
There may have been a female hs on Mormon Lake before Ms. Shulman. I suppose I should leave the research on this to former hs. Don’t want to sell someone short. As you were…
I was trying to find the rest of her positions thanks for what you got. Haven’t herd of the Mormon Lake HS.
The Sawtooth HS hired their first Women in the early 80s I am thinking 82 or 83.
Women were going out on FS Regular crews from severial different work positions or JOBS as early as 1973. I had women on My Brush Crew and a Eng. in 1974 on the Six Rivers Mad River Dist. (I was the Asst Dist FMO) back then..
No…there wasn’t ANY woman on ANY Coconino Hotshot Crew until I hired the first one in 1980 on the Happy Jack Hotshots (don’t you people ever READ my long boring posts?) as I wrote about down below.
And then as far as I know, there hasn’t been a woman on any Coconino Hotshot Crew since then either. The Coconino used to be ground zero for male domination…and probably still is today.
California was ground zero for the Judicial consent decree that forever changed the life of everyone male in the USFS FIRE organization. Although Ms. Shulman may have been hired before that consent decree (and although it only officially applied to California, and the Pacific Islands which is in the 9th Judicial District the entire USFS followed it so they didn’t get sued in every judicial district in the U.S., and so she would have gotten on the LP Hotshots and then in McCall the hard way, without a court order.
I’m glad to hear she was able to leverage that experience into some long term benefit because there are so many who (the overwhelming vast majority) get run through the meat grinder and never get anything more than a temporary paycheck and some memories out of it.
Thanks Woodsman!
You may want to check with Ms. Gloria Eighmey as she was apparently (according to her) a member of Mormon Lake in 1976. But what the the fuck do I know? Her nickname was “Glo.”
Love,
Woodsman
Of course it’s certainty possible that “Glo” was lying so, like I said, what the fuck do I know?
Love,
Woodsman
http://www.wildlandfire.com/docs/imwtk.htm
Read it & weep, mofocka!
Wait, what?
Love,
Woodsman
Well…in this particular case, I do believe you are in error. I just happen to be very familiar with the Mormon Lake Hotshots from 1976 and I don’t know of a woman who was on that crew, or any other Coconino Hotshot Crew prior to 1980, when I hired the first one.
And that fact is printed in big letters on the Certificate of Achievement hanging on my “I Love Me Wall” that came with the 500 bucks for receiving the Forest and then one of the Regional Civil Rights Awards for breaking that glass ceiling for women in 1980..
That just happened to be the year the Mormon Lake and the Happy Jack Hotshots met at the crossroads of history on the Battlement Creek Fire of 1976, which happened in early July.
Mormon Lake is only 12 miles from Happy Jack and we frequently interacted together, drinking at the lodge even if nothing else.
After that incident, they took both crews out of rotation for the rest of the fire season and neither crew ever went on another fire that year and really ceased to exist.
Here is the crew photo from that year.
https://www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/staffride/downloads/lsr10/hist_photo7.jpg
Now, there may have been others who were on the crew who aren’t in that photo, but early July is pretty early in the fire season and neither crew was hiring after that since we were taken out of rotation and never put back in. And it cost us a lot of money in lost revenue.
Now….assuming Glo was not lying, there may be an explanation.
1. As you know, the stories told by wildland firefighters get better every time they tell them. and mine are no exception. And Glo may be the same and just a little fluffing here and there is perfectly acceptable because everyone enjoys a good fire story about the last fire, the next fire or some other fire…right?
2. As you might know, hotshot crews typically go out with fill-ins because someone quit, or got hurt, or is in jail. So…Glo may have been on an engine and filled in and maybe even more than once?
But FYI….1976 was the year Bill Buck tricked personnel into sending out the, “So You Want To Be a Hotshot Letter” which you can find an original copy that I received here,
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved3.html
Which really scared me and made me look for another job but I couldn’t find one because I didn’t think I could handle being a hotshot even though it was my second season.
If you knew Bill Buck, or even if you didn’t, you know that letter was specifically written to scare off any women who wanted to be Coconino Hotshot and Bill Buck was still riding high at the apex of his career as the most famous or infamous and influential Type I Incident Commander in the nation.
After he got in trouble for sending that letter out, he tried a new approach. In addition to passing the step test and running the 1.5 mile run in less than 11 minutes, even though the manual said we could have a couple of more minutes as adjusted for altitude because we were well over 7000 feet in elevation, he added a new requirement to be a Coconino Hotshot.
The new requirement mandated that all Coconino Hotshots run/walk 2 miles with a 60 pound sack of cement strapped on a wooden military ammunition pack frame with thin cotton straps.
I have never personally met a woman who could have passed that test to this very day. I know they are out there, but I have never met one including all of the women hotshots I worked with over the years. I don’t think Shawna Legarza could have passed that test because the cement weighed almost as much as she did when she was a shot. And frankly, she was in AWESOME shape and trained hard, she was just really little.
For one thing, that is about half the body weight of your average woman firefighter who can still do the other stuff like the step test and the run.
So….now that I think about it some more, I have reached a different conclusion. Glo was bullshitting you.
Which is okay, maybe the gig is either getting her a lot of free shots or laid, or both? Were you suitably impressed enough by her bullshit story to do both?
But like you said, what the fuck do I know? I was just the youngest hotshot crew boss in the history of hotshot crews on a Mighty Coconino Hotshot crew for 6 years, three of those as the Crew Boss and then started a new hotshot crew from scratch and ran it for another 4 years while I was a collateral District AFMO, after which time I became the Santa Fe National Forest Dispatcher and an Interagency Fire Center Coordinator while traveling from the Brooks Range in Alaska to east coast to still fight fire with a telephone and Data General computer (just about the first computer on the market), and at one time knew everybody who was anybody in Region 3 FIRE and still do for the most part.
My FIRE bona fides and credentials are NOT to be questioned or challenged by Glo or anyone else!
Or are you just fuckin’ with me because my initials are Glo….Gary Lee Olson?
RTS and I have both been communicating in the back channel about just how much bullshit and incorrect information there is out there in the haphazard fire history bullshit floating around. I still think Glo is pulling somebody’s leg…or whatever?
I think Glo must of had a connection (or she isn’t a bullshitter, she is a liar)…but a bona fide Coconino Hotshot in 1976, she was NOT!
I’m afraid you are going to have to produce something more than a blog post that was written by Glo herself to convince me.
I don’t actually have a dog in this fight, after all, it’s not like I am trying to claim the title of being the first woman hotshot on the Coke.
After all, the Coconino National Forest Office of Personnel Management which hired and manged the personnel files of the Mormon Lake Hotshots gave me the award for hiring the first woman in 1980 and they aren’t coming to take that off my “I Love Me Wall” anyway and the money is long gone. Oh…and THEY filled out the award language, I didn’t write it on a blog myself.
Have you ever heard of the concept of “Stolen Honor”, I guess Navy SEALS aren’t the only victims.
Oh…the time for the pack test was under 22 minutes. The guys who took it seriously came in with blood running down their backs from the straps cutting into their shoulders and the pack board banging and rubbing on their back as they ran for time.
We had guys who could do it around 12 minutes or less. Me….I paced myself and did it just under 22 minutes because I was saving myself for the Big One.
And, we ran uphill one way on the same narrow highway used by logging trucks and old people in big RV’s. It was uphill one way and down hill the other, both of which were more challenging that a flat track would have been.
Coming down, if you weren’t careful, that pack would send you face first into the pavement and really beat our knees up. Uphill was actually easier on the body.
Personnel actually banned that test three years later because no woman could pass it and they knew that was why Buck initiated it. I was never so happy in my life when that test went away.
Okay just one more piece of dirty laundry. Tony Czak killed himself and the others because he was doing everything he could to become the next Bill Buck Clone because Van Bateman had moved up from Flagstaff Hotshot Crew Boss to be Buck’s Fores AFMO and the suck up clone job was wide open.
Czak had the best shot at getting the job because he had been the top squad boss under Bateman and was already certified to be the Buck/Bateman Clone Trainee.
Tony Czak did NOT ever hire a woman to be on the Mormon Lake Hotshots, he was as old school red neck as they came. And after he was dead, the crew wasn’t really ever put back together and like I said, didn’t go on any more fires for the year and was not rebuilt until the next year when the next Certified Buck/Bateman Clone who had been the new top squad boss on the Flagstaff Hotshots took over the crew and rebuilt it with a lot of ex Flag Hotshots and some Happy Jack Hotshots because we were already gone to Santa Fe.
His name is Milford Suida. Milford didn’t hire ANY women either. Milford was the Mormon Lake Crew Boss for many hears after that until I think he became the Mormon Lake AFMO.
Like I said before, the Flagstaff Hotshots were Bill Buck’s Gladiator School for crew bosses on the Coconino. I was the exception because my FMO wanted HIS boy in the job, NOT Buck’s boy.
Like I said before, we were TRIBAL…and didn’t want no Flagstaff Hotshot fuckin’ around in OUR house.
Historical Trivia…the first female hotshot on the Coconino according to the Coconino National Forest Personnel Office was/is named Mary.
She married Russell Copp who was a long time squad boss on….wait for it…the Mormon Lake Hotshots.
The last time I talked to Rus was shortly before I retired in 2006.
You know me…I hate to rub it in when I am right. But that crew photo either shows everyone on the Mormon Lake Hotshots of 1976 or lists those not shown in the photo and I do not see Glo’s photo or name listed anywhere.
And like I already said, that crew was shattered on the Battlement Creek Fire in early July and MAYBE went to some small on district fires although we didn’t because the monsoon and rainy season had begun by the time we got home.
We really got fucked because Czak was so fucking stupid. Our crew was really okay, we didn’t think (or care) that much about what happened to Mormon Lake because they ordered us to never talk about it, think about it, or mention it…so we didn’t.
They never told us they took us out of rotation, we just never went to another fire. Fuckin’ Asshole Fire Gods!
Yep. You schooled me & you should because I’ve never served on a hotshot crew. I actually mean it when I say ‘what the fuck do I know?’
Even though I’m not arrogant enough to question your street creds in the world of hotshots, from here on out, when I feel like you need to get your big ass up & out of that recliner & get the blood flowing again, I’m going to come on here & call into question your bonafides in the world of hotshots. Deal? Good.
I agree that there is a lot of ‘misremembered’ erroneous, mistaken, AND/OR outright fraudulent claims on the internet & in life. Now this is a cheap-shot but you know low-hanging fruit is the easiest for a lazy man…and besides, I’ve delivered to RTS a disproportionately high number of cheap shots while treating you better. Time to level it out:
You said you had some crew members that passed that 2 mile 60lb walk/run uphill one way, downhill the other, in 12 minutes or less. (The description of blood on their backs from the straps cutting in was a particularly nice touch.)
I call B U L L S H I T right here, right now. There is no fucking way they ran a 6 minute mile or less with a 60 lb sack of concrete on their back in an old pack frame at 7000′ elevation. Unless you left out the part where it wasn’t actually 2 miles & they were on skateboards with a towli ne attached to a 68′ Dodge pickup.
Colorful embellishment indeed. I caught this fish one time & I’d love to tell the story about it…
Oh, and it’s Stolen Valor. It’s most common in the special forces arena. I can’t see how people can be so stupid. They just have to go for broke & claim they were an enlisted officer scout sniper recon pararescue ranger seal…secret slot only the secdef knows about. If you get really bored YouTube the hell out of it. Iove the videos of our honorable servicemembers policing their own. If you’re going to wear the uniform fraudulently at least research proper insignia. Lmao!!!
And right about now you’re fairly pissed…’how dare that little bassturd question me about what we did or didn’t do back in the day!’ I’m calling 100% BULLSHIT on the time of 12 minutes or less. I have no doubt most or all of your crew could accomplish that test in 22 minutes… & some probably did bleed from the straps rubbing through with that shitty pack. That test would be brutal at an 11 min/mile pace. Hey, at least you were allowed to run. I wish I could run my work capacity test. Our required rate to meet or beat is a 15 min/mile pace for 3 miles with super high-speed low-drag state-of-the-art 45lb weight vest.
Anyone still paying attention to this out in cyberland from the non-fire circles can try it out. Disclaimer: you’re on your own, seek medical advice before attempting, etc.
Go to a track at your nearest school. Walk 4 1/4 mile laps in under 15 minutes. One foot must be in contact with the ground at all times…you can’t run or shuffle or skip…walking only. Brisk pace, ain’t it? Now strap on 45 lbs & do 12 laps. Same rules. No running. Do it in 45 minutes or less. This is current standard for actual wildland firefighters in the US. Some Canadian provinces have a different test which includes what I’m calling ‘the knee wrecker.’
Like I said, if you do this, you’re on your own. Seek medical advice etc.
And back to GLO (haha!), its the time you claim, man. My wife held a highschool record for the mile at 5:01 for over a decade. Full-ride track scholarship to a major university. Ran marathons for fun. Qualified for New York & Boston. 6 minute mile with no weight is a great time in an all out run. 2 back to back in 12 is fantastic. 60 lbs? No fucking way.
The Woodsman
On second thought, GLO, I’m going to rescind that…the most brutal part of that test is the prehistoric pack you had to use. If allowed to run I could pass that without too much trouble & I’m knocking on 50. Hell, it’s only 15 more lbs & back in the day we used to WALK 36 min 3 milers…& that was in boots, jeans, & a bladder bag! Now I’m not saying I would be happy about but I could get it done.
THE Woodsman
PS: how do you like your T-,day gift?
I’m lovin’ it because most people just ignore me until I go away so any attention is good attention…thank you.
And I’m glad you recalibrated those pack test times because that wasn’t intended to be fluff, that is the way I remember it, but of course I have often admitted that memory was the SECOND thing for me to lose.
Now…I will clarify the “blood running down their backs” because that was fluffed a little bit. The “runners” on our crew really prided themselves on their running and so they ran for “time” every time they ran…period.
Whereas I always paced myself because even though I didn’t look like I was in very good shape, I was like a coiled steel spring ready to leap into action any time the Big One (big campaign fire) was in front of us. And if I was a true bullshitter, I would have told you I ran it around 12 minutes.
Now…back to the blood. The runners would always run with their shirts off and that included the pack tests, I never ask why they did that, maybe that extra weight slowed them down?
And you are right about the shitty pack, but that was the only thing laying around the shop that looked like a pack that we could tape a bag of cement on with “hundred mile an hour tape.” The engine crews had those surplus pack boards to carry heavy hose rolls up or down the mountain when building their extended hose lays. The other crews might have had something better?
And if WTKTT goes back to one other time I bragged about this test, you will see that I clarified the fact that we weren’t completely stupid because we did tape some cloth using the same tape (military grade duct tape) to those narrow cotton straps, but they were still narrow and still not padded very well.
So…the “blood” was the equivalent of having a blister on a blister on a blister, and you know those bleed, but it is “ runny” blood.
So…now that we have all of the back story out of the way and the scene set, here is the real complete story without any fluff.
Those crazy runners, who were not big guys, you know runners are usually kind of scrawny with very little or no body fat. And they were always competing against each other for the fastest times with their shirts off.
So when they came back in over the finish line where the stop watch was, they hadn’t done any walking or jogging, they did the whole test running.
And the combination of those narrow straps, and the wooden unpadded sides and bottom of that ammunition pack board without a waistbelt rubbing and banging, rubbing and banging, rubbing and banging as they ran hard for time with their shirts off full of adrenaline pumped up to beat the stop watch and the others, it resulted in some serious “wear” marks on their shoulders and backs because they either didn’t notice or care that was happening.
As a result, the “the blood running down their bodies” was just from those deep “wear” spots and what made it run down their bodies was the extensive amount of sweat pouring down their upper torsos. So it was mostly bloody red colored sweat…but it was graphic.
Now….those knotheads could have fixed that problem by wearing their shirts and slowing down just a little bit to keep that packboard from banging and rubbing quite so bad. But that wasn’t the point or their main concern, it all fit in with the hotshot mentality and they liked the blood streaming down their bodies with their sweat because that meant they embraced the suck and were better than those of us sans blood.
Now…I will also tell you that what made the situation even worse, was the helislack foreman (Steve Jenner) always took the test with us even though he didn’t have to because that little guy could RUN (the forest helicopter was on our District) and he liked beating everyone on the hotshot crew which he could usually do. And that really amped up the whole competitive thing with our runners trying to beat him.
And you are right…the test wasn’t really that hard, what made it hard were the circumstance we were in. Namely….shitty packboard and a narrow state highway with logging trucks and RV’s that would force us over to the broken edges of the road and soft shoulder. and mostly because it was uphill one way and downhill the other, both of which were bad.
Every male hotshot who could run the 1.5 miles under 11 minutes at that altitude could also pass the packboard test, but no women could pass it.
That was why that specific test was created. It was dreamed up by Bill Buck because it combined upper body strength with leg strength and caridiovascular capacity. And that particular combination targeted women who genetically lacked the upper body strength because that is just how women come without an excessive amount of weight lifting with some juice (steroids) thrown in.
The test wasn’t a reflection of the actual job requirements, it was the equilelent of a literacy test in order to vote in the Jim Crow south.
And after three years without any women passing that test…the EEOC and personnel office finally figured out what Buck was doing and put a stop to that targeted discrimination.
Now…an example of my fluffing a story was when I said I stayed in the shower taking a really long one until those young ladies (I was a young man at the time…NOT a Judge Roy Moore) who had joined me had dried off and left because I didn’t want to admit I was embarrassed to be showering with two good looking babes who had great looking tits.
But after RTS told the story of how that other WF freely admitted he was embarrassed to take a dump sitting next to a woman…I realized, it’s okay to admit my insecurities to you people, who are my closest friends and confidants.
It was kind of like passing a bad car crash. You want to turn and stare, but you know you are supposed to keep your eyes straight ahead and not peek. Which is an uncomfortable position to be in.
And then I fluffed the story by saying the water was cold in an attempt to use self deprecating humor by suggesting the cold water had made my penis extra small in an attempt to make myself more likeable.
The truth is…like all contractor showers, the water was hot and there was lots of it. Contractor caters and showers in fire camp are always first rate.
Oh…and one more thing. The reason that test did not reflect the actual job requirements for a hotshot is because upper body strength is important, but not that important.
As you know, the primary reason Hotshots exist is to cut hot line under challenging and dynamic conditions. But Hotshots [almost] always work as a team, in a crew line, a squad line or in even smaller modules, but hardly ever alone.
And a fireline is usually about 18 inches wide down to mineral soil, which is really pretty easy to make and doesn’t require a lot of strength because each person only takes a little bit, but by the time the last shovel gets there, all organic material has been removed so that person is just doing quality control and regulating the speed by which the unit is working by constantly yelling back and forth with the lead Pulaski or squad boss.
FYI….our squad bosses were always working supervisors, they normally led their squads by cutting line in front of the first Pulaski, but they could leave to scout the line, or meet up with someone such as a saw team or overhead to discuss and resolve an issue.
So…the first couple Pulaski’s were always the big beefy guys, but strength wasn’t as important as endurance to be able to keep making the same repetative body motion over and over again for hours on end.
And that primarily required a strong and determined mind set and attitude. I never noticed women made our crews weaker. Everyone on a hotshot crew contributes their particular strong points to the overall effort, which is what makes a hotshot crew a hotshot crew. And that is where “the whole Is greater than the sum of its parts” concept comes in.
Women can and do bring contributions to any effort even if the average women doesn’t have as much upper body strength as the averahpge man.
For one thing…they are almost always smarter and don’t do as many stupid things to prove there are macho as most men do.
I would bet you my retirement that no woman hotshot crew boss is ever going to kill her crew, or any part of her crew like Gordon King, Tony Czak and Eric Marsh did. It ain’t goin’ to happen.
And IF it seems to anyone that I am being harsh on King, Czak and Marsh…I am. I am pretty sure I am simply stating publicly what everyone else is thinking because I am in a situation where there aren’t any ramifications for me because I bluntly state the truth.
I want every WF supervisor out to know that if you fuck up and kill those you are responsible for…history will remember and brand you as one “stupid fuck.”
It is all about accountability and accepting responsibility, or no one will be safe on the fire line. With great power…comes great responsibility. And crew bosses and WF supervisors have life and death control over those under them. Especially in the high speed low drag, can do, gungho, amped up world on steroids of Hotshots! God Bless America!
Clarification – In my arrogance, I believe my street creds can’t be challenged as far as being a hotshot in the old days…not as a WF in general, because you all know how much I pride myself on never being more than a grunt and a ground pounder on the fire line.
Correction – I should have written “the average fireline is only 18 to 36 inches wide.”
And except for the really odd image and my self esteem as a hotshot…I really would have liked being the, “First Leaf Blower.” Or any Leaf Blower for that matter. Talk about not needing exceptional upper body strength!
I have learned some amazing things on this thread…the introduction of brooms, small yard rakes and leaf blowers into the hotshot tool lineup are just some of them. Whatever works…I guess?
Gary,
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Clarification needed here: “But after RTS told the story of how that other WF freely admitted he was embarrassed to take a dump sitting next to a woman …”
What I said was BILL BUCK was embarrassed attempting to engage a woman in a conversation while, sitting next to him in a communal open latrine,
Contractor showers were not always the greatest. I remember open-air showers with enclosed by fence posts and canvas and wooden pallets to stand on. Cold as f**k when the wind blew and at night but there was a benefit. That means the women also had open-air showers …
And thanks for clarifying on the cold water effects to your junk. It’s a given, the shrinkage is embarrassing.
The Southwestern HS Crew Squad Bosses were always working supervisors, That was not the case with the California HS Crews where their Foremen and Squad Bosses do not actually work and build line.
In general, the big guys ate too much and drank too much water and could not handle the heat very well, so we focused on hiring the more wirey cross country runners and wrestlers. However, we did hire at least one big guy each year for moving the heavy stuff.
I totally agree that women can and do bring many contributions to the HS effort. They are almost always much smarter than most guys and don’t do as many stupid macho BS things.
I agree that no woman hotshot crew boss is ever going to kill her crew, or any part of her crew like Gordon King, Tony Czak and Eric Marsh did.
Andi also agree withe this: “every WF supervisor out to know that if you fuck up and kill those you are responsible for…history will remember and brand you as one “stupid fuck.” Or worse!
Great discussion, GLO & Arty!
1. You to ought to get together on a project to straighten out ihc history for real. I read so much incomplete & erroneous info on the web concerning them. Think about it.
2. The competitiveness of shot crews is legendary, both from personal observation & your info. Did you know that the feds are studying the possible need for a new fitness test for shot crews? I read some of the study. In their research they have found beginning of shift pack weights north of 45lbs & subsequent huge energy expenditures beginning of shift in full gear hike-ins. Apparently the crew members involved in the study would swallow a capsule in the morning which allows research teams to monitor exertion levels. Given the competitive nature of shot crews, who of you thinks there may be a little bravado involved in participants in the program to show how hard they work (badass,) which may skew the results? I agree the current fitness is a minimum standard that for most is easy to pass (unless you are short!) but I question whether making a harder test is truly reflective of what hotshots need to be. Moderate steady all day long workers with a good head/attitude vs. the fitness freak? I think they should manditorily reduce the new pack weights by an amount equal to the weight of a fire shelter…for starters. Throw em in the trash!
I’m a deep thinker. What say you?
Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Arty & old Bob.
RTS,
OMG…A woman came in and sat down next to our Primary Fire God in the latrine…now that is really a funny story! Thanks for clarifying that, priceless!
And yes…I guess you are right about both the shower contractors and probably the caterers as well. I think there were some cold and muddy showers and we were usually to short on time and sleep to take one anyway. I have a tendency to just remember the good things about the job but that is easy to do when you haven’t been on the line for over thirty years…OMG!
And I agree with you about the ideal hotshot, if the USFS ever starts genetically engineering and breeding them, I rethink they should use your model.
THE Woodsman,
I don’t know what to think about the things you wrote about except tracking down and correcting all of the erroneous information out there would require far more than what I can do,
I have tried several times just to correct the wrong information on the Santa Fe Hotshot official website by emailing the webmaster listed on the site, and he just ignores me. He has never even emailed me back much less made the corrections,
The genesis of Hotshots in general and probably all crews is so murky and lost in time, especially before what I will call the “professionalization” of the job, is the biggest problem. And that happened whenever they created the current organization with the standardized structure and the written manual I was so impressed to find out about from you.
The bottom line is the USFS viewed Hotshots just like they did paper sleeping bags or other property that wasn’t important or valuable enough to inventory and assign a tracking number to. They call it “disposable property” that has very little value and is easily replaced. Hotshots crews used to be made up of nothing but people in transition to being or doing something else…almost anything else.
I think the worst thing and something that is very telling…is the fact the USFS itself doesn’t even know what year they first formed the first Hotshot crew.
The official timeframe is either in 1947, or 1948 on either the Angeles or the Cleveland National Forests, which is pretty sad if you think about it. At least there have been huge improvements and important changes since my day. RTS has been there for all of it.
The only thing I know for sure, is that no hotshot should ever stand up, water up, tool up, line up, saddle up, listen up and hit the fireline with anything more than can fit into a teardrop daypack plus water and fire shelter. And yes…the fire shelter should be placed on the trash pile of history and then forgotten about.
We all have our pet peeves and bones to chew on about what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Mine is the realization that I was not trained, and they are still not training on the proper use and deployment of a fire shelter they condition everyone to depend on to save their lives.
There is just no other explanation than the Granite Mountain Hotshots were trained to die horrible deaths by deploying worthless placebo fire shelters in an area that was not surviveable because it was about the size of a three car garage when they needed as much as 16.5 acres. Which means it wasn’t anyway near a close judgement call. If that isn’t criminal negligence…I can’t imagine what is.
Every wildland firefighter must be trained immediately on the concept of, “How Big Is Big Enough?” and be able to answer that question in at least the abstract, even if they can’t spit out the specific calculations.
I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!
Deep Thinking Woodsman,
The “capsule” that you referred to is “just a little purple pill” that is virtually harmless say the Test Administrators.
Really, virtually harmless?
How about them really containing insidious NANOTECHNOLOGY and really being kinda hazardous to one’s health.
http://www.futureforall.org/nanotechnology/risks.htm
I agree with you on the moderate steady all day long workers with a good heads / attitudes vs. the fitness freaks. The fitness freaks tend to ‘cut line and whine’ a lot.
The pack weights definitely need to be reduced, especially the sawyers and swampers. Rather that reduce them by an amount equal to the weight of a fire shelter, make them optional, unless one feels the need to carry one.
Make knowing, mitigating, and then following The WF Rules MANDATORY instead of security blanket fire shelters.
Name me one fire where a WF was burned over, deployed a fire shelter, or was killed by following The WF Rules.
Daily Courier article today titled: “New book chronicles Yarnell Fire tragedy ground zero.
Couple survived fire inside Glen Ilah-area ranch house”
Joy has posted about some of this already.
“At about 11 p.m., though, they had a visit from two local fire officials that foreshadowed the significance of their ranch location.
“The fire officials came to the ranch to ask Lee if they could use the ranch – named Not Muchuva Ranch, not Boulder Springs Ranch, as has been widely written — as a “safety zone,” if it became necessary.
“Lee told them they were welcome to use our place as their safety zone and they could put the pumpkin (an inflatable, orange, 5,000-gallon pool-like water tank) next to our own 5,000-gallon water storage tank,” Helm wrote in her book.”
“Contrary to what many people have heard, that the Yarnell Hill Fire went around us leaving us unscathed, it didn’t!” Helm wrote. “The reported 50-to-100-foot flames hit us straight on, rolling up, over, and around our shop, barn, and house.”
“Sometimes I wondered if our side of the story really mattered,” Helm wrote, adding that she was encouraged by author John Maclean and former wildland firefighter Holly Neill. “They believed our experience was significant in relation to the overall telling of this tragic event,” she said.
“Each of them has a story, a separate life from the others, but 19 were side-by-side, as one, facing the flaming front, together,” Helm wrote.”
To the PFD, it was “just one of those things that happened … you can call it an accident.”
SIDE-BY-SIDE AS ONE FACING THE FLAMING FRONT TOGETHER..
However, that was totally unnecessary after succumbing to the insidious power of Groupthink and leaving a perfectly good Safety Zone, traveling down through thick, decadent unburned chaparral at the worst possible time because of . And a PFD mindset that was “ingrained in them … not going to sit up there when [there is a] potential for people to be at risk somewhere … that structures came first … and they protected themselves as a last resort. …and that’s why foremen run into burning buildings …and no wildland firefighter is satisfied sitting in there [in the black] and watching the fire progress … without taking some action.”
I was in Yarnell making visits
In one visit today of many- the man said he was with Lee Helm that weekend and they looked at the fire one moment and next moment it was by the Shrine to Sesame area separate from the one out by Peeples—he said when he got back from evacuation and they gathered at a local eatery a Peeples Valley FF admitted they were stationed out there and doing a burnout operation with Blue Ridge and by 3pm were told to start leaving that area and there is actual video footage that backs that up of PV water tender leaving that area. So this fella said noone is gonna see anything from YHF if crap like CA is happening…yet I really WANT the CLASS ACTION SUIT for CA to reach me so I can cut to the chase and guide them as I am already ahead on that fire and can share where to begin…on their research…I also by chance am playing scrabble on facebook with someone that lost their home on YHF and is mentioned in Helms book and they said by 3pm Friday she SAW the quads and tools up in the Weavers…so why has she never been formally interviewed—she has alot of data on film…I did not make facebook for that but has become that it seems—it is just to show how I shifted from desert walking to street to passing out/seizures to now over at the old trading post for my walks which I am going to have a few stop by Saturday to sing with me and dance—some all the way from Nova Scotia and Cornville/Payson areas….blues and jazz and gospel…should be a good old fashion porch time fun…but yeah I do not GET why most that were on that YHF were relocated or transferred or no longer EASY to get to and talk and we just cannot keep making books or movies UNTIL someone YES someone gets to the bottom of what too many SEEN between Sesame and Shrine…why was it NOT in the official reports—WHY?
Happy Thanksgiving everyone-
Cross-posted in the research paper article (but probably lost in the comments):
Joy,
I haven’t been maintaining the Basecamp site — I’m considering taking it down (due to security issues and lack of activity). If you still have the Yarnell Hikers account you signed in with, you should get an update to that effect, and we can discuss it. Thanks!
Good to see people still working here, particularly with the new article posted. Some hope, anyway.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-deaths-were-avoidable-if-crew-had-followed-wildfire-safety-rules-research-paper-concludes/
Sitta-
yeah that email closed this year
yeah I did post and it said 46 comments but it also said MODERATION so looks like it never went on there but I posted right when you posted- Sorry I never rechecked.
This week is 80s week on my vlog
and my 80s stuff does not fit me
except the stuff gramms and gramps sent me so long ago that I said “Im not wearing THAT Mom and Dad”
so they are up in Heaven thinking SHE FINALLY IS WEARING IT…
it was a blast today…
from 130-530 pure fun and dancing…
and I got so zoned out on Gloria Estefan blasting the Congo as I had every part perfect where 9 cars pulled over and a few video taped it for me to soon give it to me…
they said my salsa timing and rhythm was so spot on
but how I did it at 200 pounds ???
but I did my normal 80’s double cartwheel and flip so perfect
but tonight ICE is my best friend…aging sucks in some ways…Ace Bandage has joined my friendship list tonight too 😉 maybe even some warm fresh ginger in hot water…then I will boil some bananas/water because that helps the body go into heal mode and sleep mode too…
bananas…
??????
you gone bananas Joy
???????
I do not do pharmaceuticals…I learn the body and what can it take naturally…
my google reply because I am tired to give ya a yoda one…Potassium and magnesium are natural muscle relaxants, and bananas are a good source of both. They also contain the amino acid L-tryptophan, which gets converted to 5-HTP in the brain. The 5-HTP in turn is converted to serotonin (a relaxing neurotransmitter) and melatonin.
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
not to get all hollaback girl on you 😉
Ha ha, I’m listening to early Depeche Mode and OMD right now. Just can’t get enough….
Yay for bananas. And avocados. Never could dance or do those gymnastics moves, myself.
Glad I could reach you at this site. I’m going to go ahead and shut down that other one.
ok, Sitta…close shop 😉
I ended up bilaterally spraining both ankles when I got them assessed and tore an area and bruised a few areas…and my bilateral neuropathy has advanced since last visit and the passing out is not helping…but still around…”I think” it is me….
here is a night cap for ya Sitta— because I “understand you” 🙂 hee hee
https://youtu.be/EFeh8TGOVrQ
https://youtu.be/5evrkeNpOBg
oh Sitta—
this song best represents YHF aftermath===
https://youtu.be/suvxVcdRlr8
“I’ve got a secret and I can’t explain
All the time I’ve waited for this day
All along I was never in doubt
I’ve always knew it could ever get out
There are things that I cannot tell
And there are things that you know damn well
This is getting very hard for me
I guess you’d better just wait and see
Shut up!
This is all
This is all
Secret.
You brought a message and the message was clear
All the time you wipe away that tear…”
What new article, what did I miss?
last thing I knew that was EDITED was this here Gary as “new”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarnell_Hill_Fire but Sitta was talking about RTS stuff— on the link above
I’m sorry things didn’t work out for your idea Sita, like I told you at the time…it is a great idea, but other people probably won’t help you and it was probably destined to fail. I wish I had been wrong.
Hi, Gary! I was referring to the September 1st article linking to Fred Schoeffler and Lance Honda’s research paper. It was only new to me because I don’t come here too often. For better and worse, I’ve mostly moved on. Still has been nice to see folks like you, Joy, RTS, Bob, and WTKTT here.
I was spurred to check the comments here because of the all the friends (in and out of fire) giving their reviews of the GM movie. I was curious whether people here would see it, and what they thought. Don’t know that I’ll be able to watch it, myself. But I don’t suppose it was ever meant for people like me, and that’s okay.
As far as the other site goes, I waited too long to set it up, and most importantly, I should have hosted it privately, so I could manage the security on it. And after all, everyone here did a great job of connecting the dots together on this forum. Thanks, John Dougherty!
Glad to hear you are doing well Sitta! And yes, we all owe JD a deep debt of gratitude for setting up and maintaining (and paying for) this blog, This thread…for all of its faults will be an accurate record of what really happened on the YHF as long as there is an internet….or maybe until JD dies?
In any case, someone can come pretty darn close to figuring out exactly what happened from mining this blog for information. It is convoluted, but it is here. And furthermore, I think we have hit on exactly what did happen here in one way or the other through our speculation and interactive discussions and will be firmly established before this is all over
And I don’t know why others are still here, but I am here because everyone here are my closest friends and confidants. Sad.? I don’t think so! I love you guys….man, even if some of you really piss me off sometimes!
I know I am the one that pisses you off Gary sometimes…but I say mix your happy pills with the other at times…life will seem ok…”I think”
I love you, man.
I remain here because as YOU CAN SEE I cannot sleep at night like HOW SOME OTHERS CAN—-which shouldn’t be…
“just saying”…
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f6/5c/2a/f65c2a931ee0f23359ba387da3df51f8.jpg
Cover image for Only The Brave
Only The Brave
by Brolin, Josh
DVD Video
Language: English
Holds: 8
Copies: 1
I want to let locals and Yavapai county folks know they can pre-hold the dvd already this week for ONLY THE BRAVE…I am number 9
for the Yavapai County library
Anyone ever see Reuben Orozco article —- where the particular details of “recommended improvements for managing an agency- type 2 team and FF on the line— be interested in seeing it or was it only readily available for the Western Governor’s Assoc?
Can someone explain when someone stated “GMHS had not received all of the weather information.”
Where would that data come from..IC? Donut?
who would of offered that information to a loved one?
and what info. lacked that due to weather information because we were there–we were at same spots—you saw the weather right there by Wilhoit/Prescott areas coming our way—in plain sight–
I would like to know WHY people like Glenn who did YHF Remembrance Presentation was blackballed and ousted in the manner he was…why was their such a FORCE to isolate him out?
Why is it when one man with a solid history wants to take the time to remember we have to hear the QUIET pack JUDGE and state the GREATEST hindrance to their recovery is watching folks TALK or WRITE about the tragedy…
why make them into an AGENDA when maybe just maybe after so many decades and facing Storm King and other fires this man was legit and not needing a KID to state he was seeking street cred-
I think it IS disgusting how the ousting happened. THEY say they carry the dismay and disgust and disappointment but it is the talking and expressing that WILL bring the T R U T H forward not this quiet pack bullshit.
Joy,
I don’t understand what happened to Glenn.
Diane-
I would not know where to begin or HOW
except for Glenn he did nothing wrong in his presentation
before in its planning
or the event
but where is Glenn now…
last I knew he had some kind of suit
so let me see where he is at today
and what is able to be public news or not…
but yeah WHAT HAPPENED to GLenn..this much I can say…he had alot of the good ol’ boys who were there at the YHF and that night where the men had to stay overnight and these certain set of KEEP IT QUIET FOREVER folks that stood around are forever scarred any time someone like Glenn or YOU or me or anyone even mentions
6-30-13…
YET the data I have that should be in John Dougherty’s desk…
if he wants it let me tell you the FOIA/public records number and prepare to pay a pretty penny for it as a commercial because it was very costly as a non-commercial and I would just ask for a commercial of the SAME EXACT data I got using my number-
I have a much better idea Joy. Make a copy of the relevant documents, mail them to me, I will swear on a stack of Bibles I never got them from you and even if I did, I did not pay you any money and then no one can accuse you of being involved in a commercial venture to make money off your non commercial documents and then I will publish them either here if JD doesn’t mind, or on my own website if he does.
I’m pretty sure this website in NOT a commercial venture for JD even using the loosest possible definition since JD has NOT monetized it by even placing Google AD Words on it, much less full blown advertising like the Needle **** Bug ****** does.
To even begging to describe this website as a commercial venture for JD you would have to use some roundabout logic like saying if someone clicks here, they might therefore click there or pick up a copy of the free counter establishment newspaper JD sometimes writes for that they give away free in Phoenix that you can find blowing around or where the last person left it sitting after they got done thumbing through it looking at the ads for dope and massage therapists while they ate their lunch on a park bench in downtown Phoenix where I spent 8 years working that felt like 80 at Central and Van Buren next to the downtown city bus terminal where the homeless would piss in your car if you left your window down.
FYI…JD is a free lance investigative reporter who needs to accept donations from a non profit who does what he does because he is an independent idealist who loves and believes in what he does….not to make money.
Either that or I am going to have to conclude what most people already think. You know that information is power AND you like being the center of attention and just as long as you know what you have and we don’t….except for the tidbits, sneak peeks and convoluted “ riddle me this” hints you throw out once in a while to keep us on the line and logging on for more, you are keeping your information to maintain what you perceive as your power base.
Although frankly, since you obviously can’t use the information you have to further this effort in any constructive or meaningful way, and you refuse to share it with anyone who can….I fail to see what your end game could possibly be, even though you know I do love you, I am just more than a little frustrated with your games.
Which leaves me pretty much right where Diane is at, meaning….”WHO THE **** IS GLEN, AND WHY THE **** SHOULD I CARE WHO GLEN IS OR WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM UNLESS IT IS RELATED TO WHO WAS IN CAHOOTS WITH MARSH TO TRY AND PULL OFF THE DUMBEST STUNT IN WF HISTORY?”
Oh…and one more thing. Unless your bringing Glen(n) into this is just a story. But if it is just that…a story, try to to follow the format we typically use for story telling in this universe. A good story, scratch that…ANY story, should have a, beginning, a middle and an end.
It doesn’t even have to have a point relevant to the YHF…but a story can’t just be made up of vague and oblique hints, convoluted glimpses into your mind, and Yoda channeling mumbo jumbo. Your story needs to make some SENSE!
No offense intended.
Well…I won’t swear to anything because I was taught to lie only during official investigations, but I will decline to answer that question in the extremely unlikely event any ever asks me where I got them from.
funny Gary-
well to conclude-
my family and close friends know I am not about attention (but I am for accountability and hence my vlog is just a place for self to show self to keep on track vs the other option so it is my personal way upon a local’s request to do just that) UNTIL this fire hit and that YOU can BANK that I was not online nor in person just to my local elders and kids— so that would be someone assuming about me…so no biggie. I also am still that way EXCEPT every day I am OPEN to hearing and gathering new fire data that can be anonymous or with name but I post it on here even the most hidden stuff I have coded it some way on this site so I know looking back all areas have been discussed except when I get videos like the one below that a local in Yarnell feels the world should have I have no resent it or posted it because no disrespect to Captain John Lord yet I would need more data to think like him or join aboard such thought process—
https://youtu.be/ZWvuPcurB6Q
About Glenn; yes he is tied into this whole topic of ousting and victim stuff—
About me posting on here- I am not here to tell a story but at times drop a tidbit to self in public area for just a select few but its said to the world so there is a time stamp of discussions of back channels areas…
I never ask nor need anyone to judge me to any degree and if they feel such need to think I am unhinged— then I would have to say back than its their perception yet I would rather be that then wound too tight….
But yeah…have at your public perceptions— God Bless —
it does not make me sad or mad— I agree UNTIL THE DAY I present the documents nothing I say means squat…yet I feel in His time it is gonna happen and it may be via me or another route but it is coming…but all these side track incoming stuff like above video means zip compared to the bigger package of this all and that is WHY did 19 men travel out of a safe area into a dense terrain box canyon…
I’m sorry I’m not a nicer person Joy, but like I have said before…nobody ever paid me to be a nice person.
And if I was a nicer person, I wouldn’t have done a very good job fighting fires and conducting investigations for you for thirty years.
So….people have had to always accept the down side of me in order to gain an advantage from the good things I could do for them.
“I Yam What I Yam and Dats What I Yam”
Popeye The Sailor Man
I never knew where that saying came from—my pops use to say that to me when I was 8 alot—and that is about when the film came out so make sense —
or how about this one he would say—
Popeye: Bluto. Even though you’re bigger than me, you can’t win, ’cause you’re bad, and the good always wins over the bad.
Chorus: [singing] He’s Popeye the Sailor Man, he’s Popeye the Sailor Man / He’s strong to the finich, cause he eats his spinach / He’s Popeye the Sailor Man!
what did you think of the Dude in Only the Brave, Gary?
Oh and I think you are quite nice to me…you know and I know you could be alot calloused than I ever seen here…you are a good man.
Well…I don’t think Jeff Bridges, Josh Brolin, Jennifer Connelly or Andie McDowell have ever been in a movie I didn’t like.
But…other than the actors and the fact that the movie raised the profile of wildland firefighters in general and hotshots in particular….I just don’t know? I am still thinking about it and want to watch it again after if comes out on DVD.
I can tell you one thing for sure. The movie revealed a lot of what I thought was dirty laundry about the Granite Mountain crew and the City of Prescott that I didn’t expect.
And anyone who thought that movie was a great compliment to either the crew or the City of Prescott…obviously didn’t know what they were seeing or hearing because they don’t know enough about the wildland firefighting industry.
The biggest fact they either accidentally or revealed on purpose was when they showed the mayor had been talked into sponsoring the crew primarily based on the plan they would use them to MAKE MONEY for the city. That was a big surprise.
It was a scam from the very beginning, the fact it was a scam from the beginning didn’t surprise me, but the fact they highlighted that fact in the movie…did surprise me.
Or, if you left your windows up…the homeless would just piss on your car while it sits in the parking place you paid one of your paychecks to rent each month. Except for special people like me…we had parking spaces in the underground parking garage the government paid for (although I did have to ride in two different elevators to get to my office) and I still HATED working downtown because it was a really really, really long way from anything that remotely resembled why I went to work for the U.S. Forest Service in the first place as a teenager.
who is Don Boursier and his tie into YHF/aftermath?
Arizona State Forestry Safety and Logistics Officer and the 2016 YH Fie Family Staff Ride Coordinator
thank you.
https://youtu.be/NIPY-5T2ZBA
is that video appropriate to show to some local kids here? and best explains what a hotshot is?
Some interesting comments to that audience from this Assistant Superintendent of the Midewin Type 1 Hotshot crew….
1. In his 16 fire seasons as a Type 1 Hotshot… he has only had to ‘spend the night’ out in the field just 6 times.
2. The line-building / ground-clearing tool-of-choice for this Type 1 Hotshot Crew is ( drumroll, please ) regular landscaping leaf-blowers.
When he was showing his pack to the audience… and he got to the fire shelter… he was asked if the 19 Hotshots who died in Yarnell had them. He said yes… they were REQUIRED to have them… but he also added that it was his understanding that not all of them even had the TIME to use them.
He also said he was looking forward to seeing the ( at the time the video was made ) ‘upcoming’ movie about Yarnell ( “Only the Brave” ).
I guess he was surprised, then, at the end of the movie, when the post-burnover movie scenes depicted every single GM Hotshot fully deployed and underneath their fire shelters as the DPS medic ( Eric Tarr ) first arrived on-scene.
Total fiction.
The Midewin Type 1 Hot Shot Crew is likely one of the top ten Hot Shot Crews in the US and one worth striving for because of their good reputation and long fire seasons back East and out West.
He probably means he only had to ‘spend the night’ out in the field just 6 times in a Coyote Spike situation, with no sleeping bag, just a Space Blanket or bivy sack.
The leaf blowers in the Northeastern and Southeastern Regions are a common and invaluable tool in the heavy, deep leaf litter and they are usually heavy duty commercial grade ones. In fact, you must have one to be effective in that fuel type.
Yes, agreed, total fiction.on the fire shelter scene, however, the burnover scene was a bit rough to handle. Overall, it was much better than I expected.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on November 12, 2017 at 3:15 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> He probably means he only had to ‘spend the night’
>> out in the field just 6 times in a Coyote Spike situation,
>> with no sleeping bag, just a Space Blanket or bivy sack.
Yes. That is exactly what he was saying.
He actually said it right around the time he was showing the audience the ‘space blanket’ that he carries in his pack in case he ever needs it ( not often ).
As for using leafblowers ‘out there’… it doesn’t exactly match the ‘macho man with his hand tools’ image that Hotshots like to project… and I don’t recall there being any wildland firefighter statues depicting anyone with a ‘leafblower’… but I can certainly imagine there being times when it is EXACTLY the ‘right tool for the job at hand’.
The leaf blowers are really effective in the Fall in the Southern and Eastern Regions, especially when the leaf litter is a foot or more in depth. On a fire deep in the ‘hollers’ on the Daniel Boone NF, we encountered waist deep oak leaves, so without one, we would have been pretty worthless.
And the Macho BS thing is quickly replaced by the ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’ category of WF
Watched the Midewin video of their 2017 season. Like I said good crew. I was wondering if I would recognize one fire in particular & sure enough, small world. Great job guys! Hope you have a good snow season!
The part about only only sleeping on the line 6 times really caught my attention as well. I was on numerous fires over 10 years where we slept for six nights or more on the fire line by just stopping work and laying down in the dirt with a poncho and liner if you had one. I would have liked to have been on his crew. I am going to have to look that crew up in the directory.
I also know there was a coordinated and focused effort in my day to make sure crews slept on the line in spike camps and they called it “Coyote Tactics.” We did the same thing before the Coyote Tactic initiative, but it was kicked into high gear once they printed up little cards that announced the program. One of which I still have. It has what looks like Wiley Coyote on it with a short paragraph that explains their intentions.
And of course the goal was to cut down on travel time to and from the line in order to get more work done….and it was a highly successful program. We did get more work done but the misery quotient went waaaaaaay up. Maybe they don’t do that as much anymore? And Sike Camos did not always mean paper sleeping bags or tarps for the rain much less big containers of hot food, but it usually meant those things after the second or third shift.
Of course at the time, it was said that Bill Buck was the one who came up with Coyote Tactics and that man just loved misery. He even flew out one night as a Tyoe 1 ( Class 1) Fire Boss to sleep with us in the rain. When he sat up in his soaking wet paper sleeping bag after the wake up call in the pitch black, freezing cold drizzle of rain without any tarps, he looked around and announced…” This sucks.”
I felt like I had just heard our God speak and identify with us and we loved him all the more, right up until he gave us our assignment for the day. And then we secretly agreed with the R5 hotshot crews…the man was crazy.mean. Well…not mean, just someone who loved misery and he wanted you to love it as much as he did.
Hee hee…damn spell check, Sike Camos should be “spike camps.”
What is a Sike Camos anyway?
‘Sike’ is official ‘slang’ for ‘psyching someone out’.
So maybe ‘Sike Camos’ refers to the mottled clothing someone should wear to give them a better chance at bullshitting people.
Could come in handy for WF.
Bill Buck is/was a MARINE and that says it all to me.
Close….but Buck always said, “I am still a Marine, and if someone ever says something bad about the CORPS…I STAND UP!” In either case, the man really “embraced the suck.” I was scared of him.
Oh…and one more thing. Even though I really like to still bitch, I also really liked spiking out because the alternative was almost always worse.
The other option meant either a two hour hike up a steep mountain with rugged terrain, or a two hour hike down a mountain with rugged terrain. And then either a one hour transport to or from fire camp in a helicopter, military Duece & 1/2, or some kind of other vehicle like buses, vans or open trucks. And then the enire process would be reversed either at the beginning or end of the next shiift.
So…here is the math for anyone who cares. If the next shift was on time (which they rarely were because of glitches in the transportation system) and you got where you were going on time (which also rarely happened) that meant 6 hours coming off our clock…not theirs
And so that usually meant 6 hours in fire camp with at least a one hour wake up call, which usually meant 4 hours of sleep if you could go to sleep immediately because you also had to fill canteens, pick up supplies and lunches, go to briefings, etc.
And fire camp meant long lines for food ( although it was always good, cooked on site by a catering company) huge, noisy, stinky diesel generators, full porta potties and a lot of noise dust and confusion.
https://sites.google.com/site/midewinihc/
Wow….they have really expanded hotshot crews into strange locations? Or at least they would have been considered strange back in the day.
And FYI…I keep confusing myself, so…the position WAS called a Class 1 Fire Boss and it is now called a Type 1 Incident Commander.
thank you.
Here’s a good link from the NAU Cline Library with a lot of SW archives.
http://library.nau.edu/speccoll/exhibits/fires/firefighting/memorable.html
I remember Bill Buck was the Fire Boss on the 1977/78 Demotte Fire on the North Rim of the Big Ditch.
They woke us up at 0430 with the siren from a Model 70 Engine (nowadays a Type 3).
Bill Buck got on the Engine’s loudspeaker to ensure we were awake with: “Hands of your c**ks and grab your socks, it’s 0430 and time to get up and get to work.”
Autocorrect. BS
It should read: “Hands off your c**ks and grab your socks, it’s 0430 and time to get up and get to work.”
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on November 12, 2017 at 6:10 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Autocorrect. BS
>>
>> It should read: “Hands off your c**ks and
>> grab your socks, it’s 0430 and time to get
>> up and get to work.”
Thanks for the clarification… but I think most of us ‘got it’ the first time around. ( ROFL ).
How did the female FFs respond?
Did they just roll over and go back to sleep?
Women were seldom on Hot Shot Crews till the 80s. 77 and 78 mostly not.
Bummer….I remember that fire but I wasn’t on it. But that was certainly classic Bill Buck.
AND…just as a reminder for my fan base out there, I received the R3, Regional Civil Rights Award (and 500 bucks…minus taxes) for hiring the first woman on a hotshot crew in R3 in 1979. And that was on the Mighty Coconino and Bill Buck was still runnin’ the show.
But like I said before…my mentor Richard Allred (District FMO) wasn’t afraid to tell Buck to go fuck himself. I actually didn’t do it to make a point, I did it because I knew she was a good hire since she was already working on our district and I knew her. But I took the money anyway.
I do remember showering with two young ladies on a fire once in one of the big open style contract shower trailers. They just came in…stripped down and got after it.
I also remember one time a young lady from another crew ( probably an engine crew) sat up in the morning topless in her sleeping bag surrounded by hundreds of WF on a high school gem floor, but she was very close to me.
I think the first two women in my story were dirty and just wanted to get clean and there were pissed off the shower was only open to women for a very brief period during off hours. I think the second woman was an exhibitionist and very cruel who could easily put on her shirt while still in her paper sleeping bag.
But yes…women were a rarity on any kind of fire crew back in my day…especially in the 1970’s.
Awwwww…..memories.
Oh…and one more thing. That shower with those young ladies was the longest shower I ever took in fire camp. I didn’t finish up until they were goood and clean and dried off and I started way before they did.
And I think my award might have been for hiring the first woman on a Coconino Hotshot Crew, but everybody knew that was a big deal because Buck was the the Forest FMO.
I don’t recall. I was on a Helislack Crew that year and we had no females.
OMG….I didn’t know you flew the friendly skies as a helislack. And you gave that up to be a hotshot? It almost always goes the other way.
This was a good one from YH Fire SAIT Co-Team Leader Mike Dudley from the 2400+ USFS YHF emails.
On page 36/399
“From: Mike Dudley
To: [email protected]
Date: 26 August 2014? 14:06:09
“I knew what to expect when I [was] asked to participate but it still wears on you. Especially the crazy’s who know we’re lying and hiding information.”
“WHO KNOW WE ARE LYING” ! He did not say: “Not who think we are lying,” but who KNOW we are lying..
Empirical studies prove that SLIPS ARE FAR FROM RANDOM random occurrences. Hofstadter and Moser write of verbal slips (1998: 84): “most errors are not simply random intrusions of ‘noise’ into an otherwise clear and unambiguous flow of communication; they are ALMOST ALWAYS INTIMATELY CONNECTED WITH THE SPEAKER’S INTENDED MESSAGE AND REVEAL SOMETHING OF IT..” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
“Very often, when in conversation with someone superior in rank, people keep in the mindset of maintaining a content and serious appearance, regardless of whatever may be occurring internally. However, despite the best attempts, THERE ARE TIMES WHEN THE TRUTH SLIPS OUT out in conversation. Regardless of whether or not the speaker understands it as truth, the unconscious mind speaks through his or her mouth, bypassing the conscious mind entirely. This is traditionally called a Freudian slip.” (EMPHASIS ADDED).
“The term “Freudian slip” was coined for a portion of Dr. Sigmund Freud’s studies, describing “an inadvertent mistake in speech or writing that is thought to reveal a person’s unconscious motives, wishes, or attitudes” (dictionary.com). Thus, the perceived slip of the tongue IS ACTUALLY THE TRUTH, BUT IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE HEARD BY OTHERS for one reason or another,” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
There is a ton of research and various conclusions on lying versus the truth. This was a pretty insightful one titled ‘The Many Faces of Lies.”
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ea29/4e799a13bee8a6d2919bc9fde8a0370756af.pdf
I tend to think he was lying and the truth slipped out. Imagine that …
No matter how many times U.S. Forestry employee and SAIT Co-leader Mike Dudley might try to characterize that written statement in his email as ‘sarcasm’… there is now plenty of other evidence in the public record ( thanks to John Dougherty, InvestigativeMEDIA and others ) which PROVES that Dudley and other members of the SAI were ALWAYS withholding crucial evidence and information from the public *and* from the Arizona Department of Occupational Health and Safety ( ADOSH ) investigators.
There is no question about that.
The only ‘questions’ that remain to be answered are WHY… and what OTHER evidence and information has yet to see the light of day.
Whoops… should have been ‘Safety first’ ( of course )…
Arizona Department of Occupational Safety and Health ( ADOSH )
I am glad you got you got some of the emails to show—that I cannot—
I have read some like that from 2013/2014 and I also want to point out I addressed one person who had no idea who I was and some of the emails they KNEW they were public emails so even some of that areas is ridiculously glazed and set up—
Some had NO CLUE by content that they could ever be shown their cyber communications and those are classic-because when you read them you are like MAN THEY HAVE NO IDEA JOY A COLLURA IS READING THIS…nuts.
Joy,
I really do think you are interrupting the “commercial” versus the non “commercial” distinction when it comes to emails incorrectly. If you can tell me how RTS can possibly make money from his most recent post, then I will consider what you are saying a little more seriously.
Commercial refers to BUSINESSES who are actively pursuing a business model to monetize obtaining and then using information to MAKE MONEY. from obtaining government records, somebody from a news company.or a corporation like Weyerhaeuser getting forest service data on how many trees they have to cut down.
I even have some serious doubts that rule, regulation, or law could even be interpreted to include an author who is doing research to write a book. I am pretty sure no agency is going to try and figure out where John Maclean got all of his research from when his book finally comes out.
Most BANK ROBBERIES are not investigated or prosecuted by the federal government because there are too many of them. Only the very worst ones that are committed by serial offenders or organized crime are investigated and prosecuted by the federal government, most are just handled by the local jurisdictions and court systems.
When it comes to both investigating and prosecuting those who committ crimes, there are several factors that come into play;
1. Interpreting the law and your actions to first determine a crime has even been committed and DISCRETION and COMMON SENSE are critical.
2. Some federal agency then has to determine if investigating that alleged crime is within their jurisdiction and if they are going to invest the resources even if a law was broken based on agency priorities. And once again….COMMON SENSE and DISCRETION are the key words in the process.
3. A U.S. Attorney then has to decide if they agree with the determination a crime has been committed and if it has, if they are going to invest very limited resources to prosecute said crime. See…COMMON SENSE and DISCRETION.
4. And last but far from the most important, is what a Federal Judge would think of the entire situation once it is presented in Federal Court when they are backlogged from here to the next century with serious federal crimes.
I would pay an admission fee equal to what it would cost me to go to a U2 concert in NYC to watch both a federal investigator and prosecutor do the profession equivelant of setting themselves on fire in a Federal Court in front of a Federal Judge in an attempt to prosecute you for posting an email you got unsing a non commercial pledge on this blog. It ain’t goin’ to happen!
And where the hell are the sources you recently agreed it was time to give up? Your credibility is on the line!
Whoops, I should have written your credibility (Hee, Hee) is on the line.
Gary I am to lay low
quiet time phase
but yes like I said dually noted
nothing I have written is credible until it is brought to the forefront but shelved as “???” until…
I agree to that
and I agree it is time to have the data public
but I do need a solid AZ lawyer I can trust-
I am not in the mood to have a County Supervisor honor my name who is moved by people who stand up for what they believe in …just because I am a native as was done for an Arizona rancher this week…I do not need to be falsely judged by some that already do and most data I have obtained is for that person to come forward who have current stuff being addressed…and I do not want to screw that up for their journey.
but yes I agree with you
just as I said about Holly’s article in 2014 that no publications should be used as facts until not only its source and resource is shown for the world to assess vs. the whispers behind the scenes which is my world for a few years but you go back and look at my beginnings and you will note when my area shifted…
Now to reply to this comment you stated
. If you can tell me how RTS can possibly make money from his most recent post, then I will consider what you are saying a little more seriously.
This website was told to me makes incoming funds so any data written on here may it be article or forum or blog or comment wall is considered publication data where the world can view on a website that has a donation for incoming funds and this is only what was shared to me so if I was misinformed and I can have a REAL ARIZONA lawyer tell me the actual than I lay low until…
but if the data brings in any funds for anyone than it is a commercial request…but wwtktt may know AZ laws on that one of commercial vs non
BUT and I mean HUGE BUT I have seen what is being done unfairly and unjustly to some in the industry for decades just here n this county I LIVE IN Gary
so I am not ready to put me out there with data I purchased just to spew it out…some are VERY serious concerns…from so many areas…
Gary, you said- I am pretty sure no agency is going to try and figure out where John Maclean got all of his research from when his book finally comes out.
MY REPLY: if his book is like other books
just writing it without the resources and sources from start to end and FACT CHECKED FULLY from whomever they write on with confirmation…
than I take the data of any book or article and fact check it myself and many times leads to a dead end or hogwash or HIDDEN squashed not public source so those areas get shelved but are areas to keep an eye on…
Not my data or anyone’s data should be GOLD in them there hills until it is just without a doubt what it is…
judgement has been shown in books
like many times people called this place the conspiracy theory area and HELL it is a FREE place to express yourself…
Diane Lomas a retired school teacher with ZERO connection to the industry or any ties to deaths/fires comes here—and yet we all are judged as a whole…
does the good ole boys 🙂 exist?
are we here as pawns on a chessboard?
is IM filled with lack of proof data (maybe but we are freely expressing) but AI makes up for my circle talks…
but in my circle talks I do indeed give folks HINTS and most comments since 2104 ain’t even ME but bleachers’ voices under me…I hint on areas I cannot just be blunt on…
I would like to know why this site is labelled “mean spirits” when we talk about the people who make up GMHS and the culture- I think some areas take being personal—
may each and everyone of us honor John Percin Jr (happy bday today to you with tears rolling down my heavily—sorry Diesel–sorry)
let’s honor John Percin Jr by putting someone else before our own self today…Doce…YHF…than the “remembering”
when it shoulda never happened is a sucky feeling for me…he had a tattoo that said only the strong survive yet I met some of the people who knew him and he really overcame some obstacles and what does one go away with on the YHF…how can you take it all in so yeah I will keep gathering…
and believe you me as the eyewitness I REMEMBER and no books or movie will ever capture what it felt like that day…and every day since…
When John applied in 2012 and he began April 2013 and seeing the prior work ethics and how John was one of the rare ones—
100% that day he wrote on the dry erase board…
alot of folks know 19 died
and what they read in a book or in a movie but as life has passed I love to share what the family and friends have shown me for they have been the most pure and real
but even then in all my research John was known as motivated hardworking honest man. Most remember him when he worked at ElCharro for a couple years in Prescott.
Many people do not know how many waiver of liabilities one has to sign to become a hotshot.
It does not matter WHO YOU ARE;
John was a low key kinda guy and well respected. He did not make much as a temporary seasonal wild land firefighter and that was his 2nd fire ever and 1st season. I guess I am sharing this because I had hoped each of the men’s story was shown in some manner even if it was at the end of the film or books.
Again, I hope you touch someone’s life this Veteran’s Day.
Happy Veteran’s Day and in loving memory Happy Bday John Percin Jr… <b never forgotten!
Gary said: I would pay an admission fee equal to what it would cost me to go to a U2 concert in NYC to watch both a federal investigator and prosecutor do the profession equivelant of setting themselves on fire in a Federal Court in front of a Federal Judge in an attempt to prosecute you for posting an email you got unsing a non commercial pledge on this blog. It ain’t goin’ to happen!
MY REPLY: well I already had a few comments of mine end up in a court room so excuse me if I beg to have caution —I saw how ill used the system is in Yavapai— up close.
(HEE HEE)
Waiver of liabilities one has to sign to become a hotshot? And ‘many?’ Go on. Gary?/RTS? Care to share anything about this?
while one answers—
I have in hand those foias and know that answer…
it was not really a question per-say— yet a facetious insert of frustration—
Copy that…I think. I just don’t want anything GM (Prescott Fire Department) required of their particular hotshots to be assumed as the industry standard. So I’m quite interested in these many apparent waivers of liability and how they are related to GM’s employment requirements specifically. I want to hear from Big O & Arteesss (see what I did there?) about waivers of liability to work as a hotshot ie: type 1 crew.
well—maybe there is options for folks in the ff industry—one is kind of still in the industry but not on the line…and no liability forms to sign…
h t t p ://www.firecatt.co m/
FireCatt conducts standardized safety tests on fire hoses, ground ladders, nozzles and appliances for fire departments, departments of defense, airports and industrial companies.
h t t p://portal.firecatt.c om/applicationform.aspx
https://prescott.craigslist.org/etc/d/work-within-the-fire/6381268138.html
Woodsman,
No waiver of liabilities in the Federal realm that I’m aware of. PFD and the private sector maybe.
Here is one I found for The Nature Conservancy that deals mostly with RX Burns.
“On behalf of myself, my heirs, personal representatives and assigns, I hereby forever agree to release the Conservancy, its officers, directors, employees, and agents [and the Preserve Owner, its officers, directors, employees, and agents] [and the Landowner their heirs, executors and assigns] from
any and all claims, liabilities, losses, damage, costs and expenses resulting from any injury to me or damage to my property …”
I hereby FOREVER agree … And it has to be done on each and every project.
https://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/FireLandscapes/HabitatProtectionandRestoration/Training/TrainingExchanges/Documents/TREX%20Toolkit/TNC%20volunteer%20form%2003-2015.pdf
Thanks, Arty. We both know there is a huge difference between a volunteer waiver form & an actual paid employee. Your confirmation is appreciated. I now have reason to believe that Joy may actually be in possession of copies of ‘waiver of liability’ forms which the city of Prescott Fire Department may have required the members of GM to sign before employment. If this is factual, then the proverbial lid is slap blown off the proverbial pot…Mother of God, no wonder the families are ‘shit outta luck.’ The crew members may have actually been coerced into signing their rights away as a condition of employment. Ain’t THAT some shit? John Dougherty? Paging John Dougherty….you may want to look into this.
Now I KNOW no regular hotshot crew has this requirement & it’s probably not necessary because what Gary says is true…you can’t sue the feds…without permission from the feds to do so. But the crew was sponsored by the city. That’s a different deal all together. Holy sweet Jesus. What a scam!
You are reopening an argument that is as old as this blog….and time has proven me right about everything I think regarding this topic, but don’t tell WTKTT because he and I were on opposite sides of the argument and I don’t think he has ever gotten over just how right I was, even though I wish I was wrong.
So…anyway, here is an executive summary of my four year old argument. “The federal government dont need no stinkin’’ waivers”….because well, they are the federal government.”
Most of our laws come from English Common Law that said the Crown can do no wrong and therefore has sovereign immunity except under very rare and highly unusual circumstances.
Essentially the USDOJ would have to give someone permission to sue the government, so as a practical matter, the issue has to be so outrageous the federal government would have to want to teach itself a lesson and let you spank them. And that just doesn’t happen very often, for very many reasons.
Nor can government employees be sued as long as they were or are operating within the scope of their employment. All other governmental entities have given themselves the similar Soveriegn Immunity, even those states such as Arizona who haven’t even specifically codified that immunity….they still have it. Just try to sue them if they let your town burn down because they screwed up or killed 19 loved ones through complete incompetency.
And furthermore, I am not aware of any circumstances under which federal employees can sue the federal government for any reason….period, end of story, or the employees families.
And I agree with anyone who says how unfair that is because sometimes things are just wrong and there should be a way to hold those who broke it, responsible for their actions or lack thereof.
And I know how bad that is sometimes but I do understand why it has to be that way. Without Soveriegn Immunity, there wouldn’t be any government and then we would all lose.
For example, can you imagine the chaos that would result if employees (military personnel) their families and everyone else could sue the federal government for every screw up our military makes while prosecuting the average war?
They would have to close up shop and disband the government, tax payers can’t pay enough taxes to pay off the judgements they would be liable for….and that is how we would all lose.
Unfortunately, those same circumstances make it possible for men like Mike Dudley and the USFS get away with virtually anything they want to do.
Because if you don’t like it….you can file a lawsuit against them which will be thrown out of federal court in a New York minute. And if you file your lawsuit in state court, the US Attorney will file a motion to have the case transferred to federal court (where it has to be heard) and then they will file a motion to have your case dismissed because you can’t sue the federal government since they have..Soveriegn Immunity. Although I think RTS May Be field testing this theory as we speak?
So…waivers of liability are something I’m not aware of being used anywhere in the federal government, maybe with DOD private contractors or CIA private soldiers working under contract as mercenaries?
Thanks, Gary. You and Artyess confirmed what I believe about the waivers for hotshots. Now I want to know if GM required them because if they did, it would be evidence of several things I would find very interesting. Oh, and I’m definitely not attempting to rehash some sort of argument. I simply want to know what the heck Joy was talking about with her claim. So Joy, what does the document say, that you have, that led to your claim?
Muh Day Win is a good crew. (figured I’d tell everyone the correct pronunciation)
The Bill Buck stories are funny. Even states had former military running major components of operations. We did. Heck there’s still a hiring preference for prior service to this day. (although the favored class has been greatly expanded because everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. Haha!)
Woodsman
Thanks…I was really curious how to pronounce that name. That crew has an interesting back story and a National Grassland that didn’t even exist in my day is Illinois…go figure?
I bet they are a money making machine being the only hotshot crew in all of Region 9.
I think there are probably a lot of oddball things the City of Prescott did with Granite Mountain since they didn’t have any institutional knowledge and experience or any history or tradition to fall back on in managing a hotshot crew.
That is one big advantage I had like I said before…all I had to do was replicate what so many others had done before me. It was like painting by the numbers.
Well…in that case here is my funniest Buck story.
Squatters on federal lands used to be a much bigger problem than it is today because most of them probably have been resolved. Especially on BLM Land because it has so much Land and was understaffed compared to either the USFS or NPS, in addition to the fact so much land was “checkerboard” because of how the railroads had been paid to built the intercontinental railroad.
And especially in New Mexico because of the intermingling with old Spanish Land Grants and Indian Reservations. I know of times the BLM has even given title to the land to private citizens if their house was there long enough before it was noticed or someone cared.
But anyway, there was a cabin that was half on Coconino National Forest and half on private land. This can be a big problem during forest closures due to fire danger. The discussion about removing that cabin went on for years without any resolution so one day Buck took the Flagstaff Hotshots out there and had them cut the cabin in half. And then haul away everything that was over the boundary line…problem solved.
Buck did get in hot water with upper management for that one. How he handled that situation tells you everything you need to know about Bill Buck because that is how he approached everything.
That story can also tell you why Buck was demoted (although no loss of pay was involved because pay grade isn’t dependent on fire team position for anyone) from being a Class 1 Fire Boss.
The Hog Fire on the Shasta T was his last big hurrah. The issue there and the final one between Buck and the “suits” was using bull dozers to construct that fire line I wrote about earlier that took five hotshot crews and twenty Type II crews just for the night shift two weeks to build.
Buck wanted to use bulldozers which was the industry standard. And the California R.5 joint command oversight team thought that bulldozers would be to hard on the very steep pristine land and leave a lasting scar that would take forever and a day to heal. But Buck firmly believed it was acceptable to burn down the village in order to save it.
Buck lost and we built the line by hand, but if I know Buck…it was hell of an ugly knock down bloody fight and I seriously doubt Buck was a gracious loser.
So…when he flew out to the top of that ridge to sleep with us in the rain, it was his last night in command of a wildfire.
There were lots of crews up there, including R5 hotshot crews at that spike camp/helispot with us and lots of overhead. But Buck came over and slept next to where I was.
The next morning, he had all of the other crews flown off the mountain and on the return trips, he had the Flagstaff, Mormon Lake and Blue Ridge Hotshots all flown in to where we were.
All of those crews had just arrived in fire camp after being demobbed from what had been the fire of the year…the Marblecone down by Big Sur, until the Hog Fire really took off and then it became THE fire.
After everyone else was gone…Buck gathered his pride and joy, his four hotshot crews, around him and gave us the worst and hardest daily assignment I had ever been given.
And that was to punch in a fire line by going direct on the Hog Fire all the way back down the mountain. And that was the last piece of line build on the Hog Fire.
And to make matters worse, all day long Buck kept bumping his crews in a contest to see which one could cut the most and best fire line under his watchful stare.
I’m pretty sure we didn’t win. The other crews were at full strength and they had some down time between Marblecone and meeting us. And like I wrote earlier, we had already had 6 or 7 guys medevacced by then.
But did Buck know how to go out on top….or what?
FYI…what made that line so hard was Buck said in our briefing all we had to do was construct 2000 feet of line.Our crew all agreed we could construct 2000 feet of line with four hotshot crews and be in fire camp in time for lunch….so we didn’t carry a rat because we were so sick of eating them.
Sometime later that day…we realized to our shock and dismay, Buck meant 2000 VERTICAL feet of line, not 2000 LINEAR feet,
And then to top it off, the Scout was went ahead to find the way out to a road was never heard from again. So once we reached the bottom, we had to hike back up that mountain and then hike down the original fire line to the road near Sawyers Bar were we started two weeks earlier.
We got back in fire camp at about 0400 hours. And of course there was nothing to eat at that time except for pallets of candy bars….talk about a sugar high!
Oh…and one more thing. Because it was so cold, none of us could stomach to stand there in the dark and cold rain and eat quagulated goo for breakfast either.
So we went all day without any food, but the other Coke crews had eaten a hot breakfast in fire camp before being helicoptered out.
And as you can imagine, by going direct on the black….it was building line all day long by going in and out of fingers. And some of those fingers were several acres in size.
I was the Acting Number 2 that da6 because Goldie had already been medevacced, but for that job….I was the Lead Pulaski for the crew. I kept thinking I was going to feint from lack of food. It was a lucky thing I was carrying so much fat. My body didn’t have to cannibalize my muscle.
And by the way, that’s precisely why it was imperative that the argument was made for GM to be considered employees of the state at Yarnell and NOT the city of Prescott… jurisdiction for remedy eliminated. Boom! Shit outta luck. Pretty slick move. Slimy bastards.
No, you are wrong, but…whatever.
Gary,
Your comments about Bill Buck and Squatters reminded me of a story he told.
He was on a fire somewhere when women were first being hired as WF. He had to take care of matters, so went into a communal-like latrine, open inside with long rows of toilet seats, without the privacy of stalls.
He said he was sitting in there all by himself on his own toilet seat when a woman walked in to use the latrine as well.
He said she walked right on up and sat down on one of the toilet seats right next to him! He said he didn’t know what to do.
She proceeded to try and take up a normal conversation with the man and Buck said he no clue how to handle the situation. He was bewildered and said something like: : ‘she actually tried to engage me in a normal conversation while were’ both sitting on the toilet next to each other.’
He said in all his life he had never experienced anything like it. In fact, it ruined his whole “experience” and he was therefore unable to complete his intended mission.
It virtually traumatized him.
Now THAT one is a funny story!
And truthfully….I was not comfortable showering with those women either, so I got out of there as fast as I could.
It might have been different if the water hadn’t been so cold…so I was kinda embarrassed.
Joy Collura says
NOVEMBER 7, 2017 AT 1:35 PM
I am on a cell hard to read with sun glare but I am about to put a foia in on RTS due to some recent allegations made against RTS in a serious manner. Are you able to share on it RTS or is it a private professional situation?
I can always take my non commercial foias and make them commercial but it may be of importance John Dougherty get the commercial foias of what I got…I thought 2013 showed how disgusting RTS was treated but this was icing or this was very damn right serious and needs to be fixed asap or addressed.
I say,
Joy…you really are, as I have said before, a real sweetheart. I have no idea how someone made it as far as you have in life with all of the life experiences you have had and could possibly still be so damn NAIVE.
I have no idea what the hell you are writing about…as usual, but I can assure you of a couple of things;
1. There is nothing you can fix, address, or make better pertaining to RTS or anything to do with the YHF or its aftermath.
2. You would have better success and a lot more fun trying to nail Jello to the walls of your cookie cutter home.
Why don’t you save yourself a lot of time, trouble, aggravation, and expense by just going home and start trying to nail Jello to the wall. RTS doesn’t need you to save him and besides that, you can’t.
RTS has made a career out of confounding one of the most traditional entities on the planet, the U. S. Forest Service, by being non traditional since I knew him on the fire line as Hotshots back in the 1970’s.
Oh…and by the way, he was beating them then….and he’s still beating them today. He beats them by just showing up. Everything is okay…really. 🙂
But…I know you won’t listen to me but that’s okay, I’m used to it by now and I now actually prefer it that way.
P..S.,
Why don’t you try to do something easier….like “Saving the Whales?” 🙂
Whoops,
I meant to say I know you won’t listen to me because NO ONE does, and that’s okay, I actually prefer it that way at this point in my life because I have a lot less responsibility when things go to hell in a hand basket.
And things always go to hell in a hand basket sooner or later…and usually sooner rather than later. 🙂
Oh….and one more thing Joy, don’t you think it’s about time for you to give up your sources. I’m not getting any younger….or better!
I have to agree with you Gary.
Giving my source—it is time — well past due huh
Let me head out to my FOIAs this week I will get to the foia storage unit and we will have to figure some key names and see if they match CURRENT key names…
good idea Gary.
Don’t tease me now!
https://youtu.be/8ePy_mnH774
looks like jello can be nailed to a wall
shew
Joy said,
And Joy and others wonder why I say fuck em and their trees with doors in them
IS THAT A FAIRY/GNOME DIG??? I DID NOT COMPREHEND….SORRY…OR DO YOU MEAN MY COOKIE CUTTER HOME???
, let’s do the right thing and fall back to the nearest drainage and torch that fucker off…burn baby burn! Like the man said in the movie…it all looks like wildfire FUEL to me!
WELL WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT…IT SOUNDS LIKE A BUNCH OF MEN EITHER ALREADY ON THEIR PENSION RIDE OR SOON TO BE COUNTING ON THEIR PENSIONS…
I GUESS THAT’S THE WAY IT IS…(SIGH)…YOU GOTTA PLAY ALONG TO GET ALONG…
BURN, BABY, BURN… THERE IS STILL HALF OF AMERICA WITH UNBURNED FUEL…SOME SMALL TOWNS WILL BE COLLATERAL DAMAGE BUT THEN PENSIONS ARE REALLY IMPORTANT…
And I say,
Fuck em’. The last bunch of guys I knew about who had a philosophy of “risk a lot to save a lot” were all burned alive.
I say do it the old fashioned way and SAFE way, fall back to the next drainage and torch that fucker off, don’t even use strip burning front m the top. Just get after it and light it from the bottom.
And IF your cookie cutter house, AKA a tree with doors and windows in it just happens to have been built where it shouldn’t have been deep inside wildland urban interface just because you liked it there and as a result you couldn’t get fire insurance on your home…too fuckin’ bad. Life is full of choices and trade offs, we all make them everyday.
If on the other hand, you have chosen wisely….I will deeply regret the loss of the personal items you will neither have time to save or be able to replace. But….you, your family and your pets will be saved and you can file an insurance claim for your organized pile of two by fours, plywood, drywall, siding and fixtures you called home.
And most importantly….every wildland firefighter will go home when the smoke column is gone….barring some truly unforeseen, tragic and unpreventable ACCIDENT, unlike what happened on the YHF, which was no accident.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz9jo5Az6Y8&autoplay=1
And now…inspired by The Woodsman’s sudden epiphany.
The Fire Line Was Ours We Marched Upon (Old Wildland Firefighter Lament)
I understand the special love/hate relationship between highly motivated
and very dedicated wildland firefighters and our shared feckless, fickle and reckless mistresses. The treacherous fires lines we marched and toiled upon as good as anyone else does and better than most people can, as our wet dreams were converted into our worst nightmares before our very eyes. She is a callous, cruel and volatile bitch who took all we had to give, while we robotically repeated “Sounds Good” and “We like it, we love it, we want more of it”, as she used us up, broke us down and robbed us of our dreams, one by one. As the daily shifts slowly ticked by, the years ran by, but the decades flew by, as we stood up, watered up, tooled up, saddled up, lined up, listened up and finally humped up the mountain before us. And in the end, our demanding dominatrix discarded us for someone else, anyone else younger and better than we were or ever could be again. The only thing is, we still love and adore her and what she meant to us. Our insatiable lover and faithless whore who possessed nothing but a short and fleeting memory, who was a stone cold heartless bitch who always asked the same question over and over again, “Yes…but what have you done for me lately?”
I agree with doing it the old fashioned way and SAFE way, fall back to the next drainage and torch it off.
She is much more than a callous, cruel and volatile bitch who took all we had to give.
Consider the mythological Sirens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwpCBXwz33U
We obviously view her differently, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone since we all see things differently based on our own life experiences.
To me she was a callous, cruel, and volatile bitch with a fleeting memory of me after she lured me onto the rocks. The good news is, it was in slow motion and I was able to see and do some amazing things along the way and wouldn’t do anything differently even if I could except for wearing a respirator while mopping up BEFORE I had a problem.
You on the other hand (I used to have a friend whose arm had been amputated and he would always interrupt me and say, but I don’t have another hand) are still answering her call and you are still fornicating with that insatiable lover, faithless whore, feckless, fickle, reckless mistress, stone cold heartless, callous, cruel, volatile bitch, and last but not least, that demanding dominatrix….you lucky devil you.
Oh…and one more thing. I was wayyyyy off when I laid the odds betting whether Arizona would be better than the federal gepovernment, cause they have a wayyyyy better death benefit thing going on. I would much rather be killed working for the state Of Arizona than the cheap ass feds.
Special Note To HAL 9000 – If you are ever looking for something to run in your background while you are otherwise temporarily down for routine maintenance, you should check out what a federal Hotshot crew boss’ wife would get in similar circumstances, the similar circumstances being DEATH.
There is something funky with those numbers that don’t add up….or at least don’t make sense to me. Or if they do….I kind of wish I would have been killed as a hotshot crew boss instead of dying a slow death in retirement….LOL. Hint…a long serving crew boss would probably be a GS – 9 Step 5 at the most
(excluding RTS of course, he had to have been a Step 10?)
Although today’s federal hotshot crew bosses are GS-9’s and we topped out as GS’s 7 ‘s back in the day, but still? Do those numbers make sense to you Sensei? Which is my new nickname for Richard Cranium (AKA Dickhead) sense we are all getting along so well and he and his back up and other brother Bob have quit double teaming me when I am at my most vulnerable and fragile.
Note to Diane – Don’t even get me started on how inconsistent and the Royally Cluster Fucked Up way the City Of Prescott decided who got what. It was based on lies, public pressure and misguided sympathy, unprofessional staffing on the part of the city. and frankly….they just gave up and oiled the squeaky wheels to get them to shut the fuck up.
The only thing wrong with that? I think ALL of the wheels should have been oiled the SAME….squeaking or not. And seaking is an insufficient word for what was going on. How about howling? But I really need to be in my most catty and bitchy mood to go into depth on this one.
But back on point….Mrs Lohman made out really….really….really well compared to how a federal hotshot crew bosses widow would have faired. I think? What a mess.
Whoops…if I was going to joke about THAT, I should have said if the numbers are that good…I wish I would have been killed in the last month on the job, instead of dying a slow death in retirement…LOL.
Nothing too violent or painful because I do have a mangina after all. Maybe a nice helicopter crash? A car crash would NOT have worked for me. I walked away from a head on on the job at MORE than 115 MPH according to the NMSP accident reconstruction expert. How many people can say that? It would take one wayyyy faster than that to fuckin kill me!
OK, since you asked. I was in the passenger side of a smallish 1989 Cougar WITHOUT airbags and at the last second my supervisor swerved to get himself out of the way of the 1974 Ford Gran Torino (a very heavy car) and so the impact was mostly on my side. My head snapped off the post of the headrest, my knees sank into the dash, the other guy had shoved his handgun into the crack of my sear and when it flew forward, the front sight.put a gash in my heavy denim Levi’s and my thigh, our car bounced back FIVE (5) feet from point of impact.
And most important…I can swear to you time slowed down as that big ass car came at us in our lane as the semi truck in front of us dodged at the last second. It was really weird….my mind went click….click….click….in separate frames and then BOOM! The energy released inside that car is indescribable. Obviously….one of my favorite stories. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
Whoops…forgot an important part of the story. Once my eyes saw that car coming off the tail of that semi like a blitzing linebacker at a combined speed of more than 115 MPH, I had how much actual time for it to close the gap of merely yards?
But while my eyes or brain, or eyes and brain slowed time down to individual slides likes in a PowerPoint presentation….I actually had time to think in slow mo….weeeee arrrrre goooooing tooooo hiiiiit, iiiiiit caaaaant beeeeeee avoooooooided! It was really WEIRD!
OK….just one more. The City of Prescott ran the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew like they were a Three Ring Circus, and they closed the program down like it was a Three Ring Circus.
At least 18 out of the 19 wildland firefighters who were burned alive and just happened to be Hotshots deserved better….much better.
There are reasons the fuckin, space chimps didn’t fly the Apollo Missions….or any other space missions for that matter. They were fuckin, chimpanzees for God,s sake!
Maybe I need some counseling? Maybe I’m crying out for help to my closest friends and associates since I have a mangina? Awwwww….fuck it!
I want to take part of that back because I could have stated it better.
The City of Prescott, Prescott Fire Department, led by Ring Master Darrell Willis (I don’t know anything about Steinbrink, he might have been better, but I seriously doubt it) managed the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshots under the superbly unqualified and DEEPLY flawed Eric Marsh as a Three Ring Circus right up until the point they managed them like a TRAIN WRECK!
OK….here is some free advice that comes really late, but it doesn’t matter because you (The City of Prescott, Prescott Fire Department) wouldn’t have listened to it anyway.
Managing a hotshot crew is really, really, really hard because there are so many things that can and do go wrong as with any high speed low drag effort while working in a very dangerous, complex and fluid environment.
It wasn’t that hard for me because I had a really good group of highly competent squad bosses and senior crewmen along with my Number 2, who was my swamper when I was a sawyer and my Number 2 for all seven years I was a hotshot crew boss.
And just as important, I had the complete support of my supervisors, FMO’s Richard Allred and Orlando Romero along with my forests, the Coconino and the Santa Fe and everyone wanted me to succeed.
AND….I had thirty years of institutional experience, knowledge, and TRADITION, even in the 1970’s, of managing hotshot crews from the U.S. Forest Service behind me that supported me every step of the way.
Eric Marsh had Jesse Steed and some others, but other than that, he was a loose cannon operating on his own….as a DEEPLY flawed person.
Marsh never had any checks or balances and it showed in almost everything he did….especially on the Yarnell Hill Fire. No one who knew him…was surprised when it happened. They were all heart broken…but not surprised.
OK…OK….OK….I really mean it this time, I am going to watch some CNN after this one. Maybe I need another hobby?
Note to HAL 9000 – IF you are going to figure it, you should do it based on what Marsh would have been if he would have been federal, so….
In other words, GS – 9 Step 5 is too high and won’t accurately reflect the disparity…if there is one.
Fuck me….Marsh was making a LOT of money! And that couldn’t have included his overtime, hazard pay, nighttime differential, holiday pay, Sunday differential etc.
Year 1 – GS- 9 Step 1
Year 2 _ GS – 9 Step 2
And so on and so forth through Step 5….after that it gets complicated and takes about another 20 years to go Steps 6 – 10, barring any Quality Step Increases. And I think given his Employee Performance Ratings from the Ring Master of the Three Ring Circus under the City of Prescott Big Top…we can rule that out. LOL
I am really in a bitchy catty mood today. It’s too bad I’m so lazy Diane, or this would be a good day to go down that rabbit hole. LOL
OK….this one doesn’t count. IF you are going to try and figure it a GS – 9 Step 3 = $53,082.93 / year.
And that is for Arizona, Yavapai County, Rest of US.
See what I mean? How the FUCK was Marsh making over 100 K.? I know only BASE pay counts in calculating federal benefits….unless you are a Very Special Agent GS 1811 like I was, but that is the only GS series that is an exception
https://www.federalpay.org/gs/calculator
Sensei…weigh in on this. What am I missing?
Well OK…out of curiosity, (gee maybe I really do need another hobby, I would go back to working on my book but since the public isn’t interested in any of that shit…why bother?) I had to go up to a GS 14 Step 1 to break 100 grand, just barely.
Add what Steed was making, plus the squad bosses and senior crewman, all based on what unionized structural firefighters were making….I guess, and I think I just figured out why that crew wasn’t REVENUE NUETRAL!
And they never were going to be revenue nuerptral no matter how much they padded their FUCKING TIMESHEETS! I don’t think you could padding em that high without working what 48 hours a day.
FUCK ME….WHAT A SCAM THEY HAD GOING!
A hotshot crew being run by the equivalent of a federal GS 14. Fuck me!
FYI….My supervisor, the Special Fucking Agent in Charge for BLM Arizona working for the BLM Washington D C Office Of Law Enforcement and Security….was a GS 14!
This can’t be right? What am I missing?
I think in this active wildfire world….a hotshot can come close to doubling his base salary…right Sensei?
No wonder Shit For Brains little sticky fingered drug addict wanted to be a structural fireman without even paying his dues as a hotshot…who wouldn’t?
They never would have taken him on the structural side though….never, even after he paid his dues, which in his case should have been four years.
If he would have come up to me cryin’ that shit after part of ONE season after I gave him a chance….I would have given him a good fuckin’. I know this is going to shock you….but I could be a real asshole. You know….in a good way to benefit the crew.
Oh…and what are the odds Shit For Brains is snortin’ coke again?
Sorry….I can’t watch the news today. Can’t stand to keep hearing about all those children shot to death at church.
I am on a cell hard to read with sun glare but I am about to put a foia in on RTS due to some recent allegations made against RTS in a serious manner. Are you able to share on it RTS or is it a private professional situation?
I can always take my non commercial foias and make them commercial but it may be of importance John Dougherty get the commercial foias of what I got…I thought 2013 showed how disgusting RTS was treated but this was icing or this was very damn right serious and needs to be fixed asap or addressed.
Union city firefighters….
And for the record I had the answer to the riddle after your 1st post…just couldn’t get a word in until now. Union city firefighters figured out how to break into our world…& they are quite accustomed to making bank…big bucks along with all the other perks. Didn’t you see the ceremony? THAT’S who the movie was produced for. Look at who was invited to the debut.
The answer is Union City Firefighters. IAFF, baby. Get some of that!!!
Oh….thank you. I wish I could because it is obviously very lucrative.
And sorry about that….I was really bored today, obviously.
No way, man. People like us would never survive washing pumpers & ambulances every day and sitting on our ass in a station watching the boob tube waiting for a tummy ache call or a stubbed toe. F that. You worked in God’s country. Except for the pay they’re jealous. That’s why most of them want to be us. Apparently GM figured out a way to have both.
Wait….what about taking turns cooking gourmet meals for each other before we tuck our buddies in for the night? Maybe I could get into the gourmet chef thing….I do like to eat!
I know— some of you locals have been seeing me on the highway vs. the desert
and I was just at an interesting “gem” meeting that I accidentally interrupted
but in it I am letting locals know due to a recent health report back at me you can find me Monday thru Friday from 1230pm-430pm at 26865 S State Route 89 and some or all weekends depending how they roll out same time frame…
I am volunteering my time for my dear friends Dan Jacobs and the crew Bob Brinkley…Prescott Resident Jim and Steven…
since I have known…November 4, 1982… locally you have seen folks pay (currently $75.00 annually) at their chance to pan for the gold on the Weavers
and Weaver Mining has brought out some success over time…but some of these fellas are 71 to almost 90 and it is time for the desert walker (street walker) to take 24 hours out of my week and help a man I respect out—
I am not making any funds at all but I will be there—you want to join their club and try for the gold on their mining claim acreages—great—shoot take me a long too for a $$$price$$$ and I can show you because since the 70s my life has always been around the “old time” miners due to my father and I know where it is here locally but I like natural heart rocks and green rocks—not into the gold like others…the only fever I have is on this darn digital thermometer…
Kimmy will bring the mules out there that are Tex Gilligan’s so we can do photo ops and I can bring my face paints and have kid fun times…I will find out how much OLD SCHOOL can happen on commercial property but I would love to make the old school campfires and have cowboy coffee ready for your visit…I will also see if the license is current on other areas…in case someone splashed Jim into their cup—smiles…wink
I think it will do me good to settle in 1 area versus walking as I have but I still will walk just on their 2.88 acres 3 or 4 times a day…my health seems to be aiming me this way anyways and I am not a traditional job gal and who better on the desert than legal beagle Joy showing you how to capture your rattlesnake—skin your rattler with head on so you can make a hat band and start up a campfire and slow cook your snake; breaded or unbreaded…I think I will make it fun even if it ends up a boring as all hell thing to help out on—I will give it a shot-
I really felt also this gives you locals a location to show me your fire data every day of the week–
Nice of me, huh…I know…
location where I will be at:
http://two_guns.tripod.com/main_pages/museum.htm
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.1598569,-112.8446372,3a,75y,57.59h,103.23t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1skZDTU2ZYvl1QC0LRq1mo5A!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
also thank you to all you FFs and Smokejumpers who sent tshirts and patches and hats—that has HELPED ALOT lately getting fire data and I will wear it when over at the old trading post—yeah if anyone here wants to see their organization being free advertised mail the medium and larges to PO BOX 572 Congress Arizona 85332…I would not say send them if it was not working…Norb from IM here —his great shirts and patches have done WONDERS in getting fire data…so has Holly Neill’s WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER FOUNDATION shirts she gave us….I could not ask for a better way to keep getting data and boy you would be surprised who talks too…
that is the latest.
PAUSE on highway hiking since HOW MANY first responders and YCSO and highway patrols passed right by when I was “out” laying there…that was comical…
In a way I am glad none of you stopped—saved me time and monies…my knee is still bleeding…
https://youtu.be/m9CJ79K4VhI
get your ONLY THE BRAVE tees now-
https://youtu.be/X3APUuLOug4
at marker 35 you see flames of YHF— I know the areas there and always noticed locals even in evacuation did not know the news footage nor could understand the footage to where it was taken—but I was the one who began to tell in evacuation WHO just lost their home as we watched the news footage…yeah I was the one who carried the weight to sharing the bad news to so many and sure some tees will sell but let’s focus on the real story…folks keep dying and homes still being destroyed and yet not yet has Musser mentioned his day that day well at least not to the world—he has with minut ways spoke to some…and I just happen to bump into the SOME…the way God guides the people my way I reckon…Bleachers and people who have come to me private I know what you are up against…I have seen the FOIAS and public records and so do not worry— it is not you folks who need to really speak up…and really not even Musser but he does know WHO…
**
** BOMB REPORT for the movie “Only the Brave”
When a feature film BOMBS… it makes a special ‘list’ in Hollywood and there are many Hollywood industry writers who do the post-mortem(s).
Here is just one of those ‘reports’…
Bomb Report
Movies That Failed At The Box Office from 2000 to the present.
https://bombreport.com/yearly-breakdowns/2017-2/only-the-brave/
From the ‘report’…
———————————————————————————————————
BOMB REPORT FOR ONLY THE BRAVE
Budget: $38 million
Financed by: Black Label Media
Domestic Distributor: Sony
Domestic Gross: Still in release
Overseas Gross: Still in release
Directed by: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Josh Brolin, Miles Teller
Produced by: Molly Smith
Only The Brave was financed by Black Label Media for $38 million and Lionsgate was set as domestic distributor and handled international sales to distributors. Sales were strong, which would limit Black Label’s exposure to the film’s price tag.
Despite a successful collaboration on Sicario and La La Land, Black Label and Lionsgate disagreed over the marketing approach and release dates for Only The Brave and Sicario‘s sequel Soldado. Only The Brave was first dated for September 22 and after very strong test screening scores, Black label wanted a different approach to sell the picture. On April 24, 2017 it was announced that Lionsgate would no longer handle domestic distribution for the two movies, but retain international rights and Sony would take over US responsibilities.
Black Label took the movie in a different direction alright and began by changing the title, which was Granite Mountain and changed it to the hokey Only The Brave.
Whether Lionsgate would have cut a better trailer is impossible to say, but what was released hit every familiar note about a noble profession presented as hero worship. Considering the heavy dose of saccharine valor on display in the marketing materials, it would be damn near impossible to predict that Only The Brave would actually receive strong reviews.
Along with lousy ads that were focus grouped to death toward the heartland of America, Black Label Media then hired Brad Parscale ( Trump’s digital media director for his presidential campaign ) to target people who are responsive to Trump and push social media ads of the movie toward them.. This is a textbook example of marketing working AGAINST a movie.
Perhaps cutting a trailer that focused on the movie’s qualities and strong cast, instead of employing bullshit data analytics and hired consultants would have brought in more auds.
Then again, as Only The Brave is opening in theaters, a wildfire in California that is roughly the size of New York City is uncontrollably ablaze, claiming lives and displacing hundreds of thousands of people — so maybe this is subject matter that is far too raw and topical.
Only The Brave was dated for October 20 and was predictably tracking for a disastrous $6 to $7 million opening. The movie opened against a slew of low-rent fare — Tyler Perry’s Boo 2! A Madea Halloween, the long delayed Geostorm, The Snowman and the barely wide release of Same Kind of Different as Me. Only The Brave was dead on arrival with just $6,002,665. The movie declined 41.7% to $3,502,095 in its second frame. More as the domestic numbers ( continue to ) come in…
Only The Brave is currently scheduled to open in a handful of overseas markets through March 2018. The international trailer was the US trailer, which will likely have minimal appeal overseas.
———————————————————————————————————-
alot I have spoken to locally who seen the movie felt bad they went because they felt they are now a contributor to given a dollar to Hollywood bullshit
I try to bring comfort and tell them thank you for going to show the loved ones who wanted to share the men’s story…
they replied DID WE SEE THE SAME MOVIE?
It was about a few not all the loved ones…oh Joy you mean the photo op at the tree—oh ok…
so locally no it is not a HIT here and I should KNOW—I am walking many days out there hearing the reactions-
**
** SECOND WEEKEND FOR THE “ONLY THE BRAVE” MOVIE
More dismal news for “Only the Brave”…
Box Office Mojo
Results for Weekend October 27-29, 2017
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/
“Only the Brave” DROPPED down 2 slots from number 5 to number 7.
Title: Only The Brave
Studio: Sony
Total Weekend Gross: $3,502,095
Down -41.7% from previous ( opening ) weekend.
Total theatres still showing the film: 2,577 ( same as opening weekend )
Total ‘take’ per theatre for the entire weekend: $1,359
You want to know my humble opinion—
you are getting it anyways so just skim if you thought NO
after all I did spend alot of time with some smokejumpers and ffs of all types…
these folks would rather see no name stars and zero marketing and have a well made documentary of young men and fire—
I would even think Norman MacLean would like to see that made branching off his earlier works and who better than his own son—
I do think Alan and John and Holly have enough data and if they join some folks I have met and really push this to its limits of pure freaking reality and well Musser you should come to this documentary too and bring your YHF pals who keep thinking its okay to keep moving forward and not talk unless one another opens up first…
Musser, come quietly visit me and I will show you YHF and its health aftermath to your own industry as well to the locals…
maybe that will show you its time…
a good portion you will now find at a cemetery…
it’s not funny Musser…nope. If you will not do it for me…do it for the industry…the new industry that will happen because you finally open up…change is now…
A new article and news story of interest.
“Lawyer: Court’s refusal to hear Yarnell Hill fire suit has statewide implications” By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services Oct 29, 2017
http://tucson.com/news/local/lawyer-court-s-refusal-to-hear-yarnell-hill-fire-suit/article_4b614103-f07d-53f5-94a5-4e2b7fe5a520.html
“Without comment, the Arizona Supreme Court has spurned a request by the lawyers for those who lost buildings in the 2013 blaze. The lawyers claimed they should be able to make their case to a jury that the state, which was trying to contain the wildfire that started on public lands, also had a duty to protect their property. More to the point, David Abney said they were required to do so in a fashion that was not negligent..”
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post October 30, 2017 at 10:12 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> A new article and news story of interest.
>>
>> “Lawyer: Court’s refusal to hear Yarnell Hill fire suit has statewide
>> implications” By Howard Fischer Capitol Media Services Oct 29, 2017
Thanks for the link.
They can/should take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
There are ‘fundamental U.S. citizen’s rights’ ( for ALL States in the Union ) at issue here ( including the constitutional RIGHT to at least have a day in court… win or lose )… and that’s what the U.S. Supreme Court is FOR.
Regarding the ‘duty to protect ( private ) property’ and whether or not Arizona State Forestry had ‘undertaken that effort’ in Yarnell… even the SAIT report makes it clear they DID.
The SAIT’s own ‘Fire Progression Map’, included in their official SAIR document ( on PDF page 87 of 122 pages ) shows the following…
1. The Yarnell Hill Fire started with a lightning strike late Friday afternoon, June 28, 2013, in the northeast corner of Yavapai County ( YC ) land parcel number 800-27-057. This parcel of land was/is owned by the Arizona State Trust land department.
The original fire started just a few hundred yards west of a parcel of PRIVATE land ( YC land parcel number 203-02-002 ) owned by the ‘Maughn ( Ranch ) 2007 Revocable Trust’.
Nothing was done to try and extinguish or contain the fire for all of Friday evening, night and throughout the early hours of Saturday morning.
2. On the morning of Saturday, June 29, 2013, the fire had spread but was still confined to the northeast corner of Arizona State Land parcel 800-27-057.
3. On Saturday afternoon, when the fire ‘escaped’ over the two-track road, it immediately burned out of the northeast corner of Arizona State Trust land parcel number 800-27-057 and into the northwest corner of PRIVATE Maughn Ranch land parcel 203-02-002.
Attempts were made to try and ‘catch’ the ‘escaped fire’ in the daylight hours that remainded on Saturday ( ground actions, air drops, etc. )… but those attempts were unsuccessful and all attempts to either extinguish or contain the ‘escaped’ fire were abandoned at dusk until the next morning.
The now ‘escaped fire’ continued to burn NORTH throughout the night, and overnight the head of the fire burned its way OUT of PRIVATE Maughn Ranch parcel 800-27-057, back onto Arizona State Trust land parcel 800-27-057 for a short time, and then directly into another PRIVATE Maughn Ranch land parcel ( number 202-12-002 ).
4. By 10:00 AM on the morning of Sunday, June 30, 2013, the head of the fire was now far enough north towards Peeples Valley that it was ONLY burning on the PRIVATE land parcel number 202-12-002 owned by Maughn Ranch Trust.
As the fire continued burning north towards Peeples Valley, the head of the fire then burned across the Maughn Ranch property and entered another PRIVATE land parcel ( number 202-12-001D ) belonging to ‘The Hays ( Ranch ) Revocable Living Trust’.
If the fire had continued to just burn to the north, it would have had to completely burn THROUGH the entire town of Peeples Valley to reach the next parcel of Arizona State Trust land, parcel number 800-20-047J.
When the wind shift/reversal came on Sunday afternoon, the tail side of the fire turned into the head and then it burned its way back THROUGH the unburned parts of both Hays Ranch PRIVATE land and Maughn Ranch PRIVATE land… and then right into Yarnell and Glen Ilah.
* So what does all that “more than you wanted to know” information mean?
It means that after the fire had been ‘left to burn’ for all of Saturday night, by the time the sun came up on Sunday, June 30, 2013… it was NO LONGER burninig on ( or even threatening ) ANY ‘Arizona State Land’… and would never do so at all for the rest of that entire day.
So according to the Arizona Supreme Court decision(s)… all the Arizona State Forestry ‘Type 2 short’ team ( led by IC Roy Hall ) should have done when they ‘arrived’ on Sunday morning was immediately issue a statement to the people of Peeples Valley, Yarnell and Glen Ilah saying…
“The fire is no longer burning on, or threatening, any actual Arizona State Trust
land… so while you may see us hanging around the area today ( Sunday ) we are NOT
required to do jack shit. You are all on your own now.”
Ultimately… it might have been better ( for the residents of Yarnell and Glen Ilah and for 19 lives I can think of ) if they HAD issued such a statement… and then ‘backed off’ just like the Arizona Supreme Court continues to ( now ) say they were ‘supposed’ to do.
http://www.azcentral.com/video/2897450611001 / http://archive.azcentral.com/video/2897450611001
I KNOW that canyon BEFORE this GMHS memorial trail and noone can erase what I know and is no longer that way today so the trail today is a mislead if one is to judge it to 6.30.13 and how the terrain use to be…
I am still wondering why and how they dropped down into that box canyon…it just does not add up after all the data I gathered—maybe Musser can open up and share more on the “whys”…
you up for it now Musser
being the books are out and the film…
can you please help me understand from your perception and pure thought process minus any voices that came to you since…just going back to 6.30.13…can you tell me how or why?
Investigations are over—the loved ones lost their cases in reality no matter if some got monies—
can you come out and purely share…I mean there is a place in downtown Phoenix that rent them in pairs now if ya need some help there but until I pass on I feel with all my gut you will not talk unless others start first…then let the dominoes fall as they will…right?
someone recently warned me in back channel about gifts I was born with not created or studied- said it was a God warning…well I than can say this too…I have noted you do not worry— the people on the YHF— of the Earthly judgement but you will have your Judgement Day as I will have the same…so if you rather just wait for that…your human choice—
locals-
remember YOUR photos matter to me-
share it here or to me direct—
it was great meeting you this week on the trails
I hope you enjoy your visit to this page—
http://www.geolobo.com/?p=453
**
** OPENING WEEKEND RESULTS FOR THE MOVIE “ONLY THE BRAVE”
Exactly as predicted… the new film “Only the Brave” ( based on the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots ) only earned a dismal 6.1 million dollars over its entire ‘opening weekend’ even though it was playing in more than 2,570 theatres nationwide.
NOTE: The predicted estimate for “Only the Brave” for its opening weekend was $6,010,000 whereas the actual opening weekend total turned out to be only $6,002,665.
That’s $7,335 dollars LESS than the estimate. Pretty damn close.
The only thing that didn’t match the ‘predictions’ was that instead of coming in 4th place, it slipped DOWN a slot and only came in 5th place even on its opening weekend.
Box Office Mojo – News
Article Title: Tyler Perry’s ‘Boo 2!’ Tops Weekend While Fellow Newcomers Struggle All Around
Published October 22, 2017 – by Brad Brevet
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/news/?id=4337&p=.htm
From the article…
——————————————————————————————————–
Rounding out the top five is Sony’s Only the Brave, finishing right where the studio expected with an estimated $6 million. The $38 million production entered the weekend with strong reviews, but just wasn’t able to generate enough interest to break out, though those that did turn out seemed to have enjoyed it, awarding the film an “A” CinemaScore. Overall, the audience was 54% male vs. 46% female, of which 74% were 25 years or older.
——————————————————————————————————–
The ‘production budget’ figures generally do NOT include the additional ‘marketing costs’, which in the case of “Only the Brave” and its CAT-5 level ‘marketing storm’ have probably amounted to maybe 1/3 again the cost of making the movie in the first place.
On average, studios only earn approximately 55 percent of the final gross box office take, so with only $6,002,665 of gross earnings on its opening weekend… that only amounts to just $3,301,465 ( 3.3 ) million dollars of net profit towards making up the ( at least ) $38 million dollar expense.
That’s NOT good news for the producers and the investors.
It’s also already been announced that the movie will be available on DVD as early as January 9, 2018.
Also not a good sign… because such an EARLY ‘release to DVD’ really cuts down your chances of making money in the overseas markets.
MovieFone
Article Title: Box Office: Tyler Perry’s ‘Boo 2!’ Tops a Really Crappy
Weekend, ‘Only the Brave’ Flops
https://www.moviefone.com/2017/10/22/box-office-tyler-perry-boo-2-geostorm-only-the-brave-the-snowman/
This is an interesting October 23rd ‘The New Yorker’ Culture Desk section article by Richard Brody titled: ‘The Story That “Only the Brave” Leaves Out’
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-story-that-only-the-brave-leaves-out
“The decisions that go into the composition and the telling of stories have a meaning of their own and—as in “Only the Brave”—what filmmakers leave out can be far more revealing than what they choose to include.”
“The movie offers a vision of sentimental unity for the common good in a town where people—WHITE people—go out of their way to help each other. Yet as I watched the movie, I felt that something was missing (including the possibility that there might be anyone besides WHITE people in Prescott).” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
What does THAT have to do with anything?
Test
I hear ya Rocksteady
I still have that glitch here myself
Tried to post earlier.. no luck
Went to the movie..
Some cheesy dialogue..
Rocksteady:
“swiss” cheese 🙂
I am sure I am not alone on this—
Prior Granite Mountain Hotshot Brenda McDonough “Donut”:
The loss of a Grandfather is a sad event.
I know how difficult it must be for you.
Please accept my heartfelt sympathy
and I like to think I was once my Grandpas “angel” but not they are mine guiding me (when I listen)
It was my hardest loss when I lost them.
I miss fishing with both of mine and just the togetherness-
Below when I asked for clarification—I am more than satisfied I will not hear the answer now that I was told you faced a loss…I just really wanted the world to know the Hollywood twists to the movie
and if one never knew the stuff going on or did not eyewitness it then yeah THERE IS MORE that could of been made right in making the movie but instead it went further away…and maybe that was the point…
https://rlv.zcache.com/grandfather_loss_rose_sympathy_card-r78a63e08856f4a4dbcc59640c208c8c0_xvuat_8byvr_324.jpg
https://flic.kr/p/ZgD2Bh or
I am trying to learn to post an image here from Gary-
He just wanted to wish you all were there with him…
*
* “ONLY THE BRAVE” HAD AN ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE ‘OPENING NIGHT’
The numbers are in for ‘Opening Night’ ( Friday night, October 20, 2017 ) for the film “Only the Brave”… and they are NOT good.
According to ‘Collider’, a Movie industry site that tracks this sort of thing, the TOTAL ‘take’ for “Only the Brave” ( nationwide ) on its ‘Opening Night’ was only a paltry 2.1 million dollars despite the fact that it ‘opened’ in 2,575 theatres.
Collider – Movie News
Article: Friday Box Office: ‘Boo 2! A Madea Halloween’ Leads Pack of New Releases
Published: October 21, 2017 by Chris Cabin
http://collider.com/friday-box-office-boo-2-tyler-perry/#images
From the article…
———————————————————————————————————
In one of the most crowded weekends of new releases of the year, Tyler Perry is once again on top of the box office. Boo 2! A Madea Halloween is currently holding court at number one with some $7.4 million between previews and Friday estimates. That’s about $2 million less than 2016’s Boo! A Madea Halloween, which may not look good for the franchise’s future but is still more than enough to clear the way for Perry’s film to take the weekend.
The deluge of new releases has cleared the top five of all previous offerings, save Happy Death Day and Blade Runner 2049. In second place is Geostorm, what my colleague Matt Goldberg appropriately labeled the biggest blockbuster of 1998, which brought in $4.3 million by all estimates. Happy Death Day came in at third with $2.9 million, barely leading over the surprisingly engaging Only the Brave, which currently is sitting in fourth place with $2.1 million. Below the top two, the top five will likely prove to be a tight race, with Blade Runner 2049 coming in fifth place with $2 million, making the difference between it and Only the Brave a scant $95,000 from estimates.
———————————————————————————————————–
So if ‘Only the Brave’ opened in 2,575 theatres last night, and the full box office ‘take’ for just this ‘opening night’ was only $2,125,000 dollars… that means there was only an average ‘total take’ of just $825.24 at each location showing the movie.
According to the AMC Theatres website… the average adult ticket price these days for a showing in 3D is between $17 and $18.
Dropping that DOWN to an average of just $15 per ticket… that still means that ( on average ) only 48 people watched the movie all of Friday at each of the 2,575 locations where it was playing.
And THAT means only 123,600 people saw the movie on its Friday ‘Opening Day’.
That’s LESS people than it takes to even fill just TWO average-size football stadiums.
So even with ALL of the following having taken place beforehand…
1. A CAT-5 level ‘marketing storm’ making ‘landfall’ and ‘raining in place’ for more than 3 weeks.
2. PAYING Donald Trump’s social media campaign director Brad Parscale a few million dollars to ‘market’ the film to red-states.
3. PAYING living-heroes like NAVY SEALS to ‘promote the film’.
…the film still made less on its opening night than it takes to even pay “The Dude” Jeff Bridge’s salary.
The ‘Opening Weekend’ continues and I guess we’ll see if it even hits its predicted BAD 6.1 million dollar ‘first weekend’ mark… but it’s not looking too good.
The film will *probably* go on to ( eventually ) make up its reported 38 million dollar production budget once it hits the overseas market ( the film doesn’t even open in Germany until next March )… but I would venture a guess and say this is the last time Blacklabel Media decides to produce another “Ain’t it a Shame” style movie.
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 20, 2017 at 5:40 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> WTKTT… you are slipping ole buddy
>> I already gave you the hint when I asked if Mrs. Beno Marsh took
>> her new “husbands” name. You know rule number one…follow the money.
>>
>> A dead federal employee’ widow (or widower) on the other hand, are
>> the government’s responsibility until they REMARRY. And they are never
>> the burden of the taxpayer again even if they divorce. As a result,
>> based on my anecdotal research, it is very rare for a widow who has
>> that status to remarry in this uncertain world.
>>
>> Although I should state that I don’t have any idea whether
>> Mrs. Beno Marsh is married or not. I am simply pointing out
>> that just because they have a bunch of instagram photos that looks
>> like a wedding took place and there are corresponding statements
>> that imply a marriage ceremony took place, does not mean one did.
>>
>> So….Mrs. Beno Marsh may very well still be Mrs. Beno Marsh and the
>> financial responsibility of the Citizens of Prescott for the rest
>> of her life and not whatever that guys name is or anyone else she may
>> cohabitate with in the future. And so her non answers while not
>> mentioning her marriage may be in fact accurate, she may not be married.
>>
>> If I was curious, I would research whether or not a marriage license
>> had been isssued in her and what’s his name….names.
Before you ( or anyone else ) gets any farther out in front of their skis on this one particular topic… let me say that you are absolutely RIGHT.
In NORMAL cases ( at both the Federal and the State level )… someone who is receiving a ‘survivor’ pension due to the death of his/her spouse stands to LOSE that pension if/when he/she remarries.
But this is not a NORMAL case.
Eric Marsh was fully ‘vested’ in this thing created by the Arizona Legislature called the Arizona ‘Public Safety Personnel Retirement System’.
The PSPRS.
Unlike some other ‘retirement’ and/or ‘survivor benefits’ plans… this Arizona PSPRS thing specifically states ( in legal statutes passed by the Arizona Legislature ) that a ‘survivor’ pension is for LIFE.
The ‘payments’ start at the last day of the month following the related ‘member’ death.
The ‘payments’ continue until the last day of the month the recipient DIES.
There is NO CLAUSE or AMENDMENT in the PSPRS legislation which says that this ‘survivor’ pension can be terminated if/when the recipient ‘remarries’.
If it’s a ‘normal’ survivor’s pension, where the ‘member’ dies in anything other than a ‘Line Of Duty Death’ ( LODD ) incident, the AMOUNT paid each month is equal to 4/5ths of what the member’s pension payments would have been when alive.
If it WAS a ‘Line Of Duty Death’ ( LODD ), then the AMOUNT paid each month to the ‘survivor’ is then 100 percent the same as what the ‘member’ would have been receiving if he/she were still alive.
Here are the absolute CURRENT Arizona ‘statutes’ regarding PSPRS ‘Death benefits’…
https://www.azleg.gov/viewdocument/?docName=https://www.azleg.gov/ars/38/00846.htm
And here is what that ‘legislation’ says about PSPRS ‘Death benefits’…
Title 38 – Public Officers and Employees
Chapter 5 – Social Security and Retirement
Article 4 – The Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System
———————————————————————————————————
Section 38-846 – Death benefits
A. The surviving spouse of a deceased retired member shall be paid a surviving spouse’s pension if the spouse was married to the member for a period of at least two consecutive years at the time of the member’s death. Payment of a surviving spouse’s pension shall commence as of the last day of the month following the retired member’s date of death. The last payment shall be made as of the last day of the month in which the surviving spouse’s death occurs.
B. The surviving spouse of a deceased member shall be paid a surviving spouse’s pension if the spouse was married to the member on the date of the member’s death. Payment of a surviving spouse’s pension commences as of the last day of the month following the member’s date of death. The last payment shall be made as of the last day of the month in which the surviving spouse’s death occurs.
C. The surviving spouse of a deceased retired member is entitled to receive a monthly amount equal to four-fifths of the monthly amount of pension that the decedent would have received immediately before death.
D. The surviving spouse of a deceased member who was not killed in the line of duty or did not die from injuries suffered in the line of duty is entitled to receive a monthly amount calculated in the same manner as an accidental disability pension is calculated pursuant to section 38-845, subsection B. The surviving spouse of a deceased member who is killed in the line of duty or dies from injuries suffered in the line of duty is entitled to receive a monthly amount equal to the deceased member’s average monthly benefit compensation less any amount payable for an eligible child under this section.
———————————————————————————————————
A few years ago, the Arizona Legislature actually added an amendment to the PSPRS statutes that specifically allows a ‘surviving spouse’ to have their ‘survivor’ pension REINSTATED if it actually WAS ever ‘terminated by reason of remarriage’…
———————————————————————————————————-
Section 38-846.03. Reinstatement of surviving spouse’s pension
A. A surviving spouse whose pension was terminated by reason of remarriage is entitled to reinstatement of the surviving spouse’s pension if the surviving spouse is otherwise qualified for a surviving spouse’s pension and applies for reinstatement with the public safety personnel retirement system and no other person is currently receiving a guardian’s or conservator’s pension for an eligible child of the member or retired member. The level of pension payments shall be that amount which was received by the surviving spouse at the date the surviving spouse’s pension was terminated, adjusted to reflect ad hoc and scheduled increases from the date of termination to the date of reinstatement.
B. A surviving spouse who is receiving a guardian’s or conservator’s pension by reason of remarriage and who is otherwise eligible may apply for reinstatement of a surviving spouse’s pension. If the surviving spouse’s pension becomes payable the guardian’s or conservator’s pension is terminated.
C. Reinstated surviving spouse’s pensions are not retroactive. Payment of a reinstated surviving spouse’s pension shall commence as of the first day of the month following receipt by the public safety personnel retirement system of a properly executed written application for reinstatement from the surviving spouse.
———————————————————————————————————
The exact ‘amounts’ being received ( for life ) by Amanda Marsh ( now Lohman ) are no secret.
Whether she, herself, likes it or not… that is all bona-fide PUBLIC information since every penny is coming from taxpayer dollars.
Here is just one ( of many ) ‘sources’ for that kind of public information…
On October 15, 2013, a presentation was made to the Arizona Legislature that ‘summarized’ the final ‘benefit’ amounts ( both lump-sum and ongoing ) involved with the Yarnell Hill Tragedy.
There is a PUBLIC document that was used during that presentation to the Arizona State Legislature ( House Committee )… and it is still sitting right here…
Granite Mountain Hotshots Public Benefits Summary
Presentation to the House Committee on Public Safety, Military, and Regulatory Affairs
October 15, 2013
https://www.azleg.gov/jlbc/granitemountainhotshotsbenefitsummary.pdf
According that ( public ) document… here are the details regarding both the lump-sum and ongoing payments related to the death of Eric Marsh…
————————————————————————————————————
PSPRS Benefit ( Ongoing Annual ): $101,483
Life insurance ( Lump Sum ): $122,335
Workers’ Comp Benefit ( Ongoing Annual ): $33,488
Health + Dental Insurance Benefit ( Ongoing Annual ): $7,092
Federal Death Benefit ( Lump Sum ): $328,600
One-time Burial Expense Reimbursement
from City of Prescott worker’s compensation program: $5,000
TOTAL Lump Sum Benefits: $455,935
TOTAL Annual Ongoing Benefits: $142,063
( NOTES at the bottom of the document )…
Benefits are NOT expected to be subject to state or federal income tax.
Total only reflect PUBLIC benefits, and does NOT represent any PRIVATE DONATIONS. Although details regarding private donations have not been finalized, at a minimum the Arizona 100 Club provides a lump sum payment of $15,000 to the survivors of any public officer who dies in the line of duty.
————————————————————————————————————
The ‘Arizona 100 Club’ became the ‘gatekeeper’ for the millions of dollars ( supposedly 4.6+ million ) that were being donated… and despite the fact that AZ100 Club Executive Director Sharon Knutson Felix had to resign in scandal over how that money was being ‘distributed’ to ‘family members’… there has still never been any kind of full accounting of how ALL that money was ‘handed out’.
So according to just this ( public ) document… excluding any/all money received from PRIVATE donations… Amanda Marsh ( now Lohman ) received almost half-a-million dollars ( $455,935 ) in one time lump-sum payments… and can expect an ongoing ANNUAL ‘survivors benefit’ of $142,063 dollars… for LIFE.
And all ( supposedly ) TAX FREE
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
( Continued from above )…
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> So….Mrs. Beno Marsh may very well still be Mrs. Beno Marsh and the
>> financial responsibility of the Citizens of Prescott for the rest
>> of her life and not whatever that guys name is or anyone else she may
>> cohabitate with in the future. And so her non answers while not
>> mentioning her marriage may be in fact accurate, she may not be married.
>>
>> If I was curious, I would research whether or not a marriage license
>> had been isssued in her and what’s his name….names.
See above.
It doesn’t matter if she is fully/totally/legally ‘remarried’ or not.
That doesn’t affect her PSPRS survivor’s pension in any way.
That being said… Amanda Marsh has, in fact, ALREADY ‘changed her name’ on her personal ( public ) Facebook page to simply ‘Amanda Lohman’, so one must assume that is how she prefers to be known at this time, regardless of her reticence about this in the ‘movie’ related interviews.
She posted a ‘selfie’ photo there just 2 days ago which proves that.
https://www.facebook.com/ericmarshfoundationforwildlandfirefighters/photos/a.748269025266283.1073741829.706170532809466/1523616194398225/?type=3&theater
—————————————————————————————————–
Facebook – PUBLIC page
Eric Marsh Foundation for Wildland Firefighters
Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 1:49 pm
PHOTO: ‘Selfie’ showing Amanda and others processing T-shirt orders.
CAPTION: This is what shipping day looks like for us! Girl power for sure! — with Amanda Lohman.
—————————————————————————————————–
The photo is a ‘selfie’ that Amanda herself was taking and then uploading to Facebook… and she is now ALLOWING her own image in photographs to be automatically publicly ‘tagged’ by Facebook as ‘Amanda Lohman’ instead of ‘Amada Beno Marsh’.
The ‘with Amanda Lohman’ tag she has allowed to appear on that public photo ends up a ‘clickable link’ on Facebook since it actually links back to her original ( personal ) ‘Amanda Beno Marsh’ Facebook page.
That PUBLIC Facebook page of hers is here ( where it has always been )….
https://www.facebook.com/amanda.benomarsh
All she did was keep the original Facebook URL and changed the NAME associated with that public Facebook page to ‘Amanda Lohman’.
So she she is obviously not ( in general ) trying to ‘hide’ the fact that she has remarried.
She was/is just ( curiously enough ) ‘choosing’ not to ‘mention’ that little ‘detail’ about herself in the various movie interviews.
Do all of the widows have the same benefits as Amanda Lohman?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on October 22, 2017 at 10:16 am
>> Diane Lomas asked…
>>
>> Do all of the widows have the same benefits as Amanda Lohman?
No.
A lot of the LODD ( Line Of Duty Death ) benefits were the same but the ‘survivor pensions’ are all based on salary levels at the time of death.
Eric Marsh was the highest paid employee out of all the 19 who died… so his ‘survivor pension’ would be ( as one would expect ) higher than the others.
The public document linked to above has details for ALL 19 of the men who died in Yarnell… not just Eric Marsh.
Side Issue,
I continue to be amazed at what the fuck those idiots were carrying in their packs to get them anywhere near 50 pounds? How the fuck can any hotshot be productive cutting line or doing anything else for that matter while carrying a 50 point pack?
I carried one of the heavier line packs, but I have since found out I have a mangina, and that explains a lot. And I can assure you that when I was a hotshot crewman, I didn’t carry one of the heavier packs because I had to work for a living.
Look…here is the bottom line, the most any hotshot should ever be carrying, even a crew boss who rarely cuts any line, all has to fit into a teardrop day pack or a butt pack on web gear.
Now…you also have to carry at least 4 quart canteens, maybe you can get away with 2 in the fall in the Pacific Northwest, but during the summer months in Arizona you had better have 6 for a night shift and 2 full gallons for a day shift. If you went on the fire line with me in Arizona in the summer for a day shift, you were going to carry 2 gallons at 16 pounds plus the weight of the containers because I didn’t want to have to medevac your sorry ass on a slick for heatstroke when you should be cutting fire line.
Your fire shelter also weighed about 4 pounds and the new ones might be a little lighter? Other than that…if you were a pussy like me in my later years as a shot, you had the following;
Rat, hard candy, nuts, jerky, dried fruit, chewing gum for fresh breath
Military poncho with liner
Para cord to make a hootch if it rains in spike camp
Lighter/matches
Snakebite kit unless Bill Gabbert was with you, in which case he could suck
Buck knife
Toilet paper
Small bottle of Tabasco sauce
Signal mirror/compass
Flagging
Small first aid kit, moleskin (very important)
Extra pair of gloves
Down vest (it is always cold at night, even on a desert fire spiked out)
Headlamp with extra batteries (but not with the new lights)
??? Might be missing something, but most of it is personal preference
And that is for the experienced hotshot who likes his comfort, that does not add up to 50 fucking pounds. WTF were those guys carrying? And how did they get any meaningful work done?
Gary I believe the New Shelters are 8 LBS. but I could be wrong.
I agree with your pack. weight
Oh…and one more thing.
Extra bandannas
Notebook/pens
Emergency fussees, 2-4
Scratch the snakebite kit, in later years they said forget that and just medevac, although if Bill Gabbert IS with you for some peculiar reason, you can go ahead and let him suck while you’re waiting for the slick
Each squad has a medic with a big first aid kit
Sawyers have extra burden because they have to hump their saw, especially back in the day before automatic oilers and sissy saws
Swappers have an extra burden because they have the saw packs in addition to the gas cans. It looks like today some crew split up the saw gas into small backpacking canisters. I have mixed feelings about that because I think that’s why the fire gods created swampers and I was one, Swampers have to get in shape to hump the saw someday.
Plus…the saw gas is all in one place and easier to manage. Getting rid of in exigencies circumstances, or refilling the containers in fire camp or spike camp every night for example. It would be a pain in the ass to always be transferring it to small canisters, you would still need a big container to mix the 2 cycle oil in with the gas, so I don’t really see the savings, but…it did look like Granite Mountain did that, which could add some weight for other crewmen, I guess?
Also…even in a worse case scenario on a day shift in the southwest and you need to start with 2 gallons, you can drink it down even if you water up like you need to. They say don’t hoard your water, it is better in your body than in a container, so some of that 16 pounds of water can start disappearing pretty fast.
If you want to see some tough wildland firefighters who definitely don’t have manginas, watch a SWFF crew tool up, pretty fuckin’ basic.
1. Tool
2. Hard plastic 1 gallon canteen strapped to their shoulders with half inch nylon straps that will cut into you while the canteen bangs you on the back of your head all day long as you bend over to work.
3. Sack lunch or rat stuffed in a tucked in fire shirt.
4. Industrial garbage bag from fire camp to cut arm and a hole for their heads and arms use as a poncho in case it looks like rain.
Old school WF like Bob make sure they have a metal military cup that fits on one half of a military canteen on their web gear so they can brew up that nasty coffee that comes in the MRE’s.
WF with manginas like I have recently figured out I have carry caffeine tablets so they don’t fall asleep mopping up at night. Although just about the stupidest concept I have ever heard about is to do away with night shifts if that’s true?
That is when the best work can get done, the fire lays down or maybe backs down the slope a little bit if you are cutting line, it’s cool so the crew can stay hydrated easier and working like that is sure better when it is cool.
And if you are mopping up….the cooler temps and slightly higher RH really can help cooling off the burning fuel….especially the thousand to ten thousand hour (I threw that in to try and impress you…did it?)
The real coffee was in the C Rats.
“Industrial garbage bag from fire camp to cut arm and a hole for their heads and arms use as a poncho in case it looks like rain.”
Otherwise referred to as a Type 2 raincoat.
🙂
Those boys are all tough as nails. They may or may not work steady, but most of them do, and in any case, every one of them was always tougher than me and able to deal with more misery than I was.
This should be modified to “those boys WERE all tough as nails” because that’s not the case on most of them any longer. And now they have Type 2 IA (Initial Attack) Crews.
Yes, stainless steel metal military cups are still awesome for brewing up Medaglia d’oro instant espresso coffee. Virtual jet fuel
i go titanium cup (and spork) and starbucks via instant coffee…. it’s a new day and age…
You don’t know a jib from a mizzen if make instant coffee on the fire line of today. Get with the program & purchase a titanium jet boil with French press, man. Come on….it’s the 21st century.
Jet boil for sure in the truck, otherwise, canteen cup in the IA gear. And I was waiting for someone to bring up the French press option.
I cannot believe you guys are still hashing this out… glad to know there’s at least a few decades worth of institutional knowledge keeping the conversation in check…
Gary- that is pretty much the standard IA pack compliment that is still used today on 99% of crews. 50# packs seems to be something of an urban legend among civilians that has somehow gained hold. Even with a radio and hand-tool I doubt most packs even push 40 #’s. And if they do, that’s just stupid management on the overhead’s part for allowing it to happen.
Also appreciate your perspective on Bill Gabbert… the guy’s a bit of a douce.
Hope you and RTS are well! my current organization just distributed a copy of the paper mentioned here and I saw “Investigative Media” cited so figured i’d check in to see the latest banter…
Seems WTKTT (Wouldn’t Know The Truth if it was a cinematically digitized version of a flaming bear rushing towards him) is still looking for answers that are staring him right in the face.
Full sail,
I can’t speak for WTKTT but I have some questions regarding ” the answers staring him in the face”. I am retired after 38 years, and although from a ” hybrid” organization my focus and speciality has been wildland/ interface fire. First let me say that I totally understand that the safety of the crew lies with the crew overhead. Obviously the 10, 18, LCES were not adhered to, and that’s the easy and factual reason for the fatalities, but why? Why did they leave the safety of the black? Although not the most experience type 1 crew they still had that ticket, and experience to go with that. So why? Did someone request them to move, did they late in the day decide to move ( I think not )?
Is Full Sail in regard to the beer or are you a sailor? I like them both!
Good question, Norb.
38 years? Good job! I’m hoping to make 30 & also have 10 good years to travel. Already the injuries are telling me that I’ll be fortunate to just make the 30…& hand off the survivor benefit. Turns out I may have volunteered for too much. I always wanted to be the one who carried more than anyone else. Way more. First to the top. 2 torches, full line pack plus bladder bag…Dammit! Why did I do that? Maybe RTS knows. After 106 years as a crew boss he must know why someone would abuse their body like that. So enjoy all the retirement you can!!! You earned it. Oh, & while I’m seeking answers from RTS, maybe he can tell me I don’t obtain quals outside of ops for more $$ and less physical abuse? I could just be off my rocker. In that case, I’d rather not know the answer.
At least I don’t go for the 37 min arduous anymore & can live with 42. Haha!
That really was a good post, Norb. I just got sidetracked there.
Woodsman,
106 years, ey. A wee bit over the top on that estimate. Better check your source(s).
I think we do it because it’s in our nature for most of us. And nothing really wrong with that attitude either, plus it usually inspires others to follow suit as well.
Not quite sure on your second question, so I’ll hazard a guess. Getting out of the higher level Operations and maybe settling for Task Force Leader is a good option. WAY too much responsibility at the Division level.
I meant be a camp slug & out of ops entirely. Some of those fat basturds make bank. Cha ching!
I meant be a camp slug & out of ops entirely. Some of those fat basturds make bank. Cha ching! Why walk when you can ride?
You can say that again.
Hey Woodsman,
I can relate, as a Div. I always asked for the steepest and hottest division – and I usually got it. So yes retired and yes moving kinda slow, but who needs to hurry!! The camp slug thing was never of interest to me, in fact during my last few years as Ops chief I really didn’t like being assigned planning Ops, way too much time in camp!
Thanks for your response, had trouble posting and once it was posted I figured it would not be seen.
Most (all) of the major physical damage occurred when I was a crew member. Overhead ops positions are a cake walk if you want them to be. Of course, I don’t work them that way. In some ways I’m a gifted leader & in others I’m a failure. My flaw is an inability to watch others slave away & not help out. Nothing worse than a divs, tfld, or stcr etc, sitting in the damn truck all shift…and I see that a lot. A divs MUST hike their entire division on foot no matter how much ground you have to cover…IT’S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY!
Since, after all these years, the joke may actually be on me…killing myself never got me anywhere. In fact not only did it fail to get me promoted thus cementing my permanent status as a lifelong forest technician, it got me MORE physical work because I was the one who would do it! I forgot to mention my main flaw or attribute (I choose attribute): I will tell anyone regardless of their rank exactly what I think, usually if a polite manner
So I’m thinking about erecting one giant middle finger in the approximate direction of management & joining the ranks of the camp slug. The horror!! I know and I agree: ” how could you?!” Well, why shouldn’t I?
Now I gotta get going on building the perfect camp slug spare tire. This is gonna be fucking awesome! Beer, pasta, potatoes, and donuts it is! That outta do it! The diabetes is gonna kinda suck but like I always say: ” bad brakes never stopped me. “
Somebody needs a virtual hug!
Oh…and one more thing. I think I understand and can relate to the love/hate relationship all of us shared with our mistresses…the fire line.
She was/is a heartless bitch (non gender specific) who used and abused us, and in the end…she discarded/discards us for someone…anyone younger and better than we were/are.
The only thing is, we still love her and what she means/meant to us…that faithless bitch!
Workin’ on this one….cause The Woodsman inspired me.
The Fire Line Was Ours We Marched Upon (Old Wildland Firefighter Lament)
I understand and can relate to the love/hate relationship all former highly motivated and dedicated wildland firefighters shared with our common mistresses. The fires lines we marched and toiled upon as good as anyone and better than most.
She was a callous and volatile bitch (non gender specific) who used and abused us. And in the end, she discarded us for someone…anyone younger and better than we were.
The only thing is, we still love and adore her and what she meant to us. That faithless whore with a fleeting memory and a stone cold heart who always asked the same question over and over again, “Yes…but what have you done for me lately?”
That’s beautiful, man. Haha! I still think my road to diabetes plan has merit though. I must be reaching to age of enlightenment… & the joke’s on me.
Glad I was able to draw you out, you magnificent bass turd!
Now you are starting to “get it”, the joke is on all of us who gave so much to that insatiable whore…the firelines of our dreams and our nightmares alike.
Oh…and to show just how much THEY don’t care about US, they would rather go see another unbelievably stupid and bad movie by Tyler Perry about Halloween. Maybe I’m missing something, I have never even seen one Tyler Perry movie…mostly because I’m not BRAIN DEAD?
And Joy and others wonder why I say fuck em and their trees with doors in them, let’s do the right thing and fall back to the nearest drainage and torch that fucker off…burn baby burn! Like the man said in the movie…it all looks like wildfire FUEL to me!
Woodsman says
NOVEMBER 3, 2017 AT 4:57 AM
So I’m thinking about erecting one giant middle finger in the approximate direction of management & joining the ranks of the camp slug. The horror!! I know and I agree: ” how could you?!” Well, why shouldn’t I?
Joy REPLIES:
In all my investigations I do not see the DNA structure deserving any middle finger yet I do agree some direction aimed at some in position who treat even the ones in their own industry as “outsiders” or black ball …oops…wrong definition—meant to be one word blackball or do what I have seen done to a very good man FRED SCHOEFFLER and a few others…that was very very UNDESERVING and I as a citizen watching this am in awe HOW MANY do not go downtown and rent a pair and make this all right…some real good men were treated disgustingly in this all and until I pass on I will ensure citizens and all of the world GET that…and the worst part was some who did the mess were either less in rank or acted like they were his friend…cough cough…bullshit…and Fred you know… you and I never spoke on this topic but you know with my research I am spot on there…People owe you not only apologies but they owe you the time and energy to make it RIGHT,,,
JOY’S REPLY IN CAPS BELOW AS I READ IT I WILL REPLY—-
Gary Olson says
NOVEMBER 3, 2017 AT 7:08 PM
Oh…and to show just how much THEY don’t care about US, they would rather go see another unbelievably stupid and bad movie by Tyler Perry about Halloween.
THAT IS NOT TRUE—-GARY SO MANY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD DEEPLY RESPECT NOT ONLY YOU AND ALL YOU DID IN THE PAST—HOTSHOTS DESERVED A BETTER MADE MOVIE IS ALL THAT REPRESENTED—THEY JUST FEEL THERE IS TOO MUCH OVER THE TOP IN THE FILM AND I GOT THAT FROM 7 LOCAL RETIRED AND CURRENT FFs THIS WEEK ALONE…THEY LOVE THE DUDE AND THEY SEEM TO NOT GET WHY DUANE WAS EVEN IN IT BESIDES THE MAN’S CONTRIBUTING FACTORS AND BEING ERIC MARSH’S NEIGHBOR AND SO ON BUT WHY WAS WILLIS LEFT OUT AND SO MANY PEOPLE ASKED ME…AND I THOUGHT WHY ASK ME…I DON’T KNOW…THEY SEEM TO…
Maybe I’m missing something, I have never even seen one Tyler Perry movie…mostly because I’m not BRAIN DEAD?
TESTING…1….2….3…GARY, IF YOU WANT TO HAVE BLUE TOOTH DID YOU MAKE AN APPT. FOR YOUR DENTIST TO GET IT?
WHEN YOU BEGIN TO ANSWER THIS YOU WILL KNOW IF YOU REALLY ARE BRAIN DEAD OR NOT…
DID YOU ON YOUR LAST eMAIL PUT A STAMP ON YOUR COMPUTER SCREEN TO MAIL IT OFF?
THE BEST WAY TO KNOW IF YOU ARE BRAIN DEAD, GARY—>
ON THE LEFT SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN, THERE IS NOTHING RIGHT…ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF YOUR BRAIN THERE IS NOTHING LEFT…RIGHT?
WHAT MY DAD TAUGHT ME I WILL NEVER FORGET…
HIGHWAY 74 JUST LEFT THE BAR BY LAKE PLEASANT WITH MY VERY TALL DAD (WHO WAS ALSO AN OFF DUTY OFFICER AT THE TIME) AS HE STACKED THE BOOKS AND TELEPHONE BOOKS UP AND HE HANDED ME THE KEYS TO DRIVE— I WAS 7.4 YEARS OLD—-
AND HE SAID “GRASSHOPPER, I WILL NOT MUCH TEACH YOU ANYTHING IN THIS HERE LIFE THAT MEANS AS MUCH AS THIS…”
(TEACHING ME TO DRIVE SOMEONE DRUNK) (HE WAS A HUGE FAN OF KUNG FU)
(HE OPENED A CAN OF BUDWEISER AS THE TAB CLICKED DOWN… THE SQUIRTS OF BEER SPRAYED OUT AS THE CAN REACHED HIS LIPS IN DEEP THIRST GULPS HE TOOK)
“KID, THIRST IS A STRANGE THING.”…
“ARE YOU THIRSTY DADDY?”…
“WHY YOU ASK?”…
“YOU JUST DRANK 18 IN A SHORT TIME OF THIS DRINK BUT YET YOU WILL NOT LET ME HAVE ANY…WHY?”
AND HE REPLIED “KID, GLAD YOU CAN COUNT BUT BUDWEISER WAS MADE TO MAKE THIS BUD WISER NOT YOU—YOU STAND NO CHANCE IN THIS WORLD—IF AT BEST WHEN YOU GET OLDER YOU MAY AMOUNT TO NOTHING OR BE A STRIPPER BUT YOU DRINK THIS STUFF YOU CAN JUST CONSIDER YOURSELF BRAIN DEAD.”
“BRAIN DEAD, DADDY? YOU MEAN I WILL BE A COUPLE CANS SHORT OF A SIX PACK?”
“SWEETIE, IN YOUR CASE LESS THAN THAT.” (TWIRLING MY HAIR HE DID AND SMILED)
I HAVE NEVER SEEN A FATHER TONE/DELIVERY/WARMTH/SHARING/CARING EXCEPT WITH CHARLEY MOSELEY (RETIRED DECEASED SMOKE JUMPER) , JOHN MACLEAN AND FRED SHOEFFLER IN MY ENTIRE LIFE—MY FATHER WAS NEVER CAPABLE AND WHEN YOU SEE FINE MEN IN THE WORLD THAT COME TO YOUR PATH AND GIVE YOU WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE AND CARE— IT IS A PRECIOUS UNFORGETTABLE MOMENT….ESPECIALLY FROM MEN ON THE FIRE LINE TYPE INDUSTRY—MY DADDY BUILT THE TWIN TOWERS AND ALSO SOME TALL BUILDINGS HERE IN ARIZONA AND WAS AN OFFICER BUT EVENTUALLY THE CANCER SLOWLY ATE AWAY AT HIM…FIRST THE LUNGS BUT HE NEVER STOPPED SMOKING 5 PACKS A DAY EVEN WITH 1 LUNG
EVEN WHEN HE DIED HE STILL WAS HEAVILY DRINKING AND SMOKING
…SO WOODSMAN—NOT ALL THE MEN IN HIGH UP POSITIONS ARE WORTHY OF THE MIDDLE FINGER–
-THERE REALLY ARE SOME PRETTY TERRIFIC PEOPLE IN YOUR INDUSTRY…AND THAT IS WHERE THE FOCUS SHOULD BE TOO—
WEED OUT THE ONES WHO ARE DOING THE BLACKBALLING AND GIVE BACK THE PLATFORM TO THE ONES WHO WERE OUSTED FOR THEIR PURITY—NOT THEIR AGENDAS—THEY RISKED THEIR “LIFE” CAREERS JUST TO TRY AND GET CLARITY—ME, I HAVE NO RISK…I HAVE NO ROSTERS OF FRIENDS JUST A FEW AND THE ONES I HAVE I TRUST 100% FOR ALL MATTERS AT HAND… AND UNTIL I DIE I WILL KEEP PUSHING STUFF FORWARD…SOME OF THE NEWS AND DATA NOONE BUT THE OTHER PERSON OR REPORTER OR JOURNALIST KNOWS I SENT THEM THE DATA FOR THEIR STORY…BUT I DO NOT CARE TO BE CREDITED BUT I SAY IT BECAUSE I WILL IN THE BACKGROUND AND FOREGROUND ALWAYS BE PUSHING FOR TRUTHS TO BE SHOWN…
And Joy and others wonder why I say fuck em and their trees with doors in them
IS THAT A FAIRY/GNOME DIG??? I DID NOT COMPREHEND….SORRY…OR DO YOU MEAN MY COOKIE CUTTER HOME???
, let’s do the right thing and fall back to the nearest drainage and torch that fucker off…burn baby burn! Like the man said in the movie…it all looks like wildfire FUEL to me!
WELL WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT IT…IT SOUNDS LIKE A BUNCH OF MEN EITHER ALREADY ON THEIR PENSION RIDE OR SOON TO BE COUNTING ON THEIR PENSIONS…
I GUESS THAT’S THE WAY IT IS…(SIGH)…YOU GOTTA PLAY ALONG TO GET ALONG…
BURN, BABY, BURN… THERE IS STILL HALF OF AMERICA WITH UNBURNED FUEL…SOME SMALL TOWNS WILL BE COLLATERAL DAMAGE BUT THEN PENSIONS ARE REALLY IMPORTANT…
The managers I intend to tell to kiss my ass (give the bird) don’t go on fires. They’re ‘management’ There’s a major difference. They wouldn’t dream of getting their britches dirty themselves, that’s what the shmucks are for. Get it?
Full Sail! Our old friend! We have missed you, or at least I have missed you and your caustic wit, I’m not sure about our AI WTKTT? It still isn’t perfect because it is an older model and probably could use some software updates we obviously can’t afford, but HAL 9000 ( as I have affectionately nicknamed him in your absence) still does a pretty darn good job for us and we couldn’t get along without him.
I am so glad you are back, even if it is just for a snarky drive by post, but we really could use another perspective…even yours will do. I don’t really remember that much about your position except that it generally was in direct conflict with mine, but WTF….who cares? You have a lot of fire line experience and we have a big tent here unlike that needle dick bug fucker Bill Gabbert over at that on line Gestapo censored rag he publishes. He makes Paul Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany look inclusive and tolerant.
Say….how about restating your position for the new folks, or at least an executive summary? The way I remember it, it was pretty much the standard company line, no one really did anything wrong, sometimes bad things happen to good WF in spite of everyone’s best intentions, nothing to see here citizens….just move along?. Or something like that, memory is the second thing to go….at least it is according to the Woodsman! I think he is starting to feel his age and now HE is the one saying, “Let’s walk down the hill and fuck em all!”
Lots has happened while you have been gone, RTS and I are both doing fine as we are still “Legends In Our Own Minds.” I discovered I must have a mangina, and now that I look back on my career, that can explain so much. Both RTS and his other brother Bob have been sweeter to me lately…you probably remember how harsh they could be with me whenever they sensed I was vulnerable and fragile….fuckin’ assholes. But…that is in the past, we are all friends now.
Anyway…thanks for stopping by. I am curious, what context did you see our little social experiment referenced in? We are more of a quilting social club now instead of a fast paced hard hitting spot on citizens collective crowd sourced think tank…except without the quilting or social club part. We mostly just log on to shoot the breeze and read Joy’s meandering and confusing posts as she channels Yoda while we wait for her “sources” to come through and fill in all of the blanks.
And FYI Norb, I think the Woodsman is right, Full Sail probably wouldn’t know the stern from the port side and vice versa. I think he just likes to drink beer.
**
** CONFIRMED – THE FILM IS LETTING PEOPLE BELIEVE THE AIRCRAFT
** SCREWED THE GM HOTSHOTS AND LET THEM ALL DIE
Geezus… it’s TRUE.
The “Only The Brave” Hollywood film makers really ARE letting people leave the theatres with the impression that the Air Support at the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire totally SCREWED the Granite Mountain Hotshots… and that is one of the primary reasons they DIED.
The following article details the reactions to the film on the part of GM hotshot Grant Quinn McKee’s father ( but does not include Marcia McKee, his mother ),and the parents of GM hotshot Kevin Woyjeck
Grant Scott McKee ( the father ) says the MOST HEARTBREAKING SCENE ( for him ) is the one at the end where a plane flies directly overhead the ( visibile ) deployment site while the GM hotshots are desperately trying to clear the area. McKee reports that Josh Brolin ( playing Eric Marsh ) is, in fact, ‘looking up’ at the aircraft passing DIRECTLY over the desperate hotshots… and Brolin/Marsh is actually yelling “DROP!” up at the aircraft.
But then it doesn’t drop any water or retardant… and then there really is that Willem Dafoe PLATOON-like scene of Marsh looking up in desperation at the departing aircraft.
The Orange County ( California ) Register
Article Title: ‘Only the Brave’ helps Orange County parents of fallen Hotshots remember their heroic brotherhood
Published: October 18, 2017 at 8:47 am – By Louis Casiano, Jr. and Susan Christion Goulding
Updated: October 19, 2017 at 1:36 pm
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/10/18/only-the-brave-helps-orange-county-parents-of-fallen-hotshots-remember-their-heroic-brotherhood/
From the article…
———————————————————————————————————
Grant Scott McKee couldn’t help but cry.
The Costa Mesa resident, along with other parents and first responders, was watching actors portray a group of firefighters overtaken by flames in one of the deadliest U.S. wildfires in recent memory during a private screening last week of ‘Only The Brave’ in Tempe, Ariz.
One of the film’s minor characters is McKee’s son, Grant Quinn McKee, 21, a former Newport Harbor High School student and wrestler and member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots, a unit of the Prescott, Ariz. Fire Department trained to fight wildfires.
McKee had been in the unit for about a year when he and 18 of his fellow firefighters were killed on June 30, 2013 trying to battle the Yarnell Hill Fire, northwest of Phoenix. Only one member, Brendan McDonough, survived.
“The film was very well made,” said Grant McKee, who this year found his own way to memorialize his son and the other Hotshots, including his 23-year-old nephew Robert Caldwell.
“It’s about a group of people that are working for one thing and that one thing is to help other people.”
Kevin Woyjeck, 21, a Seal Beach native, also died fighting the fire. His parents, Joe and Anna Woyjeck, said they had felt anxious about the film for years, worrying the events of the fire would be sensationalized.
Woyjeck said he and his wife attended the screening and thought the movie captured what firefighters do.
“I tried to watch as a dad who lost his son, as a fire captain, and as a member of the general public,” he said. ”The movie doesn’t dwell on how the men died but how they lived. It’s a story about camaraderie and brotherhood.”
Michael McNulty, who portrays Kevin Woyjeck in the movie, consulted with the family about his personality and how he carried himself. Based on that, McNulty wore Kaenon sunglasses, a Los Angeles Angels baseball cap and a G-shock watch in the film, Joe Woyjeck said.
Last year, Woyjeck was honored when a stretch of one of America’s busiest interchanges, where the I-405 meets the 22 and I-605, was named Kevin Woyjeck Memorial Highway.
For McKee, the most heartbreaking scene is when Brolin’s character is yelling at a plane overhead while the Hotshots crew is surrounded by flames on three sides and are breaking out their fire shelters, devices that look like foil tents, used by wildland firefighters as a last resort when escape isn’t possible.
“He yells out ‘Drop!’ and they don’t drop anything and they just keep flying over the top of them,” he said. “The ending is really harsh.”
The fast-moving fire overran the crew and cut off their evacuation route, eliminating any chance of them reaching a safety zone, a state forestry division report said.
“The crew was deploying their fire shelters close together in a small area when the fire overtook them,” the report said. “Temperatures exceeded 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit as the fire swept through the site.”
Anna Woyjeck said she was “on the fence” about seeing the movie.
“I knew I would sit there sobbing, and I did,” she said. “I already knew how it would end. That’s not going to change. It’s a fact of life.”
——————————————————————————————————-
It will be interesting to see if more details about air attack are revealed as a result of this movie.
I really did not sleep or nap—
but time to get up in 33 minutes so might as well go on migun then get rolling—
but here is some new articles:
http://www.ktvb.com/news/local/firefighter-shares-message-of-survival-and-hope/484427665
God-willing I should have a review after I see movie and have a great time after in downtown Phnx.
but I can tell you without even seeing it—if anyone saw my tears the other day—this week has been heavy and almost got the feeling like let’s get the day going and over with so I can SLEEP 🙂
BOISE – The lone survivor of a wildfire that killed 19 people in Arizona continues to spread his story in Boise.
He is also proud that the Boise Metro Chamber of Commerce asked him to come back to Idaho and share his message during it’s 134th Annual Gala Dinner.
McDonough has served on the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, based in Boise.
Hundreds came out to see him and hear his inspiring words.
http://deadline.com/2017/10/only-the-brave-incredible-backstory-serendipity-heroism-1202185483/
‘Only The Brave’: The Incredible Story Of Heroism And The Serendipity That Propelled The Film About The Granite Mountain Hotshots
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/entertainment/movie-review-only-the-brave-a-standard-telling-of-a/article_255378e0-72b9-542a-a0f8-9e097f09d0d4.html
2 out of 4 stars
7.7/10
255
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3829920/
http://www.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/2017/10/only_the_brave_has_many_fires_to_put_out
The Marsh marriage is more complicated than it initially seems, Donut’s travails soon disappear, yet each domestic interlude seems alternately awkward and corny.
Equally frustrating is the climactic fire’s depiction. What happened exactly for the hotshots to become trapped without even a plane able to dump water to aid them or why their emergency shells failed to protect them is never clear.
As a cinematic attempt to bring a headline to life, “Only the Brave” lacks the insight of the Boston Marathon movies, “Stronger” and “Patriots Day.”
I am back and I am unsure if I should share rugged and real about ONLY THE BRAVE
but I will be working on it this weekend
but have some weekend and Monday events so in between I will jot down what I want to express and do it via my personal area I express my hiking point a to b area.
My family and husband wanted to have a 1 to 10 rating and yet this is personal so a number rating I cannot give because it would have to be broken down from Claudio Miranda to the cast and crew to the final product to the areas to HIGHLIGHT to the LOWLIGHTS.
but BASED ON TRUE EVENTS proved this IS another area I can dissect and if that is an option than probably the word BASED is the key part not ON TRUE EVENTS….
Please do not watch my area if you have not seen the movie for I am expressing it start to end the parts that I question/challenge or down right CAN PROVE are untrue and should not have been placed in the film…
My hearts go out to any loved one of these men who had to watch that school scene and really how the end was delivered—it does not match up to what has been shared to people who were there so I challenge some of that area indeed. I also was floored they did not show it true to life that area as I explain more soon on the other area-
I lack sleep but for a few hours I will listen to my event recordings and get that area going but I did run into thank you to God to one of Marsh’s friend’s parents tonight and that was like whoah— God Moment indeed as they shared to me so genuine…when they text their daughter her reply was “oh no”…well at least I know her parents know the purity in this all…
The movie had plenty of foulness— especially the swearing—so parents note that when taking your family-
I felt it lacked clarity like the SAIR and articles and etc.
I found it to be like I said before watching it that it was a fond tribute for some-
The artistic sense and flow was uneven-
I can sit and share how much I enjoy Claudio Miranda in other projects but some areas FAIL to convey the detailed coordination of a complex operation involving many people, facilities, or equipment/supplies…
the KNOWLEDGE gaps seen in ONLY THE BRAVE I question/challenge it— was it purposely disregarded? BUT THAT WAS WHAT I FOUND TO BE ACCURATE— that the movie and its gaps on IMPORTANT points lacked just like in real time life here.
I felt parts of the film did show a lack of originality; based on frequently repeated phrases or opinions not facts JUST PERCEPTIONS….tell you more on the other area—
I began to wonder HOW MUCH the box offices will get this weekend in Arizona for ONLY THE BRAVE because my time there was not packed at all and the usher and Anna said the 6:45pm did well though at Cine Capri and Congress gas station manager Ronda C. said Wickenburg played ONLY THE BRAVE last night.
Proverbs 20:7
I hope the folks see the film and come out and DO THE RIGHT THING and show their INTEGRITY finally for it is vital for man and woman in Christ-
God Bless the ones who watched it and shed many tears as I did—
I will be pulling many of FOIAS and public records to point out WHERE OTHERS CAN FACT CHECK SECTIONS TO THE FILM versus just listening to the movie and think that’s TRUE STORY because I called Donut out long ago on IM on the rattlesnake scene and he finally after Bill Gabbert asked Donut- he told the world he did not get bit but Marsh never visited him in a hospital for a bite and let’s talk REAL on the other area on some stuff—
I am not negative and I am not tone as you watch my video you will see the rational Joy there….
I am tired to start it tonight and right now I cannot find my movie notes
but Donut can you confirm on GMHS assignments for 2016 and 2017 who was the usual “lookout”…
can you confirm what you said at the buggies THAT morning 6.30.13 that then on the hill got you pulled out of the group to go be “lookout”….
and can confirm in complete purity 6.29.13 the true location you were that night?
and can you confirm that the area you were at did not match testimony on another nor the movies portrayal?
and Donut I have confirmation from journalist you pointed where you were on the line as you went up which match 2 eyewitness and you were not 2nd in line plus Marsh was way ahead of you all but movie shows you all together.
Also we saw slurry drop being dropped on your fire break Donut not water. We saw the misplacement of slurry drop-
SIDE NOTE- last movie I watched in theater I thought was SAVING PRIVATE RYAN but it was HANGOVER and 18 hours earlier THIS GAL was struck by diamondback so I knew that whole insert was a bullshit.
In the start of the movie the helicopter comes with hose and takes water from producer Michael Menchel…Old Bald Man’s pool…what was the significance there? Just to be on the big screen?
What is the air temp hand held thing Marsh takes out?
Eric Foundation is promoted while movie waits to start then alot of coming soon presentation—
were you watching all the items going into the bag for Eric Marsh’s gear?
I watched Frisby that day on the quad so you want to really say it like that—why is Frisby now a different name and Willis is OUT and so is alot of KEY FOLKS….
The way they showed the fire when Donut was picked up 2nd time by Frisby- are you really sticking by that even though you and I know BOTH of us saw it skunky not at all like film plus Tex and others…
it was skunky and not as you showed it on film—
I do not have my notes and so tired and going off memory right now
Who was the old man Hayes really suppose to be—Dave Provencio?
We all know not ALL THE MEN were in their shelters as it was shown in film so why shift it different???
WHY isn’t Kori Marsh mentioned in the film since they were with truth sharing the birth of the GMHS; right? Wasn’t she a big early part to that—and why so vague the birth of the crew on its complete purity—and those answers do lay in 3 entities FOIA or public records yet watch out for suppression from Prescott especially when asking for emails or financial records—
Well…I did get to recline while watching the film but now I really have to go to sleep—I have more events and I have to be up in a few hours again….night.
Remember Donut I do have public records on you so you maybe should of fact checked some data before the world viewed it huh-
when the few strangers left the theater there was a few females with tears —me included but for the most part they said sad movie…good to see the comedic parts…obvious the parts that are not the true areas…one lady said she donated time and goods for the homeowners that lost everything and wondered how did the director fail to include them some way and somehow….and this one lady said I do not remember ever reading that the widows and loved ones learned who died because Donut went to the school- and I wonder how the families feel on some areas throughout the film— do they agree it is a decent film yet deserves some much more crucial spots to represent the purity of the GMHS…
JOY SAID: but Donut can you confirm on GMHS assignments for 2016 and 2017 who was the usual “lookout”…
my reply- I just told someone it was my cell and it was not…I remember after reading comment I was on pc…I made this error as it should of read 2012/2013 seasons and I did get the data myself in those years but the seasons were 2012-2013…been a busy tired weekend….My apologies for my errors…never thought anyone read my comments so thanks for alerting me.
I just got on- let me spend a few minutes before next event —-
but yeah I think the movie failed in air to ground radio communications which is an important area in this area of contributing factors as well that pilot- where did the 3 ring binder end up? just wondering why the poor radio communications were left out of the film.
Grant Scott McKee is also in this article
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/10/18/only-the-brave-helps-orange-county-parents-of-fallen-hotshots-remember-their-heroic-brotherhood/
—“McKee decided over the summer that he wanted to honor the Hotshots. So he started to carve a 50-year-old tree in the backyard of his mother’s Costa Mesa home that he and his son used to climb.
“This whole art thing just came about when my son passed,” said McKee, who had never done a wood carving before. “I just started painting and carving (to cope).”
He finished the 9-foot-tall, 1,000-pound wooden memorial engraved with several faces signifying the fallen firefighters.
The other parents of the fallen Hotshots have not seen the tribute, McKee said. But others who have seen it have given him positive feedback, he said.
McKee has contemplated donating the artwork to the Newport Beach Fire Department or a mall in Prescott.
“This whole art thing is new for me,” he said. “I’m thinking of calling it ’19 Reasons.’”
————————————————————-
the story above does not match the in person account I was shared—so either media got it wrong or Grant told me another version…and for him to state the whole art thing is new to him…I have known him a couple years and so from the start I saw his art and artistic capabilities so if that is new it happened after the YHF but you would think it was a gift or he has done it forever so if new then what an amazing moment to connect to your capabilities like that…I use to sing but I have had phases where I cannot carry a tune and times you think I was kissed by an angel the grace and power that came out but back to Grant…this creation he made—he showed me June 30 2017 in completion so he really took a piece of nostalgia of a tree plant Noni and his family and others enjoyed- and made it into a forever memorial and it is like a women being pulled up to Heaven with all these folks either holding on to her to bring her back to Earth or being pulled up with her but it was a REAL moment that when someone leaves us here on Earth they still remain with us and we can either fall dark and have dark times or we can rise above and reflect upon God’s goodness and love for us and trust that He has our life under control. When I manage my life and not Him—I merrily think oh good I am thinking for me selfishly for once vs helping others yet it is me helping others that keeps me on the right path…knowing Grant was not a path from the Creator but it was 2 people who lost their children and that was the draw in of the dysfunction but thru Him he healed that path…I think of Psalm 37:3-4…yeah been a week were I had writers block like an author with my bible but when Grant said I got this special book for you…I was excited for the gratification someone reached out and knew my inner pain and I needed to be more in tune on my path there…versus judging me and telling me how to BE…so I give thanks for the will of God in Christ Jesus be done and may Grant’s and his family’s journey know there is a time the truths will be surfaced…and justice in God’s way of thinking will happen…I actually thought if the movie had been the reality then I could empathize especially in the end portion of the film but I watched it “live” time plus spent years gathering so I know alot more than the average viewer of the film…would I recommend it to another?
I know I am going to sound like a prune here but my answer is YES but NO-
I feel the world needs more movies like Combat or Legends of Wyatt Earp or like the old Western or movie channels where any age can view the films so I do not feel a family could watch this and should watch it but for the Hoorah locker room folks- sure why not— I do not feel the movie was made with that in mind that families wanted to go view this and we got enough filth to this world and shaded dark spots—it would be nice to pull a movie together without all the F- YOUS and stuff….I was empathetic yet hurt and disappointed in watching the film and wondered if the real time folks not the actors are ignorant to certain data I know that makes me FEEL that way…In one scene I would FEEL for Donut but he was not the SOLE SURVIVOR for that season 2017; the kid on the Doce fire had a seizure so he would of been there June 30 2013…so I wonder the guilt Donut feels knowing who the normal fella who had the lookout role and HOW he TRULY became the lookout NOT how the movie showed it and HOW Donut feels because I have done my homework Donut—that is where I felt both empathy and pure pain of ughs
Let me post Michael Kodas reply here fully not edited or cropped and purely and I believe in his pureness of the reply-
Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 10:51 AM
Megafire
Hi Joy,
My apologies for the delay responding to you. I’ve been overwhelmed with work related to the California wildfires and fell behind in my emails.
I’m sorry if I misrepresented your illness and some of the timing of your hike during the Yarnell Hill Fire. I tried to double check was much as I could in my book, but with more than 400 sources, some things fell through the cracks. I apologize for any upset I’ve caused you. I appreciate you alerting me to errors I’ve made so that I can correct them in future editions of the book.
Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of the book I can send you. My publisher hasn’t provided me with books to send to sources and subjects.
Best regards,
Michael Kodas
OKAY people-
what happened yesterday I will leave out the actual names but that is to protect the parents who’s kid knows the Marsh family but the mother knew my position from the get go but when I began to talk PLUMES she shared me the photo she had of the YHF where her daughter a FF was on the water tender positioned on the top of the tender next to the telephone poles and I now got a NEW AREA where to dig and BIG TIME NEWS CHANNEL footage does have footage and I am going to look in their public archival…THANK YOU LORD for introducing us to these folks…
That was very pure and odd timing…but yeah my FF tee shirts are working to gather more data so please keep sending me your old tees medium to large and I will keep wearing them because it has PROVEN to be working to get more data and I wear the shirts because I am still in weight shifting from 3xl-4xl to now medium-large
so far the Wildland Firefighter Foundation shirt was THE MOST successful that Wayne and Holly Neil mailed Sonny and I….SPOT ON!
Because indirectly Holly doing that awhile back is now helping more data to surface and that matters! I wear hats and tees long sleeve or short or sweatshirts or badges or pins or patches.
From IM commenters; Norb’s stuff he mailed comes in 2nd place right now for most incoming data.
Mail items to ARIZONA STREET WALKER JOY A COLLURA PO BOX 572 CONGRESS ARIZONA 85332 and I wear the gear publicly and actively 5 to 6 times a week. (yeah paused on being the desert walker)
oh speaking of Holly…she always has much heart…so let me share there…on topic of Michael Kodas… Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 3:55 PM…. “I know I have fact checked with you some, and we will continue to do so for all of your involvement. “…
That is the only book from the start I have looked forward besides Gary Olson who I PRAY has a whole chapter of Dr Ted Putnam in his book or vice versa I hope Ted dedicates a chapter to Gary—Maclean’s book is the only book from the start I have looked forward to getting into IS MacLean’s because of Norman and because of how well MacLean presented himself on the hikes and in emails…he is someone you as a young person would drive to be like in some of how he speaks and lives and I found him to be so mystical and spoke well….then to see and hike with his crew team and how much they worked countless hours and have done alot of research and alot of energy too and Alan Sinclair…he reminds me of my brother in some ways…He reminds me that so much so because my brother loves his family and he balances family into his personal fun times because when Alan has pics with big time Metal bands or Rock bands- that’s my bro too…Alan Sinclair really when I saw ONLY THE BRAVE and I know Yarnell where he stood in the areas he stood this fire had to break him up to the core and some of the private talks we discussed- those are real and not to air especially on Eric Marsh but his campfire moments are much like mine…under those moonlit stars and to me I feel much empathy for Alan as he still has to breathe the industry and follow the money gravy train and his son too but hey I would do it IF I did not know the BIGGER package here…it’s a good income and how can you not love your office job when its nature and the big outdoors…I am glad they showed the industry properly because so many gave the feel it was the next step up from boy scouts and they all are good little boys and girls on the line who all mind their ps and qs and go to church so I do thank them for showing it how they perceived it—
https://youtu.be/MnvrladbSk4
this young kid nailed it for alot of us who have faced an unforeseen loss to our lives—
Spencer Sutherland Delivers a Special Performance. He dedicates his original song to his dad. The lyrics say. If I´m Not By Your Side It Is all just wasted time-
Because of this Summer and just a tiny few words shared by Grant McKee…I took a solid step to stop wasting time…and start dealing with my raw fragile pains…So you never know who will come through and change things around for you—so I share this publicly to Grant…hope you try this song out on your piano…
He is not a part to my daily life except that I am trying to get all the data pushed forward and I am very pleased by the efforts and hard-work that was put into making ONLY THE BRAVE and maybe my expectations of purity was what I hoped for but most do not have the data I have so to the general audience it will honor the industry and shed a glimmer of what a few faced but I was looking forward to seeing Scott Norris for me when I have seen the men out there in Spirit Form when I have PROBABLY been the MOST hiked out their on the trails and the Weavers not only over time but since the tragedy and since the park opened..I know if Scott was in the film there would be no vulgarity like shown…he was just a good man…Alot of people do not know this about me but I have the men’s bdays ingrained in me and my calendar notifications and on that day I do something they would do…my phone goes off and says HAPPY BDAY and their names on the day they were born and as well on the day they passed- or there is the man that believed every day was a gift and he has helped me on perseverance and get out and live and walk…thank you to the hilarious man himself Garret Zuppiger…Zup-…Alot of the continuing on I do is with Andrew in mind because he touched so many lives and maybe one day the people he knew that were on that fire may it be FF or Peace officer…they come forward and share…I know I talked about Freckles before on here but man what an amazing kid you were and still are in my life Kev- (Kevin Woyjeck) and then there is Willy—Billy Warneke who I feel is the most visual since the fire besides Rose and Turby and Steed and Marsh and Grant and Robert…without these men I could not have learned the data I have to get the FOIAs…so I thank them for so much as I know they have shown me the deepest thank you when they told me long ago in 2013 that one day my trails that day will come alive as only cbs reporter Morgan Loew and Patrick took our way and today there it lays on the Weavers mine and Sonny’s way out that fateful day 6.30.13 is now the state park for the men but they told me it was gonna happen that way and to to not attend any of their meetings and watch and see— so I will always be curious who’s idea at the meeting the path was—- was it Willis? who? Clayton- I love how special your grandpa Carl is and he always is a joy to spend time with— Robert Caldwell has to be the most top notch fella with all this great energy and I know he is so still here with his loved ones…so strongly…Travis- I wish so many of your energies were at the forefront of ONLY THE BRAVE vs background to what was seen— YOU ALL had a story to be told indeed and it will in God’s time…never giving up on you all…I spent time in Joe’s hometown and I was shown around to your old stomping grounds—Cedar City baby-I have met alot of Dustin’s pals and man you touched lives when you were here—one man not only became a FF because of you but He turned his life over to God because of you while you were still alive and he is moving up the ladder in your industry…Mac what can I say between you Donut and Rose…the picking went on didn’t it…the rookies stood no chance really with Rose’s picking ways—I wish the movie at least gave some role to the rookie who had seizures just to be on screen—like with Michael the old bald man hanging out at the pool side…he was a part of this all but the man never really has been addressed much…your laugh John has been unforgettable to me. I guess because locals knew Wade- I often just weep thinking of you…and same with Misner…I have met some of his pals who break down even saying S…e….a…..n.
So yeah I wish they had personalized it a little more than just the perceptions of a few—I wanted to be drawn in to them all since I have been involved and drawn I guess I wanted the world to feel the same as me and see that is alot of men—19 and yet still to this date Musser is where he is and FEELS ok with omissions…I pray for Musser alot and others—
SO still working through how I can rate a 1-10 rating on the film…not easy…because of my position in this all…I mean all I can do is keep praying and keep walking with my FF tees on and gather more data…and I am sorry for the losses and I am sorry for the fears some still carry to this date-
Yeah so in all this dysfunction I saw in my time knowing Grant Scott McKee- he is still top notch because he did not judge me and he confirmed areas I saw in the Spirit Form to be a TRUE REALITY and things his son and him had faced as well as other family members on the other side…I am not a psychic or medium or even a person who studies that area just me living life but when I hear a message I share it and to this date I have been spot on…especially on the messages from others directed to Grant Scott McKee…He is a good fun person; talented…and I am sorry you lost Grant so here is a song that was on X Factor that made me think to you— get your piano out and play this song 🙂
**
** WHY DIDN’T THE COCOON THINGS WORK?
Now that there have been gobs of pre-release screenings and ‘red-carpet’ previews… a lot of ‘regular folks’ who had had a chance to see this “Only The Brave” movie thing are starting to opening discuss it on online social media sites.
Example: At the ‘Taylor Kitsch Fan Forum’ PUBLIC site… many of the posters there were able to wrangle pre-screening tickets and some have seen it TWICE now…
And they are only now having their own “slowyly I turned” moment(s) and wondering out loud about how the movie presents the DEATHS themselves.
Apparently… the movie makers really DO have scenes at the end which show airplanes ( more than one? ) passing DIRECTLY over the ( visibile ) deployment site… but REFUSING to drop either water or retardant on the soon-to-die GM Hotshots.
This would match the scenes in the trailers that are similar to the Willem Dafoe PLATOON scene where Marsh ends up looking UP at the departing aircraft in hopeless desperation.
Here’s an example of some of the ‘questions’ just ‘regular folks’ are now asking themselves after whatever it is they have now actually SEEN at the end of this “Only The Brave” movie thing…
The Taylor Kitsch Fan Forum
http://www.fanforum.com/f309/christopher-mackenzie-%5Bonly-brave%5D-thread-4-because-its-not-about-whats-standing-front-you-its-about-whos-standing-beside-you-63195013/index18.html
—————————————————————————————————–
Public Comment posted by: ‘worthyoflove’ – Today – October 19, 8:57 PM
Kiki, I’ve seen a lot of Oscar buzz for it today with the reviews staying at around 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. People think it’s a sleeper Best Picture nomination. I think it’s really really a sleeper unless Black Label Media has had this planned all along and aren’t super concerned with the box office (they’re the one that put the $6 million number projection out there) and are anticipating and planning on an Oscar push. I could actually pick out Jennifer and Josh’s Oscar “scenes” today.
I got some clarification on one of Taylor’s scenes.
Spoiler:
The bee scene, you hear him say “they’re stinging my balls” as he’s running away. Then some of the guys are ribbing him telling him it’s karma when he’s later trying to see what’s going on with said balls with his cell phone.
Public Reply posted by: ‘Elherts’ – Today – October 19, 9:54 PM
I probably won’t be able to see it again until Sunday. Then I’ll go again with my firefighter friends whenever they go. I went to see Guns n’ Roses last Thursday night with one of the guys and he said they will probably have to wait a week or two to get everyone together that wants to go. He doesn’t need to know that I will have already seen it twice!
I’m going to have to look at Jennifer with fresh eyes. I’m just not feeling her. But Josh, yes, totally on board. And maybe even Taylor too. You never know! Some of his reviews have actually brought a tear to my eye. Maybe at least a Golden Globe nom. in the cheesy comedy/musical genre. Although, I guess OTB wouldn’t be considered a comedy even though Taylor’s role clearly was. But then again, Matt Damon won in that category for The Martian which clearly was not a comedy either. So silly.
RE: Spoiler ( about the bee scene )
Great. Now I can’t stop thinking about Taylor’s balls! And balls are gross.
On another note…
Do you have any info. on what people say about the fire and how they ended up dying?
I want to know if the planes faced any type of repercussions for pretty much screwing them.
Why didn’t the cocoon things work?
Wasn’t there even talk that they had ****ed up themselves?
Also.. you know the base they were trying to get to? Wouldn’t that have burned too??
I guess we can wait until everyone has seen it to talk about it.
———————————————————————————————————
So, apparently, the script writers and filmakers really ARE letting regular people walk away from this movie with the ‘impression’ that Eric Marsh and the Granite Mountain Hotshots were SCREWED OVER by the aircraft that fateful afternoon.
I wonder what John Burfiend and Thomas French will have to say about THAT?
**
** DONALD TRUMP’S MEDIA DIRECTOR IS BEING USED TO PROMOTE “ONLY THE BRAVE”
** AND NAVY SEALS ARE BEING PAID TO DO THE SAME THING.
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 19, 2017 at 3:55 pm
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> Well…I have to admit that all of “this” is making me rethink
>> my decision to even go see the movie.
>>
>> There is one consistent thing with me during this build up…whenever I see
>> either McDonough or Beno Marsh Whatever working it hard to stay at the
>> center of attention and The Belle’s Of The Ball for as long as they
>> possibly can to maximize their windfall by spouting their bullshit,
>> I do throw up a little bit in mouth.
I hear ya. It’s all just ‘over the top’ ( by design, of course ).
I’m surprised how MUCH they ( Sony distribution and producers from Black Label Media ) are putting McDonough ‘out there’ when he does not have the skills for this sort of thing.
He has ended up sounding like some robot that only knows how to say “Honor my brothers… honor my brothers… honor my brothers…” and that his batteries might run out at any moment.
As for Amanda… also surprised at how much they are ( literally ) ‘using’ her, too… and it’s ( what’s the word here? cagey? calculating? ) how she keeps REFUSING to admit ( during interviews ) that she has, in fact, remarried ( back on May 14, 2017 ).
Perhaps the people trying to make as much money off all this as they can didn’t like the ‘optics’ of people finding out the real-life character is already married again, and they put out ‘memos’ to ‘discourage’ that information being revealed in interviews.
Or maybe it was just Amanda herself who decided “not to go there” in interviews for the same sort of ‘bad optics’ reasons.
Either way… it’s simply ‘odd’ that she would NOT be mentioning it even when asked “How are you now?” during these many interviews she’s been doing.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> I am afraid if I do go see the movie, I will do more than just throw up
>> a lirttle bit, so I know I will need to buy a large popcorn container to
>> have on standby.
How about full-projectile vomiting?
I just finished ‘cleaning up’ here myself after reading the following article.
Make no mistake… it’s ALL about the money, folks. Has been since day one.
Variety ( magazine ) just ran an ‘Exclusive’ piece of reporting a few hours ago.
In addition to using Donald Trump’s ‘media director’ to help promote “Only The Brave” to ‘red states’… Black Label Media ( and Sony ) have been PAYING ‘real heroes’ ( like Navy SEALS ) to be what they call ‘influencers’ and help PROMOTE the movie on social media.
Variety
Article Title: ‘Only the Brave’ Taps Trump Digital Guru Brad Parscale (EXCLUSIVE)
Published: October 19, 2017 – 2:00 PM Pacific Time
By: Brent Lang
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/only-the-brave-trump-brad-parscale-1202594267/
From the article…
———————————————————————————————————
Brad Parscale, the digital media director for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was hired by the makers of “Only the Brave” to help the action-drama appeal to red-state moviegoers, Variety has learned.
Black Label Media, the film’s financier, retained Parscale to supplement online and social media marketing efforts. Sony Pictures is distributing the $38 million production, which is on track to open to a weak $6 million when it debuts this weekend. “Only the Brave” centers on a crew of firefighters battling the Yarnell Hill Fire in June 2013. It was one of the worst wildfires in American history, having killed 19 firefighters.
“Black Label Media used several different data analytics firms and consultants to test new marketing approaches to complement Sony’s marketing efforts on the film with the goal to reach the broadest possible audience,” Black Label Media said in a statement to Variety.
Parscale advised the filmmakers to retain Marcus Luttrell, a former United States Navy SEAL whose heroic attempt to reach safety in Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan was dramatized in the 2013 film “Lone Survivor,” as an “influencer.” Luttrell was later PAID to send out an email endorsement on the film’s behalf.
Parscale also suggested that the filmmakers emphasize charitable giving in an effort to avoid any criticism that “Only the Brave” was exploiting a real-life tragedy for profit. One suggestion Parscale offered was to create a digital ticker showing the amount that was going to charity. Parscale said they thought the approach might resonate with liberal moviegoers who wouldn’t be as interested in “Only the Brave.”
The film is targeted at heartland audiences, a group of moviegoers that Hollywood, a liberal-leaning industry, has struggled to reach in the past. Parscale’s efforts have been somewhat effective. Despite the weak tracking, insiders say the film is resonating more strongly in the South and Northwest, areas that are more receptive to President Trump.
The work was done through Parscale’s for-profit company Giles-Parscale. It has a number of corporate clients, including the Bank of San Antonio, Hotel Emma, and Trump International Reality. Parscale has said he is already working on Trump’s 2020 re-election effort. He was recently profiled on “60 Minutes,” where he talked about the critical role Facebook played in helping Trump pull of his upset win.
“Only the Brave” stars Miles Teller, Josh Brolin, and Jeff Bridges.
A spokesperson for Sony declined to comment.
———————————————————————————————————
Yea… I’ll BET a ‘spokesperson for Sony declined to comment’.
Excuse me… I need to go puke again.
The Variety article is already going viral and being picked up by many mainstream media outlets… and Trump media director Parscale is already getting it back in his face on his OWN ‘Twitter’ page.
Parscale is still doing ( tonight ) what he has been paid to do and is pushing out promo for “Only The Brave”… but look at the comments he is now getting back in his face…
https://twitter.com/parscale/status/908745099668066306
————————————————————————————————–
Twitter
Brad Parscale – (at)parscale
Brad Parscale Retweeted Sony Pictures “Only The Brave” Press Release
A film about real American heroes. Risked it all to save others.
Can’t wait to honor these men by watching the movie! #onlythebrave #maga
Comment from: Kincaid – (at)kincaid323
Replying to (at)parscale
How ironic: u touting a movie abt American heroes & thr sacrifices when u
colluded w Russia to subvert our election
Comment from: KnowYourObama – (at)KnowYourObama
Replying to (at)parscale
you don’t honor them by watching a movie, you honor them by not being a traitor
Etc… etc… etc…
————————————————————————————————-
If this article ‘has legs’ and continues to go viral tomorrow… that predicted 6 million dollar bad opening weekend for “Only The Brave” might drop to a pitiful 2 million.
That doesn’t even pay Jeff Bridges for his work on the movie.
Here is a photo of this ‘Brad Parscale’ guy that helped get Trump elected and is now being used to help promote the “Only The Brave” movie…
The Daily Mail
Article Title: Trump Campaign payments
Published: January 31, 2017
Updated: February 1, 2017
By: The Associated Press and Daily Mail staff
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4178772/Post-election-campaign-cash-flows-Trump-aides.html
Scroll down a bit an there is a photo of this ‘Brad Parscale’ guy in the lobby of Trump Tower just after coming out of a meeting with Trump campaign officials…
PHOTO: Brad Parscale
PHOTO CAPTION: Brad Parscale (pictured at Trump Tower on January 3, 2017),
From the article…
————————————————————————————————–
Brad Parscale, the campaign’s chief digital strategist, received three $10,000 payments personally. That was on top of the nearly $90 million the campaign paid his company, Giles-Parscale, this election cycle.
—————————————————————————————————
Yep… that’s NINETY MILLION DOLLARS paid out to this Brad Parscale guy’s social media promotion company to help get Donald Trump elected.
Black Label Media and Sony Pictures probably only offered him a few million to help promote “Only The Brave”… so that’s obviously just ‘chump change’ to him… but what the heck. A few million here and a few million there and sooner or later you’re talking REAL money.
I hate to be a catty bitch (non gender specific)…actually, I kind of like being a catty bitch ever since I found out I have a mangina. And speaking of mangina’s, what’s up with that Bill Gabbert guy?
I think he has what we used to call back in the bad old days before we became enlightened, ” a little pussy man” and we would have made him into our camp bitch to fetch our MRE’s and put some pine needles or leaves under our paper sleeping bags in spike camp while we were out on the fire line. WTF Bob? Gabbert was a hotshot? Oh…that’s right, he was an R-5 hotshot.
Anyway WTKTT…you are slipping ole buddy, I already gave you the hint when I asked if Mrs. Beno Marsh took her new “husbands” name. You know rule number one…follow the money.
I must admit I don’t know how the Great State of Arizona does it, but I can tell you how the federal government does it and what are the odds Arizona is MORE generous? A dead federal employee’s kids are the government’s responsibility (as long as the employee was killed on the job) until they are 18.
A dead federal employee’ widow (or widower) on the other hand, are the government’s responsibility until they REMARRY. And they are never the burden of the taxpayer again even if they divorce. As a result, based on my anecdotal research, it is very rare for a widow who has that status to remarry in this uncertain world.
Words and titles can be tricky, especially for people who make the decision to live very public lives and who are members of the immoral majority religious right who like to misjudge other people like….Joy for example.
Words and phrases like, living in sin, wife, husband, legally married, commitment ceremony, spouse, domestic partner, bride, groom, wedding, fraud, con and sham can all be so confusing and…complicated.
🙂
Although I should state that I don’t have any idea whether Mrs. Beno Marsh is married or not. I am simply pointing out that just because they have a bunch of instagram photos that looks like a wedding took place and there are corresponding statements that imply a marriage ceremony took place, does not mean one did.
So….Mrs. Beno Marsh may very well still be Mrs. Beno Marsh and the financial responsibility of the Citizens of Prescott for the rest of her life and not whatever that guys name is or anyone else she may cohabitate with in the future. And so her non answers while not mentioning her marriage may be in fact accurate, she may not be married.
If I was curious, I would research whether or not a marriage license had been isssued in her and what’s his name….names.
I mean…I just don’t think part time horse farriers make much money and the job doesn’t come with any benefits …right?
Although for all I know…Mrs. Beno Marsh may be drawing a salary from her charity for all I know. I do know Judge Roy Moore has taken well over a million in salary from his charity.
Oh…and one more thing. I wrote on this blog a long time ago that when my father was killed while working in a capacity that qualified every bit as much for hero status as Eric Marsh’s did, my mother deserved privacy because she led a very private life.
And although there was a small article about my fathers death in the local newspaper (Grants, New Mexico) they sure didn’t ask to interview my mother nor would she have been in any condition or have any interest in doing so.
If you live by the sword, you may die by the sword. If you live a very public life and make most of your personal business…public business, don’t complain when your personal business you made public business gets discussed publicly.
And so…if anyone doesn’t like my approach t this particular issue, or any other issue for that matter…fuck off.
🙂
**
** ‘TOMATOMETER’ IS FALLING
** ‘BULLSHIT’ METER IS RISING
Articles are now appearing ( as they should ) that apply the ‘bullshit meter’ to this upcoming “Only The Brave” fillum thing.
Below is an article that just appeared over at AZCENTRAL.
********************************************************************************************************************
** SPOILER ALERT
********************************************************************************************************************
The following article mentions a lot of ‘detail’ from the movie and its plot to show
just far how ‘off the rails’ they went with the script… so if you just want to see the
movie without knowing what bullshit is going to be coming at you BEFORE you
spend your hard-earned money… do NOT read the following article.
*********************************************************************************************************************
That being said… if you ARE ‘continuing’… pay particular attention to the ‘snakebite’ story and how far off the reality rails they went to use that as the reason Brendan McDonough was supposedly selected to be the ‘lookout’ in Yarnell…
The Arizona Republic – AZCENTRAL
Article Title: How accurate is ‘Only the Brave’? Here’s what the movie gets right and wrong
Published 6:30 a.m. MT Oct. 19, 2017 – By Shaun McKinnon
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-wildfires/2017/10/19/granite-mountain-hotshots-movie-fact-check-only-the-brave-how-real/770409001/
Someone has finally mentioned ‘Darrell Willis’, and pointed out that he is nowhere to be found in this Hollywood ‘story’.
The author of the article above is ‘assuming’ that Hollywood just decided to combine Darrell Willis and Duane Steinbrink into one ‘composite’ character… but it still remains possible they ( Hollywood ) had to ‘punt’ back to Steinbrink because Willis may have completely and totally REFUSED to lend either his name or his likeness ( or the rights to his ‘story’ ) to this ‘fillum’.
The Wildland Firefighter Guardian Institute ( WFGI ) has already come out AGAINST this move… and Darrell Willis is, in fact, on the Board of the WFGI.
Typo up above. I left the ‘i’ out of ‘movie’. Last line above should have read like this…
The Wildland Firefighter Guardian Institute ( WFGI ) has already come out AGAINST this movie… and Darrell Willis is, in fact, on the Board of the WFGI.
**
** THE ‘TOMATOMETER’ IS FALLING
As more and more ‘reviews’ of this “Only The Brave” fillum come out, the well-resptected ‘Tomatometer’ at the ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ movie industry website is falling.
MOST of the reviews remain POSITIVE… but as more reviews come out… it is ‘falling away’ from it’s ( initial ) higher ratings.
The majority of the most recent reviews manage to look past all the flag-waving and are calling the movie out just based on other standard film-craft criteria.
It is ( to them ) “over the top” and “cliche” with “on the nose” writing and acting.
NOTE: “On the nose” means that the writers and actors are basically being allowed to “club you over the head” with how you are SUPPOSED to be feeling and thinking as you watch them tell their ‘story’.
Here is one of the latest reviews… from a respected FIRE COMMUNITY reviewer…
Fire Engineering
Review: Good intentions go up in smoke in ‘Only the Brave’
Published: 10/18/2017 – By MARK KENNEDY
http://www.fireengineering.com/ap-news/2017/10/18/review-good-intentions-go-up-in-smoke-in-only-the-brave.html
From the review…
——————————————————————————————————–
Firefighters must be our last real superheroes. They run toward stuff that’s on fire, for heaven’s sake. There are the few public servants — not cops, politicians or doctors — as beloved or who have managed to stay untainted.
What they surely don’t need is the old fashioned Hollywood god-making treatment, but that’s exactly what they’ve gotten in the “Only the Brave,” an attempt to honor a group of wildland firefighters that is overwrought when it needs to be honest and quiet. It wants to put capes on men who don’t need them.
The film , directed with a sure hand by Joseph Kosinski, centers on the 20-strong Granite Mountain Hotshots and their journey from a local Arizona firefighting team to an elite force at the front lines of the Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013, one of the country’s deadliest wildfires. (It’s “based on true events.”)
The spine of the story is the relationship between crusty local fire chief Eric Marsh (Josh Brolin, extra crusty) and an ex-junkie recruit hoping to straighten out his life (Miles Teller, very good).
There’s some gentle hazing for the newcomer from veterans sporting a frightening amount of mustaches, plenty of heavy metal on the soundtrack (Metallica, AC/DC) and spectacular scenes of nature engulfed in flames. The last few moments are handled with poignancy and beautiful horror, but the wind-up to that point is sadly lacking.
Mostly that’s because the film, written by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer, is burning up with cliches and laughable dialogue. There are insane moments, like Brolin staring at a distant wildfire and saying meaningfully, “What are you doing? What are you up to?” like he’s a wildfire whisperer. Or Andie MacDowell, a wife of a fire honcho, telling another firefighter’s spouse: “It’s not easy sharing your man with a fire.” (Someone also actually says “I’ll probably be home for dinner,” a clear clue he won’t.)
Jennifer Connelly plays the veterinarian wife of Brolin’s character and she adds a complex mix to the testosterone-heavy film. But she’s also made magical in a baffling scene in which she approaches an abandoned and abused horse and just using her soft-eyed empathy gets it to instantly adore her. “You’re safe,” she says, stroking its head. “You’re safe now. I promise.” Then the horse meekly gets on its knees so Connelly can gently bathe it with soft wipes of a sponge. (This is pure horse manure.)
Instead of really bringing us into the real lives and motivations of the crew members, no matter how messy, we’re left with yee-haw action sequences or self-serving reputation burnishing. It’s like it was written specifically for a bunch of artistic Hollywood actors who always wanted to be in scenes where they could be cowboys or test pilots. (“Mount up. This is game time,” is actual dialogue. Another: “If this isn’t the greatest job in the world, I don’t know what is.”)
The apex of this silliness comes when Brolin pauses dramatically to tell a story about when he was a young man fighting a blaze and saw a bear on fire rush past him. “It was the most beautiful and terrible thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, deeply. Then, for reasons that confound, the filmmakers force us to WATCH a clearly CGI-created bear on fire rush through a forest. Subtle, huh?
The film comes out when real wildfire firefighters are battling massive blazes in Northern California’s wine country, putting a spotlight on the men and women putting their lives on the line under horrific conditions to save homes and souls. This film makes such firefighters into cartoons, which ill serves their legacy.
“Only the Brave,” a Sony Pictures release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “thematic content, some sexual references, language and drug material.” Running time: 133 minutes. Two stars out of four.
——————————————————————————————————–
Well…I have to admit that all of “this” is making me rethink my decision to even go see the movie.
There is one consistent thing with me during this build up…whenever I see either McDonough or Beno Marsh Whatever working it hard to stay at the center of attention and The Belle’s Of The Ball for as long as they possibly can to maximize their windfall by spouting their bullshit, I do throw up a little bit in mouth.
I am afraid if I do go see the movie, I will do more than just throw up a lirttle bit, so I know I will need to buy a large popcorn container to have on standby.
Just eat the popcorn first. No sense wasting perfectly good movie theater popcorn with synthetic butter…oh wait. Better make it a jumbo.
It is going to need to be the “Big Bucket”‘, but that is usually what I get anyway!
It is good to hear from you, where the fuck have you been? The world needs to know what you think about the YHF and this whole goat rope and clown show in general.
I watched one of Joy’s YouTube links that featured GM widows at the end sharing their experience on June 30th. Heart wrenching. I don’t have words for that. After I pulled myself together I became PISSED all over again. I will do what ever it takes to do what ever I can do to ensure the shit show commonly known as the Yarnell Hill fire never happens again!!!
In the spirit of renewed resolve, I give you the Woodsman’s review of ‘Only the Brave:’
“More firefighters will die with this validation on the silver screen of the glorification, perversion, and identity dilution of wildland firefighters across the US…coming to a morgue near you.” (& the flaming bear is fucking creepy, yo)
I just came back from local town meeting on complaints being made—144 locally by a snowbird—and they saw my shirt and said WE REFUSE TO GO TO “Only the Brave”— the few that are making did such a disservice all the way around so they will not see a dime from me” and again said with hateful tone due to the kind of meeting I was at and I said would you check it out FREE when it hits library…”HELL NO…” and a bunch more vulgar tone….I have not even seen it but I DO NOT have that stance—I think it will be low key comedy of Donut’s way of it and intense scenes from the other areas— but all just a narrative because Shaun McKinnon was EVEN WRONG yet again IN HIS ARTICLE that I know because of my FOIAS…but he got our story wrong so why not theirs—-
good night.
I am all packed up and ready to go see the movie tomorrow and hit the trails. 🙂
https://youtu.be/gWCiNi9m7Js
Bill Gabbert interviewed Brendan again:
https://youtu.be/a-_zICXddsE
Published on Oct 16, 2017
https://youtu.be/fdsroDp4SXg
https://youtu.be/Utk5xH_WTVU
https://youtu.be/5566qUozg0o
https://youtu.be/b7vF0e67ixA
https://youtu.be/A7Fbd_AJLuQ
Reply to Cheerleader post on October 18, 2017 at 10:29 pm
>> Cheerleader said…
>>
>> Bill Gabbert interviewed Brendan again:
>>
>> https://youtu.be/a-_zICXddsE
Even Gabbert seemed to LOWER his already-low ‘softball’ interview style for this one.
More like T-ball… where you are afraid to even toss anything out of fear someone might get hurt.
As for the other ‘interview’ links… thanks for posting them… but I think there must be something wrong with the audio card on my PC.
All I kept hearing when listening to these ‘interviews’ ( with Brendan McDonough and others ) sounded something like…
“Honor my brothers… brotherhood… first responders… honor… brotherhood… my brother’s story… honor… honored to participate… good to honor my brothers… first responders… brotherhood…. honored to tell my brother’s story… first responders… brotherhood… honor… honor my brothers… brotherhood… first responders… honor… brotherhood… my brother’s story… honor… honored to participate… good to honor my brothers… first responders… brotherhood…. honored to tell my brother’s story… first responders… brotherhood… honor… honor my brothers… brotherhood… first responders… honor… brotherhood… my brother’s story… honor… honored to participate… good to honor my brothers… first responders… brotherhood…. honored to tell my brother’s story… first responders… brotherhood… honor… honor my brothers… brotherhood… first responders… honor… brotherhood… my brother’s story… honor… honored to participate… good to honor my brothers… first responders… brotherhood…. honored to tell my brother’s story… first responders… brotherhood… honor… honor my brothers… brotherhood… first responders… honor… brotherhood… my brother’s story… honor… honored to participate… good to honor my brothers… first responders… brotherhood…. honored to tell my brother’s story… first responders… brotherhood… honor… “
There’s a guy around the corner who can work on PCs.
I’m going to get him to take a look at my onboard audio card.
wwtktt— your audio card forgot his C words too.
back to sleep
C onjoining—
c ompassion—-
c reating c ohesion—
c amaraderie—
c omforted—
c reative c onsultant—
c alled to do—-
c hildhood dreams fulfilled when he can say he was a ff—
c arry the load—
c ontinuing my life as a dad and working with non-profitbale organizations—
c arry on their stories and their legacy—c onception—
and they felt they did an organic job for all of us-
AND HA to DONUT— knew you had not been bit and said that to some—on the rattlesnake scene—
Without doing any meaningful research, I like the looks of this respirator because it has an absobant fire resistant covering, they even hold a drip torch up to it on their website.
The point is…if RTS and I agree on something other than we were both AWESOME hotshot crew bosses, it’s probably right. Every WF should have had a respirator a long time ago, and there needs to be a requirement that identifies them as required PPE similar to ear plugs, eye protection, etc for certain jobs.
And the job these things should be mandatory for is mop up…I mean who could possibly look at these two top photos and think…yeah, WF should be breathing that nasty shit without anything to filter it.
http://www.coprofire.com/hot-shield-facial-protection.html
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
I mean…I don’t want to gross anyone out, but I have been out in the sun and in the dry air for enough days now I am coughing up chunks of dried blood that is like scab that gets ripped off on my larynx. And it hurts…all of the time.
You may be as tough as RTS and eat more smoke than me and be fine. Or you might end up having a mangina like I do and have some real problems…in any case why not get a respirator and wear it while you are standing there mopping up.
Hotshots do a lot of mop up because they are held until Operations knows the fire has been caught on all divisions…and then they are kept mopping up for at least one more shift after that.
Don’t believe that movie that implies Hotshots don’t mop up, because there are usually more shifts of mop up than hot line….buy a fuckin’ respirator and wear it while mopping up. Set a trend and then others will be okay with wearing one too.
**
** ACTOR MILES TELLER CLAIMS ALAN SINCLAIR WAS PRESENT IN THE RANCH HOUSE
** RESTAURANT PARKING LOT WHEN THE TRAGEDY TOOK PLACE
Speaking of ‘pedal to the metal’ on the marketing of “Only The Brave”… the actors are all in New York this week for the ‘official’ red-carpet premiere and they are all ‘making the rounds’ with the New York media and doing interviews.
Just yesterday, there was a HUGE on-camera in-studio interview with ALL of the principal actors and director Kosinski.
During that on-camera interview… actor Miles Teller ( who plays Brendan McDonough ) was asked about the scene in the movie when he first hears the announcement over the TAC radio channels that there were 19 dead bodies out at the deployment site and no medical treatment would be necessary.
In his response… actor Miles Teller suddenly announces that on that day, on the movie set, in addition to Brendan McDonough there was someone else there watching the filming who was ALSO at the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot ( along with Brendan ) when that fateful radio transmission first hit the airwaves on the afternoon of June 30, 2013.
Teller says that person was someone named Alan Sinclair.
Here is exactly what Miles Teller said yesterday ( including some excerpts from the latest movie trailer which proceeds the actual on-camera interview )…
BUILD Series In-Studio interview with the cast and director of “Only The Brave”
Filmed in New York City on Tuesday, October 17, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0qgVXep5YE&feature=youtu.be
———————————————————————————————————
+0:00
The interview video starts with the latest movie trailer.
Some actual ‘movie dialogue’ in this latest movie trailer…
—————————————————————————————-
+1:58
Operations: “Granite Mountain… Operations… Everything okay?”
Eric Marsh: “I’m here with Granite Mountain hotshots, and our escape route has been cut off”
Air Attack: “Okay… we’re workin’ our way around now. We’ve got several aircraft comin’ to ya. Tell me when you hear the aircraft, okay?”
+2:18
Jesse Steed to Eric Marsh ( face to face at deployment site ): “We can’t go back up there”.
+2:25
The ‘Willem Dafoe’/ PLATOON scene imitation with Eric Marsh looking ‘up’ from the deployment site at the departing aircraft.
+2:39 – The Movie Trailer ENDS
———————————————————————————
+2:40 – The in-studio interview BEGINS
( Here is the part where the interviewer asks Miles Teller about filming the scene where he hears the ’19 dead’ radio traffic… )
+30:41
Miles Teller: There’s the actual radio call that is… uh… online… and that’s been documented… and so we played that.
With that scene the thing that stuck out to me was… we had a guy…
Alan Sinclair… he was… uh… workin’ a hotshot crew and he was there.
He was there the day that Donut came into the parking lot.
( NOTE: Brendan McDonough is now nodding his head, on camera, in affirmation of that statement from Teller about Alan Sinclair having been with him in the actual Ranch House Restaurant parking lot when the original tragedy was taking place ). )
And… uh… I did that scene and… uhm… he… uh… afterwards he just… he like… he just thanked me and he gave me such a long hug… and said… you know… uh… watching me… he said… he’s like… you know… he saw himself. He said “that was me that day”… and just kinda… you know… thanked me for it… and, uh… that’s what it’s about. It’s for this community and for these guys, first and foremost, and then… you know… I think audience is second…
———————————————————————————————————–
This is the first time anyone has ever even suggested that BLM employee, Incident Commander ( and one of Eric Marsh’s best friends ) Alan Sinclair…. was actually THERE at the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday, June 30, 2013.
Just as is the case for SPGS1 Gary Cordes and Prescott National Forest employee Jason Clawson ( who is the one who actually MADE the original ’19 dead’ radio announcement from the deployment site )… there is absolutely NO RECORD in any 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire ‘Resource order’ document for anyone named ‘Alan Sinclair’.
If BLM employee and Incident Commander Alan Sinclair really WAS there in the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot on June 30, 2013… WHAT was he doing there?
WHAT was his ‘involvement’ with the fire?.
WHAT did he, himself, hear over the radio that day prior to / during / and after the tragedy?
WHAT did he KNOW about management decisions and the events leading up to the entrapment?
Just as was the case with PNF employees Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell… ADOSH was NEVER informed that anyone named ‘Alan Sinclair’ has also been present in that workplace and so ADOSH was never able to interview any of these people.
Was Alan Sinclair just ‘freelancing’ and just ‘happened’ to be there?… or does he now join the long list of people who were ‘summoned’ to Yarnell by Roy Hall to try and fill out his ‘Type 2 SHORT’ team… only to end up ‘in limbo’ when they arrived because the fire was now transitioning up to a ‘Type 1’ incident instead?
Or was Alan Sinclair simply bullshitting actor Miles Teller that day on the film set and SAID he was there the day of the tragedy… when he never really was?
Alan Sinclair went on to partner with ex-firefighter Holly Neil</b to do their OWN 'private investigation' of the Yarnell Hill fire and they both ended up publishing some of their 'results' on author John MaClean's website.
SIDENOTE: Alan Sinclair really WAS 'on the set' the day they filmed the scenes involving the '19 dead' radio traffic. Actor Miles Teller is NOT 'making up' at least that part of what he said yesterday. Alan Sinclair himself posted photos from the movie set that day on his own PUBLIC Instagram account. Sinclair was there that day because he had managed to 'arrange' for his own son ( Ethan ) to have a part in the movie. Ethan Sinclair was/is playing one of the 'Blue River Hotshots' and was involved in the filming of that same scene Teller is describing above.
Just a note When in the book store this week noted Donuts book was in the Fiction Section of the Paper backs.
Now that…is funny. : )
FYI…I think I remember Sinclair is. amBIA employee? And this is just my opinion, but the BIA is generally a notoriously loose agency and I can see somebody in a position like Sinclair just floating around on his own authority as a BIA employee.
In my opinion, the USFS is generally very structured, competent and not loose, the BLM is generally incompetent but not loose and the BIA is generally both incompetent and loose.
So…Sinclair can probably do whatever pops into his head if I am right about him being with the BIA without ecpven checking in with anyone.
Whoops…I forgot the National Park Service, but that is understandable since they are generally a very forgettable and very insignificant federal agency when it comes to WF, except for like…1988 (?) when Jellystone N P burned, but who cares since they like natural fire so much.
Officials reviewing proposals for new Granite Mountain Hotshots memorial
By Associated Press
October 18, 2017 at 4:27 am
And of course it all connects back to the movie
http://ktar.com/story/1790164/hotshots-memorial-partnership-reviewing-proposals-by-artists/
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on October 18, 2017 at 12:11 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Officials reviewing proposals for new Granite Mountain Hotshots memorial
>>
>> By Associated Press
>> October 18, 2017 at 4:27 am
>>
>> And of course it all connects back to the movie
>>
>> http://ktar.com/story/1790164/hotshots-memorial-partnership-reviewing-proposals-by-artists/
Former GM Hotshot Patrick McCarty ( who was paid to run the Hotshot boot-camp for the film actors and who remained ‘onboard’ as a ‘creative consultant’ for the film ) is a member of the Board of Directors for this Prescott-based ‘Granite Mountain Hotshot Memorial’ organization…
The Granite Mountain Hotshot Memorial Partnership – Official Website
https://www.gmhsmemorial.com/about-us/
—————————————————————————————————-
MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
BRUCE MARTINEZ, Chairman
JOHN COLEMAN
BRAD FAIN
CELESTE GORDON
JAMES M. HOLST
ERNEST JONES, SR.
GAYLE MABERY
DANNY PARKER
PAUL L. ROBERTS
ALEXA SCHOLL
PATRICK McCARTY
Patrick is a native of Prescott, Arizona. He is a graduate of Prescott High School and a former member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. Patrick is currently an engineer with the City of Prescott Fire Department.
—————————————————————————————————
**
** VARIETY PREDICTS A BAD OPENING WEEKEND FOR ‘ONLY THE BRAVE’
Despite the fact that there has been a multi-multi-million dollar marketing effort going ‘pedal to the metal’ for weeks now pushing the upcoming “Only The Brave” fillum… Variety magazine’s official ‘predictions’ for this coming weekend’s movie openings ( which are usually very accurate ) are only predicting about a 6 million dollar take for “Only The Brave”.
The actual ‘production budget’ for “Only The Brave” has been a closely-held secret for a while now… but Variety is now reporting that number to be around $38 million.
That is the ‘production budget’ number… and does NOT include the ‘marketing costs’…. which in the case of “Only The Brave” have probably risen to the 10-15 million dollar range ( almost half the cost of making the movie in the first place ).
Variety
Box Office: ‘Boo 2! A Madea Halloween’ to Haunt Competition on Slow Weekend
Published: October 18, 2017 8:22AM PT – By Dave McNary
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/boo-2-madea-halloween-box-office-geostorm-snowman-1202592731/
——————————————————————————————————–
BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS FOR THIS WEEKEND
The opening of Tyler Perry’s horror-comedy sequel “Boo 2! A Madea Halloween” should dominate the North American box office this weekend in the $20 million to $22 million range at about 2,300 locations.
“Geostorm,” “The Snowman,” and “Only the Brave,” meanwhile, are expected to generate only moderate results at best.
The highest-profile film of the trio is disaster drama “Geostorm,” launching at 3,246 venues, with forecasts in the $10 million to $12 million area. That’s a troubling result given the reported $80 million budget co-financed by Warner Bros. and Skydance Media.
Prospects are even chillier for Sony’s “Only the Brave,” based on the true story of the 19 Arizona firefighters who died in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire. The film, debuting at 2,575 locations, has generated little interest among moviegoers and is heading for a $6 million weekend — a decidedly downbeat result, given the $38 million budget.
——————————————————————————————————
The REVIEWS for “Only The Brave” have, in fact, been mostly positive… with the ‘Rotten Tomatoes’ movie review site still showing a 94 percent overall approval rating on their ‘Tomatometer’ which averages all movie reviews… but this wouldn’t be the first time a movie with good pre-release reviews failed to have a good opening weekend.
As Yogi Berra once said. ( about dwindling baseball game attendance )…
“If the people won’t come… you can’t stop them”.
The film IS scheduled to be released in the UK in November and a deal has been struck to release the film in Australia as part of the ‘worldwide’ release… so they will *probably* ( eventually ) make back at least the reported $38 million dollar productions costs… but none of this is ‘good news’ for investors who expected to MAKE MONEY off this film.
It also probably represents the last-nail-in-the-coffin for Blacklabel media’s interest in making any more “Ain’t it a Shame” movies.
“Only The Brave” is set to become the THIRD “Ain’t it a Shame” movie produced by Black Label Media that either lost money or barely broke even. The other two were the ‘Deepwater Horizon” movie and their movie based on the Boston Marathon bombing.
Dateline – Moab…Just turned on the TV here in and saw a commercial for Only The Brave quoting the Rotten Tomatoes review.
Dateline Moab….Still watching CNN and just saw the second commercial quoting the Rotten Tomatoes review. That is two in just a few minutes on a national channel, they may be going down…but they are going down in flames (pun intended).
Gary,
So then, “… point out that everyone is lose …” should instead read “point out that everyone else …”
Correct?
Correct…that is a bad one I couldn’t even figure out for awhile.
So yeah that so called GMHS loved one…who had some scripture bible study thing to drop off tonight said is 10:15pm too late? —I am trying to get away from my sis’s place—-
(For the most part no it is not TOO LATE)—I ran it by my husband—we went to Lois to make sure she was ok and help her on something—and we waited…and waited…and waited…and waited….I just do not get the pull of ughs or gullibility I carry—damn FEELINGS, right Gary ;-/
I gotta shut off ALL fire data crap and get some balance back…Sonny has it right…go town to town…and screw the fire and all the people who give a shit about him—
meanwhile the infamous butt dial happened MORE THAN ONCE from that person to my cell tonight—
pretty sure if you know your local area than you know it was not sis’s place—
I so hate when a person plans to give you a God themed gift but has no problem to delay MY night on a lie—
I think like this—-just when you are IN THE AREA stop by but enough of the bullshit— really.
If these GMHS loved ones who really are looking for TRUTH or the data as it was stated on that site than HOW COME I have only seen who I have seen and not the ones I for sure thought hey I wanna know what the eyewitness has to say without her hiking partner
…because I lay it out real…
WHERE YOU CAN GO GET THE DATA YOURSELF
AND SEE FOR YOURSELF VS. TAKING MY WORDS-
I HAVE GIVEN THE HOMEWORK OUT
YET
I have not seen much work on their part—
and I am VERY DEEP AND REAL in person —
come to me pure with no freaking agenda
or make lies up and not even realize you got caught up in one…
or HOW MANY setups have I seen since 2013—
too freaking many…
I know if a person was in my spot and the setups I have seen since 2013 over a freaking fire and its aftermath…
they would of SHOT THEMSELVES
but I just try to rise above the freaking BULLSHIT and I mean it’s enough to drive you mad—
So if I sound like I am bitter— no just DONE with the bullshit-
but very close to shutting the door for good and let the bleachers take it from here-
I said everything I was able to say publicly and told very select few the BIGGER PACKAGE but yet I am DISAPPOINTED in Michael Kodas
and him writing his misleads and misinformation—
so tired of these authors and directors—I watched that fire that fateful day not them from the top of the Weavers so why LIE or teist MY words or make your own shit up…these men died due to a multitude or reasons…and I had a better view then Donut or any of them—
KEEP KILLING MORE AND AFFECTING MORE LIVES, ASSHOLES!!!!
and I will not be shocked if it carries on in John MacLean’s book because Holly asked me to confirm and fact check and she had me in another area so all these journalists and authors who I gave ALOT of freaking time and energy and hikes to—- YOU ALL PRETTY MUCH SUCK IF YOU CANNOT GET THE TRUE EVENTS RIGHT- I was THERE—
and karma will works it ways around because God knows the very minimal areas I bleeped up to my life and yes one was in my helping one of the folks but my family and friends already know those details—my life with my many losses has been very vulnerable so that was what it was…
Bleachers-
Please do not email or text or call ever again-
YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN.
I am really mad at you too.
Been over a year I had to hold on to data and
people fucking keep dying and
guess what I have to feel their stories because I am some freaking portal that I try to rebuke but at same time EVERY TIME I get data it has been spot on. /b>
Yet you are no better than the entities doing this…Secrets are no good, period!!!
Those men deserve to have you share and so does Carmen…I am too freaking in PAIN to come here right now but I wanted to have a public spot to air my disappointments as I fade out—
I do not want to hear another FIRE story or event EVER…
Carmen should not have to have an end…GO DO YOUR HOMEWORK PEOPLE…Follow the trails of the fires and follow the times and follow the origin to how it travelled and then tell me I am wrong because I ain’t wrong if you REALLY LOOK.
YHF …there was people ON THAT FIRE who had phones with gps capabilities that could help…and that was never given to the investigators— not anyone’s not even Blue Ridge and too many people told us Willis always had 2 phones so the cell he offered may not but how about the others—even aerial’s because google maps your story like it or not…you have a history if you have a new kind of phone.
Someone told me they want to fight fires at night but he was refused—well sorry buddy the data does not lie—
and you others can play MOTHER NATURE role so much and she will make you see the light some day—
GO GET YOUR PILOTS LICENSE and LOOK AT THE BURN SCARS and see how the fires are flowing—BURN SCARS tell a story in itself—
Evaluate data all day and night and reach the fucking politicians who lie and cheat us as their salaried time is on OUR dime…they ARE SUPPOSE to serve us….yet they are deaf—
Carmen erriz, I am very sorry for your loss…
Very-
I hope people WAKE UP and stop locking on certain areas and dig as deep as I have…
Also I have to applaud John Dougherty as people bashed him…his style on some articles I was taken back but in reality he IS a journalist not the MAIN STREAM MEDIA— he really did dig but if I was walking the highway tomorrow and John drove by on his motorcycle I more than likely would spill all I know and let him figure it out being he was once upon a time gonna be a politician as he ran to be…
all I know I am drained beyond with the still incoming data that okay my hikes provide but we really need the bleachers to share and some on the YHF; end of story to sum up MANY FIRES—
Have great Holidays…see you maybe in 2018…big maybe…which I know if bleachers said one thing wrong lately as tense as I FEEL…I probably would of gave all his hard work and time up on how you all could make sense of these fires—
Happy Trails!
(which is where I usually am M-F)
Just watched the interview with Josh Brolin and Bill Gabbert on wildfire today..
Josh calls Eric marsh “flawed ” and hunted the crew did not like sitting in the black (saving their asses) but wanted to get back into the action.
If this “actor” (get a real f’ing job) can see that Eric pressured the crew to re-engage it’s pretty obvious he pushed them to their deaths..
I will still go spend my $12 Canadian Pesos to see this bull but things are coming clear as to what really happened.. it was supposition and innuendo but looking like the truth is slowly coming out…
Hey Rocksteady…Josh was recently in your neck of the weeds….
I could not give a bias comment….since there is history there….
However I too watched it
And you know what I thought Rocksteady when I sae it…
I thought when is anyone gonna give a damn that was on that fire OR the folks WHO DO have the capability to explain why they died along with Carmen last week…I am so tore up over it…plan to spend some time with a loved one to help me through it later on today…
Reply to Rocksteady post on October 15, 2017 at 5:16 pm
>> Rocksteady said…
>>
>> Just watched the interview with Josh Brolin and Bill Gabbert on wildfire today..
Bill Gabbert uploaded this interview video to his public ‘Wildfire Today’ Youtube channel…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=IicDGSETzWs
Just another ‘softball’ interview from Gabbert, really.
>> Rocksteady also said…
>>
>> Josh calls Eric marsh “flawed ” and hinted the crew did not like
>> sitting in the black (saving their asses) but wanted to get back into the action.
He ( Brolin ) also suggested that the tragedy was all just a ‘freak accident’, as Brendan McDonough has always maintained.
Brolin also seemed to repeat almost exactly what SAIT Co-Lead and US Forestry employee Mike Dudley said in public to a roomful of firefighters on June 20, 2014, just before the first anniversary of the tragedy.
It was right after the part where SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley actually said that what Eric Marsh had his crew doing that afternoon was ‘normal’… and that ’99 times out of a hundred’ you would ‘get away with it’.
But they just “got bit this one time”.
News flash for ya, Mike. You only get to DIE once.
At +1:10:44 into that June 20, 2014 public presentation, Mike Dudley said…
—————————————————————————————————
Ya know… a lot of people have said this and I’ll repeat it too because I do believe this. What they did… ninety-nine out of a hundred times they’d a been fine doin’ it… and no one would have known anything.
They just got bit this one time.
Not only that… give me 15 minutes. 15 minutes to the front. 15 minutes to the back. NONE a this would’ve happened. Ahm.. none of us would be here right now.
‘Cus 15 minutes early… they’d have had plenty a time to get to the ranch. 15 minutes to the back they woulda seen the changes goin’ on from the saddle and they would have bailed off the back side.
And… and… that’s what it always comes to is that timeframe.
—————————————————————————————————–
Josh Brolin has now just basically said the same exact thing SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley said… except Brolin is subtracting 10 minutes and going with ‘5 minutes on either side’.
From this recent Bill Gabbert intervew with actor Josh Brolin…
————————————————————————————————–
Bill Gabbert: What is your theory about why the Granite Mountain Hotshots left the safety of the black, burned over area and headed towards that ranch?
Josh Brolin: I would NEVER pretend to get into their heads at all, or what any of them were thinking… especially Eric.
But I do know that if they had left probably 5 minutes before they would have made it to the ranch. Had they left 5 minutes after they probably would have seen the fire turn around.
But I also know, at least in the firefighting community that I’ve been around for 30 years… you have been… you know… you were a hotshot for 5 years… you were a wildland firefighter for 33 years… is that right?
Bill Gabbert: That’s right.
Josh Brolin: I’ve been 30 years I’ve been around these guys… so I know these guys very well… and I know how antsy they are when they don’t feel they are being of service.
And when they are in the black and the fire is actually going away from you… I think that you wanna get down there and be of service… especially if it’s going towards the town.
So I can only imagine… but I would never… you know… staunchly say that ‘Oh… I think this happened, I think that happened’… because freak accidents happen.
Was it avoidable? Sure… if you stayed in the black.
But was that the point, at that moment?
( Brolin shrugs and then says… )
I don’t know.
————————————————————————————————–
So first Brolin ‘announces’…
“I would NEVER pretend to get into their heads at all, or what
any of them were thinking… especially Eric.”
…and then Brolin proceeds to do just that.
I just watched it because y’all made me curious and I guess my bar must be pretty low because I was “impressed” Brolin said Marsh was flawed. And then of course,he said, “Blah, blah, blah…blah.”
But at least he said Marsh was flawed, which tells me that maybe he gets it? He is up to his neck with the Mash Apologists of course, but at least he gets it…maybe?
Gary—
it is not just
them
who emphasizes the dramatic to draw people into a story,
it does little to inform them about why something may be happening and how it is connected to other issues; they have their agendas or narratives-
I mean how many books tell stupid ass shit on Sonny and me
but never once mentions when we went up there who we were alerting of the fire–
-it always went directly to we were among the GMHS men (FAST FORWARD)
but there was others up there too besides the hikers—noone took the time to interview them and even our interviews they rather waste the ink on “old married couple” humor
then the fact let us not forget when the investigators directly asked us DO YOU THINK THE YELLOW AND WHITE HELICOPTER WAS A CONTRIBUTING FACTOR TO THE END RESULT?
Let’s talk fire talk when telling our interview vs the bullshit humorous shit that I had to lock into to get through the journey….
I always felt that was an odd question to ask a housewife hiker or even Tex…
We are not fire industry folks—and that is how I answered…
I am so tired of the conventional narratives that journalists can turn out quickly.
Another issue well worth exploring in the fire coverage is the embracing of Hall being relieved his team was “ok”— No, Hall— your team was not okay—
Hall, your team chose to suppress data and allow this to carry on-
I disagree that your team on that fire did everything they could-
But who am I but some “joke” written all the fire narratives but in the end who will be getting that last deep cough and laugh….
I know of a place in downtown Phoenix that has quality balls of many shapes and sizes—I think some on the YHF folks should rent a pair and get this rolling…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/04/commander-reflects-on-yarnell-fire-tragedy/2926419/
let us go read how Commander reflects on Yarnell fire tragedy…
investigative report exonerated his command team and he is oh so gratified by it—
I’m just trying to point out that everyone is lose I can think of right now automatically default to, “No one made any mistakes”, and of course they always point to Marsh as not making any mistakes.
So…at least Brolin is saying Marsh was “flawed” and that is the first thing he says. I usually start by saying Marsh was, “deeply flawed”, which is very similar except I add an adverb to my description of Marsh.
Of course we would have to know what Brolin meant by saying Marsh was flawed, but given the context I think it is clear Brolin was referring to his decision making process that led to his death and the deaths of his crew.
Which might be some progress for the primary spokesman (except for Amanda Marsh….did she take her new “husbands” name?) of the Marsh Apologists?
That is a bad auto correct I missed, I even had a hard time figuring it out. It is supposed to be “else.”
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 17, 2017 at 8:39 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> I just watched it because y’all made me curious and I guess my
>> bar must be pretty low because I was “impressed” Brolin said
>> Marsh was flawed. And then of course,he said, “Blah, blah, blah…blah.”
>>
>> But at least he said Marsh was flawed, which tells me that maybe
>> he gets it? He is up to his neck with the Mash Apologists of course,
>> but at least he gets it…maybe?
Huge caveat: I didn’t mean to ‘gloss over’ the importance of Josh Brolin admitting that Eric Marsh was ‘flawed’. Rocksteady already pointed out that was in the video interview and I was just pointing out what ELSE was ALSO in that interview.
But even with admitting that Marsh was ‘flawed’… Brolin gives no indication that he really ‘gets it’ ( as you say ).
Brolin went right ahead and started using other phrases like ‘freak accident’ ( which is the phrase Brendan McDonough has always been using ) and Brolin was then also echoing SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley about how it was all just a matter of ‘timing’…. and for the sake of a few minutes either way everything would have been fine.
I don’t think those ‘other’ statements indicated that Brolin ‘gets it’.
Brolin is under CONTRACT to PROMOTE the movie he was paid to be in, and could be SUED if he does not fulfill those ‘contractual’ obligations.
Even if he arrived at the conclusion himself, he is not about to admit ( publicly ) that Eric Marsh “Esse Quam Videried” his own crew right into their own graves.
I agree with everything you said but I was thinking that maybe even admitting Marsh was flawed and as a result his decision making process was flawed, but then he did jump right back in to being an apologist and excusing everything which is what I meant by the blah blah blah bullshit.?
It doesn’t matter, we…or at least I am just parshing his words anyway, just hoping there is some indication we are getting through to somebody and we don’t just keep preaching to the choir.
It is very important for everyone who reads this blog to know what I am doing and so you need to be advised that I will be leaving for Moab this morning to see if I can break my Jeep…again.
But…before I leave, I do have one important thing to share with you. Although I realize how redundant that sentence is because everything I share with you is important…duh!
I watched a news program yesterday about the fires in CA and the reporter who obviously had a mangina he must have gotten some ash in was actually wearing a breathing mask while he was giving his friggin (I’m going to try and stop using so many curse words, or is friggin really any better than fuckin’ since they mean the same thing?) on air report and the smoke around him didn’t even look bad.
So…my question is…if that little pussy (non gender specific) man couldn’t even manage to give his on air report without a breathing mask on how the fuck do YOU PEOPLE think your wildland firefighters can breathe that nasty shit 24/7 somtimes for days or weeks on end without any kind of breathing filter and NOT experience some kind of health problems and it doesn’t look to me like anybody has done a friggin thing to even try and.make it better for wildland firefighters since I left the friggin fire line, WTF…Over?
Good point Gary
I enjoy your personal work stories, Gary.
Thank you so much for your comment Diane. In that case, I will keep them coming if I can make a point with one…or for any other reason if the mood strikes me.
First off, let me say I was wrong….again. There have been great strides made in PPE for smoke inhalation protection for wildland firefighters.
https://www.google.com/search?q=breathing+protection+for+wildland+firefighter&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir45Wqj_LWAhUGLmMKHRuRD5kQsxgIJw&biw=1384&bih=830
Here are some photos to give you some examples of some of the things I have been blogging about recently.
http://www.ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
Unfortunately….the wildland firefighter culture does not think wearing devices for smoke inhalation protection is important. I’m pretty sure you have figured this out by now, but if hardhats weren’t required….most wildland firefighters wouldn’t wear those either because it’s the CULTURE.
Here are some photos of me being very brave while trying to make a difference by locking the barn door…after the horse had already been stolen to use an old analogy.
The trend never caught on. I bought my own mask and filters, but nobody ever followed suit and I never saw another fighter wear one the entire time I was on the fire line.
And the reason I was being very brave…is because I was doing something that was against the culture…because I was desperate to keep my job.
I also included two photos of what it looks like to stack sticks in the forest just in case anyone was wondering what that looks like.
I also included a photo of me hiking in the Grand Canyon with some hotshot buddies that we did every year in our Whites to help get ready for the Big One, just because I look so awesome and I could.
I also included a photo of what my bunk in the barracks used to look like with the guy who slept on one side of me and some other crewmen all expressing the opinion they thought we were “Number 1!” Really old school…right?
And I included a photo of a fire we just pulled up to fight. Which is not really any big deal unless you look close and you will see that I took that photo (as a crewman) from INSIDE our crew carrier because you can see the bus window frame.
I included this photo just so in case anyone wants to see how we interpreted the most important fire fighting rule out of the 10 Standard Fire Fighting Orders. Fight fire AGGRESSIVELY….but provide for safety first?
What do you think? Do you think our crew boss stopped the bus just a little too CLOSE to the WILD FIRE! No wonder I grew up learning how to take chances….just look how I was raised, it wasn’t my fault!
Oh…and I made it to Moab safely…thank you for being concerned.
Oh…and one more thing. That photo of the fire from inside the crew carrier was taken with an Instamatic camera without a telephoto lens and the fire was coming AT us.
And we unloaded and tooled up from there without re-positioning the bus. Even that photo freaks me out a little bit since I am now so much older and wiser and was taken two years before we even started carrying fire shelters, although I don’t know what good they would have done?
And the fire in question in that photos, it was on our district and we were the initial attack on it and the first unit to arrive. I don’t know how we didn’t lose our bus.
And I really should give credit were credit is due…our crew boss was named Amos Coochyama who was one mean, tough and sometimes crazy Indian.
But…I never even thought about not following him, he was a good crew boss. It was part of our culture and tradition. And to the USFS back in the day, nothing was more important than our culture and tradition. Especially on the Mighty Coconino National Forest.
Gary,
“The trend never caught on. I bought my own mask and filters, but nobody ever followed suit and I never saw another fighter wear one the entire time I was on the fire line.”
Regarding respirators, you are correct, the trend never caught, HOWEVER, your rival crew below The Rim had them for several years and more than likely before Happy Jack. We wore them holding line and mopping up. They did a pretty decent job filtering out the particulate matter but did nothing for the Carbon Monoxide.
One year we filled out MTDC questionnaires about their value, but they went nowhere.
I recognize the fire on the North Kaibab in the old Saddle Mountain Burn because I was there. If I remember correctly, Jeff Denempount (sp?) was on the Crew or was the Crew Boss.
I am really glad to hear you made that effort and provided respirators for your crew…that qualifies you for a really big “attaboy.”
And you gave wayyyyy to much credit to the Long Valley Ranger Station or the Coconino National Forest. No one played ANY role in getting me a respirator and buying new filters periodically. That was all me and I think I got everything out of that Forestry S.uppiers or Supply catalog that was always floating around.
And yes, there was nothing special about my respirator or my filters and in fact, I’m pretty sure they gave the warning that you should not depend on them to protect you from really bad things, which was okay, I just wanted them to protect me from woodsmoke, ash, and particulates probably of just about everything that burns in a forest fire like poison ivy etc.
I wouldn’t count on them to protect me from burning hazardous materials in all of those homes and businesses in CA, but that is a different situation entirely.
I found my respiratory to be 100 percent effective in protecting from breathing in any of that nasty stuff you can see in those photos. As you probably know, I couldn’t wear it while climbing a mountain or any really strenuous activity that required rapid breathing because it W was a little bit, actually it was a lot like breathing into a paper bag and you could hyperventilate I think.
BUT…that is really beside the point because if wildland firefighters ONLY wear them while mopping up or in more or less stationary activities such as line improvement or spot fire patrol they would pay for themselves after one fire.
I am not going through this long disertation for your benefit, I am actually hoping some current WF or WF supervisors read this blog and get off their dead asses and buy some respirators for themselves if need be and everybody that works for them if they can.
I have never been able to figure out what any of those fucking asshole stupid fucks (excluding your friend and mine, the esteemed Dr. Ted Putnam who is also automatically exempted from any of the catty things I say about smokejumpers since he was truly a great and honorable WF in all WF things he did including jumping for many, many years).
That being said, I can’t figure out what any of those other stupid fucks who work for MEDC all day do? Let’s see…in about 30 years that I know of….they figured out how to take a military trenching tool and put a shovel handle on it so overhead who want to carry a tool without ever carrying a tool they might actually use to do a little work….can have something to carry.
I would like to meet you in Missoula and go find the stupid fuck who didn’t run with the suggestion to get respirators with pouches for every WF on the fireline from 30 days after Tharp suggestion was made and beat the shit out of that stupid fuck except we would get arrested and it would fuck up our retirement. I actually think that stupid fuck(s) should be outed and then sent to that shithole I worked out of for 30 days above the article circle and the Brooks Range where they have mosquitoes that can carry off house pets and leave them there permanently…I mean, WTF…OVER?
That nasty stuff in that smoke is hazardous….I shit you not. I have only been back in the southwest for a couple of days and my throats and larynx are really hurting, I can hardly even talk.
I mean…this isn’t fucking rocket science you stupid MEDC lazy worthless fucks…they were studying the effects on smoke on WF in my day. I wasn’t unique, I had it bad because something in my body reacted badly, but I was far from alone. It wasn’t real common, but there were enough for a big study. I still have the paperwork on it. I am going to look for it, scan it ( if I can get my scanner to work) and then post it and maybe shame those stupid lazy fucke at MEDC i to getting off their asses for a day and order a few thousand run of the mill respirators at a great GSA price and DISTRIBUTE them….it’s not hard.
Somebody even came up with a really nifty one that has a flame retardant covering for it I will post next. Obviously…you stuck a nerve and issue that I think is IMPORTANT….and really simple in addition to being cost effective.
On another note, are you talking about that photo taken from my seat in the bus of the really big WILDFIRE right outside my window that didn’t bother me at the time, but now it kinda does. Anyway, that photo was Fromm a fire on our district (Long Valley) in 1975 and Amos was crewboss.
Amos left at the end of that season to go with Hub Harris into the Coconino dispatch office. Then Hub became the Regional Coordinator in Ogden (R4 Intermountain?) and Amos took over as the forest dispatcher.
They brought in an outside Vietnam vet mandatory hire to be crew boss at the beginning of 1976, but you know as well as I do, if a hotshot crew won’t follow the crew boss….that crew boss is fucked, it doesn’t matter who they are. A hotshot crew has to believe in their crew boss. So anyway, they found a new job for him somewhere and that put Jeff Denepont who had been Amos’ number 2, in as crew boss for 1977. And then because guys were dropping like flies, I got battlefield promoted by the end of 77 to be Denney’ number 2, and then he decided he had better go to law school at U of A and the last time I heard, he was a lawyer in Tucson. That left me as the go to guy based on Denny’s recommendation to become crew boss in 78. I saw the letter that Bill Buck concurred with my promotion, but he said if I fucked it up, he would send out one of his boys who were holdover from the Golden Years of the Flag Hotshots under Bateman.
But Richard Allreed was old school, and he and Buck went way back and Richard wasn’t afraid to tell Buck to go fuck himself. So Richard made sure I never screwed the pooch because I was HIS boy and he didn’t want Bucks boy from the Flag Hotshots fuckin’ around in OUR HOUSE.. You are old school, you know how that works…right?
I’m about out of juice in my idad down here in Moab, so I’m not even going to proof this rant!
Oh…and one more thing. Of course you were right the other day in the email you sent me that whoever is doing that hotshot crew history really needs some help from somebody, so I will try to figure out who to bitch at.
So…anyway, my machine is charged back up so I will add that as far as I know, Amos was the first crew boss of the Happy Jack Hotshots once the Type II Hopi Crew sponsored by Long Valley Ranger District was converted to a hotshot crew.
As you probably know, the Coconino put out Navajo 1 through 1000, but Long Valley always prided itself on our Hopi connection. The AFMO, most of the engine crews, most of the lookouts, and all of the heavy equipment operators were Hopi in addition to about one quarter of our crew even when I got there in 1975.
So…the reason so many guys dropped like flies, Denny decided to go to law school and so many other people recalibrate their “This Job Really Sucks O’ Meter’s was because of the Hog Fire Complex on the Shasta Trinity of 1977. Were you on that BITCH ( non gender specific) because it set the Gold Standard for Bitch Fires?
We backed up five (5) miles from that fire and gave up that much pristine priceless Old Growth timber on the Shasta T to construct a fire line for two weeks with five hotshot crews falling, bucking up and dragging trees and 20 Type II crews digging a fireline about the width of four lanes up Kanacka Ridge. There is an entire chapter on just this fire in my highly acclaimed and much anticipated tome, ” “Betrayed By Our Fire Gods.”
On another note, WTKTT is right, they are really pouring the money into this “Only The Brave” rollout. There was a huge flashy digital billboard in central SLC advertising that movie when I went through town.
I am going to go see it with my plan and stated objectives, but I hope I don’t gag and throw up over the whole Mash love story that I understand is a big part of this movie and that may make me walkout even though I really liked the movie “Platoon” and I really want to see that stupid fuck Marsh on his knees and I hope all of these blue shirts are enjoying the movie they made possible by fucking around in matters way over their round hats in the world we know as Wildland Firefighting,.we paid for their mistakes with hotshot blood, so I hope they enjoy THEIR movie.
And those 25 crews I mentioned who were working in a single coordinated effort, was on one (1) fireline on the night shift only, on one (1) Zone (Idalawild), there were several thousand WF in total working that one fire. There were so many big trees falling in the dark in a relatively small area, I am still amazed no one was killed. There were 10 hotshot saw teams working on the same piece of line.
One third of our crew had been medevacced by helicopter by the end those two weeks.
I said a prayer every morning before I went to sleep asking the good Lord to see that I was on the next medevac slick, but my prayers went unanswered.
And I really should give credit were credit is due…our crew boss was named Amos Coochyama who was one mean, tough and sometimes crazy Indian.
But…I never even thought about not following him, he was a good crew boss. It was part of our culture and tradition. And to the USFS back in the day, nothing was more important than our culture and tradition. Especially on the Mighty Coconino National Forest.
Something funky happened with this new system…again and the word reply got copied and pasted.
FYI, The USFS always viewed my problem with smoke inhalation to be my personal problem and the only important factor to them was my obvious weakness and unsuitability to continue to work for them.
FIRE was always good to me, but the USFS as a whole are just like any other selfish organization with their eyes on the bottom line.
And it is truly a Grade A Asshole Organization run by Grade A Assholes. Peoples Exhibit A….the YHF SAIR by the Grade A USFS Assholes personified by that Grade A Asshole Mike Dudley.
Anyone who denies that truth….just got lucky and never got the fuckin’ that would have made a true believer out if them… Bob.
Actually, Denny’s number 2 was a guy named Andrews who we called Goldie and he had Squad I and I had Sqaud II, but Goldie was medevacced and never came back to the crew because he decided to go to law school at U of A as well and he became an attorney. So…I owe my meteorite rise to the top of the hotshot world to the Hog Fire and the U of A law school.
And truthfully….I said fuck it…I can’t do another How Fire either to myself and I was going to kick my LE career into gear but when Richard took me for a ride in his Powerwagon and offered me the crew boss job, I changed my mind to fuck it, why not? And now….you know the rest of the story.
And Diane said she likes my stories so….
https://youtu.be/0bYu649MuQo
Moar Popcorn please….
Are any of you interested in the CA wildfires right now going on?
or anyone following them?
after all I am only writing 5 people….
Not me…I am sorry for all of the people who lost their homes, businesses and lives, but that is from a compassionate human standpoint.
As a former WF with exclusive experience on a hand crew with hand tools like shovels and Pulaskis….I can’t relate to giant conflagrations of epic proportions, you might even say of Biblical proportions, burning cities and towns down,….looks like a CDF and unified STRUCTURAL command problem to me.
Nobody would want to hear my input…which would be to pull my crew out…way out, really fast. Not in our wheelhouse. position description, or within our knowledge, skills and abilities to deal with…nope.
https://youtu.be/JlKp5X84vQA
Thanks for sharing.
Strange video with slightly delusional narrator maybe?
But wildfiretoday has some good data RTS
Did you read all the religion talk in their LIVE chat…is that CNN live coverage RTS?
The 2nd link came from the live chat area
What I found strange on the video is all these women claiming to be experts in a field they no nothing about nor ever worked in the field…includes me in that 😉 and another one who participated here…we really should LISTEN to the ones on the LINE living it…huh
“just saying”…soft wink.
https://www.facebook.com/carmen.berriz
Sorry for your loss Armando Juan and Armando Alberto Berriz
as soon as her name came on the screen as deceased—I felt her huge smile and the WHOLE sadness…
the count keeps increasing… 🙁
https://www.amazon.com/Megafire-Extinguish-Deadly-Epidemic-Flame/dp/0547792085/ref=sr_1_1_twi_har_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1507883737&sr=1-1&keywords=9780547792125 Aug 22, 2017
pages 279 thru 280 were not fact checked by us- and is incorrect on the hikers-why????
I have never in my entire life told ANYONE I have had brain surgery-
I DO have 2 brain tumors- one is called midline frontal meningioma and the other one is in the back of my head—
Michael is misleading to state that for it was NEVER said I had surgery
YET I did embark on my journey with Tex as I always wanted to PIONEER and so that is how it began but it has been one unexplained unusual sort of journey—
and his add on that Sonny struggled with alcohol— how about he does not SEE it that way and its SOME of the people around him saw it that way— Sonny is very Irish and likes his Guiness and Whiskey—
Michael said we started out at 8:30am
????? on Sunday ???? that is the time we were way by the base of the 2 track ridge heading UP to the 2 track so INCORRECT-
I even asked him to fact check—
odd how people just run with what they want…
He says AS THE MORNING PASSED INTO THE AFTERNOON…that is when we saw Eric again—-NOT TRUE at all….
all activities were that morning with Eric Marsh and the crew-
Michael has us passing the men in the afternoon after Eric????? what?????
I never and I know Sonny never said I climbed down a steep gully towards the ranch????
and him saying we hiked out an easier route
GO to the cached spot of the NOW GMHS memorial trail and YOU slide down 14 ft. boulders into manzinita and bear wallow thru—YOUR ASS easier…less vegetation on Congress side compared to Yarnell side
I am going to get the library to order it so we can fact check all his fire story—
https://books.google.com/books?id=JsqlDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA279&lpg=PA279&dq=joy+a.+collura&source=bl&ots=ON7iNrnuTt&sig=rEPsdwhFKTF9x4I2Y1fVRIACtEA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwizzY3Vlu3WAhXBiFQKHUFQChc4FBDoAQgxMAI#v=onepage&q=joy%20a.%20collura&f=false
duplicate comment???
no.
try again
glitches in posting today:
I received this email today:
Fri, Oct 13, 2017 at 8:01 AM
Yarnell Fire Realities shared Wildland Firefighter Guardian Institute’s post.
10 hrs ·
We Stand United with you 110%
No automatic alt text available.
Wildland Firefighter Guardian InstituteLike Page
October 8 at 5:26pm ·
WFGI BOARD OF DIRECTORS STATEMENT REGARDING THE MOVIE “ONLY THE BRAVE”
Only the Brave is a Hollywood movie based on the personal stories of only- surviving member Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew Brendan McDonough, deceased Superintendent of Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew Eric Marsh, and Eric’s wife, Amanda Marsh. The movie is based on several true events, but in no way, is it a documentary, nor is it historically accurate . It is neither an accurate accounting of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew or the events of the Yarnell Hill Fire, where 19 of the 20 man crew died.
The WFGI feels, that it is imperative, the public know that the Yarnell Hill Fire is one of many incidences where wildland firefighters have died in the line of duty. In the Yarnell Hill Fire, one of our directors’ and a officer lost their son, two directors lost their husbands, and another officer lost his friends, and his crew-members. We know the devastation of losing a loved one. We know the sting of reopening wounds caused by anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and memorial services.
Many of us learned through social media, friends, or the news media that our loved one had died. That is not how a wife should learn that her husband has died. That is not how a mother should learn that her son has died. That is insensitive, and it was wrong.
We went from being private families, to sharing our loved one with the public. Our loss was public. Our grief was public. Our struggles were public. Our fight was public. With this movie their deaths are marketed as heroic, and their actions brave, to sell the story of only three individuals. No other families have profited in any way from this movie.
WFGI understands that the Yarnell Hill Fire is historical. In no way do we believe that the legacies left behind by each fallen Granite Mountain Hotshot is his death. Rather, the honorable life that he lived, the professional way he worked, and the huge love he had for his family. This is especially true for Andrew Ashcraft and Billy Warneke.
We ask that you not only remember the Yarnell Hill Fire, but all other incidences where a wildland firefighter perished or was injured. We ask that you remember that wildland firefighters risk their lives to combat wildfires, not for fame and fortune, but because it is their calling, and one of their many passions.
Know that this movie will not answer questions about what happened that day, outside of loss. Nor does it represent how any of the other families, outside of the two mentioned earlier, reacted or dealt with this tragedy. Remember this is a Hollywood movie. It does not show complete truth, it is just a movie. The WFGI first word in our motto is truth. We stand for: Truth, Transparency, Accountability and Change.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/10/14/interview-with-amanda-marsh/
Bill Gabbert interviewed Amanda Lohman
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/10/14/interview-with-amanda-marsh/
Robert the Second says
October 11, 2017 at 10:44 am
Gary, thanks for the compliments and for the nomination. However, I’m gonna take a pass on the public appearances and all.
And I say, “Not going to fall for it are you? Well…that figures, being a slacker from way back to the Murdoch Basin fire and all.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xZm2UOam74
** REVIEWS EMERGING
The Los Angeles ‘red carpet’ premiere was Monday.
The Arizona ‘red carpet’ premiere was last night ( Tuesday ) at a shopping center in Tempe.
The Colorado ‘red carpet’ premiere is tonight ( Wednesday ) in Denver.
And the ‘studio’ is now allowing ‘reviews’ to appear BEFORE the official
‘red carpet’ premiere in New York and the film officially ‘opens’ ( sometimes they don’t ).
‘IndieWire’ has now put out what appears to tbe first ‘official’ review.
They call it a ‘tasteful, well-acted bore’ and give it a ‘grade’ of just B-minus.
IndieWire
‘Only the Brave’ Movie Review
Published: October 11, 2017 – 11:50 AM
By: Eric Kohn
http://www.indiewire.com/2017/10/only-the-brave-review-josh-brolin-miles-teller-1201886133/
———————————————————————————————————-
The movie is so cautious about avoiding disaster movie tropes that you can practically sense the resistance to arriving at the tragic finale. The result is a tasteful, well-acted bore, but so out of sync with traditional studio filmmaking it deserves some kudos anyway.
When “Only the Brave” finally gets there, the tragedy arrives with a shrug of anger, sadness, and tears stuffed into a matter of minutes. It resonates to some degree because the movie has invested so much energy in giving its characters a cogent dimensionality, but that same tactic feels almost too forced, as if the entire conceit has been engineered to mourn lost lives.
That may be the case, but “Only the Brave” at least salutes its heroes with an eye for burrowing inside the plight of the American blue collar experience in ways largely ignored by Hollywood product
GRADE: B-minus.
———————————————————————————————————-
** ‘APOCALYPSE NOW’ REDUX?
And speaking of…
“When “Only the Brave” finally gets there, the tragedy arrives with a shrug of anger, sadness, and tears stuffed into a matter of minutes.”
…one of the big ‘mysteries’ is still what CHOICES this ‘fillum’ has made regarding that final, fateful decision to leave the safe black… and/or whether they would even TRY and present any of the ‘known’ evidence in any kind of coherent way.
That ‘new’ trailer that was released just a few days ago actually shows some of their ‘decisions’.
That ‘newest’ trailer is here…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3829920/videoplayer/vi241875225?ref_=tt_ov_viminutes.
…and ( combined with other scenes from other trailers ) here are what APPEAR to be some of the ‘decisions’ the fillum-folk have actually decided to make…
1. They place Eric Marsh WITH the entire Granite Mountain squad for the whole time from the decision to leave the black to the actual burnover. There appears to be absolutely no attempt to even suggest Marsh was ‘scouting ahead’ of the men and then had to somehow ‘run back to them’ in order to die with them.
There is still nothing to indicate how they handled the actual ‘decision’ to leave the safe black, and whether they chose to show some kind of “Do we stay or do we go” group meeting or whether Marsh just simply said “Gaggle up… let’s go be heroes”, or something.
2. New trailer shows a quick scene with Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed deciding ‘together’ ( in person, at the deployment site ) that trying to retreat back up to the ridge was NOT an option.
The scene shows Jesse Steed yelling directly at Marsh saying “We can’t go back up there!”
3. Another scene shows Eric Marsh as the one making the “We are in front of the flaming front” radio transmission from the deployment site. That breaks with reality. There is no question that radio transmission came from Jesse Steed circa 4:39 PM that day. Marsh wasn’t heard on the radio until upwards of 3 minutes AFTER that.
4. Other scenes in the new trailer show that they DO, in fact, try to use some of the actual radio exchanges captured in the Aaron Hulburd ‘Helmet Cam’ video… but they even felt free to just ‘screw around’ with those ACTUAL ( real ) transmissions.
Example…
At +1:54 in the new trailer… they have created this radio exchange…
—————————————————————————————————-
“Granite Mountain… operations… everything okay?”
Actor Josh Brolin ( Eric Marsh ) responds ( yelling )…
“I’m here with Granite Mountain Hotshots and our escape route has been cut off”.
Response is…
“Okay… we’re workin’ our way around there. We’ve got several aircraft comin’ to ya.”
Tell me when you hear the aircraft, okay?”
————————————————————————————————–
That ‘sort of’ resembles SOME of the actual last-minutes radio transmissions, but completely ignores what really happened. There is no attempt to show that those men out at the deployment site were desperately TRYING to get John Burfiend in Bravo 33 to even acknowledge their MAYDAY radio calls… but Burfiend IGNORED them for almost 3 full minutes before being ORDERED by OPS1 Todd Able to answer their radio calls.
5. The new trailer also appears to show something quite astounding. It appears to show a LAT ( Large Air Tanker… but NOT a DC10 VLAT ) passing right over the deployment site AS the GM Hotshots are frantically digging at the ground and ‘burning out around themselves’.
Eric Marsh is even depicted looking UP at this tanker AS it approaches and passes right over the deployment site ( but does not drop any retardant or water ).
The ‘clips’ first show Marsh ‘hearing’ the tanker coming at the deployment site, and Marsh stops digging and raises his head to look up at it.
The next thing we see is an ‘overhead’ shot ( as if shot from an aerial drone camera over the deployment site ) and we see Eric Marsh ‘looking up at us’ from the deployment site below. Then we see the Air Tanker fly right ‘underneath’ the camera and directly over Marsh and the clearly-visible deployment site.
Eric Marsh is left ‘looking up’ at the camera from the ground… almost identical to the final scene in ‘Apocalypse Now’ where William Dafoe’s character was looking desperately up at the departing helicopter while the NVA were swarming into the clearing to kill him.
I’m not sure Director Joseph Kosinski is even old enough to remember ‘Apocalypse Now’… but if he was actually TRYING to recreate that final scene with William Dafoe down on the ground looking UP in desperation… he couldn’t have done a better job.
** HUGE CORRECTION
Okay… I completely screwed that up.
The movie with Willem ( not William ) Dafoe where he is seen desperately looking up at the departing helicopter while the NVA are swarming into the clearing to kill him was PLATOON…. and NOT the other Vietnam movie “Apocalypse Now”.
PLATOON – 1986
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/
Sorry about that.
But the scene that apparently comes at the end of this new “Only The Brave” movie with Eric Marsh ‘looking up’ at the Air Tanker flying over him really DOES come close to that.
Minor point, I think I remember them having Marsh yell “drop” or something like that in one of the trailers when the VLAT is overhead? And I thought they were going to cut the bear scene because the test audience didn’t like it, but it sounds now like it is a reoccurring scene throughout the movie?
In any case…a B minus from movie critics who think it is basically just a boring movie about blue collar guys sounds good to me.
I am going to stick with my plan to put everything I know or think I know, about wildland firefighters in general and hotshots in particular and just go watch the movie because it sounds to me like it does a pretty good job of depicting what the average guys go through on the average hotshot crew.
And I think overall, it recognizes hotshot crews, who have labored in obscurity for decades now carrying the heaviest loads in the shadow of smokejumpers who are good at what they do, but they aren’t any good at fighting the big ones.
I’m deeply regret it doesn’t celebrate all wildland firefighters equally, but I hear a movie about the Esperanza Fire is in the works and that should pretty well take care of engine crews.
And lets face it, hardly anyone can tell the difference now in the media or the public between hotshot crews or Type II crews so WTF….just roll with it.
And if anybody ever wants to watch a movie about a bunch of worthless WF who mostly just lay around in the sun and lick their nuts or their whatevers…they will make a movie about helislacks.
I wrote, “does a pretty good job of depicting what the average guys go through on the average hotshot crew.”
And by that I mean the getting in shape, training, building crew esprit de corps, goofing around, going to the bar to talk about the last fire the next fire or some other fire, and the complexities of interpersonal relationships and trying to have some kind of normal life while being gone on fires a lot….that kind of stuff.
Which of course the average audience will find boring because something isn’t blowing up every few minutes with robots and/or bloody battle scenes, but I will be interested in watching it. And in looks like they did a pretty good job with the scenery and fire videos. So, WTF….Over?
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 11, 2017 at 1:32 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> Minor point, I think I remember them having Marsh
>> yell “drop” or something like that in one of the trailers
>> when the VLAT is overhead?
It’s still hard to tell exactly what that ‘end sequence’ of the movie is really like. They have still only released ‘bits and pieces’ of it. This whole deal with actually showing a LAT ( not a VLAT DC10 ) coming right over the deployment site might be a throwback to that blurb in the original SAIR report where Marsh supposedly ‘called up’ to Air Attack just before the first MAYDAY call from Steed and Marsh ( supposedly ) said “That’s it. That’s where we want the retardant”.
The script writers might have been just as confused about all that as anyone else and decided it meant that an Air Tanker DID go right over the deployment site, or something.
My whole take is that while there are certainly some things about those final hours/minutes that will probably NEVER be known… a lot of people ( NOT movie people ) have worked very hard to at least produce a large amount of evidence that IS known… and is not disputable. ( actual radio transmissions, testimony, etc. )… and for all their attempts to make money off the story I still believe they had a responsibility to at least pay attention to this KNOWN ‘body of evidence’.
They do NOT appear to have done that. Not at all.
People WILL remember what is presented in this movie… and they WILL think they are seeing ‘the truth’ about what happened.
So to not at least try and present ( accurately ) what IS known pays no homage to anyone and is an actual ‘dishonor’ to those who died.
>> Gary Olson also said….
>>
>> And I thought they were going to cut the bear scene
>> because the test audience didn’t like it, but it sounds
>> now like it is a reoccurring scene throughout the movie?
Those were the early ‘reports’ ( about the bear on fire graphic )… but yes… it now appears it wasn’t just an ‘opening graphic’ but an actual ‘recurring image’ throughout the movie. A ‘foreshadowing’ trick that Director Ksoinski just didn’t want to let go of… just like the recurring ‘floating RED Balloons in the currently-showing horror movie ‘IT’.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> In any case…a B minus from movie critics who think it is
>> basically just a boring movie about blue collar guys
>> sounds good to me.
A strange thing is actually happening.
Sometime last night ( during the Arizona red-carpet premiere in Tempe, Arizona ), the studios actually officially lifted what is known in the film industry as the ‘mandatory review embargo’. Legitimate critics usually honor this ’embargo’ and they let the studios be in control of WHEN they want the ‘official’ movie reviews to start coming out.
Well… sometime last night that ‘review embargo’ for ‘Only the Brave’ was officially ‘lifted’ by the studios themselves and the critics are now also being ENCOURAGED ( by the studios ) to go ahead and crank out their official ‘reviews’.
That is HIGHLY UNUSUAL for a film that isn’t even coming out for almost another two weeks. As in…. NOT this coming weekend… but the FOLLOWING weekend.
I can’t help but wonder if the studios have just hit the PANIC button and between the recent Las Vegas tragedy and the fact that people are DYING at this very moment in wildfires in California… they decided the only chance they have at having a good opening weekend is to just put pedal to the metal and go full-bore multi-million dollar marketing mode for another ( almost ) TWO weeks.
So official reviews have been ‘flooding’ out all day… and they are, in fact, MOSTLY POSITIVE.
But to have all the ‘official reviews’ coming out so far ahead of the general release creates its own ( marketing ) problems. That’s why it’s not usually done.
People will actually be assuming they can go somewhere THIS coming weekend to see the movie… and that is ( generally ) NOT the case.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> I am going to stick with my plan to put everything I know
>> or think I know, about wildland firefighters in general and
>> hotshots in particular and just go watch the movie because
>> it sounds to me like it does a pretty good job of depicting
>> what the average guys go through on the average hotshot crew.
That’s a good plan…. and actually echoes what some of the critics themselves have been saying all day.
Forget what you know or think you know about wildfires and/or the people who go out there to fight them… and just go see the movie.
Some ‘heavy hitters’ worked very hard on this project doing what THEY know how to do ( story telling )… and it all ‘holds together’ as a 2-hour ‘story’ that’s probably worth the price of admission.
The consensus already is that there WILL be multiple ‘Oscar Nominations’ coming out of this film… if nothing else… ones for ‘Best Cinematography’ for Claudio Miranda, ‘Best Director’ for Joseph Kosinski and ‘Best Original Movie Song’ for the song “Hold The Light”.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> And if anybody ever wants to watch a movie about a
>> bunch of worthless WF who mostly just lay around in
>> the sun and lick their nuts or their whatevers…they will
>> make a movie about helislacks.
Funny you should mention that.
As it turns out… a TON of comments about this “Only the Brave” thing on the movie’s own official social media sites are coming from people who believe this really is the delayed-release of that recent movie that was in the works about SMOKE-JUMPERS.
It was ‘in the works’ ( and even produced posters and teaser trailers ) last year and was going to star Vincent Chase, Jason Patrick, Edward Norton, others.
The movie even supposedly FINISHED ‘principal photography’ and was ‘in the can’… when some blow-up took place involving starring actor Vincent Chase and the studio and/or director… causing the ‘release’ to be ‘scrapped’ ( for now ).
http://entourage.wikia.com/wiki/Smoke_Jumpers
——————————————————————————
“Smoke Jumpers” is an unfinished film starring Vincent Chase, Edward Norton, Jason Patric, and Brian Van Holt. It was directed by Verner Vollstedt and written by Lawrence Baird and Nick Maser.
The film was written by first-time writers, which led many to doubt the film’s quality. The first version of the movie showed nine firefighters on the night before the biggest fire of their lives and was envisioned as an indie. However, Warner Brothers reportedly gave the film a $120 million dollar budget and armed it with a good cast. During filming, though, differences between Vince and the director (who never wanted Vince in the movie in the first place) caused the film to be shut down and unfinished. However, these unfinished scenes would later land Vince the role of Nick Carraway in Gatsby.
——————————————————————————
Maybe actor ‘Vinnie’ Chase refused to do the obligatory scene where they are all laying around by the motel swimming pool licking their nuts.
Regardless… LOTS of people who follow the whole ‘Hollywood’ scene are thinking this “Only The Brave” thing is this “Smoke Jumpers” movie finally making it into the theaters.
Thanks for all of the info as usual.
And this is certainly an understandable mistake, but you are mixing up “smokejumpers” and “helislacks.”
And if figures just as hotshots get a movie, we are going to shown up again by smokejumpers. Oh well….
Smokejumpers – Typically arrive on small insignificant fires by floating in by parachute. But truthfully…they spend most of their time bronzing up like Greek Gods or Goddesses while lounging near airport runways waiting for a small insignificant smoke to pop up somewhere.
Helislack (officially know as Helitack) – Typically arrive on small insignificant fires by helicopter. But truthfully….they spend most of their time opening and closing helicopter doors for hotshots who need to be taken to fight the Big Ones.
They are kinda like Taxicab doormen in flight suits. But….because it is a requirement for helicopter pilots to get a minimum number of hours of good sleep in a motel room (which is understandable) and their helicopter is staged out of the nearest or best airport….the helislacks get to go stay in a motel with the pilot where they spend as much time as possible laying around the pool in the sun licking their nuts…or to quote or President…their “whatevers” AKA that part of a woman’s anatomy the President of the United State of America thinks you can grab like it has a handle. I never thought I would live to see a president who has less class than I do when I am channeling my back of the bus hotshot self.
In lieu of a motel pool to lay around, helislacks will seek out any other comfortable place where they lay around and lick their nuts or their whatever’s like helibases, while hotshots are humping it up the mountain to fight the fire. Am I STILL jealous…hell yes!
Now…I am going to tell you a no shit story. There was an issue with Marsh’s old number 2 because he was putting multiple motel rooms on his city credit card and cashing on on the points…remember?
There was absolutely nothing wrong with that, even by federal government travel policies which are notoriously strict, but Marsh got pissed off at the guy and forced him out…remember that? Just more proof Marsh was a control freak and had some serious problems in his fucking head.
But that isn’t my point….here is my point. In 10 years as a USFS hotshot, which included 7 years as the crew boss on two different forests in two different states I never….ever….spent ONE night in a motel room while on a fire assignment.
National Guard armories…check, airport tarmacs…check, Ranger Station conference rooms…check, laying on the ground next to the bus…check, the USFS Albuquerque Tree Nursery (which was the standard staging area) parking lot or floor…check, high school gyms…check, any free place the USFS could stick us for the night…check.
Fucking motel room? No fucking way, not with the USFS. Has that changed at all? And is that what everyone else experienced in other regions?
My favorite…was the USFS Phoenix staging area, the Arizona National Guard runway next to the Phoenix International Airport…in the SUMMERTIME. I can still feel and smell my buns sizzling while I sat on that fucking tarmac for hours on end day and night waiting for the fucking plane, they never even let us in the fucking building!
And then I hear the GMIHC problem was too many frequent motel points…fuck me silly and call me Sally!
**
** ‘ONLY THE BRAVE’ MOVIE SCRIPT CLAIMS THAT TYPE 2 CREWS ARE ‘LOSERS’
From the information that has now been PUBLICLY released about this upcoming ‘Only The Brave’ fillum… there appears to be a disturbing ‘side story’ present in the script.
Apparently… in order to ‘tell the story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots’… they have seen fit to claim ( in the movie itself ) that ‘Type 2’ Wildland crews are not only ‘losers’ and ‘unfit’ to actually step onto a fireline… they are literally only fit to crawl along behind the great and glorious Type 1 Hotshots and clean up the shit that is falling from their behinds, like manure-scoopers following the horses in a parade.
From even just what can be seen ( publicly ) so far… there are at least TWO places in the fillum where this is being ‘established’.
Those TWO places are as follows…
** (1) MOVIE SAYS: TYPE 2 CREWS ARE ONLY GOOD FOR CLEANING UP TYPE 1 CREW ‘SHIT’…
A NEW trailer appeared just days ago… on October 4…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3829920/videoplayer/vi241875225?ref_=tt_ov_vi
This ‘new’ trailer now has a clip in it showing the ( secret ) ‘guest’ appearance by actor Josh Hopkins.
Even though it was known early on ( from photos being posted from the movie set by Hopkins himself ) that actor Josh Hopkins had some kind of role in the filming… NONE of the official cast lists have ever made even the slightest mention that Hopkins is doing this ‘cameo’ appearance in the movie. The movie producers have always been treating this like it was some kind of ‘military secret’.
But thanks to this latest ‘trailer’ and the ‘new scenes’ being shown in it… we NOW know that actor Josh Hopkins is playing a Type 1 Hotshot Crew Boss who comes into contact with Eric Marsh, who ( at that point-in-time in the movie ) is still just the Crew Boss of the ‘Type 2’ certified ‘Crew 7’ out of Prescott.
At 59 seconds into the latest ‘trailer’… the following exchange takes place between actor Josh Hopkins ( playing a Type 1 Hotshot Crew Supervisor ) and actor Josh Brolin ( playing Eric Marsh )…
——————————————————————————————–
Actor Josh Hopkins ( to Brolin/Marsh ):
You guys are Type 2.
So why don’t you do what you do best.
Stay in the BACK and mop up our SHIT.
( BIG grin/smirk from Hopkins as he now puts his RED helmet back on and walks away ).
NOTE: Hopkins’ RED Helmet has no identifiable Type 1 Hotshot crew logo on it. All it has is a standard ‘U.S. Forestry Service’ Shield logo on the front of the Helmet… clearly ‘readable’ as he puts the helmet back on with the huge grin/smirk on his face.
——————————————————————————————–
Shortly after that scene, there is a quick scene of Eric Marsh alone in an office somewhere and completely smashing a wooden chair to bits, and then he sinks to the floor with his head in his hands. Whether this is meant to portray Marsh’s reaction to the “Stay in the back and mop up our SHIT” encounter with Type 1 Superintendent Josh Hopkins is not certain… but it looks that way.
** (2) IN THE MOVIE: ERIC MARSH HIMSELF CLAIMS THAT TYPE 2 CREWS ARE ‘LOSERS’
Ever since the first trailer was released there has been that blurb where we see Brolin/Marsh talking with Bridges/Steinbrink on a hill overlooking Prescott, and we hear Brolin/Marsh complaining that unless his crew can achieve full ‘Type 1 Hotshot’ certification… that they are essentially ‘useless’ and ( to quote the movie script ) “won’t even be able to set foot on the ( fire ) line”.
That is, of course, complete horseshit… but when actor Jeff Bridges made his appearance on the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ show a few nights ago, the ‘clip’ that was shown to the audience was even MORE from that ‘discussion’ between Brolin/Marsh and Bridges/Steinbrink.
The full scene goes even farther to disparage ‘Type 2’ Wildland Crews and labels them ‘losers’.
YouTube
Jimmy Kimmel Live – October 6, 2017
Actor Jeff Bridges talks about his new movie Only the Brave
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCGkPEYMvSQ
Just before Jeff Bridges came out to talk with Jimmy Kimmel, they ran a clip of Bridges and Josh Brolin ( who plays Eric Marsh ) having a ‘discussion’.
They are standing on a hill overlooking Prescott and Brolin/Marsh is expressing his frustration to Bridges/Steinbrink that he and his men are still just a ‘Type 2’ crew and so they are just ‘losers’ and won’t be able to even be ‘on the line’ if/when a fire threatens Prescott itself…
———————————————————————————————————-
Brolin/Marsh:
We’ve been tryin’ it for over 4 years.
We’ve got all our hours, all our qualifications.
We can out-hump ANY Hotshot crew out there…
but until we’re certified we ain’t nuthin’ but a bunch a losers.
Bridges/Steinbrink:
Doin’ sumthin’ that ain’t never been done before takes time.
( Brolin/Marsh points off into the distance, towards Granite
Mountain and the forest surrounding Prescott, and then says… )
Brolin/Marsh:
Sooner or later the fire… she’s gonna come a knockin’… and when she does this whole place is gonna go off like a powder-keg… and when she DOES… my crew won’t even be able to set foot on the line.
Bridges/Steinbrink:
Eric… that attitude that ya got right there… that cost ya a lot of friends in the department.
Brolin/Marsh:
“C’mon Duane… you’re the Wildland Fire Chief. You started this thing. ( Pause ) I need your help.
Bridges/Steinbrink:
See?… now that’s nice! That’s a good start.
———————————————————————————————————
As of just 60 days ago ( on August 6, 2017, when statistics were published )…
There were at least 400 ( FOUR HUNDRED ) Type 2 Initial Attack, Type 2 and Type 3 crews actively deployed nationwide and actively fighting wildfire.
That’s upwards of 8,000 ( EIGHT THOUSAND ) men and women busting their assess ‘out there’.
There were also 949 Engine Crews actively deployed and actively fighting wildfire.
For a project that was meant to be a ‘tribute’ to all who fight wildfire… was it really necessary ( just to advance the plot line of a 2 hour Hollywood ‘fillum’ ) to claim that ALL these other men and women who are out there working just as hard as anyone are only ‘fit’ to cup their hands and catch the poop falling out of Hotshot’s ass?
They ( the producers ) better cross every finger and toe and hope that all the brave men and women who serve on Type 2 and Type 3 crews don’t all decide to BOYCOTT this ‘fillum’ of theirs.
Yes…this is really bad news and it is completely unnecessary to tear down any crews to build up hotshot crews. The specter out there is so wide, there is a great deal of overlap among the crews. This is exactly why I talk smack about smokejumpers, this is exactly what they have been doing for decades to Hotshots.
Spectrum not specter.
I do think however, based on some of the stories I have heard, Granite Mountain was treated that way not only because they were a type II crew, but because they worked for a city fire department.
That fact is on my list of contributing causal factors and is one thing I believe drove Marsh to the extremes he took. He may not have smashed a chair in his office, but I bet he smashed something and more than once.
I don’t know if anybody remembers me saying this or not, but the WF world is full of macho men doing masculine things in a manly way, and they just aren’t very nice people…and that means nice to each other either.
Like I have said, there wasn’t any brotherhood back in my day even among the hotshot crews on my forest, the Coconino. Flagstaff, Blue Ridge and Mormon Lake were not our brothers or even our friends, they were our competitors.
That was the way Bill Buck built his world that we just lived in, it was a zero sum game with winners and losers, and there was just one winner at a time. That is what drove Tony Czak to kill himself and those with him. Wildland firefighting and Hotshots in particular eat their young and only the strongest survive.
Just think about what I have been saying, My introduction to that world was like Animal House Meets The Lord Of The Flies and at Happy Jack, it was an insular isolated world that was like a Special Operations Group at a forward operating base.
The hazing and indoctrination period wasn’t very much fun. I hate to say it, but they got that part of the movie right and they probably got it from the former GMIHC guys talking about how they were treated by USFS hotshot crews.
That is not reality Type 2 crews come in many forms.
Many are highly trained and come from forests BLM Indian crews and Hispanic crews as well as some very qualified Contract crews.
I have worked with many over the years as a crew boss, sector boss.
Yes there are some type 2 crews out there that are not that good but far more are highly qualified. T down grade them in this Film is a Shame.
I was hoping Norb was gonna say what Bob did…thank you Bob
Yeah…Bob is right and I already apologized down below, but just in case anyone missed it, the vast majority of Type II crews are good and some are even great.
Type III crews always try hard because they are all regular employees based on my experience and they are all pretty good at mop up which is all anyone expects from them.
And this includes the con crews who are always pretty good as well (who are Type II crews, or at least the ones I have worked with were) :
Like I have said before, I think Bob had a better experience overall working for the USFS, I wish I could have been with him…or maybe just have been him. I think some people just attract trouble, or maybe they go looking for it?
Although like I said, I don’t think those movie guys made up that line from the hotshot crew who disrespected Granite Mountain. That sounded pretty realistic to me and probably came from straight the Granite Mountain guys who heard it direct from USFS hotshot crews more than once.
There isn’t anyone in FIRE who is more tribal and convinced of their own superiority than USFS hotshot crews. How could they not be, because on average they are so much better than any agencies hotshot crews…am I right? Well….except for those USFS R-5 slackers!
Clarification,
And this is getting down in the weeds, but what’s new? I think there were and still are big differences on how different regions utilized and staffed crews. I was speaking of my experience in the Southwestern Region during the 1970″s and 1980’s;
I can’t think of where there was a standing Type II crew like Bob describes in Arizona or New Mexico. Based on my experience, Region 3 relied exclusively on hotshot crews, SWFF crews (like I described, meaning it was a real crap shoot what you were going to get, some were really good and some were really bad) or temporarily formed Type II crews made up of miscellaneous agency personnel.
And when I was fighting fire out of region or even off forest during those years, I was a hotshot and usually only concerned with what my crew was doing on our section of line. There could have been permanent Type II crews working around us and I wouldn’t have necessarily known whose they were or how they were formed.
I do know from watching Joy’s video about Norb, that the State of Nevada with Norb in the lead for his area formed and used standing Type II crews and it it appears that where Bob worked there were some permanent Type II crews in California or Idaho…I guess?
What did those crews do when they weren’t on fires…Bob and Norb? Were they brush disposal crews like Granite Mountain 7, or tree planting crews or what? How were they paid in Bob’s case. Out of Region or did the Forest fund them somehow out of hard project dollars, because without using WO/Regional FIRE dollars that would really add up?
Norb has tried to reply on IM, Gary
glitches-
the site says he is not human
maybe so 🙂
The Type 2 crews are AD Crews Picked up or signed on when ordered for fire. Not normally used for any thing else.
Contract Engine crews with Engine Have been used in the past on a contract basses to add to the local forest emergency fire forces during extreme fire seasons. Haven’t seen any crews used for that (Pre Position) That are AD Type 2. Not saying that could not happen or hasn’t happened since I left. .
Bob
It has changed since you left – numerous type 2 crews are statused in the GAC’s as a resource available nationally. These are not just contractors but also local government and some state.
Depending on geographic area and local knowledge some of these crews ( on local fires ) are given assignments similar to what a type 1 crew might receive. Again, if the overhead knows the skill and capabilities of that crew – otherwise they get a ” cautious” assignment.
In addition, these same type 2 crews do get pre positioned. In fact one of our local crews was pre positioned in Phoenix prior to the Yarnell fire.
Thanks Norb Times do change especially in this drought driven Fire seasons.
Yeah…I just watched the trailer. They got that part right. Not right in the sense that it is right…or fair. But right in the sense that is how it is. I think Bob, Fred and I have given the wrong impression about hotshot crew bosses in general and USFS hotshot crew bosses in particular because we have been so nice and reasonable. As a group, they are never going to win a Congeniality Award.
Somebody help me with that story about a USFS hotshot crewmember stepping out of his crew line and making a scratch line down the middle of the road in front of Granite Mountain…and then telling them not to step over it.
Oh…the competition extends down within each crew as well…it is saw team 1 against saw team 2, squad 1 against squad 2, me against you.
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 10, 2017 at 8:12 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> Somebody help me with that story about a USFS hotshot
>> crewmember stepping out of his crew line and making a scratch
>> line down the middle of the road in front of Granite Mountain…
>> and then telling them not to step over it.
Actually… he ( supposedly ) used spray paint to ‘draw the line’.
That ‘story’ first appeared in that original article published back in September of 2013 by ‘Outside Online’ magazine… BEFORE even the original SAIR investigation document was published.
The article was written by former Hotshot Kyle Dickman, who was one of the first to obtain in-person interviews with the likes of Brendan McDonough and Darrell Willis and former Granite Mountain ( Crew 7 ) Superintendent Marty Cole.
Outside Online
Article Title: 19: The True Story of the Yarnell Hill Fire
Published: September 17, 2013
By: Former Hotshot Kyle Dickman
https://www.outsideonline.com/1926426/19-true-story-yarnell-hill-fire
The part about “don’t cross this line” is at the bottom below… but the whole section from the article about the ‘tribalism’ and how ‘insular’ fire departments and crews really were/are seems relevant to the current discussion…
—————————————————————————————-
About the time Eric was scouting the fire, Marty Cole was “fiddle farting” in his garage in Chino Valley, a small ranching town just north of Prescott. He got the call to head to Yarnell to act as a safety officer, one of a few lead personnel converging on the fire.
Marty had worked for Prescott area fire departments for more than 30 years and is what’s known in the business as an old salt—an arbiter of firefighting culture and tradition. He started his fire career in 1980, well before the city launched its wildland-firefighting division. Back then, firefighter culture was so tribal that city, county, and federal departments refused to leave their jurisdictions. If a fire was burning inside city limits—wildland or otherwise—it was the city’s problem and nobody else’s. Marty remembers one of the first burned bodies he ever saw. “A young kid burned to death in a car fire,” he says. “Two blocks away, firefighters from the neighboring department sat inside their station and watched the smoke column rise.”
Many of those walls have since been torn down. But the tribalism still exists, and it’s strongest within the insular world of hotshots. Marty was the superintendent of Granite Mountain from 2004 to 2005, when Eric first joined and they were trying to become a hotshot crew.
It was a humbling process. At the time, every one of the roughly 100 hotshot crews in the nation was funded by states or the feds—the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs—and many of them had decades of tradition. Granite Mountain, a startup outfit hosted by a small town in Arizona that most other hotshots had never heard of, wasn’t exactly well received.
The crew once showed up at a fire in Oregon in white ten-passenger vans. Real crews use buggies. When Granite Mountain went out to start work, a firefighter from another crew drew a line in the middle of the road with spray paint and wrote Don’t cross it.
“When I left ( the crew ), Eric had something to prove,” says Marty.
“He was going to make that crew better than any other out there.”
—————————————————————————————–
Thank you…that’s the one. It’s a world full of sweethearts!
I wish I could have been with Bob, I think he enjoyed his time as a hotshot more than I enjoyed mine?
It was a carrier move for me but one of the best jobs I ever had in the Fire world. It truly helped my carrier and made me a better fireman.
I can tell you enjoyed your time as a Hot Shot. Lots of good memories.
Just watched the trailer up above with the Kimmel link…I think he says a
“a bunch of douches” as in “douchebags”, which sounds about right. And not that it is right, but….oh never mind, yes the WF world is full of people who aren’t nice.
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 10, 2017 at 8:20 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> I think he says a “a bunch of douches” as in “douchebags”,
Gee… that makes me feel soooooo much better.
🙂 Your welcome.
Just for the record, being a hotshot is like the line from MIB when J asks K as K starts to walk away, “Hey…is it worth it?”
K turns and says, “Oh yeah, it’s worth it…”
and then as he walks away he says, “…if you’re strong enough!”
I know how much everyone loves my old Fire stories…so here’s another one.
After a while as a hotshot, I started playing a head game with myself wherever we were heading towards a wildfire. As we were driving towards the smoke column in the distance, I would always do two things.
First, I would size up the smoke column so I would know what the fire was doing, to get an idea how bad it was going to be when we hit the fire line and what we were facing so I could get mentally ready for whatever was coming our way.
The sencond thing I would do is pick a landmark we were passing and I would give the smoke column a good hard look. And then as we left, whenever that was, and we we passed the same landmark going the other way, I would turn around and give the location where the smoke column had been a good hard look and I knew it was gone because in part of what I had done.
The job is definitely worth it…if you’re strong enough!
Clarification –
Actor Josh Hopkins ( to Brolin/Marsh ):
You guys are Type 2.
So why don’t you do what you do best.
Stay in the BACK and mop up our SHIT.
I believe what Hopkins is referring to is actually what usually happens. The Type II crews come behind the hotshot crews to mop up their line. I don’t think he is referring to the Type II crew to actually clean up their shit….he is telling them to do what Type II crews to, maybe do some line imporvement, hold the line the hotshot cuts, watch for spot fires while holding the line while waiting to move in and start mopping up the fire X chains in from the line. That is the kind of “shit” type II crews normally do while the hotshots are cutting fire line….hot line.
That is actually why they have hotshot crews and when there isn’t any hot line to cut, they are sent home to get ready for the next fire where there is hot line or line in general to cut or go directly to the next fire where there is line to cut and the type II crews either start mopping up the fire or they are brought in to mop up the fire.
They don’t mind, that is their bread and butter, the bread and butter of hotshot crews is cutting hot line. That doesn’t mean type II or even lesser crews never cut line, nor doe sit mean hotshots never mop up. But like any organization, there is a division of labor.
And FYI…How do you get ordinary people to do extraordinary things? You convince them of their own superiority. It works.
And it might be time for a refresher on what the typical Type II crew is. Most Type II don’t exist except in theory unless there is a fire to mop up. Now….I might be a little off here on my definitions because things have changed, but this is how it was in my day.
Land management agencies who have responsibility for suppressing wildfires on the land they manage can’t afford to hire all of the WF they need. So they hire a cadre or core group of firefighters. Some are permanent full time but most are temporary employees. They do all kinds of things, in fact they do anything you can think of that needs to be done to manage state or federal land. These people get the most training and the best equipment while they are planting trees, building fence, marking trees, counting sticks for fuel inventories, installing culverts, grading roads, thinning trees…whatever.
And then they go to areas of the country where there are huge pockets of unemployed or maybe underemployed people. These areas are mostly on Native American Reservations but the also include Northern New Mexico, the Snake River Valley in Oregon and Idaho and parts of Appalachia and the southern states.
People from these areas are signed up at the beginning of the fire season, trained as entry level firefighters if they haven’t been and given the physical fitness test and depending on who is doing the organization, crew bosses and squad bosses are identified. Caches of fire clothes and personal protective gear like hard hats are stored near where these firefighters come from.
Part of my job as the Forest Dispatcher on the Santa Fe was to do this for several Pueblos who have a long history of firefighting and therefore have a highly developed management structure based on their tribal leadership.
So…an order comes in for X Type II crews and I contact the District Fire Management Officers and order Y number of crews and they contact the pueblo leadership and the call goes out, which was pretty simple in a pueblo but would be more complicated on the vast reaches of the Navajo Reservation.
Those who can fit it into their schedule to be gone for a few weeks from their day jobs, show up and get on the buses sent to pick them up and take them to an airport to fly to wherever they are needed or drive there if the fire is close by.
Believe me….these crews are pretty darn happy when they are told to hold the line, maybe do a little line improvement, watch for spot fires, and hang out until the fire cools off enough so they can go in and start mopping it up for the next few weeks because they get 3 meals a day and paid pretty good.
Sometimes you need cattle prods to get them off their asses to work depending on the culture of the area where they came from, but that is the job of the agency Crew Liaison Officer, who tells their Crew Boss, who tells their Squad Bosses who then get told in their own language to shut the fuck up and leave them alone as they pretend to start working again for a few minutes until the CLO has to go find the next bunch hiding out somewhere.
They then find a nice place to take a nap, eat their sack lunches, throw the trash everywhere and wait until it is time to go back to fire camp and eat dinner or breakfast depending if they are working a night shift or a day shift.
Except for the Pueblo crews, they have a culture and tradition that demands they do a good job. Everyone else….it’s a real crap shoot what you are going to get. But no matter what, you get SOMEBODY to come and do the dirty work and that is usually better than NOBODY to show up and do the dirty work…even at half or quarter speed.
If you want a REAL problem…assign one of these crews to cut some hot line or do some technical work on a fire. The first thing that will happen….is they won’t do it because they will think you are out of your fucking mind. If they do…there’s a pretty good chance you are going to end up with a bunch of crispy critters to ship back home in body bags.
I got talked into taking a Type II crew to Washington state once when they were short a CLO at the fucking airport! So my assistant took the Santa Fe Hotshots and I took a Spanish Type II crew from Northern New Mexico.
Let’s just say it didn’t go very well for anyone…and everyone agreed that I should never take out another crew again as a CLO. I wasn’t able to turn off the sections of my brain that evaluated what was acceptable behavior and what wasn’t acceptable behavior for a group of people who was impersonating a fire crew. I tried….I really tried. I knew what was expected of me, I knew what I had to do, I knew what everyone wanted….I just couldn’t do it. I had watched them “work” for years…I knew what to expect, I knew what was coming, but once I was there….it was like fingernails on a chalkboard for 12 fucking hours straight. I just got lucky those sorry assholes didn’t kill me, but they came close.
Sorry about that…I digressed and had another flashback. So anyway…there are a “few” other Type II crews out there. I think most of them know what and who they are…and they are okay with it. They either like the work they signed on for, or they are just getting their ticket punched so they can get hired on an engine, or helislack (if their goal is to lay around a lot and lick their nuts…or their, whatever) or a hotshot crew.
These crews are normally “better” Type II crews because they have regular jobs to go back to and their regular bosses are with them and there would be consequences to just go find a log to take a nap behind. And the biggest difference…is these people work together all of the time because they are a “crew.”
Maybe they are like the old Granite Mountain 7, they are a fuels reduction crew, or maybe they are a trails crew who build and repair hiking trails, or maybe they are a timber marking crew, but probably not, but they might be a tree planting crew or a thinning crew?
There probably isn’t 20 of them or there are more than 20 of them, but in any case, the District Fire Management Officers can figure out how to group these people together and make them into a 20 person Type II crew who have the basic training, have passed the fitness test and have an organizational structure.
The one thing they have in common, they don’t want to do what hotshots do either, or they are just waiting to get hired to be hotshots in the meantime, they are okay holding the line the hotshots cut, maybe doing a little line improvement, watching for spot fires and eating their sack lunches until the their section of line cools off enough and somebody tells to start mopping up.
If you send them to do what a hotshot crew does…make sure you have some body bags back in fire camp because you are probably going to need them. It probably won’t be the first time you use them like that, but every time you do it, your chances go way up every time you do. And one more thing. They won’t thank you for sending them to do what a hotshot crew does and they aren’t resentful when you don’t expect them to perform like a hotshot crew does. They are fine with who and what they are, to them…it all pays the same. Meaning they get paid the same whether they are mopping up smokes or risking their lives while they bust their asses and they would rather do the first one.
So…that is what a Type II crew is…more or less. That psycho Marsh was the exception to the rule. He was a shit canned hotshot who wanted to reinvent himself and prove the USFS wrong and show everybody he could build a better hotshot crew than anybody else could. And he was cheered on by those assholes Stinebrink and Willis because they wanted to pad the crews time and underwrite their bullshit wildlands fire program with those fuckin’ blue shirted round hats who want to play at beomg WF.
A Type III is even more interesting. That is when the fire management people are at the bottom on the barrel and everybody else is already gone to the fires. So…they take the Junior Forester, the District Time Clerk, 3 timber markers, a heavy equipment operator, the engine crewman who was too hung over to go with his engine and then they go to the next district and find some more just like those and then they go to the Forest Supervisors Office and get a couple from the surveyors crew, the engineering crew, maybe a junior engineer, the map maker, two guys from the warehouse, the kid they hired at the replacement receptionist who just went to the fire training class because he didn’t have to sit behind a desk for a couple of days.
So…anyway, they find 16 individual train wrecks, find three squad bosses and a crew boss who meet the minimum requirement and they send them out to back up the Type II crews on the fire mop up. If you send them anywhere near the fire front, make them take their own body bags with them to save time.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule…so I think there are probably some decent Type III crew out there somewhere, just because I never saw one doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I mean, I have never seen a Unicorn either…so maybe?
Blah, blah, blah, there is a lot more to say and I could have said all of that better, but I am tired of typing.
I forgot about a whole category of Type II crews that were always good and that is the many tribes of Apaches. And always at the top of my list were the White Mountain and San Carlos Apaches. There are a lot of pretty good Type II crews I forgot to mention. Without them, we would be in a lot of trouble because YOU PEOPLE don’t hire all of the WF you need..
I already told the story on this thread about how White Mountain Apache #20 (which was an all woman crew) saved me from being burned by cutting a fire line around me when our spike camp on the Ship Island Creek Fire in Idaho, (1978, maybe 79 I would have to look it up) burned over while we were sleeping during the day shift. They saved the whole spike camp with a fire line, but I had gone a little ways down slope to find some shade away from the crew so they had to cut a special spur line around me.
I remember looking up because of all of the clanging of steel tools striking rocks next to my head and the scraping sounds all groggy still half asleep with bleary eyes that I couldn’t even focus to see a big circle of sweating and grunting women bending over me. And over their heads…I could see big trees torching out with crown fire, and I mean not very far over their heads with some creeping ground fire burning through pine needles. And then I fell back asleep and slept through the rest of it.
This is a link for the October 8, 2017 Only the Brave news conference posted on Wildfire Today
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/10/08/press-conference-with-the-cast-of-only-the-brave/
Getting the video to play is a bit troublesome. The video and audio actually begin about the 4:27 mark.
A banner in the background states: “based on the TRUE story of the GMHS …” and the narrator stated the movie was “based on the REAL EVENTS in the 2013 GQ article titled No Exit.”
https://www.gq.com/story/granite-mountain-hotshots-firefighters-only-the-brave
McDonough was introduced as a “CREATIVE CONSULTANT” whatever that is
Actress Jennifer Connelly was introduced as portraying “Amanda MURPH.” Yes, that’s right, MURPH – and nobody even blinked an eye or questioned that blunder. WTF
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on October 10, 2017 at 11:04 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Actress Jennifer Connelly was introduced as portraying “Amanda MURPH.”
>> Yes, that’s right, MURPH – and nobody even blinked an eye or questioned
>> that blunder. WTF
WTF indeed… especially since the guy ALSO then went on and got the name of the character Josh Brolin is playing completely wrong.
The guy said…
“I wanna direct the next question to Jennifer. You play… uh… Amanda MURPH… the wife of Josh’s character SOUP…”
What actually happened there was the moron was reading off a printed copy of a GQ article that says Josh Brolin was playing Eric Marsh…. but the same GQ article then added the designation of “Supe” ( for Supervisor ) after Brolin’s name.
So the idiot thought “Supe” was the name of Brolin’s character in the film.
I also love how he asked what the difference was between ‘Wildland’ firefighters and ‘Firefighters who are Stationary’.
Geez.
Considering the MILLIONS OF DOLLARS being spent on the marketing alone for this film… they could have easily gotten someone to moderate this Q/A who wasn’t so freakin’ CLUELESS.
Maybe he was the only GQ magazine employee who was willing to work on a Sunday.
Reply to Joy A Collura post on October 8, 2017 at 1:39 pm
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> it seems the LCES and 10&18 will be pushed in this movie and yet it confuses me.
Yes.
It ‘appears’ as if this ‘fillum’ is going to go out its way to try and establish that the Granite Mountain Hotshots in general ( and Eric Marsh in particular ) were VERY familiar with LCES, the 10 standard ‘orders’ and the 18 ‘watchouts’…
…despite the fact that they DIED while IGNORNING those very same ‘rules of engagement’.
The full video of the Q/A with actors and director prior to the LA premiere last night is still sitting on GQ magazine’s public Facebook page…
https://www.facebook.com/gq/videos/vb.7962048097/10156646714833098/?type=3&theater
Direct URL for the video would be…
https://www.facebook.com/gq/videos/10156646714833098/
At the END of this video, right after the Q/A session ends, ( when the video time display says -6:03 ) the GQ magazine folks have included a full ‘scene’ from the movie that is not part of any ‘trailer’ and had never been seen before.
The ‘transcript’ of what happens and what is said in this full scene from the movie is as follows…
———————————————————————————————————–
When the ‘scene’ begins… we see the actors playing the GM Hotshots split into ‘Squad A’ and ‘Squad B’, and they are both ‘digging line’ across from each other on the edges of a firebreak.
Actor James Badge Dale ( who plays Jesse Steed ) is in-between the ‘Squads’ and yelling at them to keep putting out ‘max effort’ and dig line.
Dale/Steed: “Heads up Bravo. Let’s go Bravo. Pick it up. Max level!”.
Camera cuts to actor Josh Brolin ( playing Eric Marsh ) also standing in-between the two hard working ‘Squads’.
Brolin/Marsh then yells out the following to the actor who is playing GM Hotshot Scott Norris.
SIDENOTE: Apparently, GM Hotshot Scott Norris is being played by one of the Blacklabel Media film producers named Thad Luckinbill.
Brolin/Marsh: “Norris. Pop quiz. You’re cuttin’ a line on a sidehill below the fire. Debris and logs start to roll down across your line. Whadda you do?”.
Luckinbill/Norris: “Do a cut trench. Move the logs so they’re up and down the slope”.
Brolin/Marsh: “There it is. Outstanding”.
Brolin/Marsh now turns towards Miles Teller, the actor playing Brendan McDonough, and aks him to recite the 11th ‘Watchout’ order.
Brolin/Marsh: “Hey McDonough. Pop quiz. What’s your eleventh watchout?”
Teller/McDonough hesitates, then looks to his left at another firefighter.
Brolin/Marsh: “Nah… don’t look at HIM. Look at ME. What’s your eleventh watchout?”
Teller/McDonough: “Uh… the fireline hasn’t been anchored…”.
Brolin/Marsh: “No. That’s EIGHT”.
Teller/McDonough: “Uh… you’re gettin’ spot fires across the…”.
Brolin/Marsh: ( yelling now ) “That’s SIXTEEN”.
Teller/McDonough: “Uh…”
Brolin/Marsh: “Alpha Squad HOLD”.
( The Squad stops digging line )
Brolin/Marsh ( addressing the entire Squad ): “What’s your eleventh watch out?”.
ALL the members of Squad A ( excluding McDonough ) answer in unison…
“Unburned fuel between you and the fire””.
The camera moves to a ‘closeup’ now as Brolin/Marsh immediately gets right in Teller/McDonough’s face and angrily says to him…
Brolin/Marsh: “Firefighters DIED for us so that we could learn all these watchouts. If you get another one wrong I’m gonna CHOKE YOU OUT.”
———————————————————————————————————
In his second ( of two ) ADOSH interviews ( held on October 10, 2013 ), the REAL Brendan McDonough was asked specifically about the ‘Standard Safety Rules’ for Wildland Firefighting.
Brendan responded that there is a ‘book’ about them ( a standard operating guide ), which includes the 10 and 18 and other things… but that he had now ‘put himself somewhere else in life’ and would not be able to ‘remember most of them’.
Then he said ( with regards to the 10 and 18 )…
Q2 = Marshall Krotenberg – Lead ADOSH investigator
A = Granite Mountain Hotshot Brendan McDonough.
———————————————————————————————————
A: It’s – it’s hillbilly. It’s what it is.
Q2: Yeah?
A: It’s old. It’s, uh, no offense to whoever came up with that, um, I mean no disrespect to anybody, but, I mean, it is the way they fight wildland fires today is, I mean…
Q2: Oh it’s…
A: We’re smart. We’re a lot smarter.
——————————————————————————————————-
SIDENOTE: In Brendan McDonough’s own book… one of the only ‘sections’ that DOES appear to have been fully ‘authored’ by him was when he was detailing his own ‘training’ experience.
Brendan goes into quite a lot of ‘detail’ about what that was like for him… and especially the part where no one really knew that he had been using heroin almost right up until the time he started the ‘two weeks of hell’ training period… and so it was all so much worse for him because he was basically going through ‘withdrawls’ at the same time he was trying to make it through the intensive initial ‘training’ period.
But at no time does Brendan recount any ‘story’ that even vaguely resembles what is now depicted in the above ‘scene’ from the upcoming ‘fillum’.
Brendan barely mentions the ’10 and 18′ and/or LCES in his book… and does not report that other than them being things in the ‘training guides’… that they were anything that the training itself spent any great amount of time ‘focusing on’.
On the contrary… Brendan’s own book pretty much confirms that the operating ‘philosophy’ of Eric Marsh’s Granite Mountain organizations was, in fact, more along the lines of…
“You have to risk a lot to save a lot”.
Well…I assume every other current and former wildland firefighter was as what…disgusted, disappointed, unsurprised, amused at the photos from the red carpet premier of the movie about Hotshots and wildland firefighters? I haven’t seen so many round hats in their fancy dress blue uniforms since, what? Oh….I remember now, the memorial service for the wildland firefighting hotshot crew that was killed battling a wildfire. I actually thought the producer, director and primary actors of this movie actually “got it” after some of the recent information they put out, but I was wrong…again. What a joke…and the joke is on wildland firefighters!
On another note, just as long as I am blogging this morning and just in case anybody has ever wondered what am referring to when I say the Happy Jack Hotshot experience was like Animal House meets The Lord Of The Flies at a wildland firefighting Special Operations Group, forward operating base.
Which of course is some more colorful hyperbole on my part, it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was different from the experience most Hotshots have…I hope. There are some others out there who had similar experiences, especially back in the good ole days, but we were really “old school” in our living conditions and work environment because it was far more…INTENSE than the average crew experience.
I do know we were alone in both our working environment and living conditions on the Coconino National Forest and any other crew in Region 3 except for maybe the Negrito Hotshots down on the Gila in southern New Mexico. We went down there to a fire once and those boys were pretty far in the outback in the middle of nowhere in some fairly primitive living condithions.
So anyway….what made us so special? We lived in a WWII barracks I was told had been hauled up from a Japenese Interment camp that had been down in Eloy, Arizona. There were two rows of 8 military cots lined up against both walls for the length of the “big half” of the barracks. Each bunk had a military footlocker at the foot of the cot, just like they always show in the movies for our clothes and personal items.
I could reach out and touch the bunk on either side of my bed without stretching out my arms. The coveted bunks were at either end of the building except for the one that sat directly under the huge industrial furnace hanging from the ceiling by the door. When it was on, it sounded like a small jet engine, of course there wasn’t any insulation or any sheetrock on the walls, just one layer of old wood. And at 7400 feet up in the mountains it was either always cold in the barracks or hot depending on whether the furnace was on or off at the time.
The bunk that was open for me when I first showed up for work was in the middle of one of the rows and wasn’t a coveted spot, but I returned to the same bunk for the next three years I was a crewman and squad boss like a salmon swimming home. I don’t even know why I didn’t go for one of the bunks on the end once I had seniority, except we are all creatures of habit…especially me.
At the far end of the barracks opposite the front and only door, were single sheets of plywood that seperated the barracks from the kitchen where our cook prepared our meals. There was an an old Hopi firefighter from the old days at Hopi Jack who was the assistant cook and dish washer. For my first three years on the crew our cook was a volatile Vietnam combat vet who yelled and cussed up a storm every morning while he starting to cook our breakfasts. We were usually woken up by him screaming and throwing a frying pan against the wall if he over cooked an omelette or for just about any other reason. We never complained about his cooking, although truthfully there was nothing to ever complain about.
Then through an open doorway from the industrial kitchen was our mess hall. There were two long wooden tables that had been conference room tables at one time in a Ranger Station. They were both made out of solid wood from way back when they made real furniture, one was Oak and the other was made out of cherry wood, we had the widest assortment of old office and dining room chairs you can imagine, some of which looked like they were made and used by the CCC’s.
And then at the far end of the barracks, once again seperated by a single sheet plywood wall was the “little” end of the barracks that was where the truly coveted bunks were. There was only room for four bunks in that end and it was reserved for the crew boss, the two squad bosses and one senior crewman. It also doubled as the crew office and had a small work table. I don’t know why, but I didn’t even move in there after I was a squad boss and by the time I was crew boss, the FMO got me a small old school travel trailer like an old air stream except it wasn’t an Airstream, nor did I’d have running water, or a bathroom, but I was still very grateful.
I guess I never moved in to the little end of the barracks because either I enjoyed or was at least used to the camaraderie of the main barracks, although I probably wouldn’t have missed all of the snoring, farting, coughing, hacking, snorting and groaning 16 guys can make both going to sleep and waking up. Not to mention the fact that most guys didn’t walk more than a couple of feet to take a piss in the middle of the night and some just stood on the top step.
Which brings up the showers and toilets, they were in another building across the road and down a short path. The toilets had stalls, but the shower was an open communal military style with a half dozen or so shower heads. There was a washing machine in that building but no dryer so we used a clothesline.
In another building that was half of a similar barracks for the engine crews, there was a small rec room with a pool table, a ping pong table and a small black and white TV that usually just showed a snowy picture from a local station in Flagstaff which was 50 miles away to the northwest. And out behind the barracks was a combination volley ball and basketball court that got a lot of use in the evenings and on Sunday morning after PT because that was our camp day to do chores like change out the water in the crew canteens, sharpen tools, clean up the grounds and generally fuck off as long as we looked busy.
So….those were our living conditions. Now here comes the point of my story. We were called out on fires 24 hours a day and in fact most call outs came in the evening or in the middle of the night after somebody let wildfire get away from them somewhere in the country during the late afternoon burn period and then they hit the panic button to call in the hotshots.
In order to go off forest, which of course included out of state fires where we would make the most money, we had to have at least 18, and everyone preferred we go with 20. And even with our cook who was qualified as a firefighter and some fill ins from the engine crews, having that magic number could be problematic because of vacancies or guys out hurt, especially in the days before pagers or cell phones and we had no lead time because we had to drive to an airport and in town crews were already by an airport.
So…here is the bottom line. The crew self imposed restrictions on itself to never leave the compound during our work week except to go as a crew to the Mormon Lake Lodge Bar on Saturday night if we weren’t on a fire. We also self imposed similar restrictions on ourselves even on our days off, which most guys spent in Flagstaff where we were like grapes and hung out in bunches. Anybody that violated those conditions…were no longer eligible to remain in our tribe.
And now here is my point…working with, living with, eating with, sleeping with, showering with and even spending our days off with the same guys day after day, sometimes for weeks without even having a day off and for months at a time, usually with long hours under difficult circumstances and in challenging working conditions, the stress of maintaining interpersonal relationships could often become extreme and required everyone to work together to maintain crew cohesion and compatibility. Some guys could handle it and some guys had psychotic breakdowns and had to leave, but it was one of the hardest aspects of the job and could be very INTENSE.
Reply to Gary Olson post on October 9, 2017 at 8:36 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> Well…I assume every other current and former wildland
>> firefighter was as what…disgusted, disappointed,
>> unsurprised, amused at the photos from the red carpet
>> premier of the movie about Hotshots and wildland
>> firefighters? I haven’t seen so many round hats in
>> their fancy dress blue uniforms since, what? Oh….I
>> remember now, the memorial service for the wildland
>> firefighting hotshot crew that was killed battling a
>> wildfire. I actually thought the producer, director
>> and primary actors of this movie actually “got it”
>> after some of the recent information they put out,
>> but I was wrong…again. What a joke…and the joke is
>> on wildland firefighters!
There were NO ‘Hotshot’ crews at all on the ‘Red Carpet’ for this ‘fillum’ that is supposedly ABOUT ‘Hotshots’.
Lifeguards… yes.
Actual Wildland Firefighters / Hotshots… no.
Unbelievable.
Deadline Hollywood
Article Title: ‘Only The Brave’ Red Carpet Premiere Pays Tribute To 100 First Responders
Published: October 8, 2017 7:40pm by Dino-Ray Ramos
http://deadline.com/2017/10/only-the-brave-red-carpet-premiere-first-responders-josh-brolin-joseph-kosinski-dierks-bentley-columbia-pictures-1202184632/
Here is who they ‘tapped’ to line the Red Carpet for a movie
about ‘Hotshots’…
Los Angeles County Fire Department
Los Angeles City Fire Department
Long Beach Fire Department
Orange County Fire Department
San Bernardino County Fire Department
San Bernardino City Fire Department
Downey Fire Department
Compton Fire Department
Manhattan Beach Fire Department
Cal Fire
El Segundo Fire Department
Apple Valley Fire Department
San Diego City Fire Department
Los Angeles County Fire/Lifeguards
Long Beach Fire/Lifeguards.
The L.A. County Fire Department helicopter also gave a flyby during the premiere
And here is the very first public comment made on this article…
—————————————————————————————————
Comment by: Graham Koonce
I hope for the sake of the entire wildland fire fighting community that there were plenty of US Forest Service representatives invited to attend. I don’t see any of them on the list in the article.
—————————————————————————————————-
Yes, that is exactly what it looked like. The fuckin’ structural firefighters even get honored at and get invited to the premiere of OUR fuckin’ movie. I really dislike those fuckin’ blue shirted stupid fuck structural firefighters…especially when they play at being wildland firefighters just for the fuckin’ money their union gets them for fuckin’ off and walking around with their fuckin’ hoses in their fuckin’ hands. Stupid fuckin’ blue shirts and round hats. I mean..it’s not like LA isn’t surrounded by a bunch of USFS hotshot crews.
Oh….and one more thing. It’s not like the USFS provided us that wonderful crew quarters and those meals for free. The meals were a pretty good deal but the crew quarters was a real fuckin’ rip off.
My first year on the Prescott I lived out in the middle of nowhere, but it was in a standard ratty mobile home and I had my own bedroom so the money it cost me wasn’t bad. But we paid the same exact rate that was deducted out of every paycheck for that fuckin’ cot in that old barracks. So if you were a GS-3 with no fires during that pay period, you almost owed the government money.
The ratty old mobile homes that were surplus FEMA trailers was more the standard for the USFS if you worked and lived at a remote duty station. The USFS could get all of the old ratty FEMA trailers they wanted, they just had to pay to have them shipped from wherever the last hurricane was, which was why they didn’t get very many of them.
It was pretty sweet in Santa Fe. We were an in town crew with an airport in town that could handle big jets and a short drive to Albuquerque to a much bigger airport, so everybody had a home to go to when we were off and there was a lot less stress on the crew and a lot less conflict..
Our problem at Happy Jack is that it was a long drive to the Winslow airport and a really long drive to the Phoenix airport, so like I said, they were pretty unforgiving with the lead time we were allowed. It was like,get on the fuckn’ bus…NOW! It could be pretty funny in the middle of the night. The FMO would come roaring up to the barracks layin’ on his horn, it was like a Royal Cluster Fuck with everybody staggering out of the barracks trying to get dressed in fire clothes while running in the glare of his headlights. We never flew out of Flagstaff, I guess the runway was too short for a jet? Ahhhhhh…..memories.
Oh….and if somebody wasn’t there to stagger on to the crew carrier….may God forgive them because we wouldn’t. You don’t want to cost a hotshot crew a bunch of money. Fuck offs were not tolerated.
FYI…malcontents and slackers weren’t tolerated either. Nobody wants to listen to somebody else bitch when you are completely miserable yourself and nobody wants to pick up the slack for a slacker. They expect X amount of work from a hotshot crew and they never say, but you only came with 18 and you have 3 slackers, 2 malcontents and 1 fuck off so you guys don’t have to cut as much line as the other crews do today.
So hotshot crews are pretty good at policing themselves and weeding out those who should seek other employment. Unless….it starts at the top, they say a fish rots from the head. That is why the Carson Hotshots used to be more like an organized gang than a hotshot crew back in the day and the original Santa Fe Hotshots were about the same which was why they were disbanded years before I founded the “New” Santa Fe Hotshots. Interestingly enough, both crews worked under Al Lopez, who was a pretty good guy…just weak, but Fred says Carson is squared away now and I know the Santa Fe Hotshots are still kickin’ ass, the Woodsman assured me of that.
Which brings up my main point. That is why it was so serious that Eric Marsh was smokin’ dope and drinking alcohol on the fireline when he was with the Globe Hotshots as a detailed squad boss. And that is why the crew got sent home from the Clear Creek Fire in Idaho and Marsh was shit canned from the USFS.
You just can’t run a hotshot crew that way for every long. People start to notice. And yes…I am going to keep bringin’ that up just so nobody forgets because I want to know what role that attitude played in how the Granite Mountain Crew was run and what impact if any (other than several of them were drunk/hung over) it had on the Yarnell Hill Fire and why the crew is now DEAD!
So…I was telling you about the volatile and eccentric cook we had for the first three seasons I was on the Happy Jack Hotshots. And FYI, whenever he hurled a frying pan at the wall while cussing up a blue streak…whatever he was cooking in the frying pan that had infuriated him went with the frying pan and ended up splattered on the wall.
And since I am in the story telling mood today and working on my book, here is my favorite Bob, the long haired bearded hippie former Vietnam combat vet who was hiding out from the world at Happy Jack, which is now an excerpt from my book.
“One of my more memorable experiences on a fire involved Bob, some firefighters from the Sioux Nation and me. We were at a large spike camp on the Hog Fire in Northern California in 1977. This camp was supporting 20 Category II crews and 5 Category I Hotshot crews in addition to a couple of dozen of miscellaneous overhead.
We had been working on the fire line for several days either eating what we had originally carried in our butt packs on our web gear, rats hauled for miles up the line or nothing. Everyone was pretty hungry by the time we were able to cut a helispot big enough for supply helicopters land in.
The first time a helicopter came in; it brought only a couple of dozen five gallon containers of hot food. Which was really great, except for one thing; there obviously wasn’t nearly enough food to feed everyone and it was almost dark when the chopper landed and it didn’t look there was going to be another one, which there wasn’t..
Our crew boss had stayed with the crew a couple hundred yards away from the madhouse center of the spike camp where the food had been brought to, but he sent me over to find out how they were going to distribute the chow. I don’t remember if I took Bob with me because he was our cook; or he just went with me because he was Bob and usually did his own thing.
Of course the hotshot crews were well disciplined and waited in the background while only the crew bosses or squad bosses went forward to find out how the supply people were going to handle the distribution of the food. The Category II crews however, were a different matter altogether; all of them went forward en masse to get next to the food, which resulted in a very large crowd standing around not enough food containers.
So anyway, there we were, standing in the middle of nowhere on a black night on the side of a mountain. Bob and me; surrounded by dozens of Lakota and Oglala Sioux from the Black Hills of South Dakota. All of us just standing there looking down at a fraction of the food that was needed to feed the multitude of hungry firefighters.
Bob then announces, in a very loud voice so that everyone could hear, “OKAY GARY, YOU BLOCK THE FUCKIN’ INDIANS, AND I’LL GRAB THE FOOD AND RUN! Bob then laughed at his joke, even though no one was laughing with him but he didn’t seem to be at all fazed by their lack of appreciation for his sense of humor..
I on the other hand, froze in place and did not dare move a muscle. I thought to myself, “Wow, Bob has really done it this time for sure; I wonder how this crazy cook is going to make it out of here in one piece!” Then I slowly looked up, and started to say, “What do you mean we; White Man?” because believe me, I was as offended by Bob’s racial bias and insensitivity as several dozen Sioux firefighters were and who locked their eyes on…..me!
They were ignoring Bob; who had already picked up a container of food and was calmly walking away! I thought…”Hey wait a minute, this isn’t fair, I didn’t say it”, but they didn’t seem care. I slowly backed away without making any sudden movement until I was out of the crowd. I then went di di mau, most riki-tic back to the safety of the crew who were already starting to eat out of the container of hot food our cook had scored.”
Reply to Cheerleader post on October 7, 2017 at 12:55 am
>> Cheerleader said…
>>
>> LIVE with the cast and filmmakers of #OnlyTheBrave
>>> THIS SUNDAY at 10:05 AM PT / 1:05 PM ET. Submit
>> your questions using #AskOnlyTheBrave!
>>
>> https://www.instagram.com/onlythebravemovie/
>>
>> GO AHEAD wwtktt— SUBMIT your QUESTIONS!
That ‘event’ just ended and there were only 3 questions asked.
The cast and production people are there in Los Angeles for the LA ‘red carpet’ premiere tonight.
At the ‘Facebook Live’ event just held…
Left to right, at the back row of tables…
James Kosinski, Director
Taylor Kitsch ( actor playing Chrsitopher MacKenzie )
James Badge Dale ( actor playing Jesse Steed )
Pat McCarty ( Former GM Hotshot hired as a ‘consultant’ for the film )
Left to right… front table…
Brendan McDonough ( Lone survivor from the 2013 Yarnell tragedy )
Miles Teller ( actor who plays McDonough )
Josh Brolin ( actor that plays Eric Marsh )
Jennifer Connelly ( actor that plays Amanda Marsh )
Jeff Bridges ( actor that plays Duane Stenibrink )
It was a ‘low key’ event… with most of the cast and crew just commenting that it was an ‘honor’ to be asked to participate in the film. There was very little discussion of the Granite Mountain Hotshots themselves or what the movie is actually about.
There were only only 3 ‘submitted’ questions asked…
Q1: Was there real fire on set… and how did you create it?
Director Kosinski answered ‘Yes’… and said they had New Mexico fire units on set to light/control all real fires and they also created a ‘fake forest’ on a backlot with a lot of hidden propane tanks so they could ‘turn a forest fire on and off’.
Q2: ( Specifically directed at actor Taylor Kitsch ) What was your favorite part about working with this cast?
Taylor Kitsch said there was no ‘favorite part’. He was just honored to meet and work with ALL the cast and crew and to meet some of the actual family members, such as Christopher MacKenzie’s father..
Q3: ( Specifically for former GM Hotshot Pat McCarty ) What was the training process like and how does it compare to real hotshot training?
Pat McCary laughs out loud… then says ( verbatim )…
———————————————————————————————————-
The training was very condensed. We’ll say that… uh…
We weren’t sure how we were gonna pull this off, ya know.
We met a coupla times, Joe ( Kosinski ) and I did…. uh…
When I first met Joe we went out and we hiked to the tree and we hiked to the actual deployment site… and somebody was carrying a chain saw… uh… I brought a chain saw with us… and we carried it out there and we walked about hundred yards and they’re like “This thing’s heavy”. Well… yea… yea, sure is… uh… so I wasn’t sure what to expect.
And then we kinda put together… I brought some more guys out… uh… with me to New Mexico from Prescott who were also Granite Mountain hotshots. Uh… came out… we put like a week-long program together… and… we weren’t sure what to expect.
We sent the guys the boots. Told them to wear ’em. Some did, some didn’t… and on day two we had a LOT of blisters… uhm… and a lot of misery… but these guys… we put them right into the thick of it. They were digging line… uh… they were using chain saws… they were learning how to use the drip torches… the fusees that start fires… uhm… taught ’em a lot about chainsaws… using… uh… direct line versus indirect line, and hiking, hiking, hiking.
Uhm… and then, on the very last night… uh… we all slept outside under the stars in the dirt. No tents. Uh… just kinda drove our buggies out into the forest a little ways and said “Hey, this is where we sleep”.
And we did that on and off for a full week… and… uh… they jumped right in… and… uh… it was awesome.
It was a very cool experience. No one ever complained.
Uhm… I think at one point somebody said… “I have a mild rubbing issue going on.”
( Cast members laugh loudly )
Meanwhile… Scott Foxx’s feet are about to fall off from the blisters and he’s silent.
But… they all did fantastic… and there was never a complaint.
At least not to me.
——————————————————————————————————-
That was the end of the ‘Facebook Live’ event.
SIDENOTE 1: Interesting to ‘note’ that former GM Hoshot Pat McCarty now CONFIRMS that even prior to the start of principal photography in New Mexico… a group of cast and crew DID make a visit out to the actual deployment site in Yarnell.
SIDENOTE 2: Regarding all this flip-flopping in the posters and the trailers and other media about how to label this movie… there was a ‘photo’ online of the actual ‘press passes’ for last night’s official ‘media event’ in LA… and the press passes had the following printed on them…
Only The Brave
The TRUE story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
So now we are back to SONY marketing officially claiming that this movie is the no-shit TRUE story of what happened with the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
BLEACHERS-
please take the time to listen to the link above wwtktt placed on here
I have saved the video already
It had a few points to watch for-
I really believe with all my heart these actors and the young men who helped the actors to teach them the task are not even aware of the bigger scenario and is there a way without giving out your area to reach the world because it seems the LCES and 10&18 will be pushed in this movie and yet it confuses me and as well seeing the insert of other areas—I really am thinking we should just get it out there now versus waiting— what is your take on that…can I share your story now on here?
I think it would be a good time to show the affects and tools—what do you think?
wwtktt said
Only The Brave
The TRUE story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
So now we are back to SONY marketing officially claiming that this movie is the no-shit TRUE story of what happened with the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
MY REPLY-
it may be just a general statement on the birth of GMHS and history of the entity/organization NOT what happened June 30 2013—to those fine men. Yet I do know this director/investors and Duane S. will not like when the movie comes out and the truths continue to push forward that they even made such film staying with even trying to USE words like TRUE…because there is just too many privately investigating and watching and pushing the realities to the forefront– it will be as Gary stated— a movie about his old stomping grounds and on topic of firefighters-
Reply to Joy A Collura post on October 8, 2017 at 3:54 pm
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> it may be just a general statement on the birth
>> of GMHS and history of the entity/organization NOT
>> what happened June 30 2013—to those fine men.
Well, perhaps… but “what ( actually ) happened June 30 2013-to those fine men” is certainly as much a part of their ‘story’ as anything else… so whatever label of ‘truth’ the SONY marketing people are trying to assign to this ‘project’ covers the portrayal of that important part of the ‘story’ as well.
I’m just amazed at the flip-flopping on the ‘product labeling’… that’s all.
Usually the ‘marketing’ has something as important as this nailed down way ahead of time… and everyone is on the ‘same page’ by the time the advertising rollouts begin.
Not this time.
Here is a photo of the ‘press passes’ given to the media out in Los Angeles for the official ‘media event’ held last Friday night…
https://twitter.com/ConnerWS/status/916843869370585088/photo/1
It says…
Only The Brave
The TRUE story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
Here is a photo of the HUGE banner that was hanging behind all the actors up on the stage itself at the ‘Q/A’ yesterday…
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLoYyEJX4AA4uy8.jpg
It says…
Only The Brave
BASED on the true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
And ( last but not least )… here is one of the recent official ‘flyers’ for the movie which I also saw sitting on the counter at my local theater when I went to see the new ‘Blade Runner’ movie yesterday…
http://www.9-1-1magazine.com/direct/user/site/0/image/only%20the%20brave%20teaser%20image.jpg
It says…
Only the Brave
The STORY of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
**
** MEDIA BLITZ IS OFFICIALLY ON FOR THE ‘FILLUM’ ABOUT GRANITE MOUNTAIN
SONY marketing has now officially ‘flipped the switch’ on their multi-platform, multi-million dollar media blitz to promote the upcoming film “Only The Brave”, about the GM Hotshots.
The official ‘media screening’ was tonight, out in Los Angeles.
Jeff Bridges has also now made the first ‘late night talk show’ appearance to promote the film. He appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show… but then did something very strange.
Bridges REFUSED to mention either the name of the ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’ or to even utter the word ‘Yarnell’. He simply said the movie is about “People who fight wildfires”. He then also suggested that the movie is simply about ‘first responders’… and actually said ( quote ) “like the people who rushed to help others after the Las Vegas shooting”.
Very odd. Almost as if he was TOLD to use that ‘talking point’ by SONY and to try and tie the upcoming film to the recent tragedy in Las Vegas.
Outside of the Sony media blitz… local Arizona media outlets have also kicked off their own coverage.
KPNX – 12 NEWS – Arizona
Article Title:
Granite Mountain Hotshot families review ‘Only the Brave’ movie
Family members of fallen Granite Mountain Hotshots react to the movie “Only the Brave,” which tells their loved ones’ stories.
Published: 10:16 PM. MST October 06, 2017
http://www.12news.com/news/local/arizona/granite-mountain-hotshot-families-review-only-the-brave-movie/481493259
From the video with various family member ‘interviews’…
+1:58
Shari TurbyfilL ( Mother of deceased GM Hotshot Travis Turbyfill )
“They should have never made this movie. I have no room in my life for the bullshit
of Hollywood trying to make a buck”.
She follwed that up with another statement on the ‘David and Shari Turbyfill’ Facebook page…
“Such a hollow tribute to such a tremendous sacrifice. A documentary would been in such a much better plan. With the focus on change and betterment for the safety of these Brave firefighters. People will do what they will do and I will say what I will say we’re all entitled. Shari Turbyfill”
And then Shari Turbyfill ( the mother of deceased GM Hotshot Travis Turbyfill ) was, of course, immediately ‘attacked’ in public for not being ‘grateful’ about the upcoming Hollywood ‘fillum’.
Just one example…
http://www.fanforum.com/f309/christopher-mackenzie-%5Bonly-brave%5D-thread-4-because-its-not-about-whats-standing-front-you-its-about-whos-standing-beside-you-63195013/index9.html
—————————————————————————————————
Comment by: KitcheSunk
I can understand the families and townspeople being concerned, but they’ve been downright hostile. Granted, it’s only been four years, so they’re still in the grieving process. In that context, I can see why they might feel it’s too soon and that Hollywood is exploiting their tragedy.
And since there was also some speculation that the real Hotshots died because of their own errors, maybe the families are afraid that the filmmakers are going to pull a rope a-dope on them and make the guys look bad. Plus the town seems so insular that maybe they just have a distrust of outsiders, period.
But these types of movies are made a lot and I don’t ever recall the families being this angry and hostile. They have a right to grieve however they need to, but there’s a point where they come off looking a little unreasonable. Especially when it seems the filmmakers have tried to be respectful and address their concerns. But who knows, maybe the filmmakers have only spun it that way.
—————————————————————————————————-
Shari said-
A documentary would been in such a much better plan.
Joy’s reply— it is already in the works
next DAY on that ONE area where my hikes are will start to be “time-stamped” YHF photos and the highway campaign IS panning out… I just have so much bandwidth time and TIME itself after the hikes—and it takes FOREVER but I am gonna have it up before I go to doctors for the ones I shared to where to find stuff—-I am doing my best for what is at hand—
it will be towards the END of the sixth video posted the pics—just having glitches—I will be in middle of it and lose entire project and it locks up—
REASON I HAVE TO SPEND MORE TIME CLEARING OFF MY PC SO I CAN DO THIS KIND OF STUFF—it has been over 6 years that I got to sit and really clean up my pc—
so earlier I was out listening to Marcia Clark and what she has to say—-OJ’s ol’ case—and she was a hoot—than she was on stage and humorous she was—and then as soon as I got home I have tried 6 times to do this photo collage project—and it keeps locking up—I have the next day or so to work on it and the thickness of fire smoke outside “right now” has me curious so I hope to get it on there but having difficulties and I think wwtktt you may have samples or the whole link long ago but this is me layering the time and date on actual pics—and it is time consuming then project LOCKS UP and then start over again from scratch EVEN THOUGH I save it throughout the project it locks up means I do not even see where I saved it from throughout the process…ugh
And today, during the official kickoff of the media blitz, actor Josh Brolin ( who plays Eric Marsh in the fillum ) seems to confirm that the same thing Jeff Bridges said on the Jimmy Kimmel show IS going to be SONY’s new ‘marketing strategy’ and the new’talking point’ for promoting the film.
That it is about ‘first responders in general’… like the ‘people in Las Vegas’, and that everyone needs to buy a ticket to honor ‘first responders’ in general.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZ9XXFIBoYQ/?hl=en&taken-by=joshbrolin
———————————————————————————-
joshbrolin – 9 hours ago
…I deeply love what this film represents: love and bravery. It’s a love for those who are us but who innately dig down and find the best part of themselves to help common us. It is the first responders and citizens and firemen and police who walked toward the bullets in Vegas to save those in peril. It’s the wildland firefighters all over the world who, out of the goodness of their hearts, tackle monster after monster of flame to protect your well being…. Support the spirit of all first responders and firefighters. See the film and you’ll never look at them in the same way. It was like that for me.
—————————————————————–
So I guess we’ll be hearing this same ‘talking point’ repeated during other interviews during the coming week.
This is why SONY makes the ‘big bucks’ for ‘marketing’ films.
You have to react to what is ‘current’ to put more butts in the seats.
Hosted by Diane J. Helm (Author)
Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 12:19 AM
I won the Giveaway hosted by Diane J. Helm (Author) on Amazon.com
and I firstly offered it to wtktt and because the sun kissed and drained me today it slipped when I was talking to local librarian
so as soon as the book comes and unknown WHAT version will come (B/W or color) but the local library IS getting my FREE copy because I have bought my book and I want the world OR locals to have the chance to read her book—what I first noted was I slowed way down and read the dedication—
and how her book came out around the time she had her son oh so long ago—sorry for the loss of Bryan (tear fell)
and how touching she used the placement of the sunflower on that page because that Friday and Saturday and Sunday that tragic weekend the first thing I noticed was the sunflower and as we hiked Morgan Loew and Brian Mockenhaupt so early on that was the first bloom I saw after the fire—may the heart and humor and not the moments that led to the end always be remembered not just for her son but ALL affected by YHF when each and everyone read her book.
May we appreciate the professionalism of the editor Kurt Florman who assisted with this book— that man amazes me and his wife Jerry too—- The loss so grand when that fire came through; very special human beings.
I believe Diane J. Helm’s could continue to make more editions as time happens—
The book captures glimpses of many areas— I think she is on the path of something BIG…I am still at picking a piece here and there as my week unfolds to peak into the book—-but I am really looking forward to my quiet hours to read it—may do it at doctor’s office Monday so people see me reading it 😉
Hey Robert F.-
DJ should reach you and me and a few others for her next edition huh—-we sure have some rich history—funny how you and I never met yet the people of the past and present parallel for us—
2:22/9:08 https://youtu.be/ZgRvXoPy7es when her book arrived I was listening to this song of a new artist on X FACTOR h tt p s://youtu. be/vN-ObPrLC_A and I was thinking about my paths in recent years—especially in August—-that “feeling” some never experience in an entire lifetime; I know I had not at that point……and then seeing this lady singing- it reminded me so much of me so long ago—so I would not be surprised I begin doing that on my hikes soon at the lookout or my walks—I feel watching her videos re-birthing me when I see the new artist singing…our styles are so alike…
ok back to message from the bleachers—>
THIS IS FROM THE BLEACHERS NOT ME TO GARY:
ThankYOU, GARY OLSON for the very logical and honest assessment of EXACTLY “who” NEEDS to be motivated to carry the effort forward from this point in the 4-plus-year effort to seek TRUTH and expose NEGLIGENCE and FRAUD. Having narrowed down the existing class of “individuals with standing” to Arizona’s Congressional Delegation, you are also admitting that, there is next-to-no-sense to seek support from City-County-State elected officials in ANY and ALL, currently, elected and otherwise responsible authority status? In fact, you are implying, that there would be NO sense in appealing DIRECTLY to TheGOVERNOR and/or anyone in any, currently, employed or serving capacity, below that level (assuming, I suppose, that “they” have ALL “preferably” continued to turn-a-blind-eye to “glaringly obvious inconsistencies” raised by concerned citizen involvement, such as those discussed by participants on this forum)?
Gary-
I am tired and sun drained so I have not read the message from bleachers but it was so long I had to make a new comment so more from the bleachers to you:
Evidence “suppressed and/or withheld” …the obvious result of refusal to take testimony from ALL individuals involved and (it would seem) less than COMPLETE financial accounting records (possibly, revealing other unidentified-but-compensated individuals and contractors)… WTKTT probably has information to clarify any problems with the full accounting records… has, longer since, adversely affected courtroom presentation of such details as would, otherwise, have called for judicial support for COMPLETE transparency and discovery! For instance, although, it would seem that every last gallon of retardant might have been accounted for, what about quantities of various “accelerants” as may have been utilized and/or needed to be replenished, after the operation had been concluded? IF TheSTATE has “something to hide” …as it would appear, both, USFS and BLM have reason enough to warrant refusal of key individual/group testimony… then, your well-intentioned and fact-based-advice of “only YOU PEOPLE can make that happen… at least I told YOU PEOPLE how you can FIX IT!” …amounts to little else, than “avoidance of collective community responsibility for keeping their political representation under continuing scrutiny”? It sounds like, you would be expecting David Turbyfill to take on the FULL onus-cost-responsibility of bringing STATE and FEDERAL “oversight” to bear down on this 4-year-plus “closed case coverup”? By the way, would you be so kind as to provide YOUR complete description of “any and all instances of coverup” to which, you have consistently alluded, such that David Turbyfill and/or any other so vested individual(s) can reference the same in any such instance… he might, in fact, seek out assistance from a member of Arizona’s Congressional Delegation AND will he be able to have you, personally, testify to the same in that member’s presence? Casting a glance over the current, seated membership… I’d suggest the initial “reach out” should be made to Trent Franks, by the way… I’m sure, many an outcry could be made against reaching out, pro-or-con, to him or any other… but, Trent Franks has shown commitment and consistency in making another “uncomfortable truth” public and relevant to the country, as a whole… that of POWER GRID DOWN (he took over leadership of the small, energy-related caucus from Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland). POWER GRID DOWN has been consistently referred to as “when-not-if-and-inevitable” (also, there’s a standing White House Executive Order, 13Oct2016) for the past decade or more… unfortunately, 99.999% of “the rest of us and our political representation” are IGNORING that subject matter, as well! The “other” suggestion to reach out to an “individual with standing” is to research and interview any-and-all challengers to incumbents, vying for seats in the 2018 primaries; perhaps, they’d “appreciate” a topic-of-substance to challenge the status quo seated membership ???
https://www.instagram.com/dierksbentley/
LIVE with the cast and filmmakers of #OnlyTheBrave THIS SUNDAY at 10:05 AM PT / 1:05 PM ET. Submit your questions using #AskOnlyTheBrave!
https://www.instagram.com/onlythebravemovie/
GO AHEAD wwtktt— SUBMIT your QUESTIONS!
Reply to Cheerleader post on October 7, 2017 at 12:54 am
>> Cheerleader said…
>>
>> https://www.instagram.com/dierksbentley/
The new song “Hold The Light” being credited to Dierks Bentley is already being mentioned as ‘Oscar’ material for ‘Best Movie Song’.
It’s still not clear whether Bentley ACTUALLY wrote the song himself, or whether it was a close collaboration with the movie people… but regardless… some are saying that in an Oscar season that will be short on actual ‘Original songs written for movies’… the Bentley thing is at least a ‘shoe in’ for a nomination.
On one of Bentley’s own Instagram posts where he was self-promoting the song and the movie… someone commented that her husband ( a Wildland Firefighter ) is ( and has been ) already ‘honoring’ his lost brothers by LEARNING FROM THEIR MISTAKE(S)… and doesn’t need some country singer telling him he needs to see some made-up Hollywood movie in order to ‘honor’ them…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZWXuA6BTTi/?taken-by=dierksbentley
—————————————————————-
Comment from: christinejburton
My husband knew the Granite Mountain Hotshots well. My husband is a Forrest Service Firefighter and he honors his friends , brothers, coworkers by learning from their mistakes. He is out there protecting our forests and communities surrounding them. We don’t need you to tell us to watch a movie to honor them.
—————————————————————-
That is correct, it needs to be federal Congressional delegation, but stay away from Trent Franks…I’m pretty sure that jerk off is legally insane.
1. anyone know a Tim Derby who was claimed to be at the YHF?
2. wwtktt- I got my book today- DJ HELMS and on my backyard walk tomorrow I will read its entirety-
3. the screen shot was not anything new as I am having glitches and hard time getting my software to work but I did snail mail person to ask for written permission to show the REST of the 100+ pictures that is on the boulders near the Manzanita/Sesame area with lens aiming between Sesame and Shrine area from Friday thru Sunday- I am hoping they say YES because that file does show interesting stuff.
4. thank you wwtktt for always being there for all of us- my question on if you were ever interested in fires before YHF was to learn how AI you are— or if YHF was your first interest in wildfires—or if you ever show anything more than fact based data—like a wikipedia
5. skimming the book- I am pleasantly pleased by DJ Helm’s book HOWEVER I am very spooked now because if page 46 is her—-someone played a sick joke on me throughout this process—the person I met who CLAIMED she was DJ HELMS was in her 50s or 60s long white blonde hair—-huge big blue eyes—beautiful model figure…like a lady who was a calendar gal in the 70s but now older—whomever YOU are; you are a SICK PERSON to play off you were DJ HELMS— cruel…all these years I thought YOU were her—-I am sick so much that this world is that cruel and dumb— or that I was played…and why???? those times nothing was spoken much both ways…I have alerted DJ of this and whomever you are—YOU NEED HELP!!!!—SERIOUS—-
6. the question from the bleachers not me to WTKTT concerning
EXACTLY WHERE his best estimate/guess would have
placed ALL the firelines at the time of his VIDEO (helicopter
raw news footage… 1:57pm, 30 Jun 2013)… including
Peeples Valley, Harper Canyon, etc (if possible, a 2-D-Map
perspective)… WHICH GROUP OF WF WAS LOCATED
BETWEEN 10:00am -11:30am WITHIN 1/2-mile of latitude
34.250° longitude -112.779° (DOC Lewis… DOC Yuma…
Blue Ridge… Whomever) see, PHOTO 10:24am AND review
SHUMATE answer to Barry Hicks “…AND [Line2044Q2:
“How’d they describe it to you?” Line2045A: “Um, very little
activity until the spot fire, then phenomenal fire behavior
uphill, downhill runs simultaneously.” ???
side note: {that is one of the screen shots on the one you asked what is new about this???}
bleachers later added: Actually, on the message to WTKTT… substitute 9:30am for 10:00am… providing for a 2-hour “search” timeframe!
7. Lastly because I am exhausted—and have to get stuff geared up for Heather tomorrow—
good night but this is from bleachers not me to Gary O.:
Gary Olson says October 2, 2017 at 8:46 pm… ONLY YOU PEOPLE can make that happen. Which pretty much means things are going to stay exactly the way there are, but at least I told YOU PEOPLE how you can FIX IT! GARY… YOU’VE hit-the-nail-on-the-head AND to take such SOLUTION “one step further” the Congressional Oversight Hearings need to have STAFFERS set up shop and take testimony in YARNELL; thereby, offering “closed door protection” to ANY and ALL, who would be willing to contribute “what they really know and/or have data to back up what they believe (as opposed to know-for-fact”. This material could, then, be brought back with them to Congress, where the real nitty-gritty-investigation might, actually, begin. Anything short of this, would primarily see the very same bureaucrats and agency employees, charging their transportation and hotel stays on TDY status to TheTAXPAYER! Furthermore, YOU are admittedly, the ONLY “former whistleblower” on this forum… YOU are the ONLY ONE with “street creds” substantial enough to make YOUR suggestion count… YOU need to organize that on behalf of ThePEOPLE you’ve previously described. DO YOU THINK, OTHERWISE… that “those folks with inside knowledge” are really going to spill their guts on this forum ???
oh yeah—I bought my RESERVATION ONLY tickets today for ONLY THE BRAVE
the people in there are my friends and I am sobbing because I know them and their stories already so I wish the bleachers knew how deep this feels because I am re-reading accounts I already knew and to me the bravery of their once keep quiet moment is now public-
God Bless them—
thank you Laura for the mention of the yellow and white quads on Friday-
I am just skimming book right now when I saw people I know in the book
bottom of page 213 when Bruce Brown said he was on nearest ridge—go to your google earth now and see that Helm’s location next to Bruce and go to ground level view and imagine you are him on that boulder hill and seeing these flames—
not sure why they did not place his full name on page 209 but thank you Bruce for publicly sharing your story as well as sharing confirmation of what we said for years about Laurie C. and others seeing of yellow and white quads up there on Friday—
page 211- Larry and Patti McCracken were on vacation when their home burned down so do not jump to think they were doing old plumbing–that was EARLY summer 2013 not that day—oh Arvid and Wilma and Keith and Arlene :(; so sorry— I wish the bleachers knew you all like I do…take THEIR street for example….there was 6 singles and 6 couples living there and as the fire happened 1/3 died after the fire—Howard and his wife had to move away—traumatized and same with Keith and Arlene—-maybe this book will do something for the people on the YHF to wake them up and start TALKING…or the bleachers see how this is very hard for me to have all this data and just wait…hard…
Sally Dickman and Terri Palmberg’s account on the Yarnell Hill Recovery Group matches to the 483 individuals we helped directly after the fire because we helped you even if your home did not burn or get harmed- we helped all affected by the fire—we met the 2 ladies when Crystal Ogden of United Way brought us there and I adore those 2 ladies so much— thank you for sharing-
The strange part I found was the TIME for Mike Fikes and Tresa Sampson on page 205 of the flames arrived—yet very accurate to the account of being warned because alot were warned with calls or embers flying or flames on their area of Foothills- and that area was spotty in home loss but remember Jim Nagel who lived .13 miles or so from them and he was wetting his home with a hose as authorities drove by and warned him…HIS home started from the flying embers from parcel 203-03-054/053 which those flames came from Sesame/Manzinata areas…
Oh Maria Luisa Wasson—
how I miss Barnabas -Barney- and just breaks my heart your aftermath and how much the world does not know your story that 197-199 may share a teeny bit but boy you have a story alright—and it is good it is finally public about the POOR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS- on page 198.
PEOPLE- this woman deserves justice and her story to really be shared—not just a short insert—sorry Maria Luisa—
bleachers, this is too much and I do not even know how I can go see this movie— thank you Holly and DJ for sharing this story because I know how private the people were throughout this and man this hurts…sobbing…
I know bleachers you have a set thing going on and I do support you and you have supported my emotions many times but this is very very difficult—very—I helped these folks and many I knew and many have died….please Lord may You force the truths now…please….
I am sorry-
I do not get it
how can you on that fire go on and not share—
I will read this book as I walk my backyard tomorrow in its entirety but THANK YOU so much DJ for the time you put in this and you know I will be here posting my thoughts and feedback but man THANK YOU…this is my favorite book so far because I know these people and so I know it had to be hard for Bruce to finally give his account public—
I love you man and I hope you know that and I was heart broken when you moved away as were so many—some day…some day…this will all be done properly and reach the right spots…it is not over Bruce…no way-
I never have given up on you all and the 19-
NEVER
I currently campaign Investigative Media as I am out hiking with my banner socks…legs painted up or backpack and firefighters are coming to me man…I will not stop—NO freaking way…not obsessed and nothing to do with MOVE FORWARD…this has to do with DOING THE RIGHT THING.
http://www.harkinstheatres.com/theatreDetails.aspx?theatreId=10011&dateTime=10%2f20%2f2017
besides pre-screening viewings—Texas will be able to see it before opening day Oct 19th 2017
Everything’s bigger in Texas.
Sonny is named after Tex Ritter who his dad Henry Eldon use to play banjo with and Sonny tells the jokes better than me—A Texan walks into a bar and orders a drink. The barman gives him a drink. The Texan looks at the drink and commenting on how small it is, he says that they are 10 times bigger in Texas. In the interest of good relations, the barman gives him another 9 drinks free of charge. Later the Texan comes up and orders a bag of peanuts. When given the small bag, he again comments on the size of it, and the barman again gives him 9 free. The Texan is pleased with the service he got and notes some positive feedback on a card as he leaves.
A few weeks later, in recognition of his good deeds, the barman is given a special award for his services to local tourism. He is given a monetary prize. With his prizemoney, he books a holiday in Texas. He walks into the hotel bar and orders a drink. To his surprise the barman puts up a huge drink in front of him. He then orders some nuts and is given a huge packet. Looking around at the massive bar and thinking about all he has seen he concludes that his own customer was right and that everything is bigger in Texas. After eventually finishing his drink he staggers up to the bar and asks where the toilets are. The barman points to a door and says that he should go through it and he’ll find them near the end of the corridor.
He heads towards the door and opens it and walks down the corridor. There are two doors at the end, one to the toilets and one to the hotel swimming pool. In his drunken state, he goes through the wrong door and falls into the swimming pool. He starts to scream. Hearing the commotion, a moment later the hotel barman runs through the door and stands at the edge of the pool. The guest looks up at him in horror and screams “Don’t flush! Don’t flush!”
😊
your smile lifting my spirits Diane- thank you
something magical about ya
I really think it will take someone with “standing” to get Congress involved. I had that when I was a Whistle Blower against the BLM. I think it will take someone from the Arizona delegation to get the get a hearing going and I am not even one of their constituents anymore. They normally only respond to constituents.
This is actually the second time I have made this pitch. I was hoping at least some of the families would not like the cover-up and want the truth like Pat Tillmans’s family wanted when his head exploded into a fine red mist when it was hit by a .50 caliber machine gun round fired by another squad of Rangers instead of the Taliban like the Army first reported. In fact, when I pitched this idea last time, I made quite extensive comparisons with what happened to Pat Tillman and the GMIHC…but nothing came of it.
I was and still am hoping Mr. Dave Turbyfill takes the bull by the horns, I would do everything I could to help him, but I don’t believe they will listen to just me. Mr. Turbyfill always took the lead in seeking the truth from my perspective, but he was the only one that I know of who did.
Clarification – I was not a Whistle Blower against the BLM to Congress. I was a rat snitch informant to Special Agents of the USDI Office of Inspector General in an extensive criminal investigation against the BLM.
I formally claimed protection under the Whistle Blower Act and by hiring a private attorney to keep them from firing me or taking some other form of retaliation since the investigation took about 18 months before all of the managers who where involved were gone, but their brother managers were there for years to come and none of them ever forgave me or forgot what I did to their buddies.
So like I said, I was blackballed and never received another promotion, but at least I didn’t have to worry about going to prison which would have been a real possibility if I hadn’t gone to the OIG about what the BLM expected me to do under the color of law. Stupid fucks! They hired me as an attack dog and then they were surprised when I attacked them.
Promotions are overrated.
🙂
The McKee family too Gary
Yes…Mrs. McKee, but she lives in California, California congressional delegation isn’t going to care, I don’t think anyone is going to care at this point. I think the movie has buried the truth forever. Amand Beno Marsh and the Yavapai Counnt WF Cosa Nostra are calling the shots. But look at the bright side, I think it’s going to be a bitchin’ movie about Hotshots.
Pat Tillman-it was my perception from reading book “Boots on the Ground by Dusk or Dawn” that Pat Tillman was planning to reveal the truth of what was happening where he was fighting in the war and was killed to stop him.
I did read both he and his brother who joined the Rangers with him, had figured out that the actual war in Afghanistan, you know….AKA The Graveyard Of Empires, wasn’t exactly like the recruitment posters
BUT…that entire incident was investigated every which way but loose after the Army were exposed by the Tillman family for lying to try and recruit more young people to go fight the Afghan tribesmen in Afghanistan who are fighting us because we are there, just like they did the. Macedonians in Alexander The Great army, which they say is the only country he never actually successfully conquered, the British, the Soviets and anybody else stupid enough to try and occupy the shit hole of the world…like U.S.
I support a 24/7 365 days a year Reaper and Predator Drone Campaign that targets any 16th century tribesman who gets frisky. with a hell fire missle. Kind of a play station or X box type war run from bunkers at Creech Air Force Base by pasty faced kids in flight suits.
Anyway, Tillman’s Ranger patrol got seperated into two groups who each thought the other group of Rangers were Taliban, which was a classic fog of war friendly fire incident and Tillman lost his life to a .50 caliber bullet fired by some young kid who was on the trigger of a gun designed to be an anti aircraft gun for another war.
End of a very sad story since he gave up a 3.5 million dollar contract with the Cardinals to go save us from the Taliban who were all dead or gone long before he made it in-country. Don’t these Pentagon stupid fucks ever read Wikipedia and know to never get involved in a land war in Asia? What do we have tactical nukes for if we never use them…WTF?
Oh…and one more thing. I realize that hell fire missles can’t be the answer to every question and I am sure there are good reasons not to use our tactical nukes.
But…I do like what I have read about the high speed low drag professional death squads run by the killing machine called JSOC that scour the earth every night
searching for the enemies of our way of life and whenever and wherever they find them….they bring “fire and fury” to them, to quote our Dear Leader.
So…let’s review, JSOC Special Operations forces and pasty faced gamers. that should just about take care of it. At least as far as the shit hole of the world goes and a few other places to boot. I don’t know why hardly anyone other than Joy ever thinks I have any “good” ideas? WTF…OVER?
Gary said: I don’t know why hardly anyone other than Joy ever thinks I have any “good” ideas? WTF…OVER?
—————–
My Reply is actually from the bleachers being the topic in itself is theirs so let it be their reply….I am only focused to health but carrying on others view through me because as Diane Lomas and others can ADMIT lately it is not easy to post comments here on IM—glitches—
BLEACHERS REPLY AT 9:42AM TODAY THAT I COPY AND PASTED:
JOY… IM-Forum (Cloudflare) appears to be “down” ??? Suggested Reply: Gary Olson… unless you’re going to return to AZ , reside and register to run for elective federal office, anyone else thinking of reaching out to the existing same, is going to have to be realistic and deal with the facts, that there are only 9 total Representatives and 2 Senators (4 Democrats, amongst the Representatives). Since your conviction-of-coverup is so strong and backed by decades of experience in this field, WHICH specific member(s) of the AZ Congressional Delegation are YOU recommending and will you be making yourself available for personal conversation with the elected representative at some point… assuming, of course, that a current AZ resident, family member or loved one (what’s your opinion of Judicial Watch or ACLU, btw) would be willing to undertake such outreach? Are you going to be coming up with the Gary Olson “Cliff’s Notes Version” of HOW&WHY such “coverup” ACTUALLY exists… such that, some “as-yet-not-fully-committed” AZ resident constituent might be guided and challenged by your summary and basis of legal fact… to march straight into the office of your own suggested “best and/or most appropriate” AZ Congressional Standard Bearer ???
Can’t do it, I’m way too toxic. I have been too aggressive on this site to ever be considered a reasonable, logical, prudent, and honest broker of facts who can work within the system for reasonable changes.
I have made way too many enemies. Based on my experience, you can either be an astute and politically savvy operator who can work with the system, or you can be a caustic bomb thrower who uses hyperbole and “colorful” language to make certain you get your point across, but…you can’t be both.
I am living proof, as are the many Hotshots who worked for me, that you can take someone from the back of the bus and put them in charge of the crew because they WILL fight fire AGGRESSIVELY but provide for safety as needed within a hyper hotshot program on steroids where Animal House meets The Lord Of The Flies at a Special Operations Group forward operating base. But…you can’t take that same person and have them testify in a reasonable manner in a formal setting.
If however, those involved want to meet at a bar afterwards to talk about the last Fire, the next Fire, some other Fire, or which fire boots are the best and how to properly break them in and subsequently care for them…give me a call.
Fortunately…we have someone who has participated on this thread from day one who is far more experienced and current as a subject matter expert than I am anyway, who has always skillfully positioned himself just as I have described. In fact…I think you could even say he has been preparing his entire life for this moment and his credentials are impeccable.
And so…without further ado, I would like to present to you the man of the hour, the one, the only, the longest serving hotshot crew boss in the history of hotshot crews in our great nation…is he perfect, no…not exactly, but he is close enough…our very own and beloved, more or less, commentator who goes by the nom de guerre Robert The Second…Mr. Fred Schoeffler! [Polite Applause]
Okay…just in case we don’t get together, here is everything you need to know.
White’s boots are the best and not only that…they will let everyone who meets you know immediately that you are a serious WF.
But…be prepared to sign over your first paycheck and if at all possible, make a road trip to Spokane to have your footprints and measurements drawn up by them.
Plan on buying a second pair as soon as you can so you can rotate them for lots of reasons and you won’t be without a pair when you need to send them in to be rebuilt.
When you get your new White’s, put them on and stand in a bathtub full of hot water until the water cools off, wear the boots until they are completely dry without taking them off even if it takes a few days.
Once they dry, liberally condition them with the best saddle soap or equivelant you can buy. Wear them continuously for weeks until your feet have developed callous’ where you need them or you will get bloody blisters on top of bloody blisters after climbing the first mountain with your line gear and tool and you will wish you had.
Oh…and one more thing. White’s will keep your measurements on file and of course we are talking about the “Smokejumper” model in black leather. On your third pair, you can experiment a little and go a little crazy and maybe get a pair made out of the lighter and softer brown leather to wear on special occasions like getting married or Fire Inspection Day, that’s what I did.
I also think you should get The Woodsman to work with Fred because based on his posts I think he can fill in the category of “everything” else and it doesn’t sound like he.works for Uncle Sugar and it is always best to include our (me and my mouse) partners from State and Privare Forestry.
He also plays off against Fred pretty good with a double team and point, counterpoint. His biggest selling point is his attitude, which is rare in the highly structured, closed and disciplined WF world.
You should also include Bob because he knows everything else about everything else because of his wide and varied skill set and there should be a grown up in the group.
I would also include JD for an outside civilian perspective. As far as information, I think everything has been discussed in great detail on this thread at least once and it is a gold mine for anyone who wants to know just about anything about WF or the Yarnell Hill Fire.
I would also try to get WTKTT, maybe you could set him on the table. I’m sure they have power plugs and internet connections on the floor under the table.
I would make a road trip and sit in the visitor gallery to watch this, but first you need at least one family from Arizona to buy in.
Gary, thanks for the compliments and for the nomination. However, I’m gonna take a pass on the public appearances and all.
Pretty funny, but more like the second one. I don’t remember now, but there was a link a couple of years ago to a photo of Fred standing in front of a classroom or some damn place.
Of course I wouldn’t recognize him is he passed me on the street, and the photo wasn’t’ real clear, but that is kinda the way I remember it..
Gary-
today …yesterday … tomorrows… begins with the actions of us NOW….
if you were to be Above and you were asked “how come RTS would be found superior to you on being the headship to what is the right thing to do?”
The answers above does not matter. Nor does all the experience one had on the line.
YET
you matter and I think you know YOU are the right one….
Reflect on your life and where you were and where you are now…think of your father and how one decision changed the life of him and those around him….
Credibility…experience built…clout is just another layer to this here onion and if sliced wrong can shed floods of tears that makes no sense except you just dived into layers to what onions do naturally.
You are a person who has all the capability to do anything and handing the ball to RTS is just a mechanism yet I “believe” in you…yes YOU….
Rise above all the negatives you just mentioned because they may be known facts in your thoughts…I feel you will move mountains…
And you know it will take us all to participate….
“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”— Max Planck, German quantum theorist and Nobel Prize winner
also Gary
it is not about judgement or pulling and publicizing the wrongs or told you so—
it is not about “have your day in court” either
when the TRUTH pushes forward…such a healing will unfold not just for YHF but all the fire fatalities….
the books and the movies will just be laying on shelves collecting dust and viewed once and again and will be viewed but not embraced like if you step up and you gotta know….you are not alone in this— we all are here too….
This is all hypothetical because I don’t think any of the families want to know and therefore face the hard truth. But…the fact remains even if one does I can’t be part of it because of the very aggressive and bombastic things I have written, it’s not like I am running for president as a republican, there are rules in this game and I have broken them. The other side would discredit me by repeating back many of the things I have written to prove I shouldn’t be listened. To as a serious subject matter expert. Fred’s hotshot and fire experience both far outweigh mine by a factor of 3.5 and he is still going out on fires as a fireline safety expert. And a real plus is that when he dresses up in a cheap rumpled suit he looks like college professor, get him a meerschaum pipe to carry around and make sure he wears a bow tie.
And actually, I think Fred’s experience is four times mine and more importantly, I have admitted running a hotshot crew today is nothing like it was in my day….and Fred was there for both generations and those in between.
We were in the equivalent of the Industrial Age, El Caruso were killed in the frickin’ Stone Age, Prineville was killed in the computer age, so there wasn’t any excuse for what happened to them….everybody knew everything about Fire behavior, fire safety and organization etc. Granite Mountain was killed in the Space Age, there really isn’t any relationship to how hotshot crews were recruited, trained, staffed, organized, supervised, managed on and on and on. back in my day compared to today. Fred and his contemporaries have PROFESSIONALIZED hotshot crews over the last 30 years.
By comparison, we were cowboys ridin’ hard for the brand and shootin’ from the hip. But professional….we were not.
Fred understands that and can paint the picture by the numbers because he and others like him know how the hotshot program went from where we were…to where they are now.
And if you think that means Eric Marsh even screwed up more, bigger, much worse…you are right.
I can even give you a topical example that clearly demonstrates exactly what I am talking about.
The Woodsman said he ran into the crew I founded (I love to say that since it is my claim to fame) the Santa Fe Hotshots.
The Woodsman stopped the lead crummy and asked, “Do you know who founded your crew…because I do.” (Or something like that).
Back in my day, the driver would have given him a blank stare and if he said anything he would have said, “Fuck no, who fuckin’ cares?” Or something like that.
But instead….that crewmember who was probably either a squad boss or a senior crewman, immediately reached for the crew manual in the vehicle console to look up and answer the question.
When I read that I was stunned! Do you understand what that means?
1. There is a MANUAL…Standard Operating Procedures, General Orders, policies, procedures, directives, they aren’t winging it and just shooting from the hip anymore. What a crewman knows is no longer completely dependent on who his crewboss is and what his crew boss told him. Hotshot crews have discovered the written language and they are using it to standardize hotshot crews.
2. The crewmember had received extensive training. And under stress, which was being asked a question out of the blue by a stranger in the middle of a road…he immediately reverted to his training and reached for their MANUAL, which was where he could both find it and know how to use it and it was available to him…in the field.
All of the crews I worked on, knew of, worked with, or observed were organized and managed with a “Personality Cult Leadership Style.” And everything was dependent on the individual crew boss and not on a well developed, standardized, and professional work force that can easily survive and transition in the event the crew boss is suddenly gone and does not come back. Everything back in my day was handed down from one generation to the next…ORALLY…by telling stories about how we do it and how it needs to be done from one crew boss to his designated successor and that is how crew continuity, organization, standard operating procedures, culture and traditions etc. were preserved and passed on. That really isn’t the best way to do business, at least professionally.
I could go on and on but I am tired of typing one finger on this iPad….so just believe me, the fact that Santa Fe Hotshot reached for a manual is a BIG DEAL.
And it took a lot of work by a lot of people to get from where and how Hotshots were operating back in my day, to where and how hotshots are operating in today’s wildland firefighting environment.
Gary…was Bill B. 12 years older than you?
your description of Fred— reminded me of Col. Mustard or this fella:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/25/26/f1/2526f1d160d0555a418dcbe45430766f.jpg
http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/professor-with-bubbles-coming-out-of-pipe-high-res-stock-photography/88394911?esource=SEO_GIS_CDN_Redirect
I don’t know how old Bill Buck was, but the last time I saw him, I was 26 and he was probably 55?
I have a photo of him at that age running with us, I will look for it and post it, Why do you ask? .
Gary,
You may recognize some of these other names in this link besides Bill Buck. Great men and great tribute to Roger.
https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=108297097
“Smoke got in his eyes one day and he was hooked, fighting fire with his friends and colleagues for over 30 years, first with the legendary Bill Buck and Steve Servis as one of Buck’s Gray-haired Boys, then with Jim Bedlion, Ki Porter, Amos Coochyouma and Van Bateman, and later with the Arizona State Incident Management Team, all of them among the best firefighters and fire teams ever, anywhere.”
wwtktt-
were you involved or interested in FIRE or WILDFIRE before YHF?
** THE DENVER BROCOS GOT TO SEE THE GM ‘FILLUM’ TONIGHT
There was a ‘special screening’ of the upcoming Hollywood feature fillum ‘Only The Brave’
for the Denver Broncos football team tonight…
https://twitter.com/Broncos/status/914971392541675520/photo/1
The ‘private screening’ was also attended by a select group of Denver area first responders.
This wasn’t done out of the kindness of the ‘fillum producers’ hearts.
These next 2 weeks are their LAST CHANCE to seek ‘final opinions’ on the ‘final cut’ of the ‘fillum’ and their last chance to CUT any scenes they need to.
Example: Rumor has it that the ‘Bear coming out of the woods on fire’ graphic that was actually shown at the start of the very first trailer has long since hit the cutting room floor after other initial screenings of the movie produced such a BAD ( NEGATIVE ) REACTION on the part of the polled audiences.
More about the ‘private’ screening for the Denver Brocos tonight, including some ‘post screening’ photos where people got to ask ‘questions’ about the movie.
The ‘first responders’ that also attended were all Denver area firefighters, and the ‘fillum’ producers were probably more interested in their reaction than the ‘football players’…
https://twitter.com/BroncosOffField
As the photos show…
– Getting to meet actual Denver Bronco players ( in person! ).
– Eating Pizza ( LOTS of it ) !
– Taking ‘selfies’ around the team trophies in the glass cases!
– Watching a movie about fellow firefighters needlessly burning to death.
– Everybody is ‘all smiles’!
What’s not to like?
Problem – The federal wildland firefighting agencies led by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are both incapable and unwilling to regulate and oversee themselves, in other words…they have proven they can’t police themselves.
Back Story – Your federal land management agencies manage trillions of dollars worth of natural resources. Just try to buy the Grand Canyon and see just how much it will appraise for if you don’t believe me. Another way to say that is that your public lands are…priceless. Except a lot of politicians, land managers, timber companies, mining companies, oil and gas companies, cattle companies, public and private utilities companies, real estate companies, land development companies and just about every other kind of company you can think of including movie companies and companies that advertise everything you can think of do find a way to put a price on your public lands.
Once up on a time, the Special Agents who work for the USFS worked for the “local” managers. What most people don’t realize is that are actually more than 80 federal agencies that employ Special Agents in the 1811 Job Series. Just about everybody thinks that only the FBI has Special Agents, which makes their Special Agents…Extra Special Agents. This wasn’t actually that long ago, for example, when I was a uniformed law enforcement officer for the USFS, I worked for the Santa Fe National Forest Supervisor who was the top administrative officer for the Santa Fe. The person who has my old job since sometime in the 1990’s, now works for the USFS Washington D.C. Office.
None of these managers were really local managers because they rarely if ever come from the local area; I just don’t know what else to call them. All federal and state agencies are divided up into administrative areas. In the case of the USFS, the lowest administrative level is called a district, a forest is made of up several districts, a region is made up of several forests and several regions make up the USFS as a whole. The BLM and every other federal agency are administered in the same way with different names and administrative boundaries depending on the land mass each agency manages within a geographical boundary.
So anyway…sometime in the 1990’s some timber companies in Region 5 of the USFS, which is comprised of the state of California and the Pacific Islands, got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, taking cookies without paying for them by taking more than they were allowed to remove from your National Forests. Unfortunately…the local USFS managers allowed them to do this for a variety of reasons. I am a little fuzzy on this entire story because I was up to my ass in alligators working for the BLM on our border with Estados Unidos Mexicanos, while fulfilling my minor role in our nation’s failed and disastrous War On Drugs that was began by Richard Nixon and then escalated in a really big way by Poppy Bush 41 and every President that came after him.
For example, the first time I was the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), BLM Arizona State Office (1992-1997), there were two ASAC’s, ASAC Drugs and ASAC Resources. ASAC Resources, who responsible for investigating all felonies and serious crimes on 15 million acres of BLM in the State of Arizona, had one agent working for him and a budget of $400,000. As ASAC Drugs, I had four agents, six uniformed officers and a budget of $1,500,000 to do our little part on just the border with Mexico, which was your tax dollars at work. The second time I was ASAC, BLM Arizona State Office from 2003 until I retired, there was only one ASAC, because it has never taken me 8 hours to do a full day’s work! And by that time I was working for the BLM Washington D.C. Office of Law Enforcement and Security rather than the BLM Arizona State Office.
And that was because a couple of USFS Special Agents got tired of being told by the local USFS managers to look the other way and ignore the fact that timber companies in California were taking a lot more timber than they were paying for. I don’t think tax payers should worry about oil and gas companies for example, doing the same thing with the BLM, because there were no BLM Special Agents monitoring the amount of subsurface minerals like oil, gas and coal that companies removed from all federal and Indian lands in the U.S., which includes off shore oil fields the last time I looked because all of these companies are self regulating and self report how much they take and pay royalties on it to YOU PEOPLE What could possibly go wrong?
The BLM by the way, manages all subsurface minerals under all federal and Indian lands in the nation. On a National Forest for example, the USFS manages the top soil and what sits on the top soil, but the BLM manages all of the sub minerals under the top soil, or something like that. I never really paid any attention to any of that stuff because I was down on the Mexican Border; unfortunately…I don’t think anybody else from the BLM pays any attention to it either. There are after all, a total of about 50 Special Agents who work for the BLM and that includes everyone from the Director in Washington down to the lowest field agent for about 200 million acres of land. But all of the companies that make billions of dollars from the resources they extract and pay royalties on from BLM managed Public Lands and the politicians those companies make campaign contributions to; think the staffing level is just about right.
Please forgive me, I continue to digress because meanwhile back on some Forests in Northern California, a couple of USFS Special Agents got tired of looking the other way while timber companies ripped of the American people in a big way and they turned into Whistle-Blowers. These agents ended up testifying in Congressional Oversight Hearings and it led to the supervision of all USFS law enforcement being removed from the control of all district, forest and regional managers and placed directly under the Washington D.C. Office so they could theoretically mind the candy store better and quit giving away all of the candy for free.
The BLM watched what happened very closely and they said, “Hey…how about if we compromise and put our Special Agents under our Washington D.C. Office if you will let us keep our uniformed branch under our local managers because that is where the BLM puts most of its money and so they did a bait and switch and in effect kept local control of the bulk of their law enforcement program and avoided the heavier penalty the USFS paid, sneaky…but very smart bastards. And thank you for sticking with me on our little walk around the block. Is there a moral to this story? Well yes, there is…thank you for asking.
Solution – Because the federal wildland firefighting agencies led by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are both incapable and unwilling to regulate and oversee themselves, in other words…they have proven they can’t police themselves, there needs to be Congressional Oversight Hearings starting with WTF happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire. If there is one thing that makes federal wildland firefighting managers shake in their White’s boots, and piss in their pants just a little bit…is the thought of Congressional Hearings and increased Oversight of their WF Cosa Nostra (Our Thing). But that is exactly what needs to happen…like yesterday and only YOU PEOPLE can make that happen. Which pretty much means things are going to stay exactly the way there are, but at least I told YOU PEOPLE how you can FIX IT!
Oh…and one more thing. Just in the case of one in one billion and somebody does end up testifying in front of a Congressional Sub Committee on Natural Resources as to why the WF program is such a mess, I vote we send Fred and his buddy from the Prineville Shots because I hear the breeze over the red rocks of Moab whispering my name. I got too much Jeepin’ to do. None of my friends or family were burned alive on the Yarnell Hill Fire due to incompetence on a grand scale.
And just in case you were wondering, (which I know you weren’t) how the BLM could possibly manage about 200 million acres of federal land when there is only about 15 million acres in the entire State of Arizona, which is a big BLM state (New Mexico has about 13 million acres of BLM land) almost the entire Great State of Alyeska,…The Land of The Midnight Sun and my birthplace is managed by the BLM. FYI….the BLM manages more federal land than all other federal agencies combined, including acreage on the Las Vegas Strip…it’s kinda weird where YOU PEOPLE actually own land.
I always thought someone at the Helms ranch would tell us something. Hopefully this book will:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1514672847/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wildtoda-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1514672847&linkId=0a01ca0a883d91560e3601bca4f937f5
Thank you for the link. Ordered. I had been waiting for this for years. I did find the back cover interesting. I sure hope they finally shared in PURITY their perimeter cameras footage…that’s most important then the content…and since I hang out with the old miners very interested on her take there. I do know she belongs to a historical program so it will be neat because it says it is another narrative…look forward to reading it. Surprised they did not tell me it was out and learned from you John vs say Dj or Holly?
I ordered a copy today.
great Diane
Look forward to hearing your perspective as well—-
My copy just came. Am enjoying the author’s personal style of writing that makes me feel like I am experiencing the fire events with her.
Easy,enjoyable reading.
That was fast Diane. Thank you for the feedback.
The book states that a pumpkin was placed on the helms ranch but helicopters never used it.
Why?
what is the WHY for???
trying to figure it out
Diane- while I am trying to figure the WHY? out the bleachers replied to you this:
Fwd: Diane… quite correct… “WHY” (especially in light of earlier Saturday afternoon consideration to specifically attend to such) AND “where exactly” is the “ranch house” mentioned in SHUMATE’s testimony, that he’d been advised by the BLM representative to seek out upon his Friday evening arrival (didn’t really sound, as if he’d ever been acquainted with Yarnell, before, anyway)?
Reply to John post on September 29, 2017 at 9:38 am
>> John said…
>>
>> I always thought someone at the Helms ranch would tell us
>> something. Hopefully this book will
Well… if the several ‘pages’ from the book that just appeared in an article over at ‘WildFire Today’ are any indication… the answer would be “nothing that is not already known”.
The ‘pages’ were reprinted with the permission of book author DJ Helm, and they are here…
WildFire Today
Article Title: Owner of ranch that was thought to be safety zone at Yarnell Hill Fire writes book
Published: September 28, 2017 – By Bill Gabbert
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/09/28/owner-of-ranch-that-was-thought-to-be-safety-zone-at-yarnell-hill-fire-writes-book/
SIDENTOTE: The ‘pages’ published along with that article MAY have been taken from the ‘Foreword’ section of the book itself and that might be why the excerpts just have that ‘50,000 foot overview’ feel to them.. There MAY be more ‘detail’ in the book narrative itself.
Smart timing on the part of the publisher(s), though.
Get the book out onto the shelves just ahead of the Hollywood ‘fillum’ to take advantage of any upcoming renewed ‘interest’ in the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Typo up above.
‘SIDENTOTE’ ???
That’s not a plug for a new style of handbag.
Meant to type ‘SIDENOTE’.
I am typing on my phone (no access to my laptop) so my comments lately have been more brief.
From reading this new book I learned that after the fire lee helm had offered to sell his property to the state for a memorial site but the state wasn’t interested.
That’s unfortunate… and quite short-sighted on the part of Arizona officials. It really would have been the perfect solution and the ideal headquarters for what has become an official Arizona State Park. It could have also served as a Wildland FF training facility.
Question(s)….
Is there anything in the book about ‘first contact’ between the Helms ( or a caretaker since they were initially out of town? ) and fire officials?
When did they first become aware that a pumpkin had been installed and filled with water in the middle of their property and was intended to be used by helicopters?
Were they also ever told that their property had been willy-nilly designated as an official ‘safety zone’ for firefighters?
If so… WHO ‘informed’ them of this?
Was it SPGS1 Gary Cordes?
Page 85 in book states that Pete Anderson and Bruce Olson asked the Helms at 11 pm if they could use their property for a safety zone and to set up a pumpkin.
11pm on Saturday June 29,2013.
Pumpkin set up and filled Saturday night late
Fernandez or Shumate, DIane?
because Pete was a retired chief that day—
I will fact check with Pete
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Page 85 in book states that Pete Anderson and
>> Bruce Olson asked the Helms at 11 pm if they
>> could use their property for a safety zone and to
>> set up a pumpkin.
>>
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> 11pm on Saturday June 29,2013.
>> Pumpkin set up and filled Saturday night late
Thank you, Diane.
This testimony from DJ Helm actually matches SOME of the testimony given during the official investigations… but not ALL.
Example(s)…
MATCH…
– The Yarnell Fire Department employees who were tasked with setting up the pumpkins say they were given the ‘task’ of setting up the TWO pumpkins ( one near the Ranch House Restuarant and one out at the Boulder Springs Ranch ) around 10:00 PM on the night of Saturday, June 29, 2013. That’s a ‘close match’ to the 11:00 PM timeframe when ‘permission’ seems to have been obtained from the Helms.
– Arizona Forestry Incident Commander ( on Saturday ) Russ Shumate himself said it was BLM employee Bruce Olsen who was ‘taking care of’ choosing the pumpkin locations and getting them ‘set up’ ( but Shumate never mentions former Yarnell fire chief Pete Anderson at all ).
NO MATCH…
– The BIG problem is that Arizona Forestry employee Russ Shumate testified that he gave the ‘orders’ for these pumpkins to be set up in the 3:30 to 4:00 PM timeframe on Saturday… NOT 6-7 hours LATER.
Shumate has always insisted that getting these ‘pumpkins’ set up was part of his decision making process circa 3:30 to 4:00 PM when he was deciding between initiating ‘bucket drops’ ( using BLM contract chopper N14HX ) or just having N14HX take a sling load of ‘bladder bags’ up to the Lewis DOC crew.
And Shumate says that WAS ‘being done’ in the late afternoon timeframe on Saturday.
Pretty hard for them to be setting up the ‘pumpkins’ circa 4:00 PM if DJ Helm now says they weren’t even ASKED about it until 7 hours later, circa 11:00 PM.
The NEW testimony here is the part about former Yarnell Chief Peter Anderson somehow participating in this ‘choice’ of putting a pumpkin out at the BSR *AND* informing the Helms that their property was going to be a designated ‘safety zone’.
SPGS1 Gary Cordes didn’t even arrive in Yarnell that Saturday night until 11:40 PM.
It has always been thought that SPGS1 Gary Cordes was the one who ‘decided’ that the BSR would/could be a valid ‘safety zone’ ( since he is the one who was ‘informing’ Granite Mountain it was THEIR ‘pre-determined safety zone on Sunday morning )… but this new testimony from DJ Helm now establishes that that ‘decision’ was made before Cordes ever arrived in Yarnell and was made by BLM employee Bruce Olsen ( in conjunction with consultations with former chief Pete Anderson? ).
Interesting.
I might have this story a little wrong, or a lot wrong? But the way I remember the story going was that the Helm’s offered to sell their property to the state for several times what similar property could be purchased for or what the state would be allowed to pay for property because you know….taxpayers really get upset when public agencies waste their money and then the you know what hits the fan and sometimes people go to jail because there are laws on how that kind of transactions have to be handled. Just sayin….
Go Gary!
** BUYER BEWARE
Big red flag… and ‘buyer beware’ on this book.
Turns out ‘Holly Neill’ had a lot to do with it.
https://www.facebook.com/SafetyMattersWildlandFirefighterForum/
—————————————————————————————————
Facebook
Safety Matters: A Wildland Firefighter Forum for Change
September 20 at 3:45pm
I had the privilege of working for the past few years with DJ Helm on this book. From editing to photos to the narrative, it is an honor to take part in this special project. Always remembering GMIHC— Holly Neill
About the book…
This is the true story of the Helms’ and their ranch, the designated safety zone destination for the Granite Mountain Hotshots. The Hotshots perished 630 yards west of the Helms’ property. It is also a rich history of the early settlers and prospectors of the area. “Fire on the Wind is a first-hand account of this century’s most deadly wildland fire, the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona. On June 30th, the epic phenomenon blazed through two historic communities while taking the lives of 19 elite hotshots within its path. DJ and her husband were nearly caught in the rolling ball of flames after securing their animals safely in the barn. Barely out-running the inferno, DJ slammed the door in its face, seconds before it began its assault on their home.”
The color version has 100 color images for $37
The black and white version is $17
—————————————————————————————————
Oooo!… what the heck.!
What’s another $20 bucks?
Send me the one with the COLOR pictures!
I guess I am not comprehending the BUYER BEWARE
she may not tell me book is out but she is still someone with much heart
from day one she was really involved with many and the Helms are close to heart just like so many others-
Why would we have to be cautioned —because of the Bill Gabbert article that did not have public sources and resources?
She seem to have a tie in with alot all over so I always said on that article BECAUSE in 2013 she wanted me to give all I got to her as I got it and she would do the same for me so when the article came out- it stunned me for I actually learned some data via Charlie Moseley first then article then she spoke on it but I think reflecting back she has always done things with heart and I would not be so harsh as caution or BUYER BEWARE because she only answered questions probably DJ had on the fire topic but I was always told that John MacLean was really a source behind DJ’s book by many Smokejumpers at one convention he spoke freely he was helping Dj Helm and her book and being that Holly is tied to MacLean than it all seems right so far—
I say when reading it go with open clean fresh start thinking—but I know me—if the prospecting area has no sources and JUST STORY than I will speak about that because THIS GIRL here has really hiked and been involved with too many since the 70s that were tied to the Weavers and even further back—so I can tell from that area if SHARLOT MUSEUM and HISTORICAL MUSEUMS were used in making this book because I am very aware what they have and what it really was like…
As for the YHF I also have a bit more data and I am pretty sure more in depth in a few sections more than Holly because of the help from the bleachers and folks who were on the line and so I am sure there will be a great amount of data if the book is 266 pages and if I win the book in their giveaway my local library WILL be getting my free copy-
I always donate to them-
I am eagerly listening to anything Holly has to say.
Wtk has always had something up his ass when it comes to holly and John MacLean. As well as EN.
No offense wtk, just my observation.
Calvin
When AI aka Wwtktt speaks on EN and Holly and John…wtktt is correct in the sense as Wwtktt says about some of my stuff…its not REAL FACTS until you can show where you came to that data but in this we see some of us are either holding on to data for some reason yet I do plan to show to IM on a back channel vlog where I have learned what I know ..not here because of the haters…
I think the problem WTKTT has always had with both Holly an EN is the same problem I have always had with them. They have ulterior motives and promote misleading and outright false narratives in order to hold Eric Marsh blameless in the deaths of his crew.
It appeared to me that EN was behaving more like an attorney who was consulting for the Arizona Division of Forestry and we know for a fact that Holly is very close to the families and their firefighter safety non profits who maintain the crew did nothing wrong.
And in fact Holly and her husband spent a great deal of time, effort and money in a fruitless attempt to prove that Marsh didn’t do anything wrong. I don’t know what angle John MacLean has because he hasn’t showed his hand yet but I do know Holly has always been his field researcher and assistant.
I believe Holly Neil and EN has tirelessly promoted ridiculous and deceptive facts and theories that are contrary to finding the truth in an attempt to establish their own coverup.
I wouldn’t believe anything either one of them say, and that is why this buyer will beware of whatever they are selling.
Well said My Friend. Refer to the links in the “More info:” box
http://johnmacleanbooks.com/yarnell/
And then there was the BWS from Albany Law School, Albany, NY presentation at the AMS Conference in Minneapolis, MN.
Here is her abstract:
https://ams.confex.com/ams/11FIRE/webprogram/Paper273187.html
The diamond encased ?? in the abstract are commas.
“But roughly ten years after the 1994 South Canyon Fire tragedy, a fire scientist named Dr. D.X. Viegas started publishing essays in which he suggested that the �predicted wind event� narrative does not accurately explain what happened with the South Canyon Fire in the minutes leading up to the entrapment and deaths. Viegas observes that there was no wind event of the sort that National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Cuoco predicted that pushed the fire directly on top of the deceased wildland firefighters. If the weather event had any sort of impact, it was far more subtle, more nuanced, less direct, far less obvious (particularly to those on the ground, working on the fire line), and harder to figure out. In Viegas’s view, the South Canyon Fire blow-up (and the resulting tragic deaths) was the product of uber-extreme fire behavior creating its own influencing forces, particularly when coupled with sloping terrain. Convection, indrafting, and a positive feedback cycle appear to be what Viegas would finger as the causal factor of the South Canyon Fire, moreso than meteorologist Chris Cuoco’s forecasted weather event.”
Check out the USDA Forest Service
Rocky Mountain Research Station Research Paper RMRS-RP-9. September 1998
Fire Behavior Associated with the 1994 South Canyon Fire on Storm King Mountain, Colorado by Bret W. Butler, Roberta A. Bartlette, Larry S. Bradshaw, Jack D. Cohen
Patricia L. Andrews, Ted Putnam, and Richard J. Mangan.
Several of the photos in the report indicate fairly brisk winds as well as the narratives.
https://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs/rmrs_rp009.pdf
Download the Dr. D. X. Viegas paper from this link.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252531013_Eruptive_Fire_Behaviour_in_Past_Fatal_Accidents
And for sure the Synthesis of Knowledge of Extreme Fire Behavior: Volume 1 for Fire Managers.
http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context=jfspsynthesis
And then GTS for Volume 2
Well…I see that John Maclean is promoting Holly NEIL’S and Alan Sinclair’s work, so I am to infer Mr. Maclean is on Team Marsh as well? I mean…that’s what I got out of it.
If I didn’t already know NEIL was solidly on Team Marsh, all I had to do was see that she is quoting the GMIHC motto which Marsh borrowed from not only his college, but a whole bunch of other places as well, which is the very definition of a lack of imagination. And frankly, I would not have expected that from Marsh being such a non conformist by nature and all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esse_quam_videri#Schools_and_colleges
And since I already knew that Sinclair’s son has a part in the movie as a result of his relationship with Team Marsh and those who made the movie, I didn’t have to read the whole
“a few cut stobs means Granite Mountain cut a P Line because that was SOP for them and therefore this is proof Eric Marsh made some good decisions and therefore didn’t kill his crew by making the worst single decision in wildland firefighting history against almost every rule and guideline on the books and over the repeated objections of Captain Steed.”
Which is just about the biggest crock of bullshit I have ever witnessed anybody come up with, which if I remember right, is also a favorite theory of NEIL as well.
What a fucking JOKE!
And I am not even going down EN’s road to Crazy Town just because I have a low tolerance for that much well written bullshit in attorney quasi legalalese double speak.
I finally had to block EN from sending me emails a couple of years ago because you know…she nuts!
And even Sinclair acknowledges those stobs could have been cut by anybody at anytime, nor were they in a line.
There were just a few of them found at random places…I don’t understand his conclusions at all. Talk about a reach, I don’t even think his logic is a leap of faith, more like a hyper jump in space to another universe.
Sinclair wants his close friend not to be guilty of killing his crew and of making the single biggest blunder in wildland firefighting history so badly.
Oh…and one more thing. Eric Marsh killed his crew, and anybody who doesn’t start with that premise is a liar and a fraud.
Fred and I can argue all we want about the secondary or causal factors that were in play that day and how important each one was, but we are way past establishing the fact that Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed are 100 percent responsible in the primary category as to why they are their crew are all dead.
I don’t have any interest in discussing or engaging with anyone who does not accept that truth first and foremost and then we can work from there. Anything less presents a clear and present danger to wildland firefighters in the future and those who push that agenda are criminals in my book.
And as far as I know, I am far from alone in my views. I think Fred, Bob, the Woodsman and the entire WF world are in complete agreement on the most important point.
I think the only ones in the WF world who have a different viewpoint in public are those who are part of the Yavapai County WF Cosa Nostra who are directly under the influence of Amand Beno Marsh and her posse.
But get them away from her and out of that county or in private where they feel safe and even that bunch would admit the truth…Marsh killed his crew.
I do not want this ughs so it is your views
DJ is a fine lady and if she was not I would say…believe you me…
Holly is a fine lady and
I only saw good to me from John MacLean even though some smokejumpers said John did not talk well of me at a smokejumper convention- that was his thing but I like the fella-
I will read this book with no bias or judgement but yes I too wwtktt run parallel to you and will be looking into HOW it is shown in 266 pages- and want to see FACTS with SOURCES …especially about prospectors…injuns-n’-outlaws
and I will be looking to see since I was on the mountaintop watching it all for how it looked to them from their standpoint…where not too far from where they eat breathe and sleep had 19 men perish- and all the pain aftermath of opening their private lives to so many-
seems Gary is going to meet up with RTS and now become BFFs…thanks to their Marsh moments —-which one day I will show more just some data so hard to share because HOW PRIVATE it came to me…man do I wish we had a skype area and I can show you all—-
where was the days when we had the “brothers from another mother” attitude—let me see them circle the wagon—I need to go back to my South Canyon Fire interviews and refresh myself to that data I reckon—hard to keep up with all the fires and all the fatalities and all the FIRES and all the fires and all the fires and all the fires …when you watch one there is how many flaming up across the USA
ok…everyone is allowed to FEEL the way they do—
I am also going to stick up for Amanda because if it was not for someone here showing me something in June I would always just lay neutral there but she is not the same lady as 2013 and I reckon let us show her respect for the lady she is TODAY; she shines…it was HER grieving process…shared to the unknown world…
again I do not say this because I know them— I do not … I saw John once on a hike…Bill Gabbert who writes on WILDFIRE TODAY is a top notch man who graduated from bachelors of science and been in the industry as a wild land fire management officer for USDA/NPS if rounding up almost 50 years and he deserves the respect for his perseverance and hard work to not just DISAPPEAR into retirement but his life is dedicated to sharing news and commentary about wild land fire and he shares terminology and current and cached fires and what is a red card or how to get into the industry or learning about heat temperatures and prescribed burns or HOW the organization and system on large fires resembles much like the military system. God bless that man for educating the world people in or out of the industry about fires. He may not be rugged and raw like shown here but he thinks about probably the people and their stories- I know Bob Powers he limited some add-ons in some comment sections but it is his page to do as he like-
I really appreciate the freedoms shown here yet at times I do not follow all the posse talk or this or that—
So I am going to just say what I did and lay it there-
on a lighter note-
https://youtu.be/ukD8zj6ngVY this was emailed to me because I am not a tv gal and they were on tv recently…too cute
one thing is for sure—Woodsman and Gary are both the real deal of the grunts on the line and lingo
and RTS I will forever hope justice is given for the ILL minded who spoke about him or emailed others about him like they did—so undeserving…
and well Bob Powers I have my fishing rod; Crater Lake have fish? 😉
Joy,
You have made amazing progress in terms of your accrued knowledge of wildland firefighting and you have shown impressive resilience and determination in pursuing your interests in this matter and you are obviously a very smart person in spite of the fact you write like The Riddler and like Yoda you talk.
BUT…you are a terrible investigator and you are probably never going to get any better. WTKTT is the best investigator on this thread because he is AI and therefore he has very little emotion, feelings or personal opinions because nothing is personal with him. Those who built him did attempt to program in a personality and so we have seen flashes of humanity in him but it has been very little.
You on the other hand base almost everything on how you FEEL about someone and whether you. LIKE them or not and if they are a NICE person and WHETHER you think they have a good HEART and LIKE you or not.
You really should either grow up or just limit yourself to writing fluff posts on this thread that comment on how you feel and whether you enjoyed meeting someone or had a good hike. That information is interesting and it has a place here and in the world, but not in an investigative report or in court.
This the following is step one if you want to change and start to become a legitimate investigator. You are not here to make friends or even keep the ones you have much less add to your Christmas Card list.
The only thing you are interested in is finding the truth and you will do anything it takes to get it just as long as it is legal. There are no other restrictions,parameters, limitations, or rules.
There are no friends here or anywhere else you are searching for the truth. There are only targets and the subjects of your investigation or witnesses, either friendly or hostile.
Get it?
Got it Gary 🙂
I guess I never saw me in the light you shared so I can take the data and learn from it. Thank
You.
I was stating I did not know them and the background to help the world get I had history and some
was
Not
So
Good
And
I added the kid video because somehow the innocence of a child seems to center things back for me. Life is short. Yes there is history but I choose for today to just be optimistic.
Now time for me to go shoot my new gun I had since Decemeber 7 2015 and never shot it. My husband and father got it for me a few weeks before he died. Time to see if I still got it. Gary…words are words…most of the time they are empty and so using the words FEELING maybe some day I will actually get around to matching up to words and what they really even ever do to me. Recently now almost 2 months tomorrow I used words and actions that really for the first time in my life did make me FEEL but it was too vulnerable of an area especially for someone who has not been around me much…Man I appreciate that I am even capable of that so glad God shared it just not my style…so remember that…I may use emotional words but my mom and brothers will share and hubby and close people I really am kind hearted and given but really FEELING is not an alley I have yet fully developed and yes maybe I am in need of growing up as you said…I use to be such a work-aholic that when you get down to it I am not developed in a few areas and at age 45 I am gonna listen to your wise ways…k. Thanks 🙂
Remember rule number 1, Never take me too seriously.
and rule number 2-
Do not take either one of us seriously 😉
And Rule Number 2…reread Rule Number 1.
You know I just like to tease you Joy because I love you so much….you crazy kid!
I will start here for all of you who were never in Wild Land Fire.
When you become a crew boss and go thru the Training your base training S230 tells you and impresses upon you that YOU are responsible for your men your CREW. For their individual safety and the entire crews safety.
The crew boss is on scene, on the line and makes the decisions on LCES. The locations can change with time for Escape Routes and Safety zones. You are the leader of the crew and their safety is more important than any thing else or any orders from Sector/ Strike team leader or Division Group Super.
That is the way Crew Bosses function, Hot shot crew leaders and Engine Captains. The 19 FF under you are your responsibility alone. There safety from injury and their safety from death. If some one orders you to do something your responsibility is to do it safely, find another way to do it or refuse to do it. The lives of your men depend or your decisions and no one else’s.
Marsh killed his crew and himself. No one else. Steed had the right to say no and folded. He bears some guilt.
It is never nice when people die for no reason. They were in the black the best safety zone on a fire. They should have stayed right there. A stick of dynamite was all that could have moved me out of the black.
Your crew first every body else can go to hell……………………
And FYI… “a clear and present danger to wildland firefighters in the future” is NOT hyperbole. Because as almost everyone accepts, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Santayana
Because as I like to quote, “Once (The Loop Fire) is chance, twice (The Battlement Creek Fire) is a coincidence, but three (The Yarnell Hill Fire) times is a pattern.”
Shame, shame, shame!
And I would like to add one more if I may: South Canyon Fire (1994).
The Yarnell Hill Fire was a virtual mirror image of the South Canyon Fire.
And four times is what …. insanity?
Well…I separate South Canyon out because:
1. The command structure of the crew was broken down because the squad that ended up dead was separated from both their crew boss and assistant crew boss,
2. They were unduly under the influence of a smokejumper (as many WF are because of the reputation that proceeds all smokejumpers….deserved and earned or not).
3. The smokejumper in question (Mackey) was woefully unqualified for the position he found himself in as IC simply because of the BLM policy that the first jumper on the ground is the jumper in charge and therefore the IC regardless of their, or anyone else’s quals and experience.
4, The other IC was a senior BLM WF as a station supervisor or something like that, in other words he was more than an engine foreman (I think) but he also would have been unduly under the influence of a smokejumper (as many WF are because of the reputation that proceeds all smokejumpers….deserved and earned or not).
5. It was an unusual bifurcated command structure with two men acting as IC on and off depending on the situation and their reenactment of “Who’s on First”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPu5KKrvp3I
6.And there were just a whole bunch of reasons that made the South Canyon different that than other three I think, like they both jumped in and helicoptered in to the top so they started working from there (above the fire) and then (according to Dr. Putnam) they automatically tried to retreat the same way they came in even though it was exactly the wrong thing to do by going back up hill as the fire exploded below them and failed to drop their gear which slowed them down and waited too long to try and get in the fire shelters so on and so forth.
I think the El Cariso, Mormon Lake and Granite Mountain ended up dead because their crew bosses killed them, I think Prineville ended up dead because several other people killed them, mostly Mackey.
But I could write a book to explain everything I think about South Canyon.
You and I could obviously have a serious and very long talk about how differently we see South Canyon versus Yarnell Hill. Wow, I am a little surprised.
actually I got what RTS was getting at but I agree with Gary on the differences—
Gary,
You make all excellent points on the Leadership and Human Errors.
I was using the South Canyon Fire only as an example where the majority of these WF left perfectly good black under very similar fire weather and fire behavior conditions. I should have explained that up front.
Joy, you waffled on that one quite nicely, giving credit to BOTH Gary and I. Feeling …
Well then…we are in agreement. I feel better. And Joy…you are a real gem! Trying to make both of us feel better about ourselves.
Maybe they will confirm that Marsh was at the ranch. But i doubt it
I glanced at Fred’s paper but I haven’t read it yet. I know it is full of very well written and documented blah, blah, blah, but the bottom line is this; that paper should be Exhibit A in an indictment of the entire wildland firefighting community for deriliction of duty, malfeasance, recklessness, gross negligence, and now conspiracy to cover up their culpability, responsibility and collective guilt in the horrible deaths of 19 wildland firefighters. In fact…I am going to go post this email on IM.
Sent from my iPad
And just in case I need to point out the obvious, the wildland firefighting community is relatively small and the closer you get to the upper echelons, the smaller and more elite it gets. Everything revolves around a central core group of lifers who all know each other, or of each other where no one is seperated by more than one degree.
Furthermore, the entire interagency wildland firefighting fire line organization is built around an elite front line core…it’s hotshot crews. Hotshot crews are the pride of every organizational unit that provides a home base and administrative center for a crew.
In addition, the only difference between wildland firefighters and a quilting bee cooperative is…firefighters gossip more and everybody knowing everybody’s else’s business id far more widespread.
So…does anyone think for one minute that if Eric Marsh’s contemporaries and fellow hotshot crew bosses knew he was a train wreck looking for a place to happen for years in advance of the Yarnell Hill Fire, that everybody who was anybody in the wildland community didn’t know the very same thing?
And this most certainly includes Marsh’s supervisor, Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Chief Darrel Willis, who himself was as plugged in to the wildland firefighting matrix as any person possibly could be.
So., I ask you…whose fault was the worst disaster in the history of wildland firefighting, Mash and Steed alone? I think not, others may not be looking for someone to blame…but I am. With great authority comes great responsibility and accountability. And without those things, no one will be safe on the fire line in the future.
Well said, Gary!
Thank you Diane.
no- thank you for your continued visits Gary 😉
OK…one more thing is bothering me. Gee…maybe I should proof my posts better before I publish them? I should have written:
“In addition, the {BIGGEST} only difference between wildland firefighters and a quilting bee cooperative is…firefighters gossip more and everybody knowing everybody’s else’s business id {is} far more widespread.”
Whoops…I meant to write:
“I glanced at Fred’s paper but I haven’t read it yet. I know it is full of very well written and documented blah, blah, blah, Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed fucked up and everything is their fault and on one else is to blame.”
Which is BULLSHIT! Hey…don’t blame me, the USFS made me who I am and then a big gold badge and a gun took it to the next level. Hotshot crew bosses are trained and conditioned to stand up and call it like they see them, as are federal agents.. Unfortunately, most current and former hotshot crew bosses are too worried right now about getting banished from their tribe so they are silent. I don’t worry about that…obviously.
A former insider who spent 7 years as a hotshot crew boss which included founding a hotshot crew from scratch who was trained as a federal drug agent where the most aggressive are usually rewarded the most who is now a FIRE outsider. Bummer for the stupid fucks who would like this to go away. 🙂
Reply to Joy Collura post on September 25, 2017 at 11:30 pm
>> Joy Collura asked…
>>
>> Can adosh reopen case based on this ( possible new evidence )?
Technically ( and legally speaking )… Yes.
ADOSH can ‘reopen’ a previously ‘closed’ incident investigation any time they want to… and they often do.
One of the other reasons besides ‘new evidence’ coming to light would also be if ‘new illnesses or injuries’ are later discovered related to a previously ‘closed’ ADOSH incident investigation.
There is even a special web page ( and a form ) on the Industrial Commission of Arizona’s website ( The ICA is the Arizona agency that ‘owns’ ADOSH ) for this.
The Industrial Commission of Arizona
Protection of life, health, safety and welfare of Arizona’s most valuable assets
CLAIMS DIVISION – PETITION TO REOPEN A CLAIM
https://www.azica.gov/claims-petition-reopen
The Federal level Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA ) can also recommend to any State level OSHA program ( like ADOSH ) that they ‘reopen a case’ based on new evidence, or if OSHA finds that a completed state-level investigation was not done properly and/or completely.
This has happened a number of times with ADOSH.
But… realistically speaking… the fact remains that despite all attempts on the part of Mike Dudley, Jim Karels, other members of the SAIT, Arizona Forestry and U.S. Forestry to withhold and HIDE evidence from the ADOSH investigators… the investigators were still able to easily determine how ‘fucked up’ that Arizona Forestry workplace was and ADOSH did, in fact, stop their ‘investigation’ when they realized they were already ‘pegging the meter’ as to the MAXIMUM FINES AND PENALTIES they were going to be allowed ( by law ) to levy against that employer for the incompetence and negligence that was on display in that Arizona Forestry workplace.
So it is unlikely that ADOSH will ever ‘reopen’ their ‘Yarnell Fire’ investigation.
They already saw enough evidence to levy the maximum penalties they were/are allowed to… so no amount of ‘new’ evidence would result in any ‘higher’ fines. They already ‘pegged the meter’ with the evidence that was/is available and issued the ‘highest’ fines and penalties they were allowed to against Arizona Forestry.
Remember… it was NOT ADOSH’s job to determine EVERYTHING about what happened that day. It was only their job to determine if the employer ( Arizona Forestry ) was ‘non-compliant’ as far as running a safe workplace… and to levy the maximum fines allowed by Arizona Law.
They did that ( already ).
The other reason ADOSH would probably be reluctant to ‘reopen’ the Yarnell Hill Fire investigation is because the original investigation took an ENORMOUS amount of their limited resources for them to complete… and they even suffered some criticism for this during their 2013 annual ‘review’ by Federal level OSHA.
The next ‘Reply’ contains the detail of the ‘exchange’ that took place between Federal Level OSHA and ADOSH following the conclusion of their Yarnell Hill Fire investigation.
Federal OSHA actually ‘commended’ ADOSH for their overall investigation into the Yarnell Hill Fire workplace fatalities…, but then criticized their performance in 2013 for ‘other things’.
Bill Warren ( ADOSH Director ) took exception to that criticism and points out that yes, they DID have to ‘prioritize’ certain things in 2013 because of the enormous amount of their limited resources it took to do the Yarnell Hill investigation.
Continued next ‘Reply’….
Thank you
Continued from above…
** FAME
‘FAME’ stands for ‘Annual Monitoring and Evaluation’.
Every year… states that are allowed to run their own ‘OSHA’ programs ( like Arizona ) are still ‘Monitored’ and ‘Evaluated’ by the Federal level OSHA agency as to compliance and performance for any given fiscal year.
That ‘FAME’ report done by Federal Level OSHA concerning ADOSH’s activities in the year 2013 ( actually covering fiscal year October, 2012 through September, 2013 ) is here…
https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/osp/efame/2013/az_report.pdf
From that OSHA 2013 ‘FAME’ report regarding ADOSH’s 2013 ‘performance’…
————————————————————————————————–
FY 2013 Comprehensive
Federal Annual Monitoring and Evaluation (FAME) Report
Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH)
Evaluation Period: October 1, 2012 – September 30, 2013
Prepared by: U. S. Department of Labor
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
Region IX, San Francisco, California
I. Executive Summary
A. Summary of the Report
The purpose of this report is to assess the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH) activities for Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 and its progress in resolving outstanding findings and recommendations from previous Federal Annual Monitoring Evaluations (FAMEs). The comprehensive evaluation includes a review of ADOSH’s enforcement inspections, complaint case files, discrimination program case files, special study on the targeting program, annual performance plan goals, and progress toward the goals in its five-year strategic plan for FY 2013.
II. Major New Issues
Yarnell Hill Wildland Fire
ADOSH allocated significant resources and personnel to investigate the Yarnell Hill wild land fire tragedy that resulted in the death of 19 firefighters on June 30, 2013. This inspection/ investigation constituted a significant case, as defined by OSHA, and required the full-time assignment of two compliance industrial hygienists, one compliance supervisor, and a staff attorney. Numerous additional support personnel and senior management also assisted in planning and providing logistical and technical support.
Furthermore, significant additional resources were allocated to bring aboard an industry-expert consulting team of wild land firefighters and industry experts ( Wildland Fire Associates – WFA ) to assist ADOSH in their investigation of the tragedy. The resulting complex and lengthy investigation produced significant findings and the issuance of willful-serious and serious citations totaling $559,000.
The decision to commit such intensive resources and efforts exemplifies ADOSH commitment to serve as a catalyst for continued workplace safety and health improvement when possible.
————————————————————————————————–
ADOSH Director Bill Warren’s subsequent written response to OSHA’s 2013 ‘FAME’ report about ADOSH is here…
https://www.osha.gov/dcsp/osp/efame/2013/az_formal_response.pdf
…and this is part of what Bill Warren had to say back to OSHA regarding their FY 2013 FAME review of the Arizona ADOSH program…
————————————————————————————————-
To: Mr. Ken Nishiyama Atha
Regional Administrator, OSHA
90 – 7th Street, Suite 18100
San Francisco, CA 94103
From: Bill Warren, DIRECTOR, Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health ( ADOSH )
RE: ADOSH Response to the FY 2013 FAME
Dear Mr. Atha:
The following is a short statement on behalf of the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH) and in response to OSHA’s FY 2013 Federal Annual Monitoring and Evaluation (FAME) report. The required Corrective Action Plan (CAP) response regarding the findings and recommendations found within the FAME will be submitted to OSHA by August 22, 2014, as requested in your July 21, 2014 letter.
With the exception of some areas, I consider the FY 2013 FAME to be a detailed review of ADOSH’s FY 2013 activities and I appreciate the efforts made by OSHA’s staff to include some positive findings, along with the findings where corrections are recommended. I continue to believe, however, that many of the findings within the FAME represent issues that have little to no impact on the overall effectiveness and quality of Arizona’s state plan program. I will take this opportunity to respond to the more substantive issues identified in the FAME.
With respect to the issues identified under Section H, Major New Issues, ADOSH appreciates OSHA’s acknowledgement of the significance of its Yarnell Hill Wildland Fire investigation (“Yarnell Hill”).
As recognized by OSHA, the Division’s Yarnell Hill investigation required a considerable investment of ADOSH resources. ADOSH’s commitment of resources to this investigation included the full-time dedication of a compliance supervisor and two IH Compliance Officers.
This important investigation, however, placed significant burdens on limited staff and resources, and impacted other aspects of the program, some which were identified as findings by OSHA, but without any acknowledgment that these findings resulted from the commitment of resources to the Yarnell Hill investigation. ADOSH needed to make decisions regarding the priority of its resources, and priority was properly given to this investigation.
Yours;
Bill Warren
DIRECTOR, Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health ( ADOSH )
—————————————————————————————————–
So Bill Warren was ‘calling out’ Federal level OSHA for first ‘acknowledging’ that they did, in fact, have to devote a HUGE amount of their ( limited ) resources to the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire… but then not ‘cutting them some slack’ because they also did, in fact, end up having to ‘prioritize’ other things because of that in their ‘fiscal year 2013’.
As I wrote last night to Joy, I am working on a MOAP, to try and address Joy’s misconceptions as to who and what Fire gods are. And I woke up with an epiphany I want to share with you, who are indeed amoung my closest friends and confidants.
First off, let me start by giving you the Readers Digest version of my Mother Of All Posts regarding fire gods just in case I get bored and never finish it. The term fire gods is WF colloquial (it is used only in informal settings) vernacular (spoken by a class of people, in this case low grade WF) nonemclature (a name that was made up by a specific discipline…WF).
The term fire gods is usually not a term of endearment bestowed upon someone to show them respect or honor them. It is normally used in a bitch (non gender specific) session between two or more grunts and it is often used in context as a derisive title to describe “them.”
So…here is my epiphany, it isn’t anything new, I am simply continuing to beat on my favorite drum. I’m pretty sure all of the readers and participants in this thread realize how fortunate you are. Two of your most prolific contributors just happen to be two of the greatest hotshot crew bosses who ever saddled up and hit the fire line.
You have the youngest hotshot crew boss in history, a record that will never be equaled or even tied, simply because in today’s FIRE world,, no 23 year old, much less a 22 year old is going to ever be given the responsibility to manage a hotshot crew again. It would actually be safer to play Russian Roulette using 3 live rounds instead of the 1 live round that is traditionally used in the game.
In addition, you have the longest serving hotshot crew boss in history at 27 years, which is also a record that will never be beaten or even equaled. It would be safer to play Russian Roulette using 5 out of 6 live rounds rather than doing that…again. Why…the dangers from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) that would be present in anyone even wanting to do the job that long would pose a significant risk to the crew.
Unfortunately these two brilliant subject matter experts are in complete disagreement over one of the most critical elements in understanding the horrific outcome on the Yarnell Hill Fire. And RTS steadfastly refuses to see reason and admit he is wrong or at least misguided, which is probably due to his CTE. Unfortunately, we are going to have to wait a little while before we can confirm my diagnosis regarding what his underlying problem is because they will need to dissect it and that shouldn’t be done until after he has gone on to the big fire camp that waits on the other side of the veil of tears.
In the meantime…here is the bottom line. The Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed by a diesese, and had they only been injured and had they worked for the federal government, their injury would have been documented using a CA-2, just as my throat problem was documented on CA-2’s that were accepted by OWCP as a work related “Occupational Disease.” I don’t know the process the PFD would use to document an occupational disease.
According to the logic of RTS, had they survived with only injuries, the incident would have been documented on CA-1’s, ” “Report Of a Traumatic Injury.” But…the crew was not killed as the result of a traumatic injury despite the trauma they suffered. They were killed as a result of an occupational disease. And Eric Marsh was not the disease itself, he was only a merely symptom of the disease that killed the crew. The wildland firefighting system (and culture) itself is the disease.
The Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed by the system that is comprised and managed by fire gods just as the Mormon Lake Hotshots and the El Carriso Hotshots were killed by the very same system, hence the name of my book,
http://ourfiregods.com/battlementcreekfire.html
and the reason I use the same verbiage to describe why the GMIHC died here,
http://ourfiregods.com/yarnellhillfire.html
Oh…and one more thing. Just in case you have forgotten I spent the first year or so on this thread defending Eric Marsh. Who finally convinced me I was wrong? None other than RTS. RTS has a plethora (I have always wanted to use that word in a sentence) of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that Marsh was a train wreck looking for a place to happen.
And not only that, it was well known within the wildland firefighting community that was the case. Therefore, when Marsh finally found a place to hurtle both himself and his crew off the tracks in a catastrophic crash, no one on the inside of the WF culture were surprised it happened.
The rest of us were shocked to our very core…the WF community just said, “Oh…it finally happened, well…I knew it would eventually. That is why the deaths of the almost entire Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew, including Marsh, on the Yarnell Hill Fire was a colossal systemic failure of the entire wildland firefighting system.
With great power…comes great responsibility. This is about accountability and just like Van miserably failed when he faced his greatest challenge, the entire WF leadership structure have failed miserably when they faced their greatest challenge.
And that is accepting responsibility for clearly seeing the YHF disaster coming in some way, some time and somewhere…and they lied to cover it up and they continue to lie to this very day to protect themselves, their agencies and their friends.
Even at the risk the same exact thing may happen again because this is the third time in hotshot history the same exact thing has happened in the same exact way for the same exact primary reasons.
And as I like to say, one time is an anomaly, two times is a cooincidence, but three times is a pattern.
Gary,
Thank you for your input and perspective.
It is appreciated.
It concerns me that when the fire was obviously out of control poSsibly due to poor management by fire supervisors they called upon granite mountain to use their bravado and skill to save the situation and then blame them.
thank you Gary-
I always like the wit of some who shared to me over time-
-in all our lives there is a time to learn and grow-
some are “tools” in this here game of life—
and some….are just comparable to the lowly mosquito – where they serve no purpose except to be parasites as a gnat or a tick to the environment— suck and suck but as in life they eventually become bait for the fly-swatter!
_-SOMEONE OR SOMETHING, HAS TO BE THE “BUG” AGAINST THE WINDSHIELD.-_
we are the platform and the receptor-
hoping to learn and get life’s offerings
for some…learn the hard unbelieving way-
but like a puppy we go back a time or 2 to consume out own vomit-
?????
eventually we wise up and head on to new directions- a round-robin affect but it happens!
some of us take time and some of us take a long time…and some just keep doing…
I do hope as people lives their lives that were on the YHF and begin to really see that event shoulda never happened and they begin to purely share their accounts—
thank you Gary for sharing what a fire god is—
sometimes you perceive me
because MANY times the past year it has been the bleachers speaking through me
FIRE GOD to me means this—
a man who is in the fire industry who knows all the laws and regulations and shares them in a tone and delivery that is infectious that the people seeing him want to be HIM not talk shit about him but be a mirror image of that person by understanding SAFETY MATTERS and it does not matter where the person lays in the industry; a grunt or the highest up—
that is what FIRE GODS is to me
when I was a culinary/ice artist I had the cleanest record and kitchen and always I was on the health inspectors forefront trying to nab me just once—couldn’t happen—I clean as I go and I was so on top that everyone around me was on board—I did not have to direct or tell or be a boss or be bossy— or have people take orders — they knew what had to be done and we did it. To me you hire RIGHT then you do not have too many concerns—
corrections:
thank you Gary for sharing what a fire god is—
sometimes you MIS perceive me
because MANY times the past year it has been the bleachers speaking through me
———————
but like a puppy we go back a time or 2 to consume out not out but OUR own vomit-
Hmmmm….I like what Diane wrote, much better. I feel like in your analogy I am a mosquito, a bug spattered on a windshield where my ass was the last thing that passed through my brain, a puppy eating it’s own vomit…or all three rolled into one. I was getting hungry and about ready to go make dinner. For some reason I’m not hungry any more?
And fire god(s) mean different things to different people and can even vary within the same person depending on the fire god in question and the circumstances. It’s complicated and nuanced.
Here is an exerpt from the MOAP I am working on to explain what I think who and what fire gods are:
“I should also start out by saying Fire God is not really a term of endearment and is only used by those at the bottom or near the bottom of the food chain. So…here is an example of how two grunts might use the colloquial title of Fire Gods when they first show up for work.
Grunt 1: What the fuck are we doing after PT today?
Grunt 2: Who the fuck cares?
Grunt 1: I fuckin’ care…that’s who.
Grunt 2: Probably stackin’ sticks in the forest, what the fuck did we do yesterday, last week and the week before that? It’s been rainin’ every fuckin’ day.
Grunt 1: Yeah…we need a good fire.
Grunt 2: Have you ever saw a bad fire? LOL
Grunt 1: Yeah…I have, one that never gets goin.’ ROTGL
Grunt 2: Yeah…it’s been a bad fuckin’ fire season.
Grunt 1: Yeah…hardly any fires.
Grunt 2: Yeah…last year was a good fire season.
Grunt 1: Yeah…we went to a lot fires and made some good money.
Grunt 2: Well…say a prayer to the fuckin’ Fire Gods, maybe they will send us [wherever in the nation there is current fire activity] using move up money and put us on standby.
Grunt 1: Fat chance, the fuckin’ Fire Gods in the Ivory Tower don’t give a fuck about us, more likely they will lay us off early and use the move up money to hire hookers…fuckin’ assholes.
Grunt 2: Well…try facing Mecca (the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise) and prayin’ to them, maybe something will break in [wherever there is a chance a fire could start] and we’ll be up on rotation at SWCC?
Grunt 2: Do you think we should go start our own fire to clear out some forest debris like Bateman did?
Grunt 1: Are you fuckin’ nuts? Do you want me to dismember you up with a chain saw? Fire is our enemy except when we use it for burn outs, back fires and it is in the ops plan or it is a command decision due to exigent circumstances. We also use fire to reduce the fuel load in the forest when we are following an approved burn plan, we are within prescription, all of the boxes have been checked and all of the proper notifications have been made…you stupid fuck.
Do you want to go to federal prison because I will help put you send you there. Wildfire kills and destroys everything it touches without malice, anger or premeditation, but also without compassion, forgiveness or mercy.”
Gary, it sounds like the Fire Gods are just like the proverbial Emperor who has no clothes.
——————————————————————————
{Emperor}
a little boy comes out of the crowd to tell them Emperor he has no clothes on-
https://youtu.be/baVkpul4XoU
Ha! It’s true! That’s a real fucking conversation, right there ….wait…have you been hiding in the bushes or something? Fuck. You know what this means don’t you? It means I’m still a low-level forest fucking technician… after all these years too. YEEHAW!!!!!!
To reply to Woodsman—
I am not sure I understand your meaning-
can you
or
can you not
see the clothes????
————————————————
{so what you are saying is watch 5:15}
I’m saying Gary never lost touch with his inner back-of-the-bus wf self as he just constructed a typical day to day conversation like he heard it yesterday. Kind of amazing if you really think about it.
Gary and Sonny are good writers-
agreed Woodsman
Fuckin’ A…have you seen this one? BITCHIN’!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B231tIUA6LE
It’s about damn time hotshots are recognized for who we are, and what we do! Fuck them jumpers and the chutes they floated in with…we own it now, my bitches (non gender specific)!
Like the man say’s, “It’s all about recognizing wildland firefighters (or maybe he said hotshots…it doesn’t really matter, we all look alike to Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public anyway) what they do, or the sacrifices they make to keep the Public family safe in their abodes, or something like that? Point is…the movie is about WF in general and hotshots in particular and I’m pretty sure it never mentions those who I shall not name again…you know…the pre Madonna’s.
We (and no, I don’t have a mouse in my pocket, I’m having a flashback) don’t save houses…we save towns!
I take back all of the trash talk I did about this film. They aren’t trying to tell the true story of the Yarnell Hill Fire, they are just telling the story of how noble WF are…who the fuck can argue with that?
I mean c’mon…who really gives a rat’s ass about what really happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire anyway? It’s all fading into a blur…a story becomes a folk take,a folk tale becomes a legend…a legend becomes a fable, a fable becomes a myth, and finally….everyone eventually forgets the myth….so fahgettaboudit!
I am going to compartmentalize everything I know, or think I know about wildland firefighting, being a hotshot, the Yarnell Hill Fire and the Granite Mountain Hotshots and lock that box away so what’s inside it can’t keep me from enjoying a real meat and potatoes film about what a hero I am, or I used to be, or I wanted to be, or thought I was…who cares, fahgettaboudit?
C’mon Bob…get with the program and go see it with me. I will drive down to wherever that jerkwater town is in Idaho where you live and we will go together! Wait…does your little town have a place where they show moving picture shows….a theater?
You know…where they usually show the Buster Crabbe movies like “Tarzan the Fearless”, “Flash Gordon” and “Buck Rogers” movies? Your other brother Bob, AKA RTS, can drive up and buy us dinner before we go and you can pick up the movie tickets and treats…I want Junior Mints,and a large Coke.
Wait, never mind…Olympia has an IMAX Theater, you R-5 Slackers are on your own.! Fahgettaboudit!
Gary- you are just stoked they filmed the film in your old working grounds— admit it!
Yep…guilty as charged! Santa Fe & Beyond!
Oh…and one more thing. The movie also has a lot of shots of my home town…Prescott, Arizona and where I became a WF…the Prescott National Forest.
What are the odds the first and defining movie about hotshots would be based on my home town and filmed in and around my adopted home town?
I don’t know either…but I’m pretty sure they are astronomical…right?
And I always get the cup with the large Coke at the movies filled to the top with ice. The ice and the Junior Mints help soothe my throat during the movie so it hurts less and I don’t start involuntarily coughing because of the dry air irritates my damaged larynx.
The movie is full of exaggerations, hype, half truths and outright lies. But some things are real, the smoke full of harmful particulates that WF often breathe almost 24/7 without anymore more protection than a bandanna…that’s real.
I’m just going to have a little fun with the movie. A guys gotta have a little fantasy in his life…right, my brother from another mother and the longest serving hotshot crew boss in history…the man…the legend…our very own RTS!
I really cant Gary it is just to close to my past. Where the hurt has never really gone away.
Dying dose not make someone a hero. Taking other people to their deaths dose not make anyone a Hero.
You know I love you…man. And I am actley aware of what you suffered as a result of the Rattlesnake Fire, but all joking aside, I think it would be good for you to compartmentalizations all of that and put that box away long enough to go see the hotshot program you played a key role in building be celebrated. That is all this movie will really be…a feel good movie about Hotshots.
This is OUR house, we built it…others just live in it now.
We will see Gary. I have lost the Night mares for a long time not sure I want them back. This might tear you up a little but in my 40s my Aunt gave me a book / Magazine True detective. Had pictures of the investigation including pictures of the Bodies uncovered and laying on the burned ground. That will give you a shock reality of the Rattle snake fire. Yes they were burned beyond recognition Not the kind of thing you would show to the wife’s and children.
I was old enough by then to accept it. I think that is enough for now Love you Brother..
**
** MARC MASON – PRIVATE CONTRACTOR AT YARNELL ON JUNE 30, 2013 ( ???? )
As the ‘fillum’ about the Granite Mountain Hotshots nears public release, a lot of people are ‘commenting’ on the various posts being made on the various ‘official’ social media sites for the ‘fillum’.
The official PUBLIC ‘Facebook’ page for the upcoming fillum ‘Only The Brave’ is here…
https://www.facebook.com/OnlyTheBraveMovie/
On July 20, the movie people posted an image of one of the early ‘movie posters’, and a lot of people commented.
Here is a direct link to that July 20, 2017 posting and all the associated comments…
https://www.facebook.com/OnlyTheBraveMovie/photos/a.1970973523123984.1073741828.1934601460094524/1971946809693322/?type=3
Seven days later, on July 27, 2017, a number of comments were made by a Wildland Firefighter named Marc Mason.
In those comments… he asserts that he was working at the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday, June 30, 2013… and that he was working in ‘Division A’ on the Yarnell side of the fire.
He says he was told ( like many others ) to ‘get off the fire’ and get to a ‘safety zone’, and, after doing so, heard ( like many others ) the infamous ‘Helmet Cam’ radio traffic at 4:39 PM when Jesse Steed and Robert Caldwell were trying desperately to get John Burfiend in ‘Bravo 33’ to even bother to ANSWER their radio calls on the A2G channel.
But the interesting ( and mysterious ) part is that this ‘Marc Mason’ fellow also asserts that he was a PRIVATE CONTRACTOR working the Yarnell fire that day when the tragedy took place.
Here is exactly what he posted to that PUBLIC Facebook page…
——————————————————————————————————-
Comment by: Marc Mason – July 27, 2017 at 2:26am
I’m scared to watch this movie because its going to hurt bad. I was on the 2013 Yarnell hill fire. I remember the radio traffic and the chaos. my crew stopped what we where doing in a safety zone we where in and we prayed for the GMHC.
Reply from: Jon Sanford – July 27, 2017 at 4:21pm
I always wonder how “Doughnut” (survivor) is coping with this after four years. Our crew read about it immediately and used it as a lessons learned. Every year I think about that crew.
Reply from: Marc Mason – July 27, 2017 at 5:10pm
It would be very interesting to know how he’s coping with it that’s a major loss that’s a big thing to swallow. When I was working the Yarnell Hill fire in Arizona that year I was working DIV A. And we were told the hike out to our safety zones fire was coming right at us so we headed into the safety zones. About 3 maybe 5 minutes after arriving Granite Mountain HotShots radioed in for air support the radio started going crazy that’s when we realized they were in danger and they were not in a safety zone. Bunch of chaos and then we realized a fire shelter deployment was taking place. I think about that fire every year. I work with a fire crew out of Boise Idaho now out of the National Interagency Fire Center. In 2013 on that fire I was working at the time for a private contractor.
——————————————————————————————————–
Marc Mason said…
“In 2013 on that fire I was working at the time for a PRIVATE CONTRACTOR.”
There is absolutely NO official record of ANY ‘Private Contractors’ working the Yarnell Fire that day… much less an entire ‘crew’ of them there on the Yarnell side of the fire, as Marc Mason suggests.
There is NO ‘Marc Mason’ in any ‘Resource Order’ record for the entire Yarnell Hill Fire.
SIDENOTE: There is also absolutely no ‘Resource Order’ for the infamous SPGS1 Gary Cordes, himself, so I suppose someone not appearing in the ‘Resource Order’ is absolutely no proof positive that person was NOT actually there.
On Marc Mason’s own ( PUBLIC ) Facebook Page… he lists his ‘Work Experience’ as follows…
———————————————————————————————————
Marc Mason – Intro
I’m a Friend, Father, Son, Brother and Freemason
From Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
Went to Coeur d’Alene High School
Single
Works at Freemasonry
Owner/Operator at Rub & Scrub Janitorial Services
Former Wildland Firefighter/EMT at PatRick Environmental
Former Fire Fighter/EMT at Kootenai County Fire & Rescue
Former Fire Fighter/EMT at GFP Enterprises, LLC
Former Wildland Firefighter at U.S. Forest Service
Former Firefighter/Paramedic at Shoshone County FIRE District #1
Studied Military Emergency Management at FEMA Emergency Management Institute
Studied Emergency Medical Technician at North Idaho College Workforce Training Center
——————————————————————————————————-
According to the DATES on another page… he really was working as a firefighter for the private company ‘GFP Enterprises, LLC’ during the month of June, 2013, when the Yarnell Tragedy took place.
So is this guy lying his ass off about ‘working’ at the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire… or WERE ‘Private Contractors’ actually working at Yarnell on the day the tragedy took place?
If so… how MANY?… where were they ASSIGNED?… what were they DOING?
And if so… what ELSE do they KNOW about what really happened that day?
If there really WERE any ‘Private Contractors’ working there at the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday, June 30, 2013… then the ADOSH investigators were NEVER TOLD ABOUT THEM and never had any chance to ‘interview’ any of them.
Followup…
Here is a link to Marc Mason’s actual PUBLIC ‘Facebook’ page, which contains the details about his ‘work history’ as a firefighter for various ‘Private Contractors’…
https://www.facebook.com/people/Marc-Mason/100011402674416
Happy Birthday Marc Mason
https://www.facebook.com/OnlyTheBraveMovie/photos/a.1970973523123984.1073741828.1934601460094524/1971946809693322/?type=3
the comment was removed? when? or am I not able to see it because I do not have FACEBOOK?
wwtktt:
is MARC MASON considered a PUBLIC FIGURE since he was a host on a tv show?
https://myspace.com/marc.mason.86
he does have a gap on his cached myspace page that he did not post when YHF was active….
https://youtu.be/GGophRsTA60
here is a video of him from the TV WORLD
https://books.google.com/books?id=R3LODAAAQBAJ&pg=PT3&lpg=PT3&dq=marc+mason+boise+idaho&source=bl&ots=kYPEmKFUGX&sig=PFpM-iMc0jas6J1hfLf0T1ZzcYk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiVnI-s0sbWAhVWzGMKHSRbDMQ4ChDoAQhLMAk#v=onepage&q=marc%20mason%20boise%20idaho&f=false
Reply to Joy A Collura post on September 27, 2017 at 1:33 pm
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> the comment was removed? when? or am I not able
>> to see it because I do not have FACEBOOK?
The public ‘comments’ made on July 27, 2017 by ‘Marc Mason’ have not been removed. They are still there accompanying that ‘poster’ that the ‘fillum’ people put up on July 20.
Not sure what’s going on when you access the link.
If the browser doesn’t go directly to a page showing just that poster and the associated 43+ public comments… then try just ‘clicking’ the photo itself.
You do NOT have to be ‘logged in’ to Facebook to see these PUBLIC comments. The ‘fillum’ people made their Facebook page totally PUBLIC and totally open to anyone whether you have a Facebook account, or not.
https://youtu.be/Bxf4Uc1n574
is this the same man?
I think so because what he says at marker 5:55
at 8:55 he states he will tell the truth about apparitions paranormal— hoping privately or publicly he does the same on his day June 30 2013 or that weekend and how he came all the way from Idaho to YHF and where was he? at the fire station watching or actually there on the map of activities—on the Weavers or near it? at the ranch house?
well maybe Marc Mason will have this page as a hit in GOOGLE when his name is googled and one day he can share—
https://www.facebook.com/marc.mason.86
from the page:
“ABOUT MARC
If someone were to ask me what I am, it could be summed up in one, simple word: Dreamer.
Ever since I was a small child my imagination has run wild.
I have been telling stories for as long as I can remember, creating grand worlds in my head and going on adventures that were invisible to others around me.
Am I eccentric? Yes. Am I proud of that? Absolutely.
I believe true love does exist, and sometimes it is found in the strangest, most unexpected places. I also believe that family and close friends are the glue that hold people together.
Above all things, I believe in being true to yourself and seizing the day. Life is an amazing gift. Make your experience as beautiful as you possibly can. Never give up and always move tord the stars.
I have the best kids in the hole wide world and love them with every thing I’ve got. I love helping people and enjoy the great outdoors !
I believe in Jesus and what he has done for all of mankind and believe we should live our lives with his light shining. I’m a TV producer channel 11 Boise Idaho and channel 14 Spokane Washington. I’m an Author, paranormal Investigator, business owner.
FAVORITE QUOTES
“Winners do today what others won’t so they can have tomorrow what others don’t “”
wwtktt:
so maybe because he speaks publicly he can be TRUE and he was pretty raw on the admittance of how the paranormal show was born- a night drunk with his dad…so maybe he will share his time on YHF…be about time some come public before I do such honor and then those who did not look well… cannot think of right word…but better them to share their account—
is this the same person?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-mason-07068a135
https://youtu.be/YOGnDICincQ
Freemasonary The Truth Isn’t For Everyone!
——————————-
wwtktt:
should be titled YHF- The Truth Isn’t For Everyone! (I was there on YHF but you won’t see me on any records)
http://www.parapsych.org/users/marcmason/profile.aspx
Reply to Joy A Collura post on September 27, 2017 at 4:32 pm
>> Joy A. Collura asked…
>>
>> is this the same person?
>>
>> https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-mason-07068a135
Apparenly so..
The ‘work history’ and ‘personal details’ on that ‘LinkedIn’ page match the same details on the PUBLIC Facebook page for the ‘Marc Mason’ that left that recent comment about “being in Yarnell’ on the ‘Only The Brave’ Facebook page.
Another followup…
It is also interesting to note the ‘Reply’ that WF Marc Mason got to his first comment there on that public Facebook page.
It was this…
——————————————————————————————-
Reply from: Jon Sanford – July 27, 2017 at 4:21pm
I always wonder how “Doughnut” (survivor) is coping with this after four years. Our crew read about it immediately and used it as a lessons learned. Every year I think about that crew.
——————————————————————————————-
Jon Sanford said…
“Our crew read about it immediately and used it as a lessons learned.
“Immediately”… as in “as soon as we heard about it… before any REPORTS came out”.
So this guy is basically saying that he ( and his crew ) knew IMMEDIATELY that Granite Mountain had ‘fucked up’… and that anytime you are pulling out your fire shelter means you have ALREADY most likely violated one or more of the rules of your profession.
Jon Sanford also said…
“… and used it as a lessons learned”.
He does not say exactly WHAT he ( and his crew ) IMMEDIATELY knew was a ‘lesson learned’ as soon as they heard about Granite Mountain… but let’s hope it was along the lines of…
“If you lose your situational awareness and you do NOT follow the established engagement rules of your profession… then you can easily kill yourself and ( unfortunately ) take a lot of other people who were relying on your decision making with you.”
GFP Enterprises, LLC wild land firefighting
WWTKTT—
so does this LLC fall into open records requests laws?
if so than we can start there 🙂
and if so
I will
Reply to Joy A. Collura post on September 25, 2017 at 10:54 pm
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> GFP Enterprises, LLC wild land firefighting
>>
>> WWTKTT—
>> so does this LLC fall into open records requests laws?
Nope. Private company. Only a court order could ‘pop’ any documents loose.
Can adosh reopen case based on this?
WTKTT Check the Engine Crews for any Private contractors. Like the ones from Phoenix.
Reply to Bob Powers post on September 27, 2017 at 10:52 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> WTKTT Check the Engine Crews for any Private contractors.
>> Like the ones from Phoenix.
I did.
My first thought ( and based on the story the guy is now telling publicly ) was that he might have been on one of the ‘Sun City’ Engine Crews that were assigned to do structure protection out there at that ‘Mining Company’ location about 1/2 mile southeast of the Shrine Road Youth Camp.
That’s the ‘crew’ that included ‘Jerry Thompson’, who shot all those photos and videos from that location.
But all the ‘crew members’ for the Sun City Engine(s) are listed in the ‘Resource Orders’ document…. and not one of them is named ‘Marc Mason’… nor is there any indication any of them were ‘private contractors’.
There is no ‘Marc Mason’ listed in ANY ‘Resource’ document that was publicly released by Arizona Forestry ( or given to the ADOSH investigators )… nor any indication that ANY ‘Crew’ or ‘Crew Member’ was a ‘private contractor’.
So either this ‘Marc Mason’ guy is simply lying his ass off… or Arizona Forestry ( for reasons unknown ) delivered ‘incomplete’ resource documents to the ADOSH investigators.
Thank you
At this point I would say he is Lying.
After reading so many areas and seeing there is a similarity to someone I would say he was at the fire station or church watching it versus being out there out there or he could of been camped out by Hayes Ranch area…so I cannot say LIAR at this point but very emotional and colorful storytelling persona but awaiting his reply to my communication
Joy and WTKTT
In fire dispatches there is one constant practice.
ALL FIRE ORDERS HAVE A ORDER NUMBER ASSIGNED.
C1 thru C100 crew manifest attached.
E1, etc. crew manifest 1 to however many.
If any were missed Contractors or others during the first 24 hrs. Finance thru fire camp places the order back to Dispatch a official order number is assigned. In order to be paid all resources must have a resource order Number. Especially contractors and all their employees.
This is from the line down to the camp helper every person in order to be paid from a time slip must have a resource order number.
Thus I would say Mark Mason was not on the fire on a contract crew of any kind.
Then I guess we must assume that the infamous SPGS1 Gary Cordes never got paid for working almost TWO straight days at the Yarnell Fire?
On the clock around 10:00 PM Saturday night.
Up all night doing resource ordering for Sunday.
Worked all of Sunday on the Yarnell side of the fire.
There is absolutely NO ‘Resource Order’ anywhere in the public evidence record ( or the records that Arizona Forestry supplied to the ADOSH investigators ) for anyone named ‘Gary Cordes’.
I’m not saying this ‘Marc Mason’ guy is NOT lying his ass off in public about working the Yarnell Fire.
Maybe he is.
I’m just pointing out that… despite what you are trying to say above… the fact that there might not be an official ‘Resource Order’ for someone is NOT definite proof that the person was NOT working a particular fire.
Bob- they may have that yet I have learned in my investigation FRAUD where a vehicle is used but not what is shown when billing happens so they get paid more so who knows what fraud is going on since you were working-
https://youtu.be/otP3Ad6OdHI
go to marker 2:10— so this is HOW huh
not ensuring the pureness is brought forth but a damn song—
???????
I cannot stand this world
Ever wonder why firefighters intentionally set fire to fuels inside the control line, otherwise known as a ‘firing operation’ or ‘burnout’?
https://youtu.be/3V7dkpPKEcA
PLEASE HELP ME—this man talking in video looks like a man I saw on the YHF—was this man on YHF????
I mean this is serious question-
If you are HIM who was on YHF reading this—be nice if you reach me—
Reply to Joy A. Collura post on September 22, 2017 at 1:12 am
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> PLEASE HELP ME—this man talking in video looks like a man I
>> saw on the YHF—was this man on YHF????
The guy in the blue helmet talking in the video is named “Cory Wall”.
It says so right in the ‘About’ information accompanying the video.
SIDENOTE: Despite the close similarity in names and the blue helmet that’s NOT a ‘typo’ and this is NOT a video of Blue Ridge Hotshot “Cory Ball”.
There really is a Cory Wall who is known to work as a Fire Information Officer for the ‘Washington Incident Management Team ONE’ ( WAIMT1 ).
From the ‘About’ information accompanying this video…
——————————————————-
Fire Information Officer Cory Wall from WAIMT1 explains how firing operations or burnouts consume fuels in the path of a wildfire
——————————————————-
Free ( public ) US Foresty Employee Search for “Cory Wall”…
https://www.fs.fed.us/about-agency/contact-us/employee-search?first_name=Cory&last_name=Wall&office=
Results page…
—————————————————–
USDA – U.S. Forestry Service
First Name: Cory
Last Name: Wall
Title: Lead Interpreter
Location: Region 6 – Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon)
R6,Gifford Pinchot NF,Mt St Helens Natl Vol Monument
Contact: 360-449-7838 x (phone)
—————————————————–
Cory Wall gets ‘quoted’ a lot regarding fires in the Northwest.
Here is just one other example from a simple ‘Google’ search…
Article Title: Hundreds evacuated from path of fast-growing Oregon wildfire
Published: Thursday, August 07, 2014 4:03 p.m. CDT
By: Courtney Sherwood
http://krro.com/news/articles/2014/aug/07/hundreds-evacuated-from-path-of-fast-growing-oregon-wildfire/
From the article…
——————————————————
The Snag Canyon fire burning about 10 miles outside of Ellensburg, home to about 18,000 people, had more than doubled in size since Tuesday as steady winds pushed flames further into surrounding canyons, fire officials said.
“All the property we are really trying to protect is to the west, south and east,” said Cory Wall, a spokesman with the Washington Incident Management Team. “We’re definitely keeping an eye on these winds.”
——————————————————
As far as this Cory Wall fellow having been at the 2013 Yarnell Fire… it’s not likely.
There is no ‘Resource Order’ anywhere in the public record for anyone named Cory Wall having worked the 2013 Yarnell Fire.
Closest hit would be Blue Ridge Hotshot ‘Cory Ball’… who we KNOW was there at the Yarnell Fire and is the one who said he and ‘one other’ were assigned by SPGS1 Gary Cordes to ‘scout out’ last-ditch-effort dozer line to try and protect the Glen Ilah subdivision.
But there has never been a ‘Resource Order’ anywhere in the public record for SPGS1 Gary Cordis, either, ( despite the important role Gary Cordis played at Yarnell )… so obviously people WERE working at Yarnell who never showed up in the public evidence record.
where is a photo of Corey Ball?
Reply to Joy A. Collura post on September 22, 2017 at 7:13 pm
>> Joy A. Collura asked…
>>
>> where is a photo of Corey Ball?
Photos of Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball are hard to find.
SIDENOTE: His USFS employee record uses ‘Cory’ without the ‘E’.
Back in May/June of this year, there was a fire on the Coconino National Forest ( the home base for the Blue Ridge Hotshots ) that would come to be known as the ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
Blue Ridge Hotshot ( and now Assistant Superintended for Blue Ridge ) Cory Ball was actually the ‘Incident Commander’ for this 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
Here is a photo taken by Coconino National Forest PIO ( Press Information Officer ) Connie Birkland of a ‘morning briefing’ on May 29, 2017 for the resources working the ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
The person in the red jacket and ball cap pointing to the map is most likely Snake Ridge Fire Incident Commander Cory Ball…
https://www.facebook.com/CoconinoNF/photos/a.675724125931808.1073741845.645271882310366/677412402429647/?type=3&theater
There is, of course, also that famous ‘group shot’ of the entire Blue Ridge Hotshot crew that was taken just days after the 2013 Yarnell Hill tragedy.
Right after the tragedy, the entire Blue Ridge Hotshot crew showed up at the Prescott Mud Bogs Festival and they all volunteered to be the ones who would push the vehicles out of the mud when they got stuck.
Just before the festival started, the entire 2013 Blue Ridge crew ‘posed’ for a rare ‘group shot’.
That ‘group shot’ has always been right at the start of the following PUBLIC video that was shot at the Mud Bog festival…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVLl-oq-hoo
Blue Ridge Superintendent Brian Frisby is ‘kneeling’ on the LEFT side of the group. Blue Ridge Assistant Superintendent ( at that time ) Trueheart Brown is ‘standing’ there behind Frisby… and I believe ( although it has never been confirmed ) that Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball is also ‘standing’ there behind Frisby and near Brown.
thank you
Followup…
The links above to those photographs taken at the 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’, where Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball was the official ‘Incident Commander’, are links to photos uploaded to the official ‘Facebook’ page for that fire.
Facebook tends to ‘expire’ direct links to photographs… so here are additional links to those same photographs that are more permanent.
The same photographs were also uploaded to the NWCG’s own ‘InciWeb’ page for the 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
The Official NWCG page for the 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’…
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/5188/
The official link to where the photographs of the 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’ taken by Coconinio National Forest PIO ( Press Information Officer ) Connie Birkland ( and others ) are stored on the NWCG Server…
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/photographs/5188/
More links in next ‘Reply’ ( due to the 2-link limit for one post )…
Continued…
Below is a direct link to that photograph taken at the May 29, 2017 morning briefing for the 2017 ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
Blue Ridge Hotshot ( and Incident Commander for this fire ) Cory Ball appears to be the one in the RED jacket and black ball cap pointing to the map pinned to the garage door…
https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/photograph/5188/6/63237/
Is there a possibility that Fernandez could have participated in aerial ignition at the yarnell hill fire about 10 a.m. on June 30,2013?
Diane it has been said and ones view once was: ….
“Well… here’s what has never been known.
We do NOT know what really happened ‘internally’ with the ‘Squad bosses’ and whatnot
circa 10:30 AM, when the fire officially ‘changed command’ to Roy Hall’s Type 2 SHORT
team…
and Marsh ( at that moment ) officially became ‘Division A’ ( and no longer the
superintendent of the Type 1 resource named ‘Granite Mountain )…
and Steed ( also
at the moment ) officially became the ‘Acting Superintendent’ of Granite Mountain.
We do NOT KNOW if… at that same moment… one of the SQUAD BOSSES was
also then ‘bumped up’ in rank to replace Jesse Steed himself
and that SQUAD BOSS
then became the ‘Acting Assistant Superintendent ( Captain )’ of Granite Mountain.
In other words… just as Jesse Steed replaced Eric Marsh and became the ‘Acting Superintendent’…
did one of the SQUAD BOSSES also then officially ‘bump up’ and, in turn, replace Jesse’s usual
position and become the ‘Acting Assistant Superintendent (Captain)’?
Brendan McDonough would know… but no one has ever asked him.
My own BELIEF is that this DID happen…
and that SQUAD BOSS Robert Caldwell essentially
‘moved up’ to replace Jesse Steed as ‘Assistant Superintendent’ the moment that Jesse
Steed ‘moved up’ to replace Eric Marsh as ‘Superintendent’.
And here is why I BELIEVE that.
In the deployment radio traffic captured in the Aaron Hulburd video… there are THREE VOICES
heard coming from the deployment site.
First… Jesse Steed making the first ‘MAYDAY’ call.
Then.. Robert Caldwell making additional ‘MAYDAY’ calls.
Then ( finally ) Eric Marsh coming on and identifying himself as ‘Division Alpha HERE with Granite Mountain’.
I think the reason we hear BOTH Jesse Steed and Robert Caldwell making MAYDAY calls
is because Jesse was the ‘Acting Superintendent’… and Robert Caldwell was ( at that time )
the ‘Acting Assistant Superintendent ( Captain )’.
Now… if that is true… then WHO officially ‘bumped up’ from Caldwell’s SQUAD and officially
replaced HIM as ‘SQUAD BOSS’ for that SQUAD that day?
We don’t know if that happened or not.
Again… Brendan McDonough would know these kinds of ‘details’ about the on-the-fly
internal command reorganization of Granite Mountain once Eric Marsh became
‘Division Alpha’ that morning… but no one has ever asked him about any of this.”
and why not because they had their STORY— their TRUE story Diane so why ask about Fernandez?
Because you and me see things clearer
and for the world to know her and I have never discussed Fernandez topic off here so it is quite interesting she touches that area as I too feel it needs to be caressed-
thanks Diane-
hope someone in the industry answers you.
I can tell you this Diane-
Grant McKee — Grant Scott not Quinn told me in 2015 that Robert Caldwell was known to be the lookout guy so that one thinking Caldwell began to be ‘Acting Assistant Superintendent ( Captain )’ would make sense being Donut and Donut GETS WHY if he wants to publicly get into it or not knows why he became lookout on 6.30.13 but also because the normal fella was now being ranked into another spot…so it would fit…
As Asst. Super I always was the Lookout when the need arose. Back then we had a 25 person crew.
maybe someone like Clay Templin could step in and give his opinion to you Diane on this-
Can you Diane IDENTIFY what “the fire, really, was DO-ing between 10:00-11:00am or, better yet, between 9:00-12:00pm on 30Jun2013 and WHO (personell) WAS PHYSICALLY “WHERE” ON THE CHECKERBOARD AT THIS TIME OF DAY, ANYWAY ?
Have you done this part yet?
Diane No it takes a machine mounted in the Helicopter for the Ping Pong Ball Machine.
Or a tank and drip torch hung under the helicopter with only the Pilot as it is a sling load.
The Pilot and Helitack foreman must be carded. Not sure that ship was set up for Arial ignition.
Reply to Bob Powers post on September 23, 2017 at 4:44 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Not sure that ship was set up for Arial ignition.
It ( Yellow and White BLM contract helicopter N14HX ) was NOT.
It came to Yarnell with a ‘Bambi Bucket’… but it was never used.
N14HX was only ever used as a ‘crew shuttle’ resource.
Here is a photo of what a Helicopter actually rigged for aerial ignitions looks like. This photo is from the ‘Snake Ridge Fire’ on the Coconino National Forest in Arizona back in May/June of this year.
It shows the ‘Grand Canyon Helitack Crew’ doing aerial ignitions over the ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.. The photo was taken INSIDE the helicopter and clearly shows the ‘machine’ that launches the ‘ping pong balls’…
https://www.facebook.com/CoconinoNF/photos/a.675724125931808.1073741845.645271882310366/676095402561347/?type=3&theater
SIDENOTE: Blue Ridge Hotshot ( and now Assistant Superintended for Blue Ridge ) Cory Ball was actually the ‘Incident Commander’ for this 2017 Snake Ridge Fire there on the Blue Ridge Hotshot’s own ‘home base’ on the Coconino National Forest.
Here is a photo taken by Coconino National Forest PIO ( Press Information Officer ) Connie Birkland of a ‘morning briefing’ on May 29, 2017 for the resources working the ‘Snake Ridge Fire’.
The person in the red jacket and ball cap pointing to the map is most likely Snake Ridge Fire Incident Commander Cory Ball…
https://www.facebook.com/CoconinoNF/photos/a.675724125931808.1073741845.645271882310366/677412402429647/?type=3&theater
Diane,
I was scrolling down to opine some more about Van Bateman when the words “aerial ignition” caught my eye. As I have stated before, I started out on this project thinking that wildland firefighting hadn’t changed all that much since I was involved in it, but one thing I have learned, is I could actually write several books about how much it really has changed since I was on the fire line.
I have even had to admit things have changed quite a bit about being a hotshot, it is now a lot more complicated than it used to be back in the day, which would definitely take away a lot of the enjoyment and pleasure from the job.
BUT…all my mea culpas aside, and without having anymore information than I do, which is none, I do want to state that I put all talk of aerial ignition on the Yarnell Hill Fire in the same category as all talk about the U.S. government being responsible for bringing down the World Trade Centers on 911. And that is at the corner of Main and 1st. Street right smack dab in the middle of Crazy Town, U.S.A.
Based on my experience (and that statement turned into an inside joke as a signal to the younger agents I supervised that they should get comfortable because Big G was about to share his vast storehouse of knowledge with them) that it takes organization, skill, planning, an abundance of resources, highly specialized equipment and personnel, lots of lead time and a whole bunch of other things I can’t think of right now to engage a fire using “aerial ignition.”
In other words, I have seen almost no evidence that the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight otherwise known as the Yarnell Hill Fire Command and Control Team and Serindipidous Collection of Misfits and Oddballs could even find their asses with both hands or figure out which end was Up, much less utilize aerial ignition on that God forsaken Royal Cluster Fuck AKA, the Yarnell Hill Fire…what have I missed?
And as long as I am here so as to cut down on my math calculations and the new barrier someone invented just to irritate me when trying to access this threat, I will go ahead and make my comment about Van Bateman here and now.
I was shocked to read that Van Bateman’s Shit Bag Attorneys and he found 50 former and maybe even current wildland fire officials willing to lie like dogs to a federal judge in writing stating that they were FIRE BUGS just like Van was and probably still is unless he has had a whole bunch of counseling to figure out why he is so fucked up in his head.
Van got to his exalted place in life by always projecting strength and confidence with his command presence wherever he went and to whoever he was with at all times.. I find it very sad that when it came time for him to be tested, and I mean really tested by standing up like a man (non gender specific since I have seen many women stand up like a man) he failed, and not only that, he failed miserably in his shameful and cowardice effort to avoid accepting responsibility for his actions, what a Chicken Shit!
Have you personally interviewed or spoke to Bateman to see his side in this versus the public glaze? When you did if you did, did you find it to be his isolated doing and all the crowd were liars that wrote the judge…good damage control for I started to even ponder your words because I lije your placements and content yet world until one sits down with Bateman and hear and see his body language then I prefer he not be judged without all the data much like the YHF…I hope you feel the same Diane Lomas as I do…that Bateman should come to IM and share his side….Diane, we have not taken the time to really look at VAn to see if politics happened…if it was all him or another trying to advance in the industry and needed him out and threw him under the bus…
Joy,
You are really a nice person…a little nuts, but really nice. Okay…I really think you are more than a “little” nuts some of the time, like right now.
I really enjoy arguing with you, but there are some other things I want to do today that I do enjoy more than arguing with you…like shaving my head with a cheese grater and chewing on tin foil…so I am going to keep this short.
How do I know that those 50 wildand fire officials are lying? Because there aren’t 50 wildland fire officials that Van Bateman knows who are FIRE BUGS…even though he knows a lot of fire officials.
You know, pyromaniacs, it’s a clinical diagnosis, people that are sick in their fuckin’ heads, like child molesters or serial killers.
That is like saying any given child molester, who happens to be a Boy Scout leader or elementary school teacher who gets convicted of being a child molester knows 50 other child molesters who are also elementary school teachers or Boy Scout leaders who would be willing to write a judge and say…”Hey, you should let my buddy go because I am a child molester too!”
It ain’t happenin’, get real’…and the fact that you think there is even a possibility that it could happen shows just how fuckin’ clueless you really are, at least on this subject.
So I am going to stop now and do something that at least has a chance of producing some positive results…like go discuss the pros and cons of funding for the International Space Station with my neighbors fuckin’ dog.
Okay…just a little bit more. I don’t have any idea what the percentage of Fire Bugs who are wildland firefighers, but I’m sure it is just about what the national average is for Fire Bugs per capita when compared to the general population. Although I will admit…one fuckin’ Fire Bug is one too many.
Okay…it might be a little higher because maybe Fire Bugs are attracted to being firefighters. But on the other hand, it also might be a little lower becasue wildland firefighters are pretty good are sorting out the fuckin’ nut job head cases in their midst of all kinds because it’s a pretty tough fuckin’ job that requires a lot of really close personal interaction under some really difficult and very trying circumstances where peoples souls with all of their weaknesses are laid bare for all to see.
The USFS got rid of that nut job head case Eric Marsh…right? Of course they missed the mark with Gordon King and Tony Czak, but that’s only two out of three. It’s still a long ways from 50 out of 50.
So…why don’t you and the other conspiracy theory nut jobs head cases give it a rest…you’re embarrassing yourselves.
In other words…I don’t know how many hotshot crew bosses there have been in the USFS since 47-48, but it’s probably been hundreds?
And the USFS let two nut job head cases slip through the net…two out of hundreds using my example, is a really, really, really, long ways from 50 out of 50 wildland fire officials being Fire Bugs.
So….let’s sum up. Van Bateman was an anomaly, not a general rule. Although I have to admit, he was a really big anomaly (I used to have to look UP to talk to him…so no pun intended) and it really hurt.
But if he were standing in front of me today, I would still shake his hand and thank him for all the good he did. It took real heroes to go work on the 911 Pile in NYC…including Van.
Oh…and one more thing. Captain Jesse Steed was a weak link in spite of all of his physical strength and Marine Corps background.
I know what the old Assistant Crew Boss on the Oak Grove Hotshots would have done if Eric Marsh would have ordered him to march his crew down a drainage in front of a firestorm of Biblical proportions, or do anything else manifestly unsafe.
That stubborn Number Two from the Oak Grove Shots back in the day would have double timed it down off the Weavers and ripped Marsh’s head off and shit down his neck!
Bateman, Marsh, Steed, King, and Czak….were all anomalies in the WF world…not the norm!
And I know what some of you are thinking. What about the ad hoc Yarnell Hill Fire Team who were like a sand lot pick up baseball team that went to a fist fight and found themselves in a fire fight…to mix my metaphors.
Were they anomalies as well? You have been pretty hard on them.
Well yes…although there were some major league players on that team here and there, but they hadn’t played together ever…and without any warning, they found themselves in the Super Bowl facing the Stanley Cup winners from America’s Cup at Wimbledon. They just weren’t up to the job.
And it is really simple and I explained why and how it happened a long time ago because I read the answer in one of Dr. Putnam’s White Papers.
The Yarnell Hill Fire Team thought, acted and reacted in a linear manner just as their Fire Generalship training had taught them to fight fire.
They followed a time proven process of thought following known cycles or step-by-step progression where a response to a step must be elicited before another step is taken.
Unfortunately…the Yarnell Hill Fire never went to Fire Generalship and it outperformed all of their expectations through extreme fire behavior by burning and growing…exponentially.
So let’s sum up…linear versus exponentially anything, exponentially is going to win every time.
Gary,
I am “all in”
and then shoving all my chips into the center of the table.
I see your “nut” …and I will raise you one. {Uttered with a straight poker face 🙂 }
Now I was really about asleep when bam
…had a craving for an almond joy mini snack bar—
do I deny myself on such a strict diet or make what Gary says true- and show I can get nutty with an almond joy—
ok.
WILL THE REAL GARY OLSON, PLEASE, STAND UP ???
Gary Olson says
September 25, 2017 at 3:27 pm… “So… why don’t you and the other conspiracy theory nut jobs head cases give it a rest… you’re embarrassing yourselves.”
Gary Olson says September 15, 2017 at 3:21 pm… “I think it was everyone in the chain of command between Ball, Brown and Frisby up to and including the management team who meets with the Chief of the US Forest Service every Monday morning including him of course… But even the Chief wasn’t the actual Wizard, I think the man who was behind the curtain is someone between Dudley and the Chief. I think it was probably a Regional Director of Aviation and Fire Management who had the lead for the team. But it also could have been a Deputy Chief or whatever their exact title is for the man, and it probably is a man, who sits at that level. Oh…and I think the NWCG board of directors is also up to their necks in the cover up. This was so big, everyone would have to be in on it.”
Gary Olson says September 16, 2017 at 4:23 pm… “I was a certified Wildland Fire Investigator and FLETC trained…”
Gary Olson says September 30, 2016 at 12:22 pm “So… you are saying that being Machiavellian is a bad thing? Haven’t you figured out by now that NOTHING is my fault? My crude behavior is a result of being raised as a hotshot on the Mighty Coconino, my arrogance is a result of being placed on a pedestal on the Santa Fe, my bragging is the result of being a deeply insecure person who has always been underestimated by other people (key words, OTHER PEOPLE), and being Machiavellian, blame my FLETC training and the job description of being an special agent for 18 years and doing many things I am not particularly proud of in YOUR name for that. So you see… the whole Machiavellian thing is actually YOUR fault, not mine, because as you know, we all revert to our training even when faced with everyday tasks and especially in times of stress.”
Gary Olson says November 14, 2016 at 10:19 pm… “Thank you for stepping forward Huckleberry, but that was a DEFLECTION worthy of the best spin artist in a major league spin room. Are you really a political consultant by any chance? You (RTS) said, “Too many words, Gary. You were clearly not being 100% truthful (whether you realize it or not) when you said you were role playing in order to stimulate participation in this thread – these are your true thoughts, so be honest with yourself & own it.” But apparently you didn’t read what I said, “And in case you haven’t figured it out by now, which I know you have because you are so intuitive… at least half of what I write on this thread is an act at least half of the time as I role play while I try to draw people out…sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t”.
???
I’m conflicted…it’s complicated.
Oh…and one more thing.
😉
it’s complicated in what I wrote {yoda} or being YOU
It’s not only complicated being me…it’s also really a lot of hard work and it’s never easy. I wish I could get away from me once in a while..
Now…quit bothering me. I am working on a MOAP to try and answer your questions about what and who fire gods are, because there is still a lot of misconceptions about them.
me too.
I meant that about me not you.
GAry- when you write about FIRE GODS
are you talking about the well paid ones today or the genuine ones of yesterdays?
Just fire gods in general…as in a description of who and what a fire gods are…I don’t think you have the picture (and most people probably don’t either) because it is very nuanced title in a very narrow WF culture.
The reason I don’t think you get it, is because you ask me to compare Bateman and Biddison. They are apples and oranges, and even though they are both fruit, they can’t be compared to each other in a side by side comparison.
I think it would be exhausting being you even for a day. I get exhausted just reading what you write and have to go take a nap after every read. .
me too Gary-
agreed.
you are right I am exhausting-
and exhausted.
good night.-
Most people do not walk 5 to 22 miles each day for 5 to 6 days for fun—
and it is exhausting—
to do that and be me is more than enough…
But to have so many cars see INVESTIGATIVE MEDIA as they pass me each day— it is all worth it….I am a walking billboard for here 🙂
Oh..and by the way, I also went through FLETC traing for several months to be a uniformed officer, a criminal investigator and half of dozen other specialties.
I probably spent at least 12 months out of 22 years with my butt in a classroom in Glynco Georgia or one of the satellite training centers.
YOU PEOPLE spent a lot of money to train me. In addition I went through the Arizona Peace Officer academy training and I have a BS in Police Science.
And a dozen other certifications in other specialties from contract training companies.
You were worth every penny we paid.
Now who is playin’ a game. You playin’ the player?
it made Pakistan news the movie; see:
https://youtu.be/gA_NLdJKudA
https://youtu.be/254Pz7G0gso
ONLY THE BRAVE — spoiler alert —
Billed as a true story????????
Reply to Bob Powers post on September 22, 2017 at 1:58 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Billed as a true story????????
The closer we get to the actual ‘release’ of this ‘fillum’… the verbiage seen in the ads and the trailers and the posters is starting to be “all over the place”.
It ranges from…
1. The TRUE story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
2. BASED on the TRUE story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
or just ( as I saw just last night on an actual major TV network AD )…
3. The STORY of the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
That last one is now what the ‘official’ Sony distribution ads are saying… and pretty clever on Sony’s part. That’s why they get paid millions of dollars to maximum the return on a movie for its investors.
By now just calling it “The STORY of the Granite Mountain Hotshots”… they know they are letting people who WANT to ‘believe’ it’s the TRUE story think that is what it is… without them actually SAYING it is and obviously getting egg all over their faces when the movie hits the theaters.
Yes but I thought the film is cored to this article which did state the true story in their title
https://www.outsideonline.com/1926426/19-true-story-yarnell-hill-fire
Reply to Joy Collura post on September 23, 2017 at 2:20 am
>> Joy Collura said…
>>
>> Yes but I thought the film is cored to this article
>> which did state the true story in their title
That link is to the original ‘Outside Online’ magazine ‘Kyle Dickman’ article, which DID have the title “19: The True Story of the Yarnell Hill Fire”.
But that’s not the article which would become the eventual ‘base’ for the movie.
That would be the article eventually published by GQ magazine with the original title “No Exit”. It was written by Sean Flynn.
The following link contains the original version of Flynn’s ‘No Exit’ article… but notice that the URL is now also mentioning the new ‘Only The Brave’ title of the movie itself.
So GQ magazine is still on good enough terms with Black Label Media to allow themselves to promote the fact that their ‘fillum’ is, in fact, based on their original “No Exit” article…
https://www.gq.com/story/granite-mountain-hotshots-firefighters-only-the-brave
http://institup.com/m/1603753438886084485_228843776
Advanced screenings already started-
yet cannot buy tickets anywhere yet—
https://youtu.be/KwsILGbmuqU
Searching for the Editorial Heartbeat Billy Fox, A.C.E, Editor, Only the Brave is the above video link
https://youtu.be/C65FcpAi_-4
I always liked what Brit Rosso said on the video above…it always made me feel HOPE but in reality—talking about the YHF has not been that simple to talk about—
How important it is to talk about it—
SHARE WHAT YOU LEARNED…
I tried contacting him when he did staff rides- he never replied to me…so it felt like his message was just for those in the industry not outsiders or eyewitnesses—
🙁
and Diane—-
when I first heard this man’s video here…I loved his tone and speaking just not some of the content…I mean alot of content but he deserves mention again too…
https://youtu.be/iWm3myJdQO4
There was some allegations/implications of influencing since tied to a city-
Oh Dudley—
Noone really goes into Friday or Saturday but IM—
it is pretty sad-
what is he doing nowadays?
Dudley?
Weather Channel special titled: “2014 WFSTAR: Yarnell Hill Fire Weather Channel Video Refresher Module” Britt Rosso, Center Manager of NAFRI Wildland Fire LLC
“We’re all struggling how to process what happened on June 30th 2013 … we’re all struggling out in the fire community about where the lessons … what are the take home messages, what can we learn from this incident.
“What I want to share with you is how important it is to talk about it, not only to talk about it but to let you know that it’s okay to talk about it, and it’s important that you do talk about it, share what you’re learned by reading the, aah, reports and watching the video and have open, honest, and 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.
“This is the 20th anniversary of South Canyon [July 2014], we’re still learning from South Canyon 20 years later. Yarnell just happened 8 months ago. We’ll be learning about the Yarnell Incident for years to come. Time and patience are going to be key, from learning from this incident, so I ask you to just take the time and be patient as we work through this thing together.”
Apparently, the USDA and the USFS didn’t get the memo nor do they subscribe to this advice.
Provided by Joy above. https://youtu.be/C65FcpAi_-4
Not sure if this was ever posted here on IM. This is a VIMEO video about the 2012 Holloway Fire in northern Nevada and southern Oregon where the Zuni Hot Shot filler deployed her fire shelter and survived in fuels very similar to what would occur on the YH Fire the following year, based on photos in the Investigation Report posted here months ago.
The subtitle of the video by Colby Drake is: “… WE SAVED THE GRANITE MT. HOTSHOT BUGGIES FROM BURNING UP!”
However, this video was quickly removed from the VIMEO site. Specifically check out the relevant section between (2:40-3:25). Turn the volume down as far as possible so the music is not a distraction and you can better concentrate on what is occurring.
When the Engine Crew nozzle-man moves all the way back to the left, look up into the background and when his hardhat aligns with the handline coming down along the black edge, you will notice a GMHS wearing a black hardhat (likely the Lookout), running down the hill.
Just freeze-frame and you will see it much more clearly.
So then, this was the second of three times that someone else had to save the GMHS buggies.
http://vimeo.com/48411010
Try this link:
https://vimeo.com/48411010
Missing the s at the end of https://
Thanks for pointing that out. It still worked for me without it, so that’s why I posted it.
when is the last time you visited, Methods-
3 years ago almost 4???
Good to see you here.
Diane- just so when you see pop in names on IM- The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive goes back to like chapter 3 of IM YHF comments and even as way back as 2013, Diane- back when EN/Calvin/Mike/Sitta/xxfullsailxx/Marti Reed/NV/Jeff I/David Turbyfill intro/Eric were active besides our normal folks who still comment here…
Methods posted similar comment in 2014;
see
http://www.investigativemedia.com/chapter-iv-comments/#comment-10987
Methods says
FEBRUARY 19, 2014 AT 3:30 PM
If you watch this video, starting at the 2:43 point, tell me who’s buggies those are that almost got burnt up?
http://vimeo.com/48411010
If you note Diane no one answered the question then for METHODS so maybe re-posting it may help bring that answer out today.
when you posted that question in 2014 was that a real question or a reel me in to look at video question and did you ever get the answer?
This question was asked when Elizabeth said “DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING EVERYONE SAYS……since Maclean’s, Neill’s, and Gabbert’s horrifying January 19th “news” blog”
Now Diane— a posting of a video that has been there for years…been removed than put back on—
Let us then see who is Colby Drake next- Diane…
15′ Tribal employee Fire Protection Program Manager; Colby Drake
http://www.grandronde.org/news/smoke-signals/2015/12/01/tribal-council-luncheon-honors-local-first-responders/
Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde
Colby Drake E-112 available for daily patrols. IFPL 1, daily patrols when needed. 18-Sep-2017 13:44:09
h t t p://oreic.o r g/intelreport.shtml
Eugene Interagency Communication Center
Oregon Dept of Forestry…BLM
Confederate Tribes of Grand Ronde
47010 SW Hebo Road
Grand Ronde, OR 97347
Colby Drake
503-879-2384
colby.drake@ grandronde.org
so Diane we need to look at videos but always also see who is the owners of videos as well—and the time frames and when posted and when removed and etc. and to come to understand why it was posted or title of videos posted—
Bleachers:
“pay attention” to Colby as many FF say we do not fight fires at night and there is no night fighting fires yet look at Colby’s title of his FINE ART here:
h t t p s://fineartamerica.c o m/featured/firefighting-at-night-colby-drake. html
his title was FIREFIGHTING AT NIGHT- a wildland fire engine holding the fire line while a burn out IS being conducted in the distance at night by Colby Drake
“firefighting at night is a photograph by Colby Drake which was uploaded on September 7th 2013”
https://youtu.be/wAT0r2UP1K0
I am better off giving videos like this if I want to ever get in a nostalgic mood huh
Seems matches better…but I did like Brit Rosso tone and dialect just having hard time if Forestry and Prescott or the one from Prescott fire dept ever heard Brit so wanted to repost it….since it seems forestry folks may like to pop on here to see what’s going on…
DYNOMITE…
Again
Nostalgia
JJ JIMMIE WALKER hashtag…
Let the GOOD TIMES roll.
I thought the comment was short and simple this week I posted for the bleachers but now from the bleachers (just like old days):
COPY/PASTE without fully reading just skimmed than post and then I will add more if I do not comprehend what I just posted myself after my hike tomorrow…but I am going to sleep…
here it is:
“to be dealt with or as in the past ignored… your choice …”
IF… “a lot of WF who weren’t and aren’t fire bugs except when it is written into the ops plan” holds true… are some, still significant, numbers of “other-than-a-lot” inclined to stay as busy as possible during the acknowledged “short seasonal demand” and might such individuals be “tribally networked” into looking at any and all rationale for explaining “bigger and better” fires as INEVITABLE and/or ACTS OF GOD and/or CLIMATE CHANGE and, maybe even, “russian hackers and terrorists” ???
Statistical studies of “lightning-vs-human-caused” wildfires are NOT lacking; but, “buick-sized-fires-in-rock-strewn-cliffside-environments” are not, normally, considered fertile ground for such a “blowup” as would-but-had-not-yet occurred in the hours prior to photographic status quo evidence (Saturday, 29Jun2013) included in official investigations and/or the insertion of manpower, ostensibly, intended to contend with suppressing the fire on the cliffside fringe of the “two-track-trail” ridgeline divider, where it had overnighted, nurtured itself on anything and everything imaginably consumable and concentrated its remaining pent-up-latent energy to outwit-outflank-outmaneuver the agile and intensely committed DOC Lewis crew at some point in the late afternoon… presumably, just short of 24 hours of its “lightning-initiated-ignition”?
Depending on how the individual reader of Shumate’s sworn ADOSH testimony might be inclined to include “human-nature-based-intentions-and-desires” as rationale (or not) for the “sudden and surprising” blowup of the fire on the following morning (admittedly covered, elsewhere, in these tens-of-thousands of IM comments)…
there remain certain similarities between dying-or-dead fires turning into uncontrollable monsters (not, necessarily, at the first light of morning, nor between the hours of 0800-1000… but, far more likely, in the real heat of the ensuing day, of course) …
AND the “true commitment and intent of operational orders” created by WF management to weigh and balance suppression vs extension and containment of the same over an ever-enlarged area coverage, requiring assemblage and expenditure of evermore resources and resulting in far greater destruction (from the perspective of local citizenry, at least), than otherwise. T
There exists NO “ombudsman nor referee” for the needs and desires of “local citizenry” versus the overwhelming and unchallenged authority of the, suddenly, imposed Incident Command Structure (lacking “local knowledge”, for the most part. btw) brought in from elsewhere..
as in, “we’re from the government and we’re here to help”. Also, it’s almost, as if, TheMEDIA shows up for TheFLAMES and they should not be disappointed… it’s “fire season” and there’s a “harvest of acreage to bring in”
…far too often, it would seem, that few-if-any fires (especially in the “wildland urban interface”) appear to need to be put out “quickly”
…how many “standard explanations” exist to explain this go-slow-approach, anyway (safety-of-the-firefighter, etc)
… how many of today’s ground-level-firefighters and/or members of Incident Command Levels have ever been in an active combat zone, btw…
AND “just how does one imagine” this training and level of commitment is going to work out WHEN-NOT-IF… “Power Grid Down” actually takes place
(h t t p s ://w w w.youtube. c o m/watch?v=sX2O_8o55dk …AND h t t p ://w w w.eiscouncil.c o m/BlackSky )
AND for the most part, there will be “no cavalry coming” from anywhere, else, than the ranks of home-grown-decentralized-local-communities???
What is REALLY the “set of drivers” behind massively INCREASED “intensities-frequencies-durations-expanses” of WILDFIRES in recent past decades?
Are fires WITHIN “urban” areas (centers of, possibly, 95% of total industrialization”) ELSEWHERE in the US… as well, “urbanized/industrialized” regions of CHINA and EUROPE (the latter, frequently experiencing extended durations of extreme heat waves over the course of the same timeframe), also, being similarly affected… as far as comparing “wild-to-urban” fire statistics might be concerned?
After all, there are lots of forested areas in these regions, as well, and the European “wildland-urban-interface” has existed for many more centuries, than here in the USA? RUSSIA has huge expanses of “steppe-type-landforms-and-vegetation” AND massive regions of variegated forest eco-systems, stretching from the Urals to Siberia…
also, of no small matter and concern, it has been said that INDIA was, once, home to many more extensive forests, than exist today, and were over-utilized throughout past millennia as sources of fuel for historical populations…
so much so, that huge areas of once-healthy-plentiful forested landscapes have long since, purportedly, been replaced by vast reaches of dry-and-barren, marginal countryside?
Yes, there have been instances of extensive fires in Greece and Russia from time-to-time; but, what about on a year-to-year basis, since the beginning of the 1950’s until present (statistically significant timeframe)?
Is there ANY reason to consider that WILDFIRE “intensities-frequencies-durations-expanses” are driven by profit-and-agenda-motives DIRECTLY related to anticipated sizes of subsequent budgetary considerations…
“use-it-or-lose-it-and-fire-is-big-business-and-might-even-add-to-gross-domestic-product–statistics”
…are 5-10-year “burn plans” and “wilderness considerations” NOT in direct conflict with HOW MUCH AEROSOL CONTAMINANT is being added to the planet’s atmosphere (local and regional inhabitants’ lungs, as well) and HOW MUCH EROSIONAL DEPOSITION is being transferred from once-upon-a-time “stabilized environments” to receiving areas, all along the way and much further downstream, as immediate-mid-and-long-term subsequent precipitation and flooding, adversely affect infrastructure (rural-and-urban-roads-bridges-culverts)…
even to the extent, that traditional “aquifer-re-charge-patterns” are endangered, due to the obvious fact that water then, rushes to the sea, for lack of moisture retaining qualities in fragile, “western state” landform environments? Many“western states” have, longer since, built up regional “tourist economies”
…allowing many of the multi-generational inhabitants and more recently arrived urban emigrants, there, to continue to earn their daily bread…
whilst acceding to increasing demands of mega-metropolitan-environmentalists to reduce and/or eliminate proportional dependency on historic natural resource extraction in fields of forestry and mining. Actually, it doesn’t stop with cries to “save the spotted owl and sage grouse, a frog, some snail, whatever”
…how many are acquainted wih the concept of “100-mile-wide-wilderness-corridors” (mapped for study and proposals, oft co-located where many of the homesteaded agricultural, intermountain valleys have been in existence for the past century and more…
and, how many of those very same valleys and tourist areas does one imagine might actually continue to flourish, when “evacuation orders” and “toxic aerosols” start flying around during the DON’T QUESTION AUTHORITY annually increasing “fire seasons”, which unfortunately, seem to coincide with tourist seasons, once so actively being pursued by local citizenry expected to give up “extractive resource dependency” in return for the “less intrusive” benefits of switching to “tourism services”?
The once anticipated “wholesome-simple-life” sought after by many of those, fed-up-with-urban-rat-races, to be found in western state intermountain valleys and the regularly despised “wildland urban interfaces” has, longer since, been turned into “wildfire-threatened-and-smoke-filled” summer interludes by a VERY INTRUSIVE AND EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRY (big-fire-is-big-business and when they leave, in many instances, they have “taken” the forests with them).
Add up the planned and supplemental budgets, sometime, to find out “just how big” this endeavor has become. As for “anthropogenic global warming” how many are paying attention to NASA’s recent considerations regarding “solar cycles” and historical records indicating chances of the current cycle, possibly, evolving into a Grand Minimum (suggested research, Maunder and Dalton “minimums” for comparison’s sake)…
and, with regards to “how long forests take to rejuvenate, themselves”
…there’s, both, everyday-everyman-practical-observations to compare with official USFS-contracted and/or “independent and impartial” academic studies to compare with one another. Perhaps, in the coming Age-of-Robots-AI-Transhumanism, forested regions will no longer seem so enticing and sought after for their “wildland-urban-interface-lifestyles” (AGENDA-21 and the more recent version “2030″ are UN conceptualizations of ALL that, which “best suits humanity’s future”), anyway?
Oh, yes… Diane’s question about the “blowup” around 10:00am on 30June seems, only, to have been addressed as follows (Robert the Second says…September 16, 2017 at 11:58 am) “Diane, This is half the answer.“ And, thus, it would appear, that the “other half is, still, out there”
…waiting for ANY or ALL participants on the YHF to clarify what SHUMATE-JOY-SONNY have described as “sudden and/or explosive” events from the very beginning of this forum and commentary?
Afterwards, JOY threw in some related perspective with regards to conversations between herself and members of the DOC Lewis crew. Additional comments from Peeples Valley firefighters, also, described “explosive happenings” during the course of that fateful morning and early afternoon… SOMETHING EXPLOSIVE, OBVIOUSLY, HAPPENED…
what was it… did it have to do with “operational orders” …was it “willful negligence” …ACT OF GOD or NATURE (able to overwhelm experienced and professionally trained and equipped WF/WFF”s)?
ARE there, truly, NO photos of these “key events” in this AGE-of-TECHNOLOGY and aircraft in the sky (it would appear, that “only” GMHS were in possession of cellphones)?
Furthermore, if SHUMATE was down at the Command Center at the time of the fateful “Sunday Morning Explosion” and official Change-of-Command formalities were, yet, underway; where was Dean Fernandez and what was he (also, Bruce Olson), up to during this specific period of time…
who was “giving orders” to the men remaining on the mountaintop and who might have been “giving advice” to that State of Arizona “employed overseer”? How many cellphones…
other than those belonging to GMHS members, of course… became part of the investigative procedures…
what type of equipment , did Dean Fernandez use to photograph, that day (probably, well worthwhile for the inquisitive-and-open-minded-set to, once again, review the same, btw)… AND what about the answer to JOY’s question concerning “personnel locators” (did they exist… how many hotshot crews, generally, have and/or are issued such and, since, when has such issue been “standard operating procedure”?
This question, specifically, is addressed to the Blue Ridge Hot Shot members, whether or not, they were interviewed AND was the surviving member, Donut, in possession of such locator, himself (did he have a cellphone, btw)?
Most importantly, are State of Arizona WF-Prison-Teams allowed to have personal cell phones and/or locators and other recording equipment (see, JOY’s DOC Lewis Crew video)…
WERE THESE “state-not-federal” personnel ever interviewed and such equipment made part of official testimony…
IF NOT… WHY… have the lawyers in charge of various clients, ever, considered “looking into this” and/or were the same, also, tossed into some convenient dumpster, at some point in the past?
The YHF appears to be a fire with “many lives, which took many lives and destroyed many more others, along the way”!
JOY asked a question on 16Sep… “How many people think the fire was about OUT before the Lewis crew even arrived?”
Count “me” in on TheTHOUGHT that “IT WAS OUT” tally (all quibbling aside, regarding what “was out” ought to mean, after all, JOY’s only asking “how many think” and she NOT demanding that “those who think, actually, have 100% incontrovertible proof to such effect or otherwise, for goodness sake”)…
lack of additional fuel and the cleared-by-hiker-feet-two-track “defeated” it on Saturday (at the very least) and, despite this topic having been brought up in the past…
there ought be more discussion on what “exactly” happened between 10:00am-12:00am on Sunday)…
MORE THAN ONE SOMEBODY, STILL, ALIVE… D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y… KNOWS !!!
Kudos to Gary Olson , very encouraging to learn, that he set a prime example in the past and knows “how” to, successfully, maneuver one’s way thru the “whistleblower-double-edged-sword-obstacle-course-and-triple-agent-machiavellian-maze”!
“He, certainly, sounds like “the right type” for former YHF participants with “something to say” to reach out and meet… I believe, he’s in regular contact with JOY and she seems to be well-positioned to act as a trusted and confidential intermediary in this regard?
Well everywhere you go including here it’s a police state the idea is to control people and to keep them inside and City they can burn all these little houses and cabins out people have to move to town.
I seen the country pretty good at least the West but up north is burning so bad you don’t see nothing but smoke all the way from the top of Nevada to Seattle Washington.
Cheerleader,
Did you even take a breath when you posted all that? Jeez
Robert the Second says
SEPTEMBER 19, 2017 AT 9:50 PM
Cheerleader,
Did you even take a breath when you posted all that? Jeez
Cheerleader replied-
imagine when I got the original message and I tried to copy and paste it so many ways but it was just too large and I even let the bleachers know—SHEESH—because I do have a John Dougherty expressed “limitations” to my comments posted and I was like what the heck??? oh my….I have not even read it just skimmed it last night…I am so wiped—I did a long hike today and just going down that Yarnell hill—my poor toes get jammed due to the incline…but tomorrow I will try and sit and read it…I was on youtube trying to find a certain video and I had something else in mind but the bleachers asked and they got their message out but you thought I can ramble…well I think there is more folks out there that are winded as I can get…soft giggles.
https://youtu.be/uvgHP8lTsEU
Charlie- you can watch the fires in MT
REMEMBERING:
https://youtu.be/YbRpPpMnMB4
🙁
https://youtu.be/odL1q-lk3cY
this one is for you Charlie too
Gary Olson says
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017 AT 7:12 PM
Oh…and one more thing. I am going to go see it. They say if you like Meat and Potato Heroism in a simple uncomplicated easy to understand and follow plot…this movie is for you.
So sign me up! I have waited for 40 years to be recognized as the hero I was. I am after all…a Legend In My Own Mind.!
And I shall not be denied my moment of glory watching it all go down in living color on a panoramic screen even though I will be the only one in the theater that knows how special I really am. .
And it only cost the lives of 19 hotshots! Why didn’t we think of this sooner?
joy replies: gotta good tee for you to wear to the movie:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/0c/60/aa/0c60aab42d7ebe7b6f18b230741355a4–funny-stickers-a-legend.jpg
https://biggeekdad.com/2017/09/bad-day-off-florida-coast/
this guy had a bad day huh
I guess we all have them…thank you for everyone stopping and visiting here this week 🙂
https://youtu.be/KlYh8lskTRE
why does the McKee only have 153 views?
I scratch my head thinking it is almost a year and only that many views…
I do not comprehend this…at all…
this is for Gary:
https://youtu.be/sxooFd9ewEs
trailer number 2
Gary— THE DUDE:
https://youtu.be/B231tIUA6LE
Oorah! Meat and potatoes heroism, gotta love it! Simplistic..straight forward…easy to follow and understand…very misleading, but who cares?
Thanks Joy!
Gary, you talking about the t-shirt or the movie?
The movie.
And she has NO comments. It baffles me as well
What if Van Bateman had followed the 10 and 18 / LCES
and would that make the fires that he conducted ethical, necessary and in accordance to global warming—
would they had been GOOD FIRES if he did not get caught and can anyone tell me what is a BAD FIRE ?
How many people think the fire was about OUT before the Lewis crew even arrived?
How long can a buick size (Gary, not the lemon car the mayor tried to sell ya) fire last overnight in a rocky strewn field—where is the fuel?
Where is the fuel to keep the YHF to keep it going until the Lewis crew gets there and BLM photographs what is there?
Why are we always focused to June 30 and not the days before…
one fella says…Why isn’t more of America on fire….it would seem to be patriotic to do that since global warming is such a topic in my investigation of your industry as an outsider and THINK OF THE FUEL LOAD in Detroit…all those old empty homes America…
I guess I am on a facetious role tonight….
I get sick of hearing about the 10 & 18—it’s hillbilly I heard—-
Let’s talk FIRE….
burn…baby…burn…
let’s get real.
I want to know current and past HOW MANY would rather fight fires during the night?
any dare to raise their hands?
and actually let’s get honest here
are you really fighting fires…it seems like all the photo ops are of men holding the golden torches….
Diane Lomas—
when you begin to dig over time historically the many people who have had authority positions within this industry and in an elite way…pay attention to some of the quotes spoken public…you ready:
“After I lit it, it smoldered. I just thought after I lit it, I thought, ‘Hell, we’ll just have a lightning fire here today for the boys to do something.'”
“The line between a good fireman and an arsonist is a fine line.”
“My intent and desires have always been to protect the national forest as best I could”
“I’ve never felt that I did anything wrong”
“I’ve never claimed to be lily white”
“I wasn’t trying to start an arson fire,” …”I was just trying to clean this piece of country up …. I would be shocked if there’s anybody who’s spent their career in forest management who hasn’t done this.”
I THINK DIANE ONE OF THE BEST JOBS ON THE LINE TODAY WOULD BE TO BE AN ARSONIST INVESTIGATOR- DO YOU AGREE?
the quotes above—a federal judge sentenced that former Coconino National Forest Service fire management officer to 24 months in prison for starting a blaze without authorization. That is all…24 months…more than 50 former Forest Service employees shared to the judge — who wrote that they had done the same thing. Hmmm? Diane…what do you think of the men in authority…the elite…what’s your view on this?
That’s kind of chilling isn’t it?
prosecutor Kim Hare told the judge…”I believe that the defendant’s ego got the better of him,”
“We do not allow defendants to come in here and take the law into their own hands.”
remember Diane…Bateman denied it at first, joking with the agents.
So my question is the Department of Agriculture agents showed him global positioning system evidence…why was this not offered on 19 dead men…what resource is the evidence exactly–any fire arson savvy investigator type folks who know more on that..if they can use global positioning system on this guy how come not on other fires?
thank you
bed time
If I recall correctly about 10:00 a.m. on June 30 the fire flared up. According to reports this is unusual behavior.
What explanations have been offered for this?
Is it possible that the fire was accelerated by artificial means and if so who could have done this?
Diane,
This is half the answer.
A Key to Blowup Conditions in the Southwest?
https://www.fireleadership.gov/toolbox/staffride/downloads/lsr11/lsr11_blowup.pdf
Go to the Stanton, AZ RAWS link and put in the June 29, 2013 and then June 30, 2013 and check the nighttime temperatures from midnight to 0800. (the author above uses the 0800 time)
https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/rawMAIN.pl?azASTA
Think about this…Diane…
Why afterwards are they playing games Diane
Is that real? Or did they really not know or did they turn off their locators for a secret mission?
Maybe rts is limited to some other data
What kind of locators would make air to ground question where they were
Locators are for the incident command so they can follow their path live time not for the men who are on the fire edge that can see it all like we saw it all…Diane if I who does not have funds have this capability…and Bateman
was found this way.
And out of 19 men not one locator was found not the cell phones looked at…
Just makes one think…what is your take Diane?
Evidence of what actually happened that day utilizing cell phones and gps locators were eliminated. Someone didn’t want the truth to surface.
not the only evidence Diane—
I also noticed photos of men using what look like pistols to set fires—
They are called Verry Pistols shoot a hot projectile to ignite fire 15 to 20 yards from the line been in use since the 40s..Increases the burn area from the line out to keep the fire from running at the line. drip torch or fusee along the line out 15 to 30 ft. then extend the burn area with the Verry pistol.
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e2/4b/1f/e24b1f4862493b437844f2d3884299f1–wildland-firefighter-your-shot.jpg
Diane- it is called a berry pistol via National Geographic Your Shot: A member of a hotshot firefighting crew firing a berry pistol to help ignite a night burnout in Oregon by Kyle Miller
I have been told by retired and current how for SAFETY they really do not fight fires at night so let me highlight this area for my own self emotions to tee it up—they don’t fight fires at night Diane but you see link above is a pistol creating fires…so guess they are right they don’t fight them—they start them and spread them bigger because people sleep at night usually and gotta keep the grants and money gravy train rolling…
https://www.facebook.com/WFFoundation/posts/10154541883305625
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/07/130701-hotshot-granite-mountain-fire-firefighters-arizona-hotshots-19/
https://www.facebook.com/WFFoundation/posts/10154396724410625
this one actually was smart— in this pic he is holding a water hose 🙂
When Sonny sees this page and he is lit/heated from the talk we got that fires were not taken care of at night—due to safety—I know he has to be thinking BULLSHIT —like when he was an uranium miner and they let signs up all day on safety but when night fell he was still doing double shifts to get that uranium—it gave him good pay so he never said nothing of it even though he is barely kicking nowadays and had so many skin cancers removed– I stopped counting but his face about scarred up to know those signs up probably was important and all the double shifts and good pay—was it worth it in he end??? hmmm….
http://www.wildlandfire.com/user_images/draw-fire-chiloquin-oregon/
Burnout operation on the first night of the Draw Fire.
https://youtu.be/u1kpobfCgAk
Diane- sad when a person like Marcia McKee and Grant Scott McKee lose a son and there is 153 hits to that video of the appeal hearing but videos burning America get lots of hits-
or how there is ALOT of smoke and fire here yet air attack goes in this lighting more fires but 19 men could not be picked up because LIVES MATTER!
https://youtu.be/hBnguu3UkCU
https://youtu.be/eVr_T3Z6Jzg
the Peeples Valley water truck was coming out of the shrine area during the last hours of that fire 6.30.13 when the men were killed was because they needed that truck to feed one of those little water hoses for the burn out (there is a video of that public to this day on youttube) they were doing but remember that fire chief said they never were even in there at all with a water truck or anything is this called plausible denial or just plain old b******* and lies and yes the signs would come down at night in the hot uranium areas that weren’t well-ventilated where you weren’t supposed to be I found this out when I did a double shift and I saw the signs were down and they move me to an area that was hot and high and radiation with poor ventilation when I asked the shift boss that the Silver Spur after our shift one night why those signs would come down at night he said then my inspectors only work during the day and that hot uranium is what is paydirt so I believe a lot of miners didn’t know they were actually working in those hot areas where they shouldn’t have been but it was no secret among the bosses and yes I paid for it with half my nose missing when its totally gone and having more than twenty of these cancers cut off I’ve lost count including a melanoma so yeah Mining and firefighting is like going to war you hope to hell you got a decent boss and not one of the Marsh or Steed types willing to take unnecessary and needless risk of their young men’s lives it might have been better sense if instead of Pulaski’s you equip the men with garden hoses hung over their shoulder if they’re going to drop off in a Box Canyon and into brush that Willis described as impossible buy an ordinary person he could have made it more appropriate to say even a husky black bear couldn’t get through that s*** in fact there were bear wallowed areas up there where they rolled over instead of going through it something indeed any human would have hard time doing in that Manzanita brush the human hide is quite thin compared to a bear take a look at a bear rug if you don’t understand that and I will back Joy up on that we did have a fireman tell us that they don’t fight fires at night because it’s too dangerous and that was an excuse for not fighting the Yarnell fire at night yet we also have heard other things that Joy will one day share to the world with all her evidence. Seems like she has already been leaking it here if people can really comprehend her circle talk.
pay attention when typing hit the v instead of the b big fingers.
Funny you of all folks say pay attention…but just so you know..
I did not hit the button wrong…I copy and pasted the non fact checker National Geographic data
Smiles
Joy,
You posted: “What if Van Bateman had followed the 10 and 18 / LCES.”
Then he probably would not have gotten caught …?
Regarding GPS on fires. The GMHS, like almost all HS Crews have GPS, however, that would not have saved them on June 3o, 2013. They knew where they were, they could clearly see what the weather and the fire behavior were doing, they didn’t follow the simple, tried-and-trued WF Rules.
No…he would have gotten caught anyway…the 10 and the 18 won’t save you from how he got caught.
Debatable because if he had a good, competent Lookout all those time he may have know they were on to him which included placing a GPS unit on his truck.
Not if it was hidden where I used to hide them, especially if it it tapped into a hard wire and with a bird dog on the side : )
Oh and one more thing. Ours used a satellite signal and would call a cell phone, pretty hard to hide from those and they can be concealed and hidden so your mechanic couldn’t find it. In other words…be good for goodness sake.
And Van was dead wrong. I know a lot of WF who weren’t and aren’t fire bugs except when it is written into the ops plan.
Idistal effects
No idea on that one.
I agree that he was dead wrong.
And worst of all, he implicated all of us WF when he claimed that there was a “fine line” between an arsonist and a fireman. Or something like that
Gary said- And Van was dead wrong. I know a lot of WF who weren’t and aren’t fire bugs except when it is written into the ops plan.
joy replies- so Gary what if its the million plus acres in the 6th to 7th March of this year in Texas/OK/Kansas —how much of THAT fire do you think might have been written into the operation orders? and if it was written does that make it a good fire and not subject to arson or considered to be arson?
My answer at this point JOY would be yes. Hot running fires with no Natural bearers have to be attacked differently. In this new dryer time you have to back off and back fire from man made or natural bearers to contain fires with minimal exposure to people and to stop fires from running into communities.
Much confusion between–
Back Fire–To back off to a good fire break Natural or Man Made and set fire to burn to the main fire from a ridge line or a canyon, a road or a river or a Large cat line.
Burn out/firing out line to bring the black with you. Backing off from the fire where line construction is easier. Cutting off fingers and burning unburned material in-between. These are small burns adjacent to the fire to clean up the line. Leaving a black safe line.
Diane–There are many ways for a fire to escape a controlled line or a seemingly out fire. Fires flare up and spot across the line spot fires lay dormant and then take off. Fires creep under the line in a root and ignite fuel outside the line.
The last and generally lest is a FF that wants to keep the fire going. It is first hard to do if you are with others. I have never herd of a crew 3 or more who have ever allowed a fire to escape for the sake of making more money.
As I remember the Yarnell Hill Fire was smoking with in the 2 plus acers when crew first arrived. Remember they wanted water drops but got water bags instead. Where the fire escaped was in plain site to the Helitack and state crew. When the Helicopter dropped the sling of water bags the fire flamed up and jumped what ever line was there and started running north during the hottest part of the day. after 4PM like it did the next afternoon but went in the .opposite direction and trapped the crew same time of day. Consistent with High Temps, Low humidity low fuel moisture Combined with winds.
There was no indication of any backfires being set on Yarnell when the blow ups occurred. GM set burn outs not any Back Fires along the line they were working that were promptly dropped on by Air Tanker.. When they were trapped they did a burn out of the deployment area.
I agree with Bob. You have to keep my my experience level in mind. I specialized in keeping things simple.
Grunt…ground pounder…infantry…cut fire line and burn out….cut fire line and backfire….cut fire line and burn out and backfire…go to bar and talk about the last fire, the next fire, or some other fire…or our fire boots. Me…I’m a Whites man through and through.
But for questions any more technical than that, I was an old school hotshot. We came…we saw….we kicked its ass. And then we went home or to the next fire as God intended. Although like I said before….I do know a Royal Cluster Fuck when I see one.
And speaking of “we saw”, check out this photo of me and my Squad II, Squad Boss sizing up the fire as required per the 10 and 18.
My squad boss looks like an old time gunslinger getting ready to draw at the OK Corral and I closely resemble Clint Eastwood getting ready to say, “Go ahead….make my day!”
http://www.ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
I’m pretty sure that big bad control burn that got away in Washington State knew it’s days were numbered just as soon as it saw me staring it down with “The Look”, Bad Ass!
You can see some of three hotshot crews in the background, Orange hardhats, yellow hardhats and red hardhats, all getting ready to water up, tool up, line up, heads up, shut the fuck up and listen up.
And get ready to drop down off the top of the mountain to kick some ass! Oorah!
Gary Olson says
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017 AT 4:18 PM
No…he would have gotten caught anyway…the 10 and the 18 won’t save you from how he got caught.
joy replies:
yes but if I were to gather foias and public records on VAN BATEMAN , Gary and were to peek at his evaluations and his work history is it possible it is a hidden known fact that this has existed his behavior throughout the industry and he was only “caught” because maybe it was his time from the ONES who said throw him under the bus at that time…
is it possible that fires are being burn, baby burn until someone says he/she is not following the system they way they want it to be done—or if their behavior shifts or if the arrogance is not liked throughout the system…
is it possible that the pressure from a certain few on YHF and some others STILL ALIVE…their manipulation and errors was a huge factor in the end results to 6.30.13—
I see alot of fraud when I get my foias and this is a PROBLEM …
these are not boy scouts people–
these are men and the incident command area are GROWN MEN so really do you think we should believe these 19 and other fatalities solely goes back to the men’s decisions only and not to look at all areas as well to make sure we do not have this keep happening???
…when it could be in reference to…. the lead men knew the future of their organization…the pressures…the unknown phone transcripts and texts and conversation does not mean it never happened just not yet known…
and it could not be a good thing to look at all that was on that fire and yet some are omitted from the SAIR—
why are they omitted?
why are we avoiding real stuff—so maybe the real problem here is some do not have all the resources to go over the real time of June 30 2013—
and again why no reply on the locator topic—
why are you talking about a bug on Bateman’s truck?
How about the ones on their fixed equipment.
I need confirmation- what about the ones they were issued on them at all times?
Since when have the WF had these locators? are we talking about the same thing? Am I not explaining myself well enough? knowing me—probably so
I knew Van (not well…we were competitors from different and waring tribes) from when he was the crew boss on the Flagstaff Hotshots until he became a Fire God on the Mighty Coconino.
Van Bateman was the very best and most highly respected among us. Van set the Gold Standard in everything he did related to being a hotshot and later as a national fire God who proved himself thousands of time as a true American hero including on the 911 Pile.
No one should ever forget that he was truly the best of the best in all things related to FIRE he did throughout his life up to a certain point. It would take someone a lot smarter than me to figure out what went wrong, where, when, how and why after that point.
Bateman huh?
Do you or can you see Bateman’s name along with these men Gary:
Lynn Biddison
Ben Lions
Miron Lee
Jim James
these men above would probably fit the word FIRE GOD better than Bateman, correct Gary?
They are the ones that had the reputation.
They took care of the men below them always and thought of their welfare-
They were the real definition of a Supervisor that was respected up and down the pecking order.
They ALWAYS put safety and their people under them First.
They wrote the book on Fire Management and Promoted safety.
They were all Fire Bosses or IC Type 1
To tell them they were FIRE GODS would have embarrassed them.
Two on that list could meet you once no matter your position and remember your name years later.
Ben Lions and Jim James.
They and a few others established the FS and BLM Wild Land Fire Policy and Safety that is still here today.
They were innovators forward thinkers and doers.
They were not some holier than though person.
They were respected from the lowest fire fighter to the National office
It was more than position. It was respect, trust and a true fellowship they were both educated college and fire from the ground up people
They understood Fire Fighters because they came from there..
I think that is missing in todays Wildland Fire industry—some one that would hold those under them to accountability and change the system with out fear.
They were savvy wild land Fire Supervisors that were true leaders. Fire gods is really a little heavy but was a handle we used.
Does Bateman fit that bill and if he does or did than politics dried up for him and he was thrown under the boss because it took along time for that data to come forward…the data that will begin to be pushed forward with movie not out or by Christmas out on dvd or when its time arrives— it will then make those actors and director/etc and so many feel they should of never used the word TRUE….but true is coming and man do I wish it was True from Blue Ridge…come on True— when you are on those mountains doing fire you gotta “feel” like publicly sharing the purity of your day 6.30.13—how many years before you retire or maybe if that bleacher guy is right and that power grid does go down than maybe when all the money gravy trains run dry then maybe some truisms will surface…yet like a volcano about to rupture I am here to get that lava flowing…sooner than later…
DNA is fine just some in it…”buh-bye”
I also enjoy learning about Tom Boatner, Steve Botti, Ben Charley, Jim Durrwachter,Paul Gleason, Sue Husari, Jon Larson, James JP Mattingly, Ted Putnam, Barb Stewart, Edy Williams-Rhodes, Jack Wilson, Craig Workman, Tom Zimmerman (HE WAS AT MY PHONE INTERVIEW TOM)…but the guys I named above this comment they were well known within the Fire organizations both Federal, State and Counties so that was why I stayed there but who am I but an avid hiker/housewife that is an outsider to the industry who sold off too much assets to really jump in the mud as I have been in a tight rope tug of war and Forestry disappoints me as well as aerial and AZ dispatch center where it said they got my data but they never acknowledged me or my FOIAS…Forestry came back wih some fluff when Fred started his suit I than got some bogus crapola…and Prescott failed to offer certain crucial data as they state fire dept would not give it up…huh??? how can both Prescott and the fire dept that GMHS was tied to LOSE that financial records….
it is important for the human race to RESPECT your profession and that is why I research who is who and such and get to comprehend how and why they are in that spot and etc…and who made it to their progressive spot by morals and merits and who has a brown nose or shit eating grin—
the entities have played a fine tuned game with me indeed-
They do NOT want to give me some/all of the information I am requesting
and it looks like they are already consulting with their ‘lawyers’ to try and find any LEGAL way to get out of doing that.
CYFD even last year consulted theirs just to come back and apologize to me and gave me data asap- I am not doing anything wrong just wanting to learn about all areas to YHF not what is fed to me….
they do ‘twist’ them any way they can to justify NOT fulfilling a valid AORS/FOIAS…
it is one crazy game and I am one step ahead playing it as smart as a dumb kid can—
I was once told this and it is standing true to this day:
“The ‘web of authors’ that have ‘published’ so far have not been the slightest bit interested in “telling the story right”.
They have only been interested in capitalizing on a National Tragedy and seizing the opportunity to make some $$ MONEY $$.
Same for the ‘movie people’.
Not the slightest bit interested in finding out what really happened.
Only interested in making $$ MONEY $$.”
alot of “chess moves” made yet I feel that team of bleachers will get it done right…to say check mate
as one said—
“You always have to laugh when ‘public servants’ don’t seem to understand
what either the word ‘public’ or the word ‘servant’ actually means.”
DON’T HAVE TO THANK ME FOR THIS LINK:
h ttp s ://mamanmerde.co m/2016/06/30/granite-mountain-hotshots-last-alarm-6-30-2013/
I wanted your hand to reach the top of your head and scratch away…
You would think that someone who feels that strongly that this was totally preventable
and should have never happened would be ‘leading the effort’ to make sure no one else ever has to get the same ‘phone call’.
Oh…and one more thing. Van and I weren’t contemporaries. Van was a nationally recognized hotshot crew boss legend while I was the second to the last shovel on squad two.
By the tume I was crew boss, Van was Bill Bucks second in command on the Coke and then at some point he became a Districf FMO on the Coke, which is a normal progression.
Except in Van’s case he was also rapidly climbing a parallel ladder up through the Type II and Type I Interagency Fire Teams to become what I think was the most respected Type I Incident Commander in the nation, which was how he ended up as IC on the 911 Pile.
Joy…it is technically possible and economically feasible to put GPS tracking devices on individual WF. If the crew would have been wearing those devices that day, it may have been possible to pinpoint their exact location in real time and therefore it may have been possible to save them by dropping slurry on them from the VLAT.
If that Is done in the future, it could provide one more layer of safety for WF. I think it could even be a useful tool from a tactical standpoint that would enable fire commanders to precisely know the location of all of their resources at any given moment.
And that could come handy simply in how resources are allocated and utilized on any given division at any given time. It could also come in handy from s purely logistical standpoint….you know where a crew is so you can re supply them on the fire line for example.
So….it would be cheap (relatively speaking) to put GPS trackers on individual WF, they should already have them on engines, dozers and other types of equipment,
and would be useful for tactical and logistical reasons…so why not do it, at least on a trial basis. It would also be kind of fun (at least for a little while) to sit in a tent in fire camp and watch all of those individually identified dots move around on a big flat screen monitor.
There is only one problem with this entire argument and concept when it comes to the possibility the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew could have been SAVED FROM THEMSELVES, multiple layers of safety were already in place that day and Eric Marsh deliberately circumvented them one by one in an attempt to pull off his stunt. So we do you or anyone else think he wouldn’t have deliberately defeated that active safety measure as well?
Please keep in mind that the final and most important check in the built in system of checks and balances performed flawlessly that day.. Captain Steed told Marsh three times they shouldn’t try to do what Marsh ordered them to do, and Marsh defeated that layer of safety as well.
Oh…and one more thing. GPS tracking devices would also improve productivity, you could find the SLACKERS with pinpoint accuracy in real time and ship their asses back to where they came from.
I don’t remember if I have ever told this fire story on this thread or not, but even if I have, does it really matter? For one thing, as I have told you, my stories get better every time I tell them.
Once upon a time…the entire Happy Jack Hotshot Crew was lost by the BLM on a really big desert fire (Crossman Peak Fire of 1980) on the Hava Su District in western Arizona…for THREE DAYS! If it hadn’t been for an Arizona Game & Fish underground trick tank for wildlife, we theoretically could have died.
We were inserted by helicopter while the fire was being managed by chaos during the first 36 hours of the fire…but they didn’t log us in at fire camp, or log us out on helicopters, so there wasn’t any record we were even on the fire.
We were found by accident by a resupply helicopter late in the evening after they had already delivered all of their on board supplies to other crews and they were flying back to Lake Hava Su City. When they saw us signalling to them…they said ” Who the fuck are those guys?” And they landed on the ridge we were working on to ask me in person.
So…transponders could come in handy, I guess?
you are funny Gary
when you write—sometimes you call me Yoda on my lingo yet I find you to be the kind of guy who would say…
“You are pretty”…with an added drawed out add on word Lame…. “YOU ARE PRETTY…LAME”
seems like you say things as confident as I know you gotta be with a maybe or I guess or I cannot see it but here it is…
I will read this comment later…watching the zookeeper’s wife than a walk…but I skimmed it and so yes if they have on all work cells that are paid by the government those cells should be mandatory to be tied to their superior with say a gps tracking system say for an example LIFE360…the boss knows where his men are at all times…it is FREE and the incident command can know too via their cells FREE- NO COSTS- FREE
ON WORK CELLS not their own personal cells— also all texts and calls should be synced into a file after a fire so the superior has that too. If I was boss it would be mandatory so the timeline is in sync—unless one is doing something shady than I can see why they would not want this—because we KNOW FFs use different type engines on a fire then what they turn into to get paid so they get more monies—so it would uncover too much fraud but LIFE 360 also has a time frame how long you actually fought a fire so that screws padding the books parts too—so yeah may not work—
You are a pretty good judge of character.
Joy,
I think you are a really nice person…a little nuts, but nice.
I was a certified Wildland Fire Investigator and FLETC trained. There are no jobs like that per se, they are all collateral jobs, usually with Special Agents and that is just one kind out of dozens or even hundreds of different kinds of cases they do.
rts said:
I have said for years that these Agency employees received written and/or verbal direction from their supervisor(s) to not collect, discuss, gather anything regarding the YH Fire or the GMHS.
joy replies: there is proof of this in obtaining FOIAs…ask for the foia directories from 2013 to present as well when inquiring…and ask for direct people not general of the folks on the fire to their proper agencies and ask for any emails- there is proof that what RTS states is correct. There is also “E” who was on the fire and was given a legal paper so YES there is avenues on just YHF of such restrictions…but just today I got word about a man and I just logged on to further look into a man from Storm King who was made to stay at a motel out of the city so its not just YHF…when the leaks happen it will happen to historical to present fires—I can guarantee you that…and thank God Sonny loves dark beer and bars because MOST of my best digging and interviews and names brought up came from Sonny being at the bars…so thank God for him still being alive and living it well going across America being himself that then in turns gets me good solid data…clap clap…to dig more …jump, jump…jump around…
Reply to Diane lomas post on August 14, 2017 at 10:08 am
>> Diane lomas asked…
>>
>> Who was assigned to scout out the dozer line along with Corey ball?
That ‘other’ person’s identity has never been established.
Here is exactly what Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball wrote down in his own official ( typed ) Unit Log covering the timeframe between 4:00 PM and the burnover ( when Blue Ridge was already evacuating the Shrine Road Youth camp area and Ball was obtaining an ATV from Yarnell Fire Department to scout out some ’emergency dozer line’ near Glen Ilah )…
———————————————————————————————————–
– BRIHC disengaging to safety zone.
– BRIHC one ( Brian Frisby ) informs Structure Group One ( Gary Cordis ) they are pushing engines everyone out of subdivisions.
– ( Cory Ball’s next Unit Log entry is TOTALLY BLACKED OUT ).
– Structure group one ( Gary Cordis ) assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell ( near Glen Ilah and the Boulder Springs Ranch area ).
– Acquire ATV ( from Yarnell Fire Station ): travel into subdivision back to Dozer line. Multiple structures fully engulfed and multiple spot fires in subdivision.
– Notify structure group one ( Gary Cordis ) about fire and structures on corner of manzanita and lockwood ( Lakewood ).
– ( Cory Ball’s next Unit Log entry is TOTALLY BLACKED OUT ).
– Started evacuation of subdivision.
– Helitanker drops water near manzanita junction.
– Inquire about helitanker availability. Told there are other priorities.
– ( Cory Ball’s next Unit Log entry is TOTALLY BLACKED OUT ).
– Evacuations for next couple of hours.
———————————————————————————————————-
Hear is the relevant Cory Ball log entry…
– Structure group one ( Gary Cordis ) assigns me and one other to locate possibility of dozer line to southwest of Yarnell ( near Glen Ilah and the Boulder Springs Ranch area ).
The “one other” mentioned by Cory Ball still remains a mystery.
It *could* have been Paul Morin… the Yavapai County dozer operator, who Cory Ball had already been working with for the entire day.
It *could* have been Eric Marsh himself, who SPGS1 Gary Cordis thought was already there near the Boulder Springs Ranch after having ‘scouted ahead’ for Granite Mountain.
It *could* have been someone else.
The ADOSH investigators were only ever given the heavily-redacted copies of the Blue Ridge Unit Logs near the end of their investigation… but they were NEVER allowed to ‘interview’ ANY of the Blue Ridge Hotshots in order to ask them any questions about these ‘Log entries’.
Here are some links to the actual REDACTED versions of the Blue Ridge Hotshot Unit Logs. that were eventually released to the ADOSH investigators…
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: Blue Ridge Hotshots’ reports provide insight into Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy
Published: February 15, 2014 – By John Dougherty
http://www.investigativemedia.com/blue-ridge-interview-provides-new-insight-into-yarnell-hill-disaster/
Direct link to the Blue Ridge ‘Unit Logs’ document is as follows…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/combined-blue-ridge-materials.pdf
Followup….
Here is what ADOSH had to say about not being allowed to interview ANY of the Blue Ridge Hotshots and about only receiving a copy of their Unit Logs with MASSIVE REDACTIONS.
The following ADOSH statement is at the top of their final ( published ) report about their Yarnell Hill Fire investigation…
From page 6 of the final ADOSH ‘Inspection Narrative’…
——————————————————————————————————
ADOSH Inspection Number: 317242683
It should be noted that the United States Department of Agriculture – Forest Service ( USDS-FS ) denied ADOSH’s requests to interview USDA-FS employees ( Blue Ridge IHC and an Air Attack crew ) who were working the Yarnell Hill Fire under cooperative agreement with ASFD ( Arizona State Forestry Division ). USDA-FS did provide REDACTED copies of written documents produced by members of the Blue Ridge Interagency Hotshot Crew describing their activities on June 30, 2013. The redactions included not only the names of the Blue Ridge IHC personnel, but all names, as well as information USDA-FS stated was of a sensitive nature.
As a result, the documents were USELESS in ADOSH’s investigation.
In addition, ATGS Rory Collins failed to return multiple telephone messages
requesting a return call and, accordingly, was not interviewed.
—————————————————————————————————–
Also… it is important to note that regarding Cory Ball’s entry in his own Unit Log about having been ‘instructed’ by SPGS1 Gary Cordis to ‘scout ( emergency ) dozer line southwest of Yarnell’… Gary Cordis himself makes absolutely NO MENTION of this in his OWN official ‘Unit Log’.
There are actually a LOT of ‘instructions’ / ‘directives’ / ‘orders’ that others have testified were being given to them by SPGS1 Gary Cordis that day that Cordis himself NEVER MENTIONS in his OWN official Yarnell Hill Fire ‘Unit Log’.
SPGS1 Gary Cordis’ own official ‘Unit Log’ was part of the following ( belated ) release of evidence documents by Arizona Forestry…
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: Arizona Forestry Division belatedly releases key Yarnell Hill records
Published: March 6, 2014 – By John Dougherty
http://www.investigativemedia.com/arizona-forestry-division-belatedly-releases-key-yarnell-hill-records/
Direct link to the document containing SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ own official ‘Unit Log’…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Unit_Logs-provided-on-2-27.pdf
“one other” seems to be the only mention in Ball’s log entries that, does not refer, either to a specific person, or specific position (which in turn, would identify a specific person).
I find that to be quite revealing, in, and of, itself. Instead of “one other”, he could have easily said something like “the dozer operator”, without revealing a specific name.
As he was filling-out the Unit Log after the fact, there is only one person that Ball might not want to mention, either by name, or position. And one doesn’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out who that might be.
In fact, if true and taken in the larger context, that would certainly fill-in a lot of the blanks regarding the “who’s” and “why’s” of this tragedy, as well as, explain why, when Cordes first heard of the tragedy, he responded, “Bullshit” (meaning it couldn’t be true), and then, “They had plenty of time to get there.”
I totally agree with your entire comment.
It is, in fact, ‘telling’ that Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball chose to just say ‘one other’ in his ( typed ) Unit Log, instead of even trying to identify the person with either a name or a ‘designation’… as he did with just about every other reference to any other ‘person’ throughout the entire rest of his ‘Unit Log’ entries.
It is also ‘telling’ that those 3 lines from his Unit Log are totally BLACKED OUT, in those specific places.
I actually believe what happened is that whoever was doing the ‘BLACKING OUT’ on Cory Ball’s Unit Log simply ‘missed’ that line about the emergency dozer line directive BECAUSE Cory Ball chose to type ‘one other’ instead of ‘DIVSA’ and/or ‘Eric Marsh’.
If whoever was doing the ‘BLACKOUTS’ had the chance to do it over again… I believe that Cory Ball Unit Log entry would have never seen the light of day, either.
When you stop and consider the timeframe here ( 4:00 PM up to 4:43 PM burnover time )… and everything else that was going on… you have to ask who ELSE down there on that Yarnell Side of the fire would have been both ‘available’ and ‘qualified’ to help HEQB/DOZB Cory Ball ‘scout out dozer line’ at all.
SPGS1 Gary Cordis was still up north along Highway 89, sitting in his vehicle at one of those concrete driveways along the white Maughn Ranch Fence.
TLFD(t) Tyson Esquibel was totally preoccupied trying to get his Task Force OUT of the Shrine Road Youth Camp area.
Jerry Thompson and the other Sun Valley brush truck crewmen were also preoccupied with evacuating from the Miner’s Camp area and back to the Ranch House Restaurant.
Ditto for Blue Ridge Hotshot Supt and Capt Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown. They were still actively ‘bombing around’ in that Youth Camp area urging all the other firefighters to ‘get out now’.
But if DIVSA Eric Marsh had, in fact, already made it to ( or near ) the Boulder Springs Ranch… and SPGS1 Gary Cordis KNEW it… then DIVSA Eric Marsh would have been the ‘right man’ to put together with Dozer Boss Cory Ball to see if there actually was a chance of cutting some last-ditch effort dozer line to try and at least keep the fire out of the Glen Ilah subdivision.
When you read Cory Ball’s Unit Log… it’s almost as if you can feel him starting to write the word ‘DIVSA’ and/or ‘Eric’ at that point… and then he thought better of it and DECIDED to just write the words ‘one other’.
It has NEVER been credible to think that Cory Ball did NOT know who that ‘one other’ was at the time the assignment came from SPGS1 Gary Cordis… or that he still didn’t know who that ‘one other’ was at the time he sat down to type his Unit Log.
WTKTT said,
“But if DIVSA Eric Marsh had, in fact, already made it to ( or near ) the Boulder Springs Ranch… and SPGS1 Gary Cordis KNEW it… then DIVSA Eric Marsh would have been the ‘right man’ to put together with Dozer Boss Cory Ball to see if there actually was a chance of cutting some last-ditch effort dozer line to try and at least keep the fire out of the Glen Ilah subdivision.”
……..and then, the next logical step for DIV A would have been to hail the crew working for him, and bring them around to possibly assist in that endeavor.
The who ,what, where, when, and why, is all right there, if someone would only tell the whole truth (that means you Gary C. or Cory Ball).
Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball received a promotion ( and the corresponding pay raise ) following the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.
After Yarnell… Blue Ridge Captain / Assistant Superintendent Trueheart Brown received his own promotion and became an Assistant Fire Management Officer ( AFMO ) with Arizona Forestry.
Cory Ball was ‘elevated’ within the Blue Ridge Hotshot organization to replace Brown and become the new BRIHC Captain / Assistant Superintendent.
The ADOSH investigators tried… but were NEVER allowed to interview Cory Ball ( or ANY of the Blue Ridge Hotshot ).
You do not just receive promotions you must apply for them and be selected by a committee thru application and interview.
No rewards from Yarnell Hill Fire. These were normal job vacancies and applications for the jobs. It happens all the time as people move up the ladder.
Two points…
1. Neither you nor I know the full details about why Trueheart Brown decided to leave the Blue Ridge Hotshot organization, or the full details regarding Cory Ball’s ‘promotion’. Was the procedure you describe actually followed? I ( me, personally ) do not know.
2. I wasn’t actually suggesting that Cory Ball’s promotion was some kind of ‘reward’ directly related to anything that did or didn’t happen in Yarnell, or afterwards. I was just pointing out to TTWARE that he is even more ensconced into the Blue Ridge organization than ever, and is therefore still subject to whatever ‘gag order’ or ‘directive not to discuss Yarnell’ that still enshrouds that entire organization.
USFS is still so afraid of having the ‘Blue Ridge Hotshots’ associated with the Yarnell Hill Fire that they wouldn’t even give Blacklabel Media permission to mention the name of the organization in the ‘fillum’ they just spent 50+ million dollars to make.
All references to the actual ‘Blue Ridge Hotshots’ in the ‘fillum’ were forced to use the fake name “Blue River Hotshots” instead… complete with a fake ‘logo’ ( on Blue helmets ) of a fish jumping out of a river.
There’s still a ‘story’ there that has yet to be told about WHY the film couldn’t just use the name ‘Blue Ridge Hotshots’.
Who actually REFUSED them permission?
USFS?… Blue Ridge management?… both?
And what REASON was given for the permission refusal?
Wasn’t there a blue ridge hotshot that came to work in Prescott after the fire?
Would he be excluded from the gag order?
Diane, you have probably already picked this up but there in no gag order and there never was. That is just a straw man or bogeyman made up by the Blue Ridge Hotshots and their supporters like RTS and Bob to defend the indefensible.
They just bring him out every so often to wave him around hoping the rest of us have ether forgotten or never knew they were lying in the first place.
And once again, I wouldn’t be doing anything different than they are, I did lots of things I’m not proud of during my career with the BLM in order to keep my job and everything I had worked for my entire life like my kids health insurance.
There are laws that protect Whistle Blowers but…most people who have to use them end up sitting alone in a room all by themselves with a relatively small settlement to reimburse them for what they went through after 10 years as shattered shells of who they once were..
The dangerous people are people like me, who the system can no longer hurt and thereby control. The only thing that keeps those like me in line is working as an AD into retirement for some, but for most it is as simple as the agency remains their tribe, their identity, most of their friends and acquaintances also came from that tribe or are still in it.
In other words, their loyalty remains with the system and they justify it by telling themselves there are internal mechanisms that either have or will fix the problem so it needs to remain in house and left to them to sort out their own problems because only they understand each other.
No one who is concealing what happened on the YHF see themselves as bad people doing the wrong thing. They have convinced themselves they are in fact doing the right thing. They all believe they have self corrected all of the primary and contributing factors in the deaths of the crew.
They are delusional of course because like I have said many times, once is an aberration, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, especially in this day and age when all of the institutional checks and balances were in place that day and it still happened.
It will happen again for the very same reasons. Maybe not in my lifetime, but everyone has short memories and that certainly includes the WF culture. We all know that;
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”
Which probably can be attributed to George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There are a lot of versions out there, but they all mean the same thing and it is what the SAIT did with their SAIR. And the USFS is primarily responsible even though Arizona and Florida State Forestry supposedly had the lead.
The Great Wizard of Oz behind the curtain probably wasn’t even Mike Dudley. Dudley do Wrong was probably just the face of the cover-up. I don’t think we will ever know the name of the person who is responsible because I think it was several people.
I think it was everyone in the chain of command between Ball, Brown and Frisby up to and including the management team who meets with the Chief of the US Forest Service every Monday morning including him of course.
George Santayana, a Spanish-born American author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
But even the Chief wasn’t the actual Wizard, I think the man who was behind the curtain is someone between Dudley and the Chief. I think it was probably a Regional Director of Aviation and Fire Management who had the lead for the team. But it also could have been a Deputy Chief or whatever their exact title is for the man, and it probably is a man, who sits at that level.
Oh…and I think the NWCG board of directors is also up to their necks in the cover up. This was so big, everyone would have to be in on it.
Gary,
You posted: the “gag order … is just a straw man or bogeyman made up by the Blue Ridge Hotshots and their supporters like RTS and Bob to defend the indefensible.”
Once again, making stuff up. As you well know, a gag order is a judicial ruling barring public disclosure or discussion (as by the press) of information related to a case.
I haven’t used that phrase for years.
I have said for years that these Agency employees received written and/or verbal direction from their supervisor(s) to not collect, discuss, gather anything regarding the YH Fire or the GMHS.
You know as well as anyone, insubordination or failure to follow orders is a disciplinary actionable offense with consequences.
RTS,
Did you just say insubordination or failing to follow orders is a disciplinary actionable offense with consequences? So you’re saying hotshots follow orders or else?
Woodsman,
Yes, I did say that.
Hot Shots and all other employees must follow orders unless they are “Illegal, Unsafe, Immoral, or Unethical” The Stupid rule doesn’t count.
Also, read John Reed’s The Morality of Obeying Stupid Orders “argues to obey orders where the overall mission big-picture benefits are sufficient to warrant the risks,” ‘If the superior won’t back down, the lower leader has a moral decision to make. If the lower leader thinks the mission is too dangerous for its benefits,
he should resist the order to the point of refusing to carry it out.’ “This is exactly what the Acting GMHS Superintendent was doing, however, he was using ‘mitigating or hinting speech,’ defined as“ any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of
what is being said, ”likely in deference to authority, instead of direct speech and actions to hold true to their ultimate obligation of maintaining the safety and welfare of those they supervise.”
RTS,
I will say the same thing I.have been saying for years…bullshit.
I have repeatedly asked to see a copy of any written directive, instructions, or orders that have or are still forcing the Blue Ridge Hotshots or anyone else not to discuss the YHF or the GMIHC.
And your statement reads like it was written by attorney representing Ball, Brown and Frisby, but is so general and filled with so many vague words…it really doesn’t say anything other than they aren’t going to talk about it, but it’s not their fault, so give them a pass.
When I read your prepared statement all I really saw was blah blah blah, blah blah, blah.
Blah…blah blah blah.
My favorite part was this jewel,
(please see the next to the last paragraph, since I don’t know how to copy and paste with this machine.)
That is a real keeper. : )
You know…I understand why they aren’t sharing what they know with the people who they work for and who are picking up the entire tab for their Royal Cluster Fuck.
I really do understand, BUT…I’m not going to give them a pass and tell them it’s okay, because it isn’t okay.
I’m going to go get on my other machine so I can copy and paste a quote for everyone who is withholding information from the American people regarding the YHF and the deaths of OUR crew.
RTS,
Was the order to not speak about the YHF or GM illegal, unsafe, immoral, or unethical? I’m not very interested in going further than this because I believe I’ve made my point. The order, if there was one, was not followed for some reason. You admitted it was not followed right after you claimed orders have consequences etc. I think we should move on to better fish to skin, sir.
Yes indeed. They are all of the above:
Unsafe, Immoral, and Unethical.
Think about each of them and logically follow those out
This comes from one of my favorite lifestyle coaches, Gandalf the White from The Lord Of The Rings.
Frodo Baggins: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
I deeply regret that fate picked Ball, Brown and Frisby to be the men who witnessed the worst disaster in wildland firefighting history. I wish they could have lived out their entire lives without participating in, or witnessing such a horror.
But that didn’t happen…fate selected them to be standing as witnesses at the crossroads where Eric Marsh was finally able to overcome and defeat all of the institutional, cultural, historical, common sense and instinct for self preservation checks and balances that make sure almost all WF go home after every fire, all at once while facing an unforgiving fire at the wrong time and in the wrong place.
And frankly, I wish fate hadn’t selected me to ignite the backfire that killed three Mormon Lake Hotshots. It has effected me my entire life and will continue to so until the very end…but it did, and I can’t change that.
And my experience pales in comparison to what fate required them to go through. But it did happen, and neither I nor they can change that.
Now all they have to decide is how they are going to deal with it. Nobody can decide that for them…nobody.
Oh…and one more thing. You are good Fred…you really are. But since your position is wrong, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good you are…you’re still wrong.
RTS,
Thanks
Gary, are you saying THEY are lying and gagging themselves and nobody above them would EVER DARE THINK OF telling them or implying that they should keep their trap shut if they know what is good for them or want to advance ever in the industry? of course in my mind I acknowledge I am being facetious…???
Name one WHISTLE BLOWER that got a reward Gary? name one just one. How big was the reward? How important was the information?
So that is why ALL BURN OUT OPERATIONS are GOOD BURN OUT OPERATIONS?
right?
Gary- spend the monies and you want to see a copy of any written directive- please start with asking for the emails with Prescott—
woodsman says: I think we should move on to better fish to skin, sir.
joy replies: what better fish are we talking about Woodsman—are we talking about burnout operations on MT fires—can we go there?
On a side note Fred, there is something that has always bothered me I want to share with you.
Hotshot crews, their command structure and especially hotshot crew bosses are so highly respected and regarded within the WF community, in general no one questions their motivation, authority, or decisions regarding their crews safety and general well being on fires because thousands of hotshots have spent decades building that reputation one fire at a time.
And Eric Marsh betrayed that trust by manipulating the system and using the power grated to him by all of the hard work of so many who came before him in an attempt to achieve selfish objectives to further his own career even though Steed told him three times they couldn’t do what he was ordering them to do.
And that is a real shame. I am curious if that betrayal of trust has permanently damaged the hotshot program, or are WF writing it off as that was just Marsh acting out and therefore was nothing more than a one off or anomaly?
Gary,
Really? One of your favorite lifestyle coaches is Gandalf the White from The Lord Of The Rings. WTF
What “position” are you referring to that is wrong in your view?
I completely agree with you that Eric Marsh betrayed that solemn Hot Shot trust by manipulating the system and abusing the power granted to him by all of the hard work of those who came before him in an attempt to achieve selfish objectives to further his own career even though Steed told him three times they couldn’t do what he was ordering them to do.
And I further agree that it is a crying and painful shame. I believe that betrayal of trust has NOT permanently damaged the overall hotshot program. Yes, there are some WF writing it off as Marsh being Marsh, nothing more than an anomaly or “they just made a mistake.”. These are the vast minority.
The rest of us believe that this was “the final, fatal link in a long chain of bad decisions with good outcomes.” He betrayed his main duty as a HS Supt to protect the safety and welfare of those he supervised.
One of the stated goals of the SAIT was to utilize “sense-making” — why did it make sense for them to do what they did that day?
It made NO sense to any of us that followed the WF Rules and upheld our duty as WF leaders and supervisors, yet it apparently made sense to him that day because it was a common practice of “always trying to prove himself.”
And there were a few that heeded that warning sign and quit the GMHS because of that in time, prior to the YH Fire.
Gary,
I am truly sorry for what you
have to deal with daily from the 1976 Battlement Creek Fire. You’re correct, you cannot change it, you must deal with it.
Sharing here and discussing the YH Fire and all other fatal fires is part of the healing process.
” … Peithous is not divine Mercy, not Faith, not even Justice. Peithous simply means dialogue! It is the power of telling our stories honestly in a trusted circle of compatriots. What a remarkably unmiraculous salavation, yet profound as Grace: men can be healed through telling their stories in community!”
Excerpt from On Combat by Lt. Colonel Daniel Grossman, citing Alfred LaMotte, Chaplain, Charles Wright Academy (p. 265)
Joy,
Whistle Blowers are often paid money and are in the news on a regular basis. I asked a search engine that question and this is the first one that popped up. This person received 57 million but in the same article it talks about someone who received 104 million.
https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/12/17/countrywide-whistle-blower-to-receive-more-than-57-million/
But those kind of cases are not what I was specifically referring to. I was thinking of cases that are more mundane and then the Whistle Blower is fired or transferred above the arctic circle when they are citrus inspectors from Florida.
Those kind have to sue and after 10 years or so they essentially get back wages minus their attorneys fees and end up sitting in a room in a boarding house all by themselves because in the interim they lost their homes, their families, their friends etc. and end up being broken shells of who they once were.
I was a Whistle Blower against the BLM,but I knew where to many bodies were buried because I had dug the holes and put the bodies in them, so they didn’t fire me and after about 10 years I had stood by the river long enough that all of the bodies of my enemies had floated past me (old Chinese proverb).
But…I was black balled and never received another promotion. So I had to retire as a GS-13 Step 8 with a 25% premium for LEAP pay tacked on based on thirty years of Public Safety Retirement, which is quite a bit higher than regular employees. In other words…I got the last laugh.
And so you see…I don’t just talk the talk, I have walked the walk. But…I let a lot of things go by before I went to the USDI OIG and a lot of stuff go by over the next 12 years or so. You can’t fight every battle, so you have to pick the hill you are willing to die on.
I don’t really think the hill I picked to die on was as nearly as important as a cover up involving the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters. In fact…it wasn’t even close. So would I die on THAT hill…in a New York Minute.
I think Ball, Brown or Frisby would win that fight and take the that hill. I will help them…a lot of people would help them. I think most firefighters will thank them and respect them.
There is one thing I learned about management…they always have a plan until you punch them in the face hard enough. And then instead of punishing you….they run off looking for some paper towels to stem the flow of blood from their noses..
If you have been following me for the past three years. You know the U.S. Forest Service Family (that’s what those assholes bill themselves as…the Forest Service Family) tried to abort me when I couldn’t take any more smoke because of my throat.
You also know I worked for a terrible completely unqualified woman District Ranger who wasn’t smart enough to read, comprehend and follow the FSM..
And third, you know they tried to make me into a GS-5 13/13 Recreation Technician from a 26/0 GS-7 hotshot crew boss (that was the top grade back then, they are now GS-9).
And fourth you know I ended up as a GS-9 Forest Dispatcher instead.
What you don’t know…is I punched that BITCH in the face so hard she quit thinking about flushing me down the toilet and ran away looking for some paper towels to stem the flow of blood from her broken nose.
Ask around about me among the old timers…especially those who worked or still work in LE or management for the BLM. Hardly any one will know the whole story. or even very much of it..but they will have heard I was the wrong guy for management to fuck with.
RTS,
Two comments in response to what you said up above but this thread is really gettin’ jammed up.
1. I love you man…I really do, even though you are a Dick Head.
2, Yes…I love Gandalf The White, What’s not to love? Well technically I love J.R.R. Tolkien, but can’t a guy have a little fantasy in his life, you buzz killer.
“Not all those who wander are lost”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/gandalf
3. Well…I may have misunderstood you, because that is actually quite easy to do you talk so obliquely using circular logic and in riddles.
But I THINK you said it’s okay that Ball, Brown and Frisby don’t tell us what they know about how and why our crew died on the YHF and that we should give them a pass because life is a bitch (non gender specific) or something like that?
Riddle me this, what did I get wrong?
Whoops, that was three (3) comments, but you are worth it.
FYI, And I want to make one thing perfectly clear just in case there is any confusion out there in cyber land.
The reason I finally was willing to become a Whistle Blower and the hill I was willing to die on…was NOT a mundane matter.
But I already said the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters was far more important than the matter that drove me claim protection under the Whistle Blower Protection Act and hire an attorney.
So…that means that I think the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters is far from a mundane matter. It was the worst wildland firefighter disaster in history by several factors.
I think the order will go out from USFS management team and the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, DO NOT FUCK with those men….I don’t want to be testifying to another Congressional watch dog committee AGAIN over a matter this explosive and controversial because I LIKE being the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service and I am NOT ready to retire.
And after I got done at the USDI OIG, the BLM NM State Director, the BLM NM Associate State, the BLM NM Special Agent-in-Charge and several other top managers also retired, or were demoted and transferred.
And like I said, the hill I was willing to die on wasn’t nearly as important as the cover up in the deaths of 19 wildland firefighters….it was important, but not nearly that important.
I have never heard of anything more important.
Gary,
Negative!
I do NOT think that at all.
I want Ball, Brown and Frisby to tell us what they know about how and why our crew died on the YHF. We should NOT give them a pass because life is a bitch (non gender specific) or something like that?”
I posted the Govt policy on following vs. disobeying orders, e.g. Unsafe, Illegal, Immoral, Unethical.
As I posted elsewhere somewhere, it is at least Unsafe, Immoral, and Unethical to NOT speak up about what they know!
They would risk disciplinary action if they did so, however, they are good Hot Shots that knowingly and willingly take well-thought-out calculated risks on a regular basis..
RTS….OK, Ok, OK…please accept my sincerest apology, I misunderstood. And in that case you aren’t a DicK Head, you are a Richard Cranium.
Diane,
I’d like to repeat what Olde Gary said: There is no gag order. I believe I volunteered to eat the paper it was written if I was handed a certified copy…. No wait, that was for the bogus Resource Order I saw for GM. I said it was not standard at all & if someone showed me another like it, I’d eat it. Come to think of it, someone claiming it was acceptable to have a RO like that is what brought me to IM in the 1st place. No dice, pal. Not on my watch!
There’s 2 groups of people when it comes to something like this. Those on the inside and those on the outside. For many reasons there is a natural resistance from those on the inside to spill their guts & tell-all to those on the outside. It is, after all, a very unique vocation which many would argue (myself included) that unless you live the life & do the work under the system, it would be very difficult for outsiders to comprehend or have full understanding and context of ‘the business.’ (Although, I gotta give a shout out to WTKTT, he’s the closest I ever seen!)
I’m an anomaly though. I’m on the inside but angry enough about the failures to speak up about it. I’ve had enough. I’m not letting it go. I paddle my own canoe; always have, always will.
On the issue of whether a gag order, directive, or any other named policy for keeping personnel present on the YHF from talking about exists currently or ever, ask yourself this: If a directive was in place, how would so many wildland firefighters know so much about what really happened that day? They have talked about it amongst themselves (insider group) from day 1. Are we to believe that each person has violated a directive not to talk but did so anyway? Risking sanctions which may include termination? Nope. No gag order, just a natural resistance to handing out insider information to those on the outside.
Gary is right. The system is attempting to solve the issues on its own while keeping the inside on the inside. We’re failing at that objective, yugely. Redactions, mysteriously missing air to ground recordings, on & on. How can this happen? We allowed it. That’s how.
Woodsman,
You posted: “If a directive was in place, how would so many wildland firefighters know so much about what really happened that day? They have talked about it amongst themselves (insider group) from day 1. Are we to believe that each person has violated a directive not to talk but did so anyway? Risking sanctions which may include termination? … just a natural resistance to handing out insider information to those on the outside.”
It is a natural inclination for WF to tell the truth and share it with others on the inside with other WF as well on the outside with curious and unbelieving public, as well as family, friends, and loved ones, regarding the “Epic Human Failure” that occurred on June 30, 2013.
Is this natural inclination to tell the truth with ff on the inside and curious public on the outside in contradiction to orders that if not followed would be considered insubordination disciplinary actionable offenses with consequences? Thanks, RTS. I appreciate your help with this part.
Woodsman,
Yes, there are those that know the truth and want to share it and tell the truth and are strongly motivated to do just that, and they are cautiously and selectively doing so. Most looking around and over their shoulders to see who may be listening. Almost all fearful of posting or writing anything about it. Some with consequences.
“But for a guarantee of confidentiality to its source, information of significant public interest and importance would be shielded from public view.”
The USFS AFUE personnel claim they were the only USFS personnel at the YH Fire that were recording aerial communication.
On the contrary, many that day were recording aerial and air-to-ground communications on various recording devices, both personal and professional.
woodsman says:
There’s 2 groups of people when it comes to something like this. Those on the inside and those on the outside. For many reasons there is a natural resistance from those on the inside to spill their guts & tell-all to those on the outside. It is, after all, a very unique vocation which many would argue (myself included) that unless you live the life & do the work under the system, it would be very difficult for outsiders to comprehend or have full understanding and context of ‘the business.’ (Although, I gotta give a shout out to WTKTT, he’s the closest I ever seen!)
joy’s reply: Diane Lomas- pull out your Wildfire Reader book— you and I may be outsiders to them and not in the industry but maybe Woodsman should get a copy of this book and take the time to go through it and make his own critical review for the benefit of the rest of us who are not in the industry—could you do that Woodsman? Gary? people in the industry current or past?
Joy,
I have spent a lot of hours bringing you and anyone else who was interestedup to speed on the WF culture from my perspective. I can’t do more than that.
Gary Olson says
SEPTEMBER 16, 2017 AT 4:12 PM
Joy,
I have spent a lot of hours bringing you and anyone else who was interestedup to speed on the WF culture from my perspective. I can’t do more than that.
joy’s reply- thank you for all the past insights you have provided myself and the forum and I would suggest staying far away from Wildfire reader then-
everyone else- buy a copy
Hay WTKTT Blue Ridge Hotshots have a LLC on their name and Logo. They can request $$$$ for the use or deny it.
Most Hot Shots have a LLC on their names and Logo’s.
Just a big legality.
As far as Ball and Brown I just explained the normal process.
The Normal application and selection process.
People see opportunities thru Promotion or application to different jobs inside or outside the agency. The reasons very but changes happen all the time especially those who want to advance in their field Wild Land Fire.
I looked at promoting and seeking higher positions.
GS 4 Patrol to GS5 Eng Foreman to GS6 Patrol to GS6 HS Asst. Super. to GS7 Asst. Dist. FMO to GS9 Asst Forest FMO/Dispatcher. I stayed in that position because of location and Family for 18 years and retired.
Most likely Ball was well qualified to promote to the next position on the crew and applied and did so.
Brown must of saw a flyer on a job he liked or wanted and applied for it.
That’s all I was saying and nothing more or less. Take it for what it is worth or file it.
Forgot to add.
Standard Personnel procedures Federal Agencies require all jobs to be filled thru a application process. also a review board evaluates the applications and selects the best qualified candidate. If not followed a candidate Applicant can file a Grievance with the Government Office for a review.
I never heard of a hotshot crew who copyrighted their names or logos until Bob said they did it on the Oak Grove Hotshot Crew along with their Woody Woodpecker logo. Since it costs a lot of money, the government would never pay for it and hotshots mostly just waste money on anything except for drinkin’ beer while they talk about the last fire, the next fire or some other fire…or their fuckin’ boots. Whites versus Nicks or Redwings versus Danners…or J.C. Penney boots for the FNG’s, I don’t think anybody paid the fee of about a grand or the attorney to fill out the paperwork of about 3 grand, or renew it every few years on any crew ince they disbanded the Oak Grove Hotshots (through no fault of their own), they were a good crew…no, they were a GREAT crew….right Bob! Although Oak Grove was so proud of that fuckin’ woodpecker, they are probably still chippin’ in and paying for it every 6 years…maybe, or ten years? Who gives a fuck? The point is, hotshots don’t do that except maybe for some of those R-5 jerk offs…it’s tribal, remember? R-5 is R-3 nemesis, or at least they were back in the day.
So…I’m going to have to throw the bullshit card down again.
AHH Gary check the LLC it cost less than a $100 to register your name and LOGO. to prevent copy infringements. Contractors do it all the time for business.
Woody Wood Pecker was registered under its creator and could only be used with his authorization. He made the Oak Grove HS logo and authorized its use to the crew. Just some history for YA.
As Gary says one more thing.
All the Federal crews are Controlled by them.
People come and go supervisors come and go but the crew name is a Government name and is under Government jurisdiction.
The Government can and will not allow the use of the name for monetary gain. Movies are one of the places that the Government will not allow name use.
Government training films are different.
Also all Private crews And Eng. Crews have their own name and LLC. If Movies want to use their names You will pay for the use.
Thanks but you already gave us that history. I just licensed Moab Rocks! with a logo for my website and new hobby moabrocks.net and my figures are good.
Whoops,
http://www.moabrocks.net
Bullshit. The exact opposite is true. I pirate photos and just about everything else from government websites all of the time for my own websites. Nothing owned by the government can be copyrighted or trademarked because it belongs to every one as open source material.
You are kinda right about using federal land to make money though but that is specified by federal law. You can use it, you just need to get a special use permit and pay 1% of the money you make to them.
I think it is 1% anyway, it’s a small number but you do need the permit.
There are some things that are restricted for government use for official unposed by federal law, but it isn’t copyrighted or trademarked, there has to be a specific federal law under the United States Code.
Those are things like the USFS, BLM, NPS, and FBI logos and badges. The name Smokey Bear and his likeness and Woodsy Owl if they still use him.
There was a big shit storm a few months ago because some big business used the FBI logo, it might have been movies because they have that FBI logo at the beginning of every movie that threatens every one that piracy of movies is investigated by the FBI…yeah right. They don’t even have wpenough agents to monitor all of the ISIS groups in this country.
Anyway that big business just had their attorneys write to the FBI after they were threatened and they just said, “no”, we’re going to use it anyway.
I wouldn’t screw with the USFS over the use of Smokey Bear without license however, I did a case once on that and they take protecting Smokey’s name and image very seriously.
So like usual, you are kinda right sometimes about some things…I love you man!
And just to be clear, everything we are talking about here falls under the TRADEMARK laws and are controlled through the US Patent Office.
COYRIGHT applies to things like books, poems, songs, music, but those things, and photographs, are automatically protected by US Copyright laws the minute they are created by the artist or the author.
But…it’s like everything, you need deep pockets to actually enforce any of that because the government protects it, but they don’t enforce it. You would have to do that yourself.
The bottom line is this…I just don’t believe any Hotshot Crew name or logo is restricted by anything. I believe they are all open source that belong to everyone and therefore no one.
I can have say…coffee cups with each crews name and logo made all day long and sell them on a website if I wanted to or thought I could make money doing so.
I will admit Oak Groves logo, because your crew had the connection with the man who actually created Woody Woodpecker is different, but I bet that is the only one and it is ptotected by the Woody Woodpecker trademark that has nothing to do with Oak Grove.
But if I want to make an Oak Grove Hotshot t-shirt with a different Woodpecker on it that isn’t Woody that says the Oak Grove Hotshots and this logo SUCK, I could wear that shirt to your next reunion and if it is held in a public place there wouldn’t be a thing you or your former crew mates could do about it. Which reminds me…when is your next reunion anyway, I need a road trip?
R- 5 Pussies! You know…that thing President Donald J. Trump thinks he can grab like it has a handle on it.
My tribe don’t like your tribe! And don’t even get me started on that tribe of Parkies…everybody hates and disrespects them in the WF world.
Except for their hotshot crews Arrowhead 1 through 10 or whatever number they are up to now. Those crews have always been bad ass because they are mostly ex USFS, just like all hotshot crews are bad ass, okay, that includes Oak Grove back in the day, Oorah!
Groundpounders, grunts, best of the best front line tip of the spear infantry! Oorah!
Now…why don’t you just bury the hatchet with WTKTT (and not in his back) and quit fuckin’ with him over stupid shit and let’s all focus on the problem at hand so I don’t have to keep running blocker for him. Let the man work!
Oh…we also need you because iof your wide and very deep level of most things WF, you have a lot more experience than I do.
Except for being a hotshot…nobody beats me there, RTS has more time, but the quality of the time I had still beats him out. But he is a close second…so that is something he can be proud of.
Gary show me a movie where they used a actual Hotshot logo and name. There are NONE.
Also I and a friend registered a business with a logo as a LLC for $90 last year. It is a construction business. Not sure what you are buying.
Any way Ill stick to what I said as it comes out of the federal Manuel Job Vacancies and authorized use of Government employees names and Federal crew ID and logos.
Thanks for the discussion keep on Riding. But no more roll overs.
Show me a hotshot movie sometime before October 20, 2017, when the first one is coming out..
And I think everything was changed with “Only The Brave” for other reasons. Like they are too cheap to pay anything to everyone or their families to tell their story in the movie; So they say it is “based” on true events and they change everything else so no one can sue them who wasn’t in the loop like Mrs. Beno Marsh and Shit For Brains was. They probably did get paid and did sign releases just to cover the asses.of the people who own the movie rights.
Actually that is probably the only practical way to make that kind of movie, otherwise they would have to have a team of lawyers negotiating with everyone who needs to be represented in the movie with dozens of release forms that many of the people wouldn’t ever agree to and sign.
But then again, I am just an old fire dog like you, what the heck do I know? It’s just that I have learned to state things like it is fact and most people believe me. It just doesn’t work very well for you.
You aren’t going to stop are you? You are one hard headed old man. Why don’t you just go fishing more…and take me with you even though I don’t have the patience to fish?
Gary they did not use a federal LOGO or Federal Crew Name.
Not gone to the Move nor will I. so do not know if they used the Granit Mountain logo. They would have got permission from Prescott City.
They were not allowed to use the Blue Ridge Name or LOGO or any of their crews personnel Names.
The movie isn’t out yet. And no, it is my understanding there isn’t any reference to the GMIHC in the movie or the use of any actual names.
And the City of Prescott is different than a federal crew. The federal government can’t copyright or trademark anything. Everything the government owns is owned by everybody unless like I said, a special law in passed for that specific thing and those are very fed and far between and do not include hotshot crew names or logs.
Are you being obtuse just to frustrate me? Because if you are…it’s working.
Oh…and one more thing. I am going to go see it. They say if you like Meat and Potato Heroism in a simple uncomplicated easy to understand and follow plot…this movie is for you.
So sign me up! I have waited for 40 years to be recognized as the hero I was. I am after all…a Legend In My Own Mind.!
And I shall not be denied my moment of glory watching it all go down in living color on a panoramic screen even though I will be the only one in the theater that knows how special I really am. .
And it only cost the lives of 19 hotshots! Why didn’t we think of this sooner?
You all know me, I hate to disagree with my old friend Bob, but I am going to have to throw the bullshit card down. Bob just described how the system works if someone in management is testifying in some kind of judicial proceeding such as an EEOC complaint, or answering a congressional inquiry.
And yes…I survived Moab and I had a pretty good time, thank you for asking. What was it like…you might ask? Check it out!
https://youtu.be/88sgF8xE6gI
But…we all have our roles here in JD’s little social experiment in crowd sourcing investigative reporting. It’s Bob’s job to bleed green, and it’s my job to bleed red. The same color the Granite Mountain Hotshots bled on the day they were burned alive due to a systematic level of management incompetence. For example….beyond the mid level in federal government service almost all jobs are “wired.”
I personally don’t think it works any different with most highly sought after and prized jobs in any other public or private sector. It’s not who you know…it’s who you blow. And I should know…I did my share of….well; you get the picture….right? Bob knows exactly what I’m talking about, his favorite line used to be, “Let go of my ears damn it…I know what I’m doing!” You know I love you Bob…or I wouldn’t give you so much shit, I would just ignore you.
Hmmmm….let me see now. I was selected to be the crew boss of the Happy Jack Hotshots as I am so fond of bragging about since I was and still am and will forever be….the youngest hotshot crew boss in hotshot crew history at the age of 23. I say forever because I’m pretty sure you have to be qualified to get the job of a GS-9 Hotshot Superintendent in today’s world of Wildland Fire Management. I wasn’t the first unqualified home boy to get a hotshot crew boss job…but Eric Marsh might very well be the last one since I think the system MAY have been broke of suckin’ eggs on that one. Nawww…it’s systemic, remember.
I had been an entry level firefighter on the Prescott for one season and a seasonal hotshot on the Happy Jack Hotshots for three seasons because I was a college boy during those years. When WF (I don’t know why almost everyone else uses WFF…firefighter is ONE word, not two, right?) talk about years, it can be quite deceiving unless you get down into the weeds with them.
For example, kind of like when what’s her name, and I’m not being a smart ass, at least right now…I really can’t remember her name. When she was billed by herself and her fan club as being a “retired” WF; hey…memory is the SECOND thing to go with old WF and I am proud of my status as an old fire dog. I earned this Big & Tall La-Z-Boy chair…the hard way.
So anyway, Holly…that’s her name, it came back to me in a flash, just like the first thing that left does once in a while…a great while. She said she, “retired” after 11 years, or something like that. But a “year” can be as little as 3 months, or even less if you are a pre madonna smokejumper during a slow and rainy fire season and only spent 2 months layin’ around on the tarmac bronzin’ up like a Greek God or Goddess lickin’ you nuts…or lickin’ your “whatever”, if you are a Goddess (please see President Donald J. Trumps List of All Time Greatest Quotes).
According to Holly’s calculations, she retired after as few as 33 months (or less) on the job. Rarely does it mean 12 months when a WF says they had 1 year of firefighting experience. And like me…the one year of three months might even mean I went to one (1) lightning fire that was one snag burning. If you have been following my on-line persona for all of this time you will remember the photo of me workin’ away without a spotter watchin’ for widow makers, and without goggles, chaps, earplugs, gloves, trainin’…or fuckin’ brains. Nothing except the drive to see that big ole yellow pine layin’ on the ground at my feet…Oohrah!
And just in case you want to look at it again…as I’m sure you do, you can find it here;
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
right next to three (3) more photos of me as a squared away hotshot sawyer.
In my case, I would like to tell you I was just that good. But the truth is I was just good enough. Or at least good enough until somebody better came along and in my case…that never happened.
So I was a hotshot crew boss for seven (7) years. Do you know how many months seven (7) years was in my case? I don’t either, I would have to go back and count them up in my OPF (Official Personnel Folder) which they gave me as a gift when I retired after 360 months of federal service under the Public Safety Retirement System. In that system, you eligible for a “full” retirement after 240 months of service if you are at least 50 years old, I retired at age 54…God Bless America!
But forgive me I digress, but you know me, I’m bored again and this isn’t really a post…it’s a chapter in the book I’m writing one post at a time on this thread. And since I worked few as 6 months my first year as a hotshot crew boss, although to get down into the weeds again, for two of those months I was doin’ (I’m sure you have noticed how I like to drop the “g”, it makes me feel more GS-462 Forestry Technicianish and helps get me in the zone) broadcast burnin’ (prescribed fire) plantin’ trees, buidin’ fence, burnin’ dozer piles, winterizin’ the work station and anything else the FMO could think of until funding ran out or the snow got waist deep on a tall Indian. Would that be considered a racist sayin’ considering today’s social mores?
I hope not…if it is, I deeply regret it is someone was offended by my choice of words, which is what they call a non apology. So…I will say waist deep on a tall descendant of the Norse people…a Hurri in my case. Hurri is a word used by Finns to address the Swedish-speaking people who live in Finland (and who are often the descendants of the rich Swedes who ruled Finland)…fuckin’ Finne! Swedes call Finns “Finne”, which means pimple in Swedish (actually, not all of this will be in my book, I will probably do some editing before I self publish it). And some people (many people actually) say this thread is a waste of time and full of bullshit…Hah!
So anyway…I was probably a hotshot crew boss for 70 months all total because after I year as the Santa Fe Hotshot Crew Boss I had gone from starting as a 13/13 on the Coke, to an 18/8, to a 20/6, to a 25/1, and finally to a 26/0. The first number is the number of pay periods of work you are guaranteed under that particular appointment, the second number is how many pay periods you are subject to being laid off. Not everybody hits them all…but I did.
I think they really must have wanted to make sure I was a keeper before they committed themselves to keeping me on the job. It probably doesn’t sound like I was a rock star in the Forestry Technician World, but believe me…I was. They (the USFS) really fuck the techs that aren’t rock stars…with no lube. That reminds me of an old joke. I won’t bore you the whole thing but the punch line goes like this;
“Did you jump?”
“Well…I did a little bit…at first”
That joke kills me every time I think of it!
Geez…I have forgotten the point I was tryin’ to make. Oh yeah…Eric Marsh wasn’t qualified to be the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew Boss. Do you know how many jobs I really applied for during my 360 months of federal service? Two…when I was first hired on the Prescott, by my old friend (many years later), mentor and the former Walnut Creek Ranger District FMO Ron Melcher, who picked my name out of a hat late during the hiring period for the 1974 fire season on the Prescott National Forest when somebody else was a no show. And the second time was when Hub Harris hired me to be a fuckin’ Fire Prevention Technician on the Long Valley Ranger District of the Mighty Coconino National Forest by pickin’ my name out of a hat.
After I went out with the shots as a fill in on an early fire…I went in to the Office to see Hub, which wasn’t an easy thing to do since Hub had the command presence, bearing, hair cut, face, voice and attitude of a Marine Corps Sergeant Major, and requested that I be allowed to transfer to the hotshot crew. Hub didn’t think I could make it because I was so fuckin’ big. So he took out his stop watch and told me to run around the 1.5 mile track, which was a combination of paved road inside the USFS compound, dirt road through the forest with pot holes, deep tire ruts, ankle twisting rocks, leg breaking cattle guards, and finally a stretch of narrow state highway that was continually used by Southwest Forestry Industries loggers driving huge logging trucks who hated everybody who worked for the USFS.
And he told me to do it under 11 minutes even though the FSM (Forest Service Manual) allowed for a graduated adjustment of several more minutes because we were at 7,400 feet instead of at sea level. Manual? The Mighty Coconino didn’t need no stinkin’ manual.
So anyway…back on point; that was the last job I ever applied for where the outcome wasn’t preordained. Which sounds pretty good except if you live by the sword…you die by the sword. And that means I applied for lots of jobs some other asshole that was wired into I was never selected for. And those jobs far outnumbered the jobs I did get.
Years later, many years later…after Hub became the Intermountain (R-4) Regional Fire Coordinator in Ogden, and I was the Forest Dispatcher on the Santa Fe, Hub and I became friends. And Hub started telling that story to everybody who was around every time he saw me. And since I kept runnin’ into Hub (who was still workin’ AD at various interagency dispatch centers for decades after he retired) even after I was a Special Agent for the BLM and up until literally the very month I retired (he was workin’ down at the Yuma Interagency Fire Operations Center), he got to tell that story…a lot.
And that fuckin’ story got better every time Hub told it (with lots of laughter at my expense) at how fuckin’ amazed he was somebody that fuckin’ big could run so fuckin’ fast. And so you see…not only was I an accidental hotshot crew boss due to the extremely high turnover rate on our crew and the extremely tribal nature of the USFS (it’s in their DNA), I was an accidental hotshot as well.
And as far as Ball and Brown go? Were they the most qualified for the most recent jobs with the promotions they applied for and got…or were those jobs rewards for keepin’ their fuckin’ mouths shut and playin’ ball with the Fire Gods who sit on their thrones in the Ivory Tower? I think it was both. Or…to put it another way, they wouldn’t have gotten those jobs if they hadn’t been qualified for them…and they sure as fuck wouldn’t have gotten those jobs if they hadn’t kept their fuckin’ mouths shut.
The Stranger:
There’s just one thing, Dude.
The Dude:
And what’s that?
The Stranger:
Do you have to use so many cuss words?
The Dude:
What the fuck you talking about?
The Stranger:
Okay, Dude. Have it your way.
“The Big Lebowski”
Oh…and one more thing. Keep in mind those jobs were advertised at the national level service wide and maybe they were even open to those outside of the USFS, which means every swingin’ dick and swingin’…or never mind, you probably get what I’m puttin’ down,and that means everyone from the BLM, National Park Service, BIA, Carp & Feathers, and maybe even state forestry, if they advertised it to accept those outside of federal service, that was potentially hundreds of highly qualified applicants all lookin’ for their next break
So…here is the bottom line. What do you think? Do you think Ball and Brown just happened to be really be the MOST qualified for the jobs that just happen to be on their very own district, on their very own forest, within their very own region and within their very own agency…or do you think they were wired into those jobs as a reward for not only being good,maybe even great employees AND for keepin’ their fuckin’ mouths shut and playin’ stinky finger with the Fire Gods?
Bob..you know I love you like a brother from another mother…but you are really full of shit sometimes.
AHH Gary the world has changed along with R3.
they have to go thru the selection process due to
class action suits to promote Women. Discrimination
clams made the Government follow the Job Selection process.
Bullshit. That world changed with the California Consent Decree when I was still working for the USFS….a really long time ago. Everything I said stands.
Oh…and one more thing. Even though it was a 9th Judicial Circuit Consent Decree that only applied to California, it had the practical effect of applying to the entire country because the USFS decided they had better apply it everywhere and then all other agencies followed the USFS lead because as goes the USFS, so goes all other WF agencies.
I worked for a complete and supremely unqualified woman who was installed on the Tesuque Ranger District as District Ranger who ultimately ended up in the R3 regional office in their Hall of Shame because she was so bad.
So…don’t cry on my shoulder about women getting in the game or lecture me about it. I was there and it was way over due for somebody to drag the USFS kicking and sreaming out of the 1950’s or even earlier. to start acting like an agency who represented the people they are supposed to be serving.
But obviously, a few women haven’t revolutionized the agency because they are still really fucked up. And I don’t know about you, but I have only seen White Men who have been such a problem for us for the past few years, starting with those career criminals on the SAIT.
I saw some problems as a result of the Consent Decree, but they paled in comparision to the problems I saw because there wasn’t a Consent Decree.
I hear your dog whistle, and you old timer, are a poster child for everything that was wrong back in the day. It was past time for you to retire when you did.
I have daughters, I don’t want this country run by men like you.
Oh…and one more thing. I have heard you blowing on the same dog whistle from almost day one on this thread. You haven’t been very subtle about it. You are a classic misogynist.
Hay Gary you read me wrong all I said was that it became necessary to fly every Job opening because of what happened in California in the late 70s. at least I Calif. and Idaho/R4 they stopped all in-house promotions. Now Vacancies all go out on the national list for applicants and the highest Qualified is selected for the job.
I have never had a problem Hiring women or working for them. Have since 1974. I had two asst. dispatchers GS7 here. Hired a Supervisor crew leader for a slash crew on the Six Rivers NF and three crewman women 1 on the slash crew and two on Engine Crews. when I was ADFMO at Mad River.
So not sure what I said that upset you on that issue. But it had nothing to do with actually hiring qualified women applicants. Which was the reason for the requirements for consideration in the first place.
Whoops…I got lost in my own bullshit. The point I was trying to make, is that i was made a hotshot crew boss after about only 12 months total as a temporary seasonal employee. Just try applying for a hotshot leadership in today’s WF world, that resume would barely make you qualified to apply to be a senior crew member or maybe a junior squad boss if you’re lucky.
And my point is this….that should never, never, never…never have happened in this day and age with the current level of understanding fire behavior, training and the experience levels in addition to the the highly refined rules, regulations and guidelines that govern WF actions on the fire lines of today.
I keep sayin’ I relate to Eric Marsh…I’m not bullshitting. Eric and I have…or is it had, a lot in common? We were both deeply flawed hotshots.
But there was one big difference between Eric and I…I always stopped just short of the line. That stupid fuck made a career out of coloring outside the lines…on purpose. And then bragging about it and then wearing it as a badge of pride. I liked coloring inside the lines and being in a box with a defined command structure and clearly identified roles.
Which brings up another point…that fuckin’ Yarnell Hill Fire was really a mismanaged Cluster Fuck of epic proportions. and I know a Cluster Fuck when I see one.
FYI…I am really looking forward to reading my other brother Bob’s (AKA RTS) and the former Prineville Hotshot Crew Boss expose on Marsh and Granite Mountain I just read about downstream.
Keep in mind the Prineville Hotshots lost an entire squad of 9 on the South Canyon Fire (commonly called the Storm King Mountain Fire). So coming from that culture, he probably has an interesting perspective on the entire subject of WF safety and how hotshot crews should be operating.
And we all know RTS is supremely qualified to speak on all things hotshot and especially hotshot and WF fire line safety. RTS has brass balls…even if he was a shirker on the Murdoch Basin Fire of 1979 in the Wasatch Mountains (as we all know) AND he still only acknowledges half of the equation as he is an apologist for the system….or some of the system sometimes. I still havent figured him out. But then again…RTS made a career out of keeping people from figuring him out. OK…that’s enough rambling for now.
Ye Olde Codger Yet Magnificent Bass Turd,
Good stuff. Carp & Feathers? Haha!!!
I want to say thanks for telling it the Gary way.
I also want to tell that this summer was busy…real f’ing busy. But I did take time out of one particular busy day to say hello to your crew from you. You would be proud to see them. Top notch group of hard-core go-getters! I wanted you to know that.
Woodsman
Woodsman,
I hope you had meaningful assignments this looong fire season and I have no doubt that you made a positive difference and set a good leadership example with whomever you worked for and with.
Hey Woodsman…good to hear from you. I am going to work on a detailed response, otherwise known in my colloquial vernacular as a MOAP, because man…I’m on a roll. Apparently Mr. Richard Cranium…AKA RTS does not appreciate my efforts as much as you and a few others do.
But I think Dick Head knows I am not writing for his pentertainment or enlightenment. He already knows everything I write about even if he doesn’t know the particulars because he has the distinct honor of being the longest serving hotshot crew boss in the history of hotshots. Something tells me that Dick was never part of the back-of-the-bus crew culture. He probably sat right behind the assistant crew boss from day one reciting his 10 & 13 by rote as a mantra.
And so now that very same Oak Grove Hotshot assistant crew boss is paying Dick back for his loyalty by giving him hand jobs just as fast as he can recover from his daily arthritis therapy.
But…part of my job on this thread has always been to provide color, background information and the back story for people who want to fully understand what happened and why on the Yarnell Hill Fire with the hope they might be able to play a role to keep it from happening again, in part because of the epic fail by the SAIT with their SAIR that is really nothing more than Government’s Exhibit A in what should be their trial for dereliction of duty and the willful endangerment of hotshot crews in the future because of their dishonesty, deception, duplicity and disengenuousness, othwise know as the Big Four D’s, which I just made up.
Which always amazes me…because man, I think Dick is way to cerebral to have been a really good hotshot. I mean common, the dude writes, “I hope you had meaningful assignments during this looong Fire season and I have no doubt that you made a positive difference and set a good leadership example with whoever you worked with and for.”
I mean C’mon man…is that anyway for a hardcore hotshot to write? What I want to know…is did you see some good FIRE, make a bunch of money and have a good time…WTF…Over?
In other words, did you follow Dick’s example and look for higher meaning in your assignment or did you follow my example and just go…see…and kick the fires ass and then go home?
Which of course is the example for all of us set by Julius Caesar during his short war against Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zela. In other words, did you “Veni, vidi, vici”, which was our battle cry back in the day while Dick was trying his best to engage the fire on a much higher level and think it to death.
I am very excited to hear you ran into my old crew…did you talk to them?
And we used to insult and show disrespect for the US Fish & Wildlife Service by derisively calling them Carp & Feathers because their patch has the fish jumping out of the water while the duck flies over it.
We were very tribal you know…and that meant disrespecting anyone not in our tribe. There wasn’t a brotherhood back in my day amoung WF, there were just waring tribes competing for recognition which led to the best and most difficult Fire assignments and therefore making the most money. It was a zero sum game for us.
Oh…and one more thing. Somebody like WTKTT I think, wrote up above that either Brown or Ball went to work for Arizona State Forestry.
That can’t be right…federal guys like that don’t flush everything they have been busting their asses to earn for 20 years down the toilet and go to work for a state agency unless the Feds shit can them like they did Marsh on the Tonto because he was such a fuck up or they retire because non of the benefits, grade or seniority is tranferable except within the federal system…big difference.
And the vice versa is true…all of YOU people may look alike to some posters here, but you aren’t…there are HUGE tribal differences, the WF culture is anything but monolithic even though outsiders think you all look and act…alike.
RTS,
Thanks. I believe I did as well. I get better at it as I get older & more experienced.
Safety officers, I used to avoid because they were largely viewed as the buzz kill brigade (which a learned behavior as i got that from the older wf i worked with) but now I love those old farts! Well, most if them anyway. I have great news though, my disdain & general distrust has simply been redirected to a whole new class of earnest recipient… the READ. I trust you will find the reapplication of my suspicions to be squarely back on a more suitable target, generally speaking of course..
Gary,
Hope this ends up in the right spot because it’s gettin clogged up again…which is a good thing since the activity here is increasing.. which means the likelihood is going up that we will get some more shit straight… & if not, at least we can throw some good natured insults at each other being the target rich environment that it is.
OK. Your post made me laugh so hard I may have pissed a little. Do I need to go to a doctor about that? I hate going to the doctor.
Actually, I did talk to your crew! I stepped up on the side of their buggy for the sole purpose of asking the driver if he knew who his 1st crew boss was. I told him that I did. As he reached for his crew manual I said before you look it up, let me tell who it was. Gary Fuckin Olson! With an ‘O’
He was impressed I knew that & I’m glad you’re back because I thought you would like that. They’re still out there kickin ass, Gary.
Woodsman,
Glad to hear that you have redirected your general distrust with the READ. Nowadays, I ask them if they are a “Reasonable READ.”
Here is a SAFENET that I filed on the Washington and Idaho Tower and Kaniksu Complex in 2015 on the “Lead Read” that thought he was in charge and trying to run the show, among other things.
http://safenet.nifc.gov/view_safenet.cfm?id=35161&__ncforminfo=igH9CrdjDp9R_5M4ulVgjkztpE5bKCv7woLfJd1kI56ORSCCLMpFnub3m3T2lYN91zi_0ZBhNYKCUYswMniquthdGQSIKv-9
In other words, the same thing is true about state benefits, pay grade, and seniority, sick leave…nothing is transferable back and forth from a state agency to the equivelant in another state or to the federal government. And the same thing is true for any of those things transferring in Marsh’s case to the City of Prescott.
That is a really big reason you can tell it is true about Marsh being shitcanned for drinking and smoking dope on the fire line.
When he went to work for the city as a middle aged WF. from the USFS it was his first day on the job.
When I went to work for the BLM from the USFS, my first day on the job was in my 15th year working for the SAME employer…Uncle Sugar.
And now in retirement I never deal with or even think about the USFS or the BLM, I only deal with the Office Of Personnel Management, they are who I am retired from.
Now…young guys who are not yet trapped in a particular system can go back and forth, but they have to be careful because you start all over every time you do, even going through an entirely new probationary period that lasts two years in the federal system in which you can easily be fired almost without cause, and you can be fired without cause during your first year of employment…if I am remembering all of that right.
That is why Marsh and Steed were under so much pressure from the City of Prescott. They were trapped in a very small net with no viable exit as middle aged men with dependents with no where else to go, they HAD to make that system work for them, especially Steed, he had two very young children, but also Marsh because he had already closed off any. hope of working for any federal agency.
If anyone really wants to understand all of the human factors at play during the Yarnell Hill Fire, you need to understand these nuances, they are the key.
For example, when Baldonado wanted off the Granite Mountain Crew, and for whatever reason a position on the structural side which could have been as simple as he either didn’t want, or couldn’t become a medical emergency responder. That fact alone would have kept me out of the Prescott Fire Department, I can’t do blood and guts.
That is why I have so much respect…to the level of you guys are my super heroes, for everyone who were first responders, starting with Eric Tarr, who found 19 dead hotshots right after they had been burned alive with their tongues hanging out of their mouths.
Think about that just for a minute…the absolute horror of that sight and smell. I have said before it would have driven me to my knees and incapacitated me.
And I’m not exaggerating. And there is no doubt in my mind that those who did respond and manage to deal with it, no matter how they they did or seem to be doing, those men are scarred for life with deep emotional, mental, phisically, psychological damage way down deep inside their souls.
Right on, thanks for that additional info, it will be important for the MOAP I want to work on. The subject will be me continuing to try and push back against what THEY, most of the families, the Eric Marsh Foundation, Arizona State Forestry, the USFS, the 100 Club…and now worst of all, this movie that is coming out soon.
They all want to NORMALIZE what happened to the crew as just another tragic, but run of the mill work related acccident.
And as I have said many times…it wasn’t and it wasn’t even close to a normal and understandable event.
It caused an entire culture that has been developed over more than 100 years to completely recalibrate their Oh Shit – Of Dear – Fuck Me – O’ Meters. The deaths of the crew on the YHF were way off all known and previously used charts, it set the bar to a place no one ever thought it would go, with an entirely new standard.
What happened is not normal or understandable. It was not the cost of doing business where everyone knows you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. This forum is a very small pulpit compared to everything aligned against us including a major motion picture.
But we have to at least try, I just hope I don’t get dis…oh look, Yahoo just posted my news stories of the day…gotta go.
But before I do, don’t worry about your leakage and I don’t think you need to see to see a doctor. Just put a rubber band…probably a very small rubber band in your case, tightly around the end of your problem area and leave it there and you won’t leak anymore…trust me, I used to be with the government, I want to help.
RTS,
The money quote on your safenet concerning READS is at the end: they are ADVISORS not operations. Nice job! What a mess.
Reply to Bob Powers post on August 21, 2017 at 8:01 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> We have been through this in back chapters.
>>
>> They ( the Blue Ridge Hotshots ) are Government Employees and were
>> told not to discuss the ( Yarnell Hill ) fire with any one. By the Us attorneys
>> for their own protection.
>>
>> Like it or not I and others called it a gag order.
>>
>> It dose not mean they have information
>>
>> the Government dose this all the time now.
>>
>> The redacted ( unit logs ) would answer questions maybe.
>>
>> The Government attorneys did the redactions before the release of the logs.
>> They as represenitives had that right like it or not.
You seem to be saying that you think the ‘Government attorneys’ had the legal RIGHT to ‘redact’ whatever the hell they wanted from the official Blue Ridge Hotshot Unit logs as they were responding to valid, legal ‘Freedom Of Information Act’ requests for those original documents.
That is NOT correct.
There are only a finite set of ‘reasons’ why any government employee can ‘redact’ anything at all from a legal request for a public document, and those limited ‘reasons’ are clearly defined in the FOIA legislation itself.
Keyword: ‘legislation’ ( that means it’s a LAW ).
No ‘government attorney’ is allowed to willy-nilly redact shit just because they don’t want the information to become public.
That’s the whole point of the FOIA legislation itself… to PREVENT that from happening.
The only reason the ‘government attorneys’ ever gave for the MASSIVE black-outs and redactions in the Blue Ridge Unit Logs was because they said they were redacting ‘sensitive information’.
That is NOT a valid reason, in and of itself, for making redactions to public documents.
‘Sensitive’ to WHO?… and for WHAT REASON?
To willingly/knowingly withhold/redact information from a validly requested public document is a CRIME… punishable by fines, jail time… or both.
WTKTT,
Thank you for your insight.
This is a link to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) document dealing with the FAA Compliance and Enforcement program. It is fair to say that other Federal Agencies, i.e. USFS, have very similar, yet Agency-specific policy regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)/Privacy Act (PA).
In the legal system, there is always an analysis or “balancing test” between PUBLIC INTEREST and INDIVIDUAL PRIVACY. Unfortunately, when one works for the Federal Government there is an understanding that one waves certain “rights” during that employment period compared to those rights bestowed on the general public. In other words, one “gives up” certain “rights” when employed by the Federal Government.
The “privacy of individuals” is mentioned several times. The word “redact” is only mentioned twice: (1) “Information Generally Not Released: Before releasing any enforcement records, FAA personnel carefully review them and withhold documents from release, or REDACT PORTIONS OF DOCUMENTS THAT ARE PRIVILEGED.” (EMPHASIS ADDED) and (2) on page 8-11, it mentions redacting markings from documents no longer needed.
The FOIA is mentioned quite a bit.
“Where disclosure is sought under FOIA, the agency releases information only when the PUBLIC INTEREST IN DISCLOSURE OUTWEIGHS THE PRIVACY INTEREST INVOLVED (EMPHASIS ADDED). Disclosure under the routine-use provision as it is currently published requires a written request and is treated the same as a FOIA request.”
“The Privacy Act prohibits FAA investigative personnel from disclosing information contained in an EIR (Enforcement Investigative Reports) about an individual to third parties WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN AUTHORIZATION FROM THAT INDIVIDUAL OR WITHOUT THE DISCLOSURE BEING MADE PURSUANT TO A FOIA REQUEST. RELEASE UNDER FOIA OCCURS ONLY AFTER AN ANALYSIS BALANCING PRIVACY CONCERNS WITH THE PUBLIC’S NEED FOR DISCLOSURE.” (EMPHASIS ADDED)
https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Order/Basic%202150.3%20B%20with%20Chg%201.pdf
Regrading the actual destruction and withholding of federal records is a completely different game, with penalties.
1663. Protection Of Government Property — Protection Of Public Records And Documents
https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1663-protection-government-property-protection-public-records-and
“The necessary measure of protection for government documents and records is provided by 18 U.S.C. § 2071. Section 2071(a) contains a broad prohibition against destruction of government records or attempts to destroy such records. This section provides that whoever: willfully and unlawfully; conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates or destroys; or attempts to conceal, remove, mutilate, obliterate or destroy; or carries away with intent to conceal, remove, mutilate, obliterate or destroy; any record, proceeding, map, book, paper, document or other thing deposited in any public office may be punished by imprisonment for three years, a $2, 000 fine, or both.”
1664. Protection Of Government Property — Theft Of Government Information
“Section 641 of Title 18 prohibits theft or receipt of stolen government information as well as theft of the documents, computer discs, etc., that contain the information. …”
How about those pesky and oh-so illusive Aerial Firefighting Utilization and Effectiveness Study (AFUE) records that are being sought though the FOIA/PA and now through the Federal Court system that truly exist but do not exist in the eyes of the Federal Government?
One of the “Three Big Lies” is ‘Trust me, I work for the Government and I’m here to help you.’
Inquiring about a n earliercomment by Calvin I believe about a dozer being entangled with a power line on 6/30/13. What information do we have about this?
RTS said it all. I also said I disagreed with the redactions but they have the right.
Bob….RTS did not say it all. He said quite a bit, and I found it very informative. Especially the part that gave details about FAA policies. And now that he has brought this up….I am very interested in seeing written details of the USFS written policies rather than just this part.
“It is fair to say that other Federal Agencies, i.e. USFS, have very similar, yet Agency-specific policy regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)/Privacy Act (PA)”
Which I get…well except the part about, “It is fair to say…” Why is it fair to say that? And more importantly, where does the USFS actually say that?
Ball, Brown and Frisby work for the USFS…not the FAA. Please share why you think it is fair to say that other Federal Agencies, i.e. USFS, have very similar, yet Agency-specific policy regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)/Privacy Act (PA)”
I know I am kinda new here at this point, but where did I miss that?
.
Oh…and one more thing. I don’t think the records should have been redacted…but it is a real leap to say, or at least imply, that USC 1664. Protection Of Government Property — Theft Of Government Information, includes, or was ever meant to include government attorneys redacting specific information from government records.
This starting to drive me crazy…again. Bob said, “RTS said it all. I also said I disagreed with the redactions but they have the right.”
I never was in a position to go down this road when I was with the USFS, but I would really like to review the specific regulations that prohibit Ball, Brown or Frisby from telling anyone…or everyone they want to everything they know about what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Bob also said, “Like it or not I and others called it a gag order.
>>
>> It dose not mean they have information
>>
>> the Government dose this all the time now”
Bullshit…bullshit…and more bullshit. We litigated this subject a long time ago…and I said I would kiss the ass of whoever can show me the USFS gag order or anything in writing that can even be confused for a gag order preventing Ball, Brown and Firsby from telling everything they know about what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
That gag order was given in so many words while standing in a very small group of men next to the tailgate of a pickup truck. And every man who was standing there…understood exactly what was said in so many words.
And guess what? Don’t really try to guess…that is a rhetorical question. Ball, Brown and Frisby know EVERYTHING that happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire. And at this point they are doing only one thing…following the unwritten rules of their tribe and protecting their own careers.
Don’t get me wrong, if I were in their place I wouldn’t even have said as much as they have said up to this point. Mama always needs a new pair of shoes and the kids need their health insurance. We all saw that with Captain Steed…he allowed Marsh to kill his crew for those very same reasons. Bummer.
Well, I guess that is TWO things, but you get my point….right?
Gary,
You posted: “… except the part about, “It is fair to say…” Why is it fair to say that? And more importantly, where does the USFS actually say that?”
I debated that one and left it in to draw you out of hiding. You’re right, it doesn’t say that.
I GOOGLE searched for the USFS version and that was all that showed, so I used it in its stead.
It would have been more germane to say something like ‘it’s likely that other Federal Agencies, i.e. USFS, have very similar, yet Agency-specific policy regarding Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)/Privacy Act (PA).’
In addition, you posted: “I don’t think the records should have been redacted…but it is a real leap to say, or at least imply, that USC 1664. Protection Of Government Property — Theft Of Government Information, includes, or was ever meant to include government attorneys redacting specific information from government records.”
I agree with you on that point. Redaction is not theft or destruction of Government documents. I should have made it more clear for you, since you’re getting older and foggier nowadays. based on your most-of-the-time ramblings
And even though it did follow the post above it in sequence, it did not follow it logically.
; )
Whoops…I think I hit the wrong key due to the fact that I am getting older and foggier, the little yellow smiley face didn’t show up like it used to? I’ll try it again just because I want to demonstrate how fuckin’ happy I am be be reengaged with my old friend.
WTKTT…my admiration for you has grown in leaps and bounds, you have really been swimming upstream in [bull]shit creek.
Where is the Woodsman? Has he been your wing man in my absence while Bob and his other brother Bob have been try to roll you with their inside bullshit? I have a lot of catching up to do.
Let’s try that again.
: )
.
**
** NEW RESEARCH PAPER REGARDING THE 2013 YARNELL HILL FIRE
On September 2, 2017 at 1:45 pm, Joy A Collura posted the following link…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-deaths-were-avoidable-if-crew-had-followed-wildfire-safety-rules-research-paper-concludes/
>> The paper, entitled “Epic Human Failure on June 30, 2013“, was
>> published by Springer International Publishing AG. The authors state that
>> the crew’s leadership failed to follow well-known wildfire safety rules
>> and that directly contributed to disaster.
You cannot ignore 66 ( SIXTY-SIX ) years of combined experience fighting wildfires… and living to tell about it.
And, despite all attempts to prevent the truth about what really happened at the Yarnell Hill Fire from seeing the light of day… there seems to be a consensus on the part of Wildland Firefighter instructors which matches this paper’s conclusions.
Here is just one example from an article published just recently…
NBC – Newscenter – Rapid City, South Dakota
Article Title: Inside Fire Camp – Part One
Published: Aug 15, 2017 9:57 PM CST
Updated: Aug 17, 2017 1:16 PM CST
By: Sam Kraemer and Andrew Shipotofsky
http://www.newscenter1.tv/story/36144502/inside-fire-camp-part-one
According to the article… the instructors at the famous Black Hills Interagency Fire School are now using the Yarnell Hill Fire as a good EXAMPLE of what can happen to you if you lose your situational awareness on a fire and you also do NOT follow the well-established rules of the profession…
From the article…
———————————————————————————————————-
Before the start of every fire season, the U.S. Forest Service firefighting division welcomes a fresh group of new prospects hoping to join the team.
Instead of throwing them out on the line right away, the students attend the Black Hills Interagency Fire School at the Boxelder Job Corps…
But none of the firefighters can work on the line without first obtaining their red card, and that requires passing tests on content taught in camp.
“The first and second-year firefighters, who haven’t seen it all, they’re the ones that are really asking the questions,” said Chris Stover, assistant fire management officer for fuels with the Mystic Ranger District – a sector of the Black Hills National Forest. “So if we can build up their knowledge base, so that they learn the questions to ask, that is huge for us.”
The fire camp starts with 3 days of classroom instruction. New firefighters learn concepts like fire behavior, the chain of command, and of course, the importance of preparedness and safety.
“They emphasized a lot, if you see something dangerous, don’t be afraid to speak up about it or ask questions if you don’t know,” said Walter Bordewyk, a student at the 2017 Black Hills Interagency Fire School. “Emphasizing that two-way communication, I think that was a really big thing that I didn’t think about.”
Stover, who was one of several instructors at the camp, stressed the importance of knowing your surroundings when fighting wildfires.
“If you don’t have situational awareness, you can get in trouble in a big way,” he said. “So, I think that’s probably the most important thing we’re doing.”
That message, he said, is key, because a lapse in situational awareness can turn an already risky job into a crisis.
Take the Yarnell Hill Fire outside Yarnell, Ariz., in 2013.
Nineteen Granite Mountain Hot Shots, a hand crew consisting of highly-trained wildland firefighters, died when a shift in winds changed the fire’s path toward them.
“You hear about all these people that have been doing it for years, these elite hot shot crews, that you know, just something went wrong, and they’re gone now,” Bordewyk said.
This tragedy, in addition to several others referenced in the class, highlights the importance of firefighter safety.
That’s why every firefighter carries an incident response pocket guide. Ten standard practices and 18 watch out situations are listed on the back cover — all derived from an incident gone wrong.
“I think it’s important to remember that and keep that in mind, and learn from those things that happened,” said Bordewyk.
———————————————————————————————————
This “research paper” is being ignored by the WFF organizations, websites, etc etc.
I found it an interesting read but basically it is just restating what rts has said here on IM.
Basically Calvin you are wrong. I have contact with a lot of FF and HS Superintendents. They are training under first 40 using the Yarnell Fire as a classic example of failure to use the 10 and 18 and Identifying the situations that shout watch out and the Standard orders not followed in the Yarnell Hill Fire as well as several other Fires that had Fatalities. That has been and is still a part of the training tools used in Wild Land Fire.
Yes I have said and said again the crew failed to follow and Identify the basic training of the 10 and 18. Had they used the tools they would be alive today like all the thousands of Fire fighters that have followed them and are alive today.
They have a right to use those safety rules to refuse a direct order and it is done all the time.
Gary Olson,
What are your thoughts on this research paper that has been published?
I haven’t read it yet, but I think at least one of the authors is really a very knowledgeable individual about all things related to WF.
Oh never mind. I don’t even have to read it. I can tell you what I think about it right now.
Pros – It’s a damn fine paper that is well written and on track with everything it covers.
Cons – It leaves out the primary contributing factor in the deaths of the crew and that is the shared culpability of the YHF management team and the role the agencies played and the systemic institutional failure that set all of the primary and causal factors in motion that catastrophically failed all at once like dominoes falling one after the other.
And if any of the institutional checks and balances that are in place would have held that day instead of failing one after the other in a slow motion cascade of indifference and incompetence due to the fact that everyone who could have stopped what happened that day all said to themselves one after the other;
“Nawww, that can’t happen, hotshot crews don’t do that! Well..it is Marsh’s crew and he is Division Alpha? Nope that can’t be happening, because even he isn’t that stupid, reckless and irresponsible….no way, not even Eric”.
Pretty good review of the Fall 2016 TN Gatlinburg Fire worth reading.
http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/gatlinburg/2017/08/31/chimney-tops-2-fire-review-released-2-p-m-today/619812001/
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-deaths-were-avoidable-if-crew-had-followed-wildfire-safety-rules-research-paper-concludes/
John Dougherty:
https://youtu.be/uvpTvznNKdE
After walking with you…after talking to you…after our times in knowing another….I feel you read from a board and someone was in your ear for this piece—
it broke my heart how this world is…
https://youtu.be/N26cQaHbYxs
to see John DOugherty—4minute mark and the run it on the 8:30ish mark—
why am I bringing this up?
In my meditation lately JOHN DOUGHERTY keeps coming to my FOREFRONT and I wonder why the topic of ABUSE OF POWER kept being the layer and it is almost like I wonder if I should pull out the box of my deceased father for my dad use to work for Arpaio (long ago who knows all too well that topic)—see if any secrets lay in there…but I do recall the many stories of my father–
so I know all too well how politics and monies and corruption try to weaken the ability to report the news right —
John {before the YHF} has always been trying to be there for the people and I know many from the start did not like his tactics or article content yet after my time and research and it took me years to get here…he knew probably walking IN who he was dealing with and what it was going to take…so I really feel bad about his pushing forward important data while he is harshly judged [then and now]…and breaks my heart THAT video I just posted from Peru from the Spring time and just hoping he is ok-
YOU OKAY JOHN???
One of the more fascinating topics for my life is the leaders that walked the world before us – and some who are still here – and how they shaped this unreal world…and John has done alot for the YHF and yet I never see him trying to GRAB credit…
he gives a free freedom of speech place to share on his site [yet you always can donate h t t p ://arizonawatch.o r g/ if ya want]—I am thankful for him and his site- and there is no hang ups or favoritism…anyone can freely come here and we have had alot of visitors—
what I learned from being here is there is no bad emotions—there is just bad reactions—
I have reacted at times that recently when someone said to me with a genuine face that I am the most rational person they ever met—my reply to that was with a bust out of pure laughter—ARE YOU A HERMIT???
uncomfortable emotions are the window to togetherness —we all face them…and you will not find in cyber space many other areas that dive into sensitive areas on the YHF like here and probably why its most judged harshly…
God Bless to those in Texas and those affected by the recent floods and weather- 🙁
https://youtu.be/X2op4VeSm9U
where is everyone?
so how is everyone’s Summer going?
Since 6-8-17 I lost 63 pounds—it was 57 this morning but I had a very high intense workout and walk-
I did it the hard way- cut out sugars and salts and oils and follow a strict type O diet-
now I just have to take weight loss to total miles I walked and worked out—and graph it up…
Life seems to be all about graphs and charts anyways…probably best for me as I ramble on-
Another area I cleared out is my phones- gone.
Yep the 480 and 928 no longer belong to me-
With Sonny totally out of the picture and this time it is indeed totally done because of his lack ofs—
I even pulled myself out of all legal areas too-
He is where he is enjoying life-
Yet his crap was tied to my number so best way to resolve that— get rid of phones-
I want to thank the people who made it happen that I have probably the first hybrid fire industry handmade backpack that covers air to ground and structural and wildlands— It even has DESERT WALKER on it.
Now that I have way too much time on my hands I am opening the horizons- h
t t p s ://fred. stlouisfed. org/series/M2
been reading about M-zero to the ghost levels of M-3
In the total amount of money circulating in the money supply…where’s my money lying..Mzero is cash on hand…M1: cash on hand …bank…money on demand…
M2: cash on hand and bank physically there and money market n short term funds bond investment short term maturity…M3 is for the wealth….does it exist..ghost…
Worried about Mzero to 2…???
Trillions in M2
And of those trillions
When u go to the money Mzero…It varies…and as low as 10% and minimal
As Monday’s total solar eclipse sweeps from Oregon to South Carolina, U.S. I bet electric power and grid operators were glued to their monitoring systems and Sonny had his paid for eclipse glasses and probably enjoyed it as well—I know when I dropped my phones the guy on the line said he was in Idaho Falls and it was amazing the eclipse so I googled his area and got this: https://youtu.be/yGFOePz4r7g
So anyone in the fire industry who watch these fires…some selective and some full out “watching”…do you ever think about the tactics today versus almost 20 years ago and do you think what is the future gonna look like…did you ever predict today’s tactics 20 years ago?
Can you TIME CAPSULE TODAY a prediction? How many in the industry knew 20 years ago there would be the birth of the hybrid FF?
Tyler Durden said: “Imagine if you will, what would happen if you pulled an American family from the 19th century, and plopped them in the middle of downtown Los Angeles during rush hour. They’re not given a warning, they’re not given any kind of primer on what they’re about to experience, and the occurrence is completely inexplicable. How long do you suppose they would last before they cried uncle? Would they even survive? The odds probably aren’t so good. Of course, the reverse is probably also true. If you and your family were wrenched from the comforts of the present and hurled back into a previous era, you might not fare so well either”…
(but what about the fire industry- I would love to know HOW they would fight these fires if the money gravy train wasn’t present. (keep in mind the background data: 1. All commerce will cease.
2. Communications will shut down. 3. Without electricity, all forms of fuel that our society relies on will stop flowing 4. And of course many of those farms will lack water, as will your plumbing.
5. When the grocery stores are stripped bare, the pharmacies won’t be far behind. 6. And finally, one of the most shocking things that people will have to deal with, is the lack of GPS…In summary, law and order will break down at every level, and death will be around every corner. It’s one thing to grow up and live in an era that lacks electricity, but to be sent back to such a time on a moments notice would be one of the most challenging things that a person accustomed to modern amenities would ever face…so with that in mind how will they fight fires—will they suppress them FASTER then???)
I am just hoping you all are doing good-
I have been doing the labs and screenings and such and trying right now to rid of some clots naturally—and just good to visit here and say H E L L O
Hi joy,
Thank you for the update.
Congratulations on your weight loss.
What is the best way to contact you now that your phone numbers are gone?
Probably pony express 🌌🐾🌵 🐎
The funny thing Diane…I told Sonny when I went to my surgeon appt. and went over options and how much in severity my bilateral peripheal neuropathy was…and I was saying I walk a lot but facts were Sonny’s path of heart attack after another and because he kept playing roulette on taking meds and not I was not hiking like I was…so I said “Sonny if Amanda Marsh can look so radiant and full of life after something so sad and horrific and you look at her nowadays and all you can FEEL is this amazing joy towards her journey then there should be NO reason I should be solely focused to you Sonny and linger between 252 to 260 pounds..I need to step away this Summer and just visit at times ya Sonny due to my clots and shake my life in fitness gear…and get back into salsa dancing…I will do the 24.7 in Aguila and help ya muck the mines if you give me the Summer to get to 186.”
..3 more pounds and I will be to my target and I figured 252 to 260 and doing it intense I can pull it off…yet I am very focused and in it I am seeing more intuitive moments…and well seems sinful some areas…so still at a state of rebuking.. and not…not solid yet in a couple important spots…work in progress…
Thank you for the compliment on weight loss Diane…I said it years ago on here..it takes one foot in front of the other…its a Xmas misfit song…I saw my family who are dead now and their journey and feel that is the top advice I ever can share…when you feel knocked down remember it takes a moment to pull yourself back up…
Diane-
I also am trying to organize/sort my emails and that area will cease too but be awhile I began with over 80,000 to sort in start of Summer and I still have 30,000 to go-
as I delete emails and I think you may want a peak then I will post it here with a name or description-
this video I was given the link in one of my interviews with the Lewis Crew prisoners who were on the YHF–
I may of posted this link in one of the chapters back in 2014—
Nov. 12th 2014 is when I was given this footage:
https://youtu.be/M6aUgP2YSXY
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/08/25/new-movie-poster-for-only-the-brave/
http://ew.com/movies/2017/08/24/only-the-brave-poster-josh-brolin-interview/
http://yourdailykitsch.tumblr.com
Today, mid-afternoon on August 19th, is the anniversary of the fatal 2015 Twisp River Fire on the Okanogan-Wenatchee NF in northeastern Washington, where three USFS employees were killed by fire after their Engine drove off the road in thick, blinding smoke, and several other USFS and Washington DNR employees working with the bulldozer, were burned after leaving the safety of the garage they sought refuge in once it caught fire.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/please-we-need-help-report-describes-deadly-twisp-firefight/
“Jennifer Zbyszewski, mother of Tom Zbyszewski, has read the report, and called it “well-written and a good summary of what happened.””
Little does she know that ALL wildland fatality reports are written based on FIRST establishing the CONCLUSION and then finding the “FACTS” to fit that conclusion. The Twisp River Fire CRaP Review is no exception.
“Zbyszewski herself is a Forest Service employee on the Methow Valley Ranger District, and is now back on the job.”
There are several other employees that had connections to those that died that day that still work at the Methow Valley Ranger District, so please keep them in your prayers today.
The wind shift was a COMMON, well-known local factor (Watch Out 4). Check out the Cliff Mass Blog link below.
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/08/was-wildfire-evolution-that-killed.html
Washington Weather Research and Consulting meteorologist Paul Werth also noted in a January 2015 article that:
“Topography matters”
“The Methow Valley and similar narrow, rugged drainages are “really susceptible to hot, dry windy conditions” conducive to wildfire because of their topography, Werth said.
“When marine air pushes up over the Cascade Mountains it drops down into the narrow valley and flows toward the Columbia River. As the air descends down the valley it compresses, warms and dries through a process called “adiabatic warming.””
“The Methow Valley is a wind tunnel that the air is getting forced down 4,000-5,000 feet, and getting hotter and drier as it moves down the valley. For every 1,000 feet [elevation loss] air warms 5.5 degrees,” Werth said.”
“That’s why it’s really a hot spot for fire, just due to topography,” he said. The Entiat Valley, Wenatchee Valley and Lake Chelan see similar weather patterns, he said.”
Moreover, one of the Investigators revealed that those WFF on the left flank followed the basic WFF Rules and were just fine, while those on the right flank did NOT follow the Fire Orders or recognize and mitigate the Watch Out Situations and that is where all the firefighters were burned and died.
Diane lomas says
AUGUST 16, 2017 AT 12:41 PM
I am not the first to ask about Blue Ridge and or other firefighters setting a fire in the Shrine area prior to burnover. Joy stated that there was footage from a news crew that recorded this.
———————————————
Joy’s reply:
JULY 2, 2017 AT 9:11 PM I did-
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-471655
Joy,
I’m looking for the photos that you refer to from the shrine area day of the fire.
What other evidence exits that a fire was set in the shrine area on the afternoon of June 30,2013.
We all dug deep but could find none. The Pictures joy talked about never resurfaced or verified to be from the shrine area.
They could very well have been spot fires. No mention of any firing out or back fires from any one on the fire in that area. Still a unsubstantiated clame…
Why has blue ridge
Not been allowed to be interviewed and so many of their statements are heavily redacted?
Diane We have been through this in back chapters.
They are Government Employees and were told not to discuss the fire with any one. By the Us attorneys for their own protection.
Like it or not I and others called it a gag order. It dose not mean they have information the Government dose this all the time now. The redacted would answer questions maybe. The Government attorneys did the redactions before the release of the logs. They as represenitives had that right like it or not.
So there we are stuck. Do I agree no I do not.
Diane besides the videos and the FACTUAL ACTUAL folks who were working the fire in that area…lets say 4 Yarnell locals and a television station…if anyone else…I have not heard or seen it surface yet…
Diane lomas says
AUGUST 16, 2017 AT 12:41 PM
I am not the first to ask about Blue Ridge and or other firefighters setting a fire in the Shrine area prior to burnover. Joy stated that there was footage from a news crew that recorded this.
———————————————
Joy’s reply:
JULY 2, 2017 AT 9:11 PM I did-
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-471655
Happy August 1st.
This is as good a time as any to refresh your interest and memory in the ongoing search for the truth regarding the Air-to-Air and Air-to-Ground AFUE recordings and transcripts.
On August 1, 2013… ABC News Investigative Reporter James Gordon Meek sent his first ( of many ) emails to Jennifer Jones ( APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management ) inquiring about this ‘Air Study’ at the Yarnell Hill Fire.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470061
This air study appears to hold vital information about air to ground and other communications that day.
Hopefully it can be released soon.
Here are some quotes from the U.S. regarding your post:
“Before they were able to collect useful AFUE data, the tragic burn-over involving the GMHS occurred …”
“…. the AFUE team provided all of its original records to the [SAIT[.”
“… All of the AFUE records were made publicly available by the State of Arizona through a link to an electronic ‘dropbox’ account …”
“… All of the AFUE records were made publicly available by the State of Arizona through a link to an electronic ‘dropbox’ account, which contained all of the files from the state’s accident investigation.”
RTS,
I just reread Fred Schoeffler’s request for all Yarnell Hill fire air to ground voice recordings and written trNscripts from 3-5 pm on 6/30/13.
He asked the court to compel USDA to turn over all records.
Has this request been complied with?
Diane….I got mine…but that was from Arizona State Forestry…I don’t think they gave me it all…there is a missing binder still and hmmm cough cough…grow up you grown up men that were on the fire. I guarantee you Diane there is a kaleidoscope of data needing a helpful push forward…where is the big gorilla…the great grape ape anyways….or is he orange like wildfires….
I just watched an older you tube video from ABC 15
news
Regarding the SAIT investigation as it was beginning to form. A comment was made that someone , I believe the name was Marshall was asked to leave this group due to OSHA concerns.
Diane —a wonderful guy I found Marhsall to be…
55 y.o. Marshall Eric Krotenberg.
all I know Diane is I always gave my evidence as I got it to him—I really liked his team of him and Bruce Hanna and Brett Steurer and as I learned from google about who was running this area—here is what I learned about him:
83′—Started Working at Tracer Research Corporation as a Field Project Leader
85′—-Started Working at Western Technologies, Inc as a Project Manager
86′—Started Studying Bachelor Of Science:
Soil And Water Science at University of Arizona/Left Job at Western Technologies, Inc as a Project Manager
90′—-Left Job at Tracer Research Corporation as a Field Project Leader
91′—Started Working at Arizona Department Of Environmental Quality as a Compliance Officer – Drinking Water/Started Studying Ms, Toxicology at University of Arizona
92′—Started Working at Arizona Department Of Occupational Safety And Health as a Compliance Officer
95′—Started Working at City Of Tucson as a Industrial Hygienist
98′—Started Working at Trw Vehicle Safety Systems as a Industrial Hygiene
02′—Started Working at Rimkus Consulting Group as a Senior Consultant
10′—Started Working at Arizona Division Of Occupational Safety And Health as a Compliance Officer
12′—-Started Working at Arizona Division Of Occupational Safety And Health as a Compliance Supervisor
another search engine search:
83-90- Tracer Research Corporation
85-86: Western Technologies, Inc (Project Manager/Field/Lab Technician)
91-92 Arizona Department of Environmental Quality Compliance Officer – Drinking Water
98-01 TRW Vehicle Safety Systems
02-12′ Rimkus Consulting Group Environmental Division Manager
10-12′ Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance Officer/Safety Compliance Supervisor
12-14′ Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health Compliance Supervisor
SO what was interesting when I first saw his pic, Diane was I remember that face from Paradise Valley/Chandler and Phoenix Scottsdale area as life has passed me by so I began to see WHO and their work backgrounds and how that fits in HOW TO DETERMINE HOW AND WHY 19 men died and if any rules were broken under their company guidelines….I started looking from that time the SAIR came out and a little before yet MOST when EN taught me what FOIAS/public records were and how she was in alot of foia log books for inquiries so I thought maybe I should do the same too…I won’t give up on the men mainly because of the children who are busy having to rebuild their lives so when they grow up they knew someone was looking for them…Did you know just on the Thompson rancher fire I have a hefty search time foia fee to pay but they want $7500 more and I am trying to figure how to make it work because the data is important to the future- but ain’t that crazy when you ask for FOIA from BLM that I would get that kind of reply yesterday—boggles my mind…because it stated it like that is just the start—$7500—it could even be MORE…for public records…??????…Sonny’s newer 2014 car blew up/exploded in flames earlier when he was driving it he smelled fire smoke he said and got out then it blew up— I hope they investigate that to see if it was someone trying to kill him or something—don’t add up with a newer car like that. Man, with all the rattlers coming his way after the rains and all the rough karma…I am just glad I did not witness this explosion…I really had an unforgettable week and I am focused to hikes and foias and health….Sorry I get on here and try and get Donut to share more yet if people would not ask me…like how would I know…I have seen Donut 16 times since the YHF and all in same room at same time may it be at bank or street- stuff like that—we never talked even when I said to his friend who I hiked Mando—no hi from Donut just Mando…so I just share public what others share to me…I was not even thinking of Donut— really it is an all about Joy summer to regain health and stuff….even barely seen Sonny this summer….I will close that I did have a life changing event this week (a newness) and I am trying to figure out what is right in it…do I just keep doing something for me or do I think always of the people around me like I always have…it’s an intoxicating decision that only I have to face- but I better face it…my neighbors asked me to come by today and I did see about 1/3 of the neighborhood and they asked me to hike them to the DZ…and share my day that day versus the media stuff…I told them they organize it all I will go- done it 34 times…what’s another time…they offered to pay me too and I do not run that way—-I will always take the time out freely for that in hopes someone I take shares their account or photos or story—you never know what they can give—could be good stuff—-
Joy,
Thank you for the information about Marshall.
I am surprised that the SAIT team was not more objective.
It appears that this team was possibly manipulated to produce a certain outcome rather than focus on the truth
I came across some earlier quotes from Ted Putnam that are relevant “The biggest tribute we should do for these firefighters is to TELL the truth” and the state forestry division ordered GMHS to come off the mountain and go to Yarnell.
Diane,
As you know by now the bottom line for crew safety lies with the crew supervisor and the crew members themselves. With that being said, the question remains – why did they leave the safe black? I don’t have any proof or facts to support this other than my experience, but I believe someone had to request/order them down. That in my mind is the only explanation a Type 1 crew ( fairly new but some experience) would leave solid black. Again, the safety of the crew remains with the crew supervisor. I believe this is where the human factors ( referenced before) come into play.
Thank you Norb
Hey Norb…that is the obvious foreseen human factors but what about factors that lie not seen yet…could those factors assist in properly assessing this fire or are we better to buy into narratives?
What I have learned so far with much time sweat and money involved…that a fire can only be investigated so far when politics and agenda happen vs pure truth as it happened…
Look at this…Diane and I who have nothing to do with the industry are up at 3 or 4am losing sleep….is anyone else?
Joy,
After I posted I realized I was stating the obvious – I have been called “captain obvious” before.
Over the past years there have been a lot of late nights spent on this tragic event, recently not so much. Thanks to people like you that continue to search for the real answers.
Yarnell hill fire lookout–Brendan (doughnut) was supposed to meet with fire personnel after the burnover on 6/30/2013 but instead someone told him to go home to his mother. He was not interviewed at this point. Obviously he would have been very stressed but what information was lost?
I have been rereading the ADOSH report and found this statement from the introduction of granite mountain IHC Entrapment and Burnover Investigation:
“Through ADOSH, we were given access to all information and personnel that we requested with the exception of the employees of the USDA forest service. The USDA forest service declined the request to allow their employees to be interviewed for this investigation.”
On what grounds is this allowed?
Diane,
You may find this article helpful and interesting:
http://services.prod.iaff.org/ContentFile/Get/27149
“Recently, it was discovered that a support fire crew, the Blue Ridge Hotshots, were close to the fire and the last persons to be in radio communications with the 19 fallen fire fighters. Investigators from the state Forestry Division interviewed members of the Blue Ridge Hotshots. However, the interview notes taken by those investigators have not been disclosed publicly; nor did any information from those interviews appear in the Forestry Division’s later report on the fire.
IAFF Local 3066 in Prescott and the Arizona state association have expressed concerns that the Forestry Division has purposely withheld important factual information learned from the Blue Ridge Hotshots in order to curtail its report and avoid accountability by the Forestry Division and its management officials.
In addition, uncovered information indicates that members of the Blue Ridge Hotshots have been issued a ‘gag order’ directing them not to speak about their activities and contacts with the Granite Mountain Hotshots team before they were overrun by the fire.
General President Harold Schaitberger authorized this Guardian Policy matter to examine the situation, to gain access to the withheld information by utilizing the Arizona open records law, and to take other appropriate action to ensure that all of the relevant information about the tragic deaths of the 19 IAFF members is fully and finally disclosed.
On September 10, 2014, on behalf of the IAFF, the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, and the United Yavapai Firefighters Local 3066, requests were submitted to both the Arizona State Forestry Division and the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, under the Arizona open records law. A.R.S. §39-121. These requests seek all notes, statements, memoranda, summaries, transcripts, drafts, findings, photographs, radio transmissions, videos, and all other documents and materials in any way related to the Blue Ridge Hotshots and the Yarnell Hill Fire and the deaths of the 19 fire fighters on June 30, 2013.
These two state agencies have until October 1, 2014 to respond to these requests.”
Recall, that there never really was a “gag order” by the USFS. There was Agency “direction” in the form of official letters and supervisory “direction” which then allows the Agency to discipline their employees for insubordination or failure to follow orders if they do not comply.
RTS,
Thank you for this information and the link to the article-I have just started reading it. Wanted to ask you if the location of the Blue Ridge hotshots just before the bud over is known.
Hopefully the content of the communications between them and granite mountain shortly before the burn over will be revealed soon
Burn over not bud over
Also from the ADOSH report is this statement–“Fire behavior was extreme and it occurred early in the day. There were 40-50 foot flame
Lengths at 10:30 in the morning. This is unusual for Arizona”
ADOSH interview with spgs2
6/30/2013
Reply to Diane lomas post on August 8, 2017 at 12:06 pm
>> Diane Lomas asked…
>>
>> Wanted to ask you if the location of the Blue Ridge
>> hotshots just before the burn over is known.
Yes.
Based on other evidence that IS available… such as…
1. The HEAVILY REDACTED Blue Ridge Unit Logs that were eventually released.
2. Photographs
3. Videos
…the whereabouts of all but one of the Blue Ridge Hotshots in the timeframe prior to the 4:42 PM ‘burnover’ are known.
The one Blue Ridge Hotshots whose exact ‘whereabouts’ and ‘activities’ in this pre-burnover timeframe are still NOT fully known would be Cory Ball… the BR Hotshot who was assigned earlier in the day to act as HEQB/DOZB for the Yavapai County bulldozer that was working that Yarnell end of the fire that entire day.
In his Unit Log ( and in one of his written statements that was left UNREDACTED )… Cory Ball states that in this ‘timeframe’…
( quote )
“…me and one other assigned by SPGS1 ( Gary Cordes ) to scout out possible dozer line ( southwest of Yarnell and near Glen Ilah subdivision ).”
Cory Ball had borrowed an ATV from the Yarnell Fire Station and was in the process of attempting to fulfill this ‘directive’ from Gary Cordes in the timeframe prior to the burnover.
If even just UNREDACTED copies of those original Blue Ridge Hotshot Unit Logs could be obtained… we would probably know a LOT more about what really happened that day.
The CLAIM that US Forestry originally made for the MASSIVE ‘redactions’ in the Blue Ridge Hotshot Unit Logs was simply ‘sensitive information’.
‘Sensitive’… to WHO?… and for WHAT REASON?
FOIA laws state specifically that ’embarrassing information’ is NEVER a valid reason for claiming ‘redactions’ on a publicly available document.
As much as some WFF’s like to ‘pretend’ they are a ‘pseudo-military’ organization… only the actual military or actual government intelligence agencies are allowed to claim redactions due to ‘classified information’.
Whatever lies beneath those MASSIVE ‘black outs’ in the Blue Ridge Hotshots Unit Logs might tell the complete ‘story’… but we would certainly know a LOT more details about that day if those ‘redactions’ were not there.
Typo in paragraph above.
I left the word ‘not’ out of a sentence.
Last paragraph above should have read like this…
——————————————————
Whatever lies beneath those MASSIVE ‘black outs’ in the Blue Ridge Hotshots Unit Logs might not tell the complete ‘story’… but we would certainly know a LOT more details about that day if those ‘redactions’ were not there.
——————————————————
Blue ridge hotshot’s—
I am wondering if the Blue Ridge hotshot’s and others set a fire in the shrine area to try to stop the fire from burning into the Boulder Spri ngs Ranch area. Could this be in part why Blue Ridge information has been redacted and they have been prevented from testifying?
It has been stated that Blue Ridge were among the last to communicate with Granite Mountain–could they have been trying to warn them of the fire that they may have set in shrine area?
Diane…books and movies can be made…men and women may receive accolades…yet in the end…God is not interested in the stories just the TRUTH…the lips that lay sealed as some say until they die…life happens and have hope that as time unfolds and some work through their trauma and grief…I recently stepped out of my normalcy and I have to figure out when moving forward I am true versus what I just as a foggy phase to my life. I have now saw bravery through the tragedy and its not in the movie but the children who carry on….those are the brave ones…
Diane…as you see my life I have never led it by puppet strings yet in that I need to allow God to cloak me tighter…so the word of God radiates
through
me
so
Deep
that
certain
folks
who
lay
claim
to
love
me
can
Respect
me
too.
The
whole
aftermath
made
me
document
to
Ensure
these
19
Do
Not
Become
Ghost
Legends
But
Are
Kept
Real…Donut
And
that
Rookie
Who
Had
Seizures
Are
The
Survivors
To
2013
Gmhs
Season
Roster
And
when
The
Rookie
Just
Was
Lost
In
All
This…I
Remember
Because
The men
Who
Passed
Remind
Me
Of
the
Off
Beat
Dynamics
Between
These
Men
Vs
The
Glaze
Shown
Public…challenge
Me
Anyone
Offline
And
You
Will
Be
Amazed
How
Much
Personal
Data
I
Have
Been
Shown…I
Wonder
If
doce
Fire
In
movie address
The
Pains
Others
Had
that
Day
Or
Just
From
the
Eyes
Of
Donut…
If Blue Ridge set a fire in the shrine area that burned west to attempt to keep fire out of the BSR area and may have contributed to the entrapment of GMHS Blue Ridge could have been devastated.
If they lit the fire in the shrine area I’m sure they had no idea that GMHS could be entrapped by this action.
I am not the first to ask about Blue Ridge and or other firefighters setting a fire in the Shrine area prior to burnover. Joy stated that there was footage from a news crew that recorded this.
The main fire caught the crew.
Two separate heads ran south crossing the Tractor line that was built in the Morning and went thru the air tanker slurry line moving south over the flats. This southern run was created by 20 plus MPH winds. There was no one near the BSR that could have set a Back Fire in those conditions.
Any ideas about how I redacted copies of granite mountain reports can be obtained?
Two ways…
1. Request the UNREDACTED copies of the ‘Blue Ridge Unit Logs’ ( which are KNOWN to be in US Forestry’s possession ), let them claim the same ‘sensitive information’ exclusion… and then appeal the FOIA response, let it go to court, and let a JUDGE decide what constitutes ‘sensitive information’. They are NOT allowed to make redactions to things in an FOIA response just because THEY consider things in the documents to be ‘sensitive information’.
2. Encourage someone who has access to the original Blue Ridge Hotshot Unit Logs to simply ‘leak’ them online somewhere.
Reply to Bob powers about firing out from BSR—I was referring to firing out from the Shrine–not from BSR. In your opinion could a back fire have occurred from The Shrine?
Diane,
Discussions over the years with WFF’s in The Shrine as they were disengaging and pulling out said there were no burnouts or backfiring operations, only extreme natural fire resulting from the intense outflow winds from the North.
I think it is long past time for you to accept that the GMHS supervisors, along with some PFD influence regarding structure protection, were responsible for their deaths.
No one forced or ordered or made them leave their perfectly good Safety Zone.
Who was assigned to scout out the dozer line along with Corey ball?
I read the report. Page 17 or 18 contained information about the Granite Mountain hotshot’s. Thank you for sharing this
Good to see that firefighting unions have requested this information.
Was it revived by the deadline?
Received not revived
Is this information available
that was requested?
2 of two
Mike Dudley
USDA Forest Service
[email protected]
xxxxxxxxxxx
Dudley, Mike -FS
17 Apr 2014 21:09:52 +0000
[email protected]
FW: partial audio transmission
Yarnell_segment. wav
From: Gonzales, Ralph H -FS
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:35 PM
To: Dudley, Mike -FS; Draeger, Randy -FS; [email protected]; Wilson, Richa -FS
Cc : Manwaring, Robert -FS
Subject: partial audio transmission
Attached is a portion of the 3 minute audio from the video captured by the AFUE crew. The audio was “cleaned up” by the Riverside County DA’s Office Audio/video forensic lab.
Ralph
Ralph H. Gonzales
Fire & Fuels Program Leader
US Forest Service
Son Dimas Technology & Development Center
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[email protected]
Page 209 of 630
Tom, Dan,
Dudley, Mike -FS
3 Feb 2014 16:56:47 +0000
Harbour, Tom -FS;Oisen, Dan -FS
[email protected];Draeger, Randy -FS
FW: Preliminary Report
Audio Recording Analysis Preliminary Report.docx, yarnell6.wav
High
Wanted you to see this info in regards to the John Maclean assertion on the crew’s radio communications. San Dimas cannot verify the same language, they also took it to a private lab and they could not verify. I’m not saying what he’s posted is incorrect, we just can’t collaborate his work. We have one additional source that we’ll be reaching out to and I’ ll let you know if anything else comes out .
Mike Dudley
USDA Forest Service
[email protected]
xxxxxxxx
From: Gonzales, Ralph H -FS
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 5:35PM
To: Dudley, Mike -FS
Cc: Manwaring, Robert -FS
Subject: Preliminary Report
Hi Mike attached is a preliminary report. The limitation is that we cannot make out who is speaking. I am still waiting on the video production company to see if they can clean it up more. I am also including the audio file that we processed. I took out ASM transmission, so all is in the file is the background radio transmission.
Ralph
Rolph H. Gonzales
Fire & Fuels Program Leader
US Forest Service
Son Dimas Technology & Development Center
xxxxxxxx
[email protected]
Page 210 of 630
Audio Recording Analysis Preliminary
Report Background:
Video recording by the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study team capture radio transmission during the Yarnell Hill Fire. The video camera microphone captured radio transmissions. The air-to-air radio transmission was more prominent which masked a weaker ground transmission. This ground radio transmission is the focus of the review.
The audio portion of the video was extracted and processed by the Riverside County Sheriffs’ District Attorney’s Office Audio/Video Forensic Lab. Wind noise, road noise and other “white noise” was removed to get a clearer audio. The audio file (wav file) is approximately 3 minutes long.
A portion of the audio file was extracted and processed using Sony Sound Forge with the objective of further refining the audio quality on certain portions of the three (3) minute wav file. This was done by the San Dimas Technology & Development Center. Air-to-air (ASM) transmission was removed in order to focus on the weaker radio transmission. The continuity of the recording was preserved. This
processed audio portion is 19 seconds long.
Analysis:
Nine individuals were asked to listen to the audio and write down discernable words. The review group included male and female listeners with and without any fire experience. Figure 1 shows the audio wave file with markers to show location of discernable words. Table 1 shows the discernable words and the number of reviewers that heard the word.
Word I Phrase Number times reported
Granite 8/9
make 4/9
south 7/9
mid-slope 5/9
moving 4/9
down 4/9
structures 5/9
Page 211 of 630
Figure 1: audio wav file
Page 212 of 630
The following phrases are the results of the individual reviews. The words that most frequently appear are highlighted in yellow. Less frequent but remarkable are highlighted green.
1. Granite .. ah … Granite …… making an incredible ….. its ah south, mid-slope… fuII circle moving
through the window into the secure zone
2. Granite ah …. make up .. there is a foul, mid-slope .. moving towards structures
3. Granite, …… it’s a … south ….. down into the structures
4. There is guideline in the drainage …. there … south
5. Granite .. Granite .. making ground for this morning …. and there ah .. South mid-slope fork
road … moving .. we are down in the structures
..——-.
6. Its Granite …. and its uh … South .. thats pull full circle …… to walk down into it
7. Well that’s so much for the Granite .. stop. for there’s a valve .. full .. so watch out .. its gonna turn … it’s over
8. Granite .. go ahead .. ah … south .. mid-slope profile … moving … going down into structures
9. We’ve got Granite .. making … its … South mid-slope …. structures
Page 213 of 630
This is the San Dimas Technology and Development Center report and email thread regarding the AFUE radio transmissions authorized by Mike Dudley for analysis that had to be copied and pasted here.
From: Mike Dudley
Sent : 3 February 2014 16:56:47 +0000
To: Harbour, Tom-FS;Olsen, Dan -FS
cc: [email protected];Draeger, Randy -FS
Subject: FW Preliminary Report
Attachments: Audio Recording Analysis Preliminary Report.docx, yarnell6.wav
Importance: High
2 of two
:Mike Dud{ey
USDA Forest Service
[email protected]
801-625-5253
Dudley, Mike -FS
17 Apr 2014 21:09:52 +0000
[email protected]
FW: partial audio transmission
Yarnell_segment. wav
From: Gonzales, Ralph H -FS
Sent: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 12:35 PM
To: Dudley, Mike -FS; Draeger, Randy -FS; [email protected]; Wilson, Richa -FS
Cc : Manwaring, Robert -FS
Subject: partial audio transmission
Attached is a portion of the 3 minute audio from the video captured by the AFUE crew. The audio was “cleaned up” by the Riverside County DA’s Office Audio/video forensic lab.
Ralph
Ralph H. Gonzales
Fire & fuels Program Leader
US Forest Service
San Dimas Technology & Development Center
(909) 599-1267 )( 212
[email protected]
This electronic message contains information generated by the USDA solely for the intended
recipients. Any unauthorized interception of this message or the use or disclosure of the
information it contains may violate the law and subject the violator to civil or criminal penalties.
If you believe you have received this message in error, please notify the sender and delete the
email immediately.
Page 209 of 630
Tom, Dan,
Dudley, Mike -FS
3 Feb 2014 16:56:47 +0000
Harbour, Tom -FS;Oisen, Dan -FS
[email protected];Draeger, Randy -FS
FW: Preliminary Report
Audio Recording Analysis Preliminary Report.docx, yarnell6.wav
High
Wanted you to see this info in regards to the John Maclean assertion on the crew’s radio
communications. San Dimas cannot verify the same language, they also took it to a private lab and they could not verify. I’m not saying what he’s posted is incorrect, we just can’t collaborate his work. We have one additional source that we’ll be reaching out to and I’ll let you know if anything else comes out .
Mike Dud{ey
USDA Forest Service
[email protected]
801-540-4881
From: Gonzales, Ralph H -FS
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2014 5:35PM
To: Dudley, Mike -FS
Cc: Manwaring, Robert -FS
Subject: Preliminary Report
Hi Mike attached is a preliminary report. The limitation is that we cannot make out who is speaking. I am still waiting on the video production company to see if they can clean it up more. I am also including the audio file that we processed. I took out ASM transmission, so all is in the file is the background radio transmission.
Ralph
Ralph H. Gonzales
Fire & Fuels Program Leader
US Forest Service
San Dimas Technology & Development Center
(909) 599· 1267 X 212
[email protected]
Page 210 of 630
Audio Recording Analysis Preliminary
Report
Background:
Video recording by the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study team capture radio transmission during the Yarnell Hill Fire. The video camera microphone captured radio transmissions. The air-to-air radio transmission was more prominent which masked a weaker ground transmission.This ground radio transmission is the focus of the review.
The audio portion of the video was extracted and processed by the Riverside County Sheriffs’ District Attorney’s Office Audio/Video Forensic Lab. Wind noise, road noise and other “white noise” was removed to get a clearer audio. The audio file (wav file) is approximately 3 minutes long. A portion of the audio file was extracted and processed using Sony Sound Forge with the objective of further refining the audio quality on certain portions of the three (3) minute wav file. This was done by the San Dimas Technology & Development Center. Air-to-air (ASM) transmission was removed in order to focus on the weaker radio transmission. The continuity of the recording was preserved. This processed audio portion is 19 seconds long.
Analysis:
Nine individuals were asked to listen to the audio and write down discernable words. The review group included male and female listeners with and without any fire experience. Figure 1 shows the audio wave file with markers to show location of discernable words. Table 1 shows the discernable words and the number of reviewers that heard the word.
Word I Phrase Number times reported
Granite 8/9
make 4/9
south 7/9
mid-slope 5/9
moving 4/9
down 4/9
structures 5/9
Page 211 of 630
Figure 1: audio wav file
Page 212 of 630
The following phrases are the results of the individual reviews. The words that most frequently appear are highlighted in yellow. Less frequent but remarkable are highlighted green.
1. Granite .. ah … Granite …… making an incredible ….. its ah south, mid-slope… fuII circle moving
through the window into the secure zone
2. Granite ah …. make up .. there is a foul, mid-slope .. moving towards structures
3. Granite, …… it’s a … south ….. down into the structures
4. There is guideline in the drainage …. there … south
5. Granite .. Granite .. making ground for this morning …. and there ah .. South mid-slope fork
road … moving .. we are down in the structures
..——-.
6. Its Granite …. and its uh … South .. thats pull full circle …… to walk down into it
7. Well that’s so much for the Granite .. stop. for there’s a valve .. full .. so watch out .. its gonna
turn … it’s over
8. Granite .. go ahead .. ah … south .. mid-slope profile … moving … going down into structures
9. We’ve got Granite .. making … its … South mid-slope …. structures
Page 213
Perhaps the release of the film “Only The Brave” will result in renewed interest in the truth of what happened on this fire.
Reply to Diane lomas post on August 12, 2017 at 10:16 am
>> Diane lomas said…
>>
>> Perhaps the release of the film “Only The Brave” will result in renewed
>> interest in the truth of what happened on this fire.
I believe it will.
Considering the level of ‘coverup’ that followed this tragedy… it would be negligence on the part of the mainstream media to NOT cover this aspect of ‘the story’ at the same time they are reporting on the new ‘fillum’ when it is released.
A ‘film’ is always just a ‘film’.
It is a ‘dramatization’… and it is meant to make money for the investors.
But any ‘fillum’ that CLAIMS it is ‘based on a true story’, or actually claims to BE the ‘true story’ ( as actor Josh Brolin has already claimed publicly )… the people who review movies themselves have an obligation to let viewers know where the ‘fillum’ stands on the BULLSHIT meter.
WTKTT,
This is encouraging.
someone asked me recently locally WHAT IS IT WHEN THESE FF SAY FIGHT FIRE WITH FIRE—check this video out—right near a structure—????
When Granite Mountain was asked to help with resources in Yarnell and they declined why didn’t Blue Ridge take on this responsibility?
Not sure that I have understood why Granite Mountain ended up taking such a huge role.
Diane,
Brian Frisby and the Blue Ridge Hot Shots stepped in and acted in a quasi Division Supervisor and Task Force role respectively once DIVS Z Rance Marquez abandoned his Division, supposedly because he had no resources.
DIVS are either assigned a geographic piece of fireline or a specific task as a Group Supervisor, i.e. Structure Group. They cannot just abandon their responsibilities without notifying Operations and getting someone to fill that role in their stead.
Regarding: “Not sure that I have understood why Granite Mountain ended up taking such a huge role.”
I’m not sure that you have either.
The two primary GMHS leadership were ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of those they supervised – period – their crew, the GMHS. And they failed miserably at that. Marsh, even though separate from the Crew in a DIVS role continued to try to lord it over Steed and adversely influence him to do what he wanted rather than what was safe for the Crew.
The PFD also had a hand in their imagined and perceived structure protection role that day as well as on the previous Doce Fire.
PFD Wildland Battalion Chief Willis at the July 2013 basically said (paraphrasing) hat it was ‘ingrained in them … that structures came first and firefighter safety was a last resort.’
He also used the Logical Fallacies of False Analogy and Equivocation when he stated that was why firemen run into burning buildings, And he also claimed that no WFF was satisfied sitting in the black while structures were threatened below.
Please do your best to let go of the ‘hero’ fairy tale, that the big bad fire killed them, and there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent that. The only heroes on the GMHS are the Rookies, the first and second year crewmembers that were following the lead of the more experienced ones.
Thank you RTS,
I hadn’t realized the impact that Rance MartineZ’ departure had on resources and that Blue Ridge needed to cover for this.
This also highlights the significance of the power struggle that Marsh and Steed were experiencing.
Since marsh was supervising did he request blue ridge to cover Rance’s responsibilities?
I’m wondering what was happening for the 51 minutes from blow up to burn over?
Was this time spent in a power struggle with marsh and steed and possibly others?
Diane,
That’s what good WFF’s do, especially good Hot Shot Crews, they make things happen, many times not a good idea because they are often making a ‘failed system’ work. I believe the Frisby and the BRHS took the lead on covering for Marquez. Marsh may have had some say in it but don’t know for sure.
I believe the power struggle between the GMHS overhead was ongoing for quite some time regarding their personalities and different supervisory styles. The Crew loved working for Steed.
You posted: “I’m wondering what was happening for the 51 minutes from blow up to burn over?”
Like the other two classic, fatal “lunch spot” fires I referred to the other day, they were waiting to be engaged and engaged to wait, basically nothing very physical.
And: “Was this time spent in a power struggle with marsh and steed and possibly others?”
Yes indeed. Reread this AZ Central article: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
I would hope there was some type of power struggle with others as well, like with the Squad Bosses and others that were supporting Steed and his reluctance to leave the safe black. There are MANY alive today that were on the YH Fire monitoring the GMHS Crew net “discussing our options” radio transmissions that heard all this.
Why can’t they tell what they heard? And why all the secrecy with blue ridge?
Is it possible that Steed was trying to give his men more time to rest during their delayed time to move from their safe position?
Diane,
Surely, you have read and reread the “discussing our options” account on this IM site and the AZ Central article posted on this IM site numerous times.
I seriously doubt that he was giving his men more time to rest.
He was doing his best to stand his ground against DIVS A Marsh’s commands, disparagement, and protests.
He was trying to keep them safe in the good black, their Safety Zone.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHsNcpDh21F/ ( ridgeline hilltop, above the lunch spot…) (Cerrillos, New Mexico)
for the locals who keep asking me where on the Weavers did they film ONLY THE BRAVE—-
the link provides you some source of many—that is the made for movie not REALITY folks-
anyone in the film industry knows it is the best financial route to film in NM
it was filmed alot in NM—
NOT ON THE WEAVERS!
https://www.instagram.com/p/BHTSDNuhU_u/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIESrNxjUPZ/
Locals-
spread over the state not just isolated to one area
the bear that is in the beginning of the trailer and the movie is here relaxing—
https://www.instagram.com/p/_KyY9ngHcG/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BITOCrfB2yw/ some actors chilling on set
not to confuse you on this link…these are not the actors—the real deal:
https://www.instagram.com/p/bRPdQqrUCV/
Hey Sonny—
look who it is—
Carl. (waffles anyone?)
How cool he ended up going…he must of had a blast…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIvV3VHjlUF/
that was neat huh Sonny…
but still locals….no Weavers.
The real deal with Devil eyes
https://www.instagram.com/p/bRPdQqrUCV/
https://www.instagram.com/p/BI_oqNlhCzl/?taken-by=geoffmstults
nambe falls, nm
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGpebFkswRW/
see…still no Weavers
so hope you locals stop spreading the word that the entire film was here in town—NOT.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BImCCaRDPlP/
Val Kilmer and Sean Penn and a few others are only nutty enough to hang out at the Nichols West/this town…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BImBdzODn7w/
no cell service—must not be the Weavers
https://www.instagram.com/p/BImAQikjW19/
We have cell service on the Weavers 🙂
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJNxJg3jzXk/
That is the ‘White Rock Overlook Park’ just EAST of Los Alamos.
That ‘park’ is what they are using as the FAKE ‘Weaver Mountains’
for this film, and where they are filming the ‘anchor spot’ and ‘lunch spot’
and ‘final resting spot’ ( place where MacKenzie took his photos/videos ) scenes.
That is the ‘Rio Grande’ river on the left side of photo, which runs through
that ‘White Rock’ valley. I assume they will just ‘edit that out’ later.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BGmR_5_mdF4/
she plays Brendan’s Mom in the film and has some behind the scene shots-
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIf1RjkDOaV/
Dear Donut 🍩
I got a call about you last night…scruffy and glazed….and greeting about everyone as Bro or brother nowadays…
Then I fell asleep after that talk.
Donut, I than in dream state saw you come to my home at 12:28pm and we talked for a good bit and I asked can we hike out to some crucial spots I eyewitnessed and surprisingly you said you bet and that it looks like I could use a hike.
I could not take offense because in reality I can walk 50 miles and have and still so far stout. I have dropped this summer so far almost 40 pounds just eliminating salt oils and sugars and mainly a cruciferous way but still have not got to point where I am not stout yet…so in REAL TIME Donut I think it would be a great healing time for you and I to do just that without a soul knowing…just you and me getting on the Weavers real time and talk. The person who called stated you made a challenge to a IC person to call you (
https://m.facebook.com/comment/replies/?ctoken=852966501536876_852998618200331&p=-27&count=19&pc=1&ft_ent_identifier=852966501536876&gfid=AQCQwuForiYjRslo&preview_rid=854102081423318&refid=52&__tn__=R-R#854102081423318 )
…If you come to my home be prepared I know I was there 6.30.13 but any questions I had for that day I have documented so maybe I can even offer you some clarity and realities to the day you were ill…maybe you do not even know some data because you were eating a hamburger…I think much healing would happen for us both and no one ever has to know….I think in this all you have had to watch in each setting how to represent and with me you can be raw and real and messy and no one would ever ever know until I passed on. That’s my guarantee to you no matter your age…ok….you can be 50 and come to my home at 12:28pm….my door is always open. You may feel the public did You right so far but I know more…you ever want to learn what I know…my door is open.
Yet you want to challenge a IC on social media to call ya…I extend the same that we have a private time in person to go over the day because maybe just maybe some of the whispers fed to you were giving you wrong data with no sources and so maybe just maybe I can give you some internal healings because I think you deserve it after all you to me are not the survivor but the other kid who had a seizure who I have seen in my meditation is a survivor too…the rookies. Had he not got ill in recent weeks he would of been out there. You know also your position that day was a gift from Above because it was not your normal position for you and another loved one would have her husband today. Also the survivor role fits only so far because you are last alive yet you left early enough and did not face the same final moments that the media and world are glazing it out to be. You survived alright but always until I pass will feel watching from the mountaintop feel you were in danger in unburned fuel on that little hill we saw you hot as hell and miserable.
When the gravy runs dry…and it usually does…I will be here.
God Bless to you Donut…
…the rookies.
Explain only to you in person why I pluralized that knowing it was not your first season.
Joy,
Error message on your Facebook link above.
https://m.facebook.com/comment/replies/?ctoken=852966501536876_852998618200331&p=-27&count=19&pc=1&ft_ent_identifier=852966501536876&gfid=AQCQwuForiYjRslo&preview_rid=854102081423318&refid=52&__tn__=R-R#854102081423318 )
“The page you requested cannot be displayed right now. It may be temporarily unavailable, the link you clicked on may be broken or expired, or you may not have permission to view this page.”
RTS,
Here is a portion of the discussion:
Replies to William M.’s comment on Brendan Mcdonough’s post.
View post
William M. Riggles
“We’re taking the fire head on and saving the town!!!” What can 19 hotshots with chainsaws, shovels and pulaskis do to stop a fire driven by downdrafts off a storm cell? That’s one line in the movie, makes me hate it! It’s the “hero” mentality that led to your crew getting trapped! The darn movie glorified it.
3Hide · Jul 19
View previous replies…
Brendan Mcdonough
William M. Riggles as in overhead I mean the IC team. I can sit here and factually negate what your saying. My supt during my few seasons as a hotshot asked the crew multiple times there comfort level and turned down plenty of assignments. We can take a look at a few things in Yarnell. When the plane dropped on my brothers test burn in the morning, which my supt had given them information about requesting they drop on the green side of the test burn and they dropped right on the test burn. What would of happened if they could of carried that out? Let’s look at there decision to go direct. They only went a few hundred yards if that and told the team if we can’t get a helicopter to work with us on this direct edge we don’t feel comfortable going any further. They didn’t get a helicopter so they didn’t go any further. You talk about the weather event, what about the fact that there was two weather events that day and people have said they didn’t get that relayed information. I had mentioned my brothers being asked to head to Yarnell and the reference to the time frames what about that? Does no one get held accountable for those trigger points and time frames that changed so drastically and weren’t calculated for properly? Oh ya I forget the fact they switched teams mid day? Also a plane sent by someone on the team to go check on my brothers and report back, they didn’t do it, so they timed out and didn’t even pass on the information to the incoming plane to what needed to be done. They talk about not knowing where there safety zone was. We were told that morning by someone on the team that the ranch was a bombproof safety zone. We can do this all day, who ultimately made the decision my crew but I dare you and others to ask why, why did they make that decision. Because they were asked too and told they had enough time and weren’t properly informed. If you care to carry this conversation on my cell phone is on my Facebook page and I reply back to my messages.
4Hide · Jul 21
William M. Riggles
No thanks. This feels too confrontational. Sorry about busting in on your page. Later my friend, take care.
2Hide · Jul 21
———————————————————–
“We can do this all day, who ultimately made the decision my crew but I dare you and others to ask why, why did they make that decision.”
I want to know why as well, Mr. McDonough, I very much do. Take care of yourself.
Woodsman
Here is another comment by Mr. Riggles that I know RTS will like… & so do I.
William M. Riggles
I am the type of person who would of refused to follow everyone else down that canyon. I base my decisions on logic and experience, not emotions and “everybody else is doing it”. Maze Creek, CO (1978), our crew boss refused to hike us into a canyon one morning, the other crews called us names as they passed us by. The boss said as soon as the sun hits that hillside all those spots from yesterday will blow up. He called it right, several crews had to run a mile or more uphill with the fire on their tails. The stragglers almost didn’t make it. I was a rookie back then, and I learned a valuable lesson that saved OUR lives later. I say this because everybody on fire needs to think for themselves. Call out bad decisions and discuss it among the crew. I’m not afraid to speak in the face of adversity. It saves lives.
Edited · 2Hide · Jul 21
William M. Riggles
Tammy Clow-Kennedy My audience hopefully are the people who work in wildland fire.
1Hide · Jul 21
Elizabeth Shaffer
You worthless piece of shit. Go fuck yourself william …
Hide · Jul 21
Brendan Mcdonough
William M. Riggles the Statement refers to a different fire. Also I don’t see that you were apart of the research team who investigated the Yarnell hill fire. Even if you did read the investigation there was factual information left out of the investigation because of time restraints on finishing. There is a radio transmission asking my brothers to get to Yarnell and to even speed it up was left out of the investigation and no one will admit to asking them to do so. What about the fact my brothers were told by multiple resources that they had an hour plus before the fire would hit the north end of town? When it burned through the entire north end and south end within 15 mins or so. Get your facts straight before you open your mouth about dead men who can’t defend themselves. I want people to learn about the tragedy but you have provided no true research beyond what you are told. I mean no disrespect but talk to someone who is truly still investigating the fire and finding new information about it daily.
Edited · 12Hide · Jul 21
William M. Riggles
Thanks for the personal response Brendan. I did assume the overhead requested the crew to go to Yarnell. I also heard there was a transmission requesting the crew. I have followed this closely. From the last photo the crew took, I can tell a lot about the weather affecting your fire. They don’t teach this stuff anymore.
…And in reward for Mr. Riggles solid safety viewpoint he was presented with the 100% classy advice to go fuck himself. Lovely.
Hey Mr Riggo: Keep the message alive. I was presented with something eerily similar to what you describe just a couple of months ago. Ordered to hike my crew down a drainage to cut line with fire below coming into the peak of the burn cycle. My answer? Ummm.No. I filed a complaint on that one.
Woodland
Reply to Woodsman post on July 28, 2017 at 3:09 pm
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> Here is a portion of the ( Brendan McDonough Facebook ) discussion:…
Brendan says a LOT of interesting things there, in just a few short paragraphs.
One of the most interesting is THIS…
Brendan McDonough said…
…a plane sent by someone on the team to go check on my brothers and report back, they didn’t do it, so they timed out and didn’t even pass on the information to the incoming plane to what needed to be done.
Brendan is obviously referring to the ongoing ‘mystery’ of whether or not the aircraft designated ‘Bravo 33’ ( Occupants: Thomas French, John Burfiend and trainee Clint Cross ) ever actually did stop and do a ‘safety check’ on Granite Mountain that afternoon… when all the shit was hitting the fan.
OPS1 Todd Abel testified that he did, in fact, ASK ‘Bravo 33’ to ‘fly down and check on Granite Mountain’… and Abel also testified that they DID, in fact, do that and reported back to him that GM was ‘in the safe black’.
But Thomas French and John Burfiend ‘testified’ ( to the SAIT ) that it was the exact opposite.
THEY ‘testified’ that they, themselves ( on their own ) had heard about some ground headed to a ‘safety zone’… and that it was THEIR idea to do a ‘full stop’ on the Air Operations and fly down to check on this ‘crew’.
THEY testified that THEY are the ones who then asked OPS1 Todd Abel if he wanted them to fly down and do this ‘safety check’… but that it was OPS1 Todd Abel who ‘shut them down’ and said it wasn’t necessary since the ‘crew’ in question was ‘Granite Mountain’ and they were already in the ‘safe black’.
BOTH of those ‘versions’ of what happened cannot both be TRUE.
Someone is ( and always has been ) LYING about just this one important ‘event’ from the afternoon of June 30, 2013.
I believe that proves Brendan has, in fact, been ‘keeping up’ with discussions on this IM forum.
It was HERE where that ‘discrepancy’ in the testimonies about this supposed ‘safety check’ were first discussed… and after 2 investigations, 4 books and a movie… I believe this forum is still the ONLY place where the truth about that one event is still even being sought.
Another interesting thing in McDonough’s recent Facebook post…
Brendan McDonough also said…
Let’s look at there decision to go direct. They only went a few hundred yards if that and told the team if we can’t get a helicopter to work with us on this direct edge we don’t feel comfortable going any further. They didn’t get a helicopter so they didn’t go any further.
That appears to be NEW information.
This was NOT reported in any investigation… or in any BOOK… including Brendan’s OWN book…. nor does Brendan appear to have mentioned this little tidbit in any public interview he has given while out doing his ‘book tours’.
There actually IS ‘photographic evidence’ ( including VIDEO evidence ) that Helicopters WERE ‘supporting’ the work that Granite Mountain was doing up there on that ridge.
The incident where the ‘Skycrane Helicopter’ almost crashed into the VLAT that was coming over the ridge is one example.
Blue Ridge Hotshot Brian Frisby’s written testimony about Helicopters working ‘out there’ is another example.
The reason that Skycrane was ‘out west’ there near the ridge is because it WAS making drops in the area where Granite Mountain was working.
The pilot of that ‘Skycrane’ was ( apparently ) NEVER interviewed by ANYONE.
There is also no evidence in the public record of this ‘request for helicopter support’ that Brendan ( only now? ) appears to be saying came from Granite Mountain.
No member of the ‘team’ ( fire command? ) that Brendan seems to be referring to ever testified to receiving any such ‘request’ from Granite Mountain that day.
Brendan continues to give the impression of what many have suspected for so long now.
That even now… he does, in fact, ‘know more’ than he is willing to say about things that happened that day.
Typo above.
I left the word ‘crew’ out of a sentence.
Paragraph above should have read like this…
————————————————————————
THEY ( Thomas French and John Burfiend ) ‘testified’ that they, themselves ( on their own ) had heard about some GROUND CREW headed to a ‘safety zone’… and that it was THEIR idea to do a ‘full stop’ on the Air Operations and fly down to check on this ‘crew’.
————————————————————————-
Wtktt,
…and if memory serves, didn’t Bravo33 ask ops if ‘we need to take a time-out’ during this supposed crew ‘welfare check?’
Reply to Woodsman post on July 28, 2017 at 7:43 pm
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> …and if memory serves, didn’t Bravo33 ask ops
>> if ‘we need to take a time-out’ during this
>> supposed crew ‘welfare check?’
Yes.
Here is the exact testimony from the SAIT’s own ‘interview’ with ‘Bravo 33’…
From PDF page 15 ( of 60 pages ) in the SAIT ‘Yarnell Investigation Notes’…
——————————————————-
I heard something about a crew being in a safety zone. I called ops ( Todd Abel ) and asked “do we STOP and go look for the crew?” Ops said “no, they are safe, it’s Granite Mountain”. I didn’t know that Blue Ridge was there until we were home watching the news.
——————————————————–
So yea… according to French and Burfiend… they WERE perfectly ready to call a ‘time-out’ in the Air Support operations just to fly down and make SURE that Granite Mountain was OK and staying ‘in the safe black’.
Now compare that with OPS1 Todd Abel’s own ‘recollection’ of the same event… ( from PDF page 40 of Abel’s interview with the ADOSH investigators )…
——————————————————–
I then jump on the radio, uh, on air to ground with Bravo 33 and, uh, asked John Burfiend… I said hey… when you get a chance… I need you to run down to the south end…. I need you to run down, uh, south and check on Granite – Division Alpha and Granite Mountain and Blue Ridge.
He said “copy that”.
So then John made a run down there, everybody looked good, the were in the black… no, you know ev- no issues, no nothing. So everybody was good.
——————————————————–
So someone has always been LYING about this.
My money on the REAL story would be the way Thomas French and John Burfiend tell it… and here are just a few reasons why…
1. Notice that French and Burfiend say they had no idea that the Blue Ridge Hotshots were even AT the Yarnell Hill Fire until they heard it later on television…. but also notice that OPS1 Todd Abel testified that ‘checking on the Blue Ridge Hotshots’ was PART of the ‘request’ he supposedly made of French and Burfiend. If that ‘request’ really had been made… then French and Burfiend WOULD have been ‘aware’ ( at the moment ) that the ‘Blue Ridge Hotshots’ WERE on the south side of the fire.
2. If French and Burfiend really did do a ‘timeout’ and go and check on Granite Mountain, Division Alpha, and the Blue Ridge Hotshots… you would think there would be some ‘evidence’ of that somewhere in the Air-To-Air radio channel traffic.
There is NOTHING… and we DO have an absolute ‘contiguous’ A2A radio channel recording covering this entire timeframe.
There is absolutely NO A2A radio traffic to indicate that ‘Bravo 33’ ever took ANY kind of ‘timeout’ to go and do any kind of ‘welfare check’ on anyone that afternoon.
So that tends to also support French and Burfiend’s side of the story.
They probably did OFFER to take such a ‘timeout’ and go do the ‘welfare check’… but the reason there is no A2A radio traffic to indicate they ever did such a thing… is because OPS1 Todd Abel really did ‘call them off’ and tell them it wasn’t necessary… so it never happened.
The ADOSH investigators were allowed to interview OPS1 Todd Abel… but they were never allowed to interview Thomas French, John Burfiend or Clint Cross ( the occupants of ‘Bravo 33’ ).
In other words, McDonough believes Bravo33 neglected to check on GM when instructed to & abandoned them by not passing on the task to the incoming aircraft while preponderance of evidence suggests that they had every intention to do just that when they heard of a crew moving to a safety zone, but did not due to a ground supervisor instructing them it was not necessary. If this is true, why was the task offered by the aircraft to check on the crew turned down?
Gee…if we just had a known copy of the A2G radio traffic we could clear this up toot sweet. Too bad something like an air-study research project wasn’t taking place on this fire that day. Oh, wait…
Woodsman and WTKTT,
Good discussion, thanks.
“Gee…if we just had a known copy of the A2G radio traffic we could clear this up toot sweet. Too bad something like an air-study research project wasn’t taking place on this fire that day. Oh, wait…”
That is correct, just wait, I am working on it.
Germane to the discussion, here are some of my favorite McDonough Facebook posts and responses.
“You talk about the weather event, what about the fact that there was two weather events that day and people have said they didn’t get that relayed information.”
Really? The GMHS had the best vantage point of anyone on the entire YH Fire, save Air Attack. It is safe to say that they could clearly SEE the weather coming in and they also acknowledged the weather updates, i.e. “the relayed information.” What about the People have said …”. What people, who said…?
“Does no one get held accountable for those trigger points and time frames that changed so drastically and weren’t calculated for properly?”
Correct, No one gets held accountable for those trigger points and time frames that changed so drastically and weren’t calculated for properly” because that is each Resource’s responsibility to do that.
GTS “Weather forecasts and the law” and this is what you get.
18 U.S. Code § 2074 – False weather reports
Current through Pub. L. 114-38.
“Whoever knowingly issues or publishes any counterfeit weather forecast or warning of weather conditions falsely representing such forecast or warning to have been issued or published by the Weather Bureau, United States Signal Service, or other branch of the Government service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ninety days, or both.
(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 795; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(G), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)”
Clearly, the NWS “time frames” (forecast) were based on their best professional judgement of the changing weather, i.e. the intense outflow winds. The trigger points set by Operations were also based on their best professional judgement of the changing weather which changes fire behavior, basic S-190.
Also, McDonough spouts: “Oh ya I forget the fact they switched teams mid also,”
Okay, so what? The basic WFF Rules still apply no matter who is in charge of the fire. Each Resource Boss is ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of those they supervise. Period!
“They talk about not knowing where there safety zone was.”
So what again. That was the GMHS responsibility to do that based on the Basic WFF Rules, i.e. Fire Order Number 7 – maintain prompt communications with your supervisor …” and LCES. They chose NOT to do that based on their habit of not wanting the Overhead to know their intentions, etc.
We can do this all day, who ultimately made the decision my crew but I dare you and others to ask why, why did they make that decision.
“Because they were asked too and told they had enough time and weren’t properly informed.”
Really? They were asked to? Once again, the Basic WFF Rules applied here. Each Resource Boss is ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of those they supervise. Period!
“William M. Riggles the Statement refers to a different fire.”
So what, he is making a point about following the Basic WFF Rules and how they work, every time.
“Also I don’t see that you were apart of the research team who investigated the Yarnell hill fire.”
Correct because they do not want those like William Riggles on the investigation teams. The SAIT was comprised of those that would toe the Party Line and conclude that there was “no indication of negligence, reckless actions, or violations of policy or protocol.” In other words, they did everything correctly and 19 WFF died in one fell swoop. That is impossible!
The SAIT ensured that they would first establish a conclusion (see above) and find the “facts” to fit that conclusion. Classic from as far back as the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire.
“Even if you did read the investigation there was factual information left out of the investigation because of time restraints on finishing.”
Factual information left out, are you kidding me? Yes, indeed, there was all kinds of “factual information” left out of the SAIR and not just because of “time restraints on finishing.” See above.
“There is a radio transmission asking my brothers to get to Yarnell and to even speed it up was left out of the investigation and no one will admit to asking them to do so.”
Yes, there was that radio transmission and it does not matter who said that. See above – Each Resource Boss is ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of those they supervise. Period!
“What about the fact my brothers were told by multiple resources that they had an hour plus before the fire would hit the north end of town? ”
What about it? See above. They had the best vantage point of anyone on the YH Fire, save AA. Plus, following the Basic WFF Rules and the fact that each Resource Boss is ultimately responsible for the safety and welfare of those they supervise. Period!
“When it burned through the entire north end and south end within 15 mins or so.”
That is correct and the GMHS saw all of that transpiring before their very eyes, their professional, experienced eyes. Moreover, Captain Steed was insisting that they could not or would not make it to the BSR as demanded by DIVS Marsh. In addition, there is the informative NIFC training poster titled “Only Minutes – Blowup to Burnover” which indicates that the GMHS had an entire 52 minutes to make a good sound decision and they fatally failed becaue of all the time the GMHS Overhead were having a power struggle over their Crew Net radio (which MANY WFF heard and have record of).
https://www.nifc.gov/wfstar/modules/FireEnviro/burnovers2014/Minutes.jpg
“Get your facts straight before you open your mouth about dead men who can’t defend themselves.”
On the contrary, William Riggles does have his facts straight. it is McDonough that does NOT have his “facts” straight.
Unfortunately and very predictably, those men are dead and cannot defend themselves BECAUSE they repeatedly failed to follow the Basic WFF Rules like so many others, especially those on the YH Fire that day and countless other wildland fires every fire season.
“I want people to learn about the tragedy but you have provided no true research beyond what you are told.”
If McDonough wants us “to learn about the tragedy” then maybe it would be wise for him to stop lying and start telling us the truth about what he heard that day on the GMHS Crew net and other GMHS discussions that led up to their fatalities.
I, addition, I think William Riggles is using his past wildland fire training and experiences to come to the conclusions he openly points out, to the chagrin of SOOOO many that have no clue of what they are talking about, purely based on emotions and “what they are told.” It’s time to set your fawning, obsequious, and worshiping public straight McDonough.
“I mean no disrespect but talk to someone who is truly still investigating the fire and finding new information about it daily.”
There are those of us that are doing just that McDonough.
https://www.courthousenews.com/firefighter-demands-info-on-yarnell-hill-fire-disaster/
Go the the BLUE word “sued” in the second line which is the link to the actual lawsuit.
I inadvertently skipped one:
“We can do this all day, who ultimately made the decision my crew but I dare you and others to ask why, why did they make that decision.”
Yes, correct, the GMHS ultimately made the decision to abandon their perfectly good Safety Zone at the worst possible time.
Do this all day? Are you kidding me, McDonough has been doing this all day for several years now, since June 30, 2013. It’s SOOO much easier to blame it all on the weather, the various IMT’s and/or overhead, whatever, rather than buck up and admit the truth.
And that includes the REAL reason that you were elected to be the GMHS Lookout that fatal day. Do you suppose it had anything to do with you being the most hung over and sick from it that day?
You dare us, really? Here goes – WHY did they make that fatal decision?
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on July 29, 2017 at 11:48 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Woodsman and WTKTT,
>>
>> Good discussion, thanks.
And a good ‘breakdown’ of McDonough’s ‘comments’ yourself… thank you.
It really is quite astounding… the things that lone GM survivor Brendan McDonough has just spewed out publicly on Facebook.
Yes… there is just ONE sentence where he admits that his ‘crew’ made the ultimate fatal decisions(s) all on their own…
…but mostly he is still just playing the ‘deflection’ game and making a case that it was simply mis-information from OTHERS that caused his crewmates to burn to death on June 30, 2013.
That being said… this litany of “Hey… what about THIS….” and the ‘mysteries’ that still abound about what really happened that day is mostly accurate.
In other words… McDonough HAS been paying attention to ( as he himself might say ) what ‘others’ still refer to as “conspiracy theories”.
In that regard… he just proved he’s a pretty well-informed “conspiracy theorist” himself ( and he believes many of the ‘theories’ that are still on the table ).
What fascinates me about his latest spew is what appears to be NEW INFORMATION that is only now coming out…
…such as his claim now that the reason GM stopped building line after just 100 yards is because they DECIDED to ‘stop’ because neither their acting Sup ( Steed ) or their in-field Division Supervisor ( Marsh ) could arrange for ( specifically ) ‘Helicopter Support’ out there where they were building line.
I am still checking all the available testimony and records ( including Brendan’s )… but so far there is absolutely NO EVIDENCE to back up this ‘new’ claim being made by McDonough.
On the contrary… in some of McDonough’s own statements in his own ( TWO ) interviews with ADOSH investigators… it is Brendan himself who makes several references to the ‘Helicopters’ that WERE ‘out there’ making drops near where GM was building line.
But let’s say this NEW information from Brendan about GM actually DECIDING to ‘stop building line’ circa 1:30 PM ( which is when they reached their farthest poiint, had lunch there, and decided to go no further ) is actually TRUE.
That begs the NEW question…
“If they DECIDED to stop building any line or making any progress on their assignment as early as 1:30 PM that day ( for whatever the real reason turns out to be )…. then why the fuck didn’t they just COME DOWN?
It was Air Attack ‘Bravo 3’ ( Warbis and Lenmark ) who thought ( circa that same 1:30 PM timeframe ) that GM was ( by then ) ‘out of the game’ and just ‘staged’ out there doing nothing and ‘waiting for a new assignment’.
And it was Air Attack Rory Collins who testified… (quote) “They had plenty of time to make it back to their buggies that afternoon”.
The ‘timeframe’ between 12:30 PM ( when Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown left that first face-to-face meeting with Marsh and Steed out on the ridge ) and 4:00 PM ( when they finally DID ‘abandon their assignment’ and leave the safe black ) has really never been fully ‘investigated’ at all.
There are almost FOUR HOURS there where very little is known about what Granite Mountain and/or Division Alpha Eric Marsh were actually DOING ‘out there’.
If they DECIDED to ‘stop working’ as early as 1:30 PM… then what were they doing for the next several HOURS.
Just ‘sandbagging’ it and making overtime and waiting for ‘end of shift’?
If they KNEW ( as early as 1:30 PM, now, according to Brendan McDonough ) that they weren’t even going to TRY and make any progress with their ‘assignment’ from that morning… then why didn’t they COME DOWN?
More later.
Busy day here but wanted to CONFIRM one thing…Yes you could see the weather and feel it…and smell it.. Yes we all up there had a great vantage point except from some spotty fires hidden by ridges. Yes Blue Ridge has more to share…yes I have spent a lot of money trying to get aerial data and yes I have been IGNORED 100% There so Yes I hope RTS gets the data or someone because I was invited to a private event awhile back and do you know WHY I never went because I would hate to waste the funds and time to get there with that loved one to have a widow say she being me is not welcome here and she gets what she wants so I have really curved a lot of areas when someone wanted me to go because HN says she is at peace with me but I still curved a lot of areas to avoid the bullshit….so yes I hope Donut takes it serious and shares more because the people in private who know him who call me have grown tired as well and want the kid to finally open up but there was the book ride then the movie so in due time…
WTKTT,
You posted: “… If they DECIDED to ‘stop working’ as early as 1:30 PM… then what were they doing for the next several HOURS.”
Revisiting two of the other classic “lunch spot” fires – 1994 South Canyon Fire (CO) and the 2002 30-Mile Fire (WA), may give at least some explanation of WHY fatalities occurred on these fires. I contend that it was as if time stood still for them, as if they were in some kind of suspended animation or stupor.
Regarding the YH Fire, what the hikers Sonny “Tex” Gilligan and Joy Collura observed early that morning is insightful. (“What I saw was a group of men [who] were totally spent. They looked like they were tired. They weren’t somebody you would want to fight a fire,” Gilligan says. “They needed rest.” ). As you ell know, conclusions drawn from the GMHS Toxicology Reports .embedded within the Autopsy Reports. provides good insight as to the GMHS condition that morning and by extension, that day.
In addition, there was the ongoing “discussing our options” GMHS Crew Net radio conversation heard by anyone within range that was privy to anyone that was in range and had the GMHS Crew net frequency.
During this time, it was fairly evident that there was a bit of a power struggle between DIVS A Marsh and GMHS Acting Supt. Steed.
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
According to the above article: “In the radio call, Marsh told Steed to leave the “black,” which was safe, and join him at the ranch. Steed protested, saying such a move would be dangerous. The radio exchange turned into a dispute.”
“”My understanding of the argument between Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed … was that Steed did not want to go down,” Paladini said.”
“According to Paladini’s account, Steed objected until Marsh gave him a direct order to descend.”
“As the back-and-forth conversation continued, it became apparent that Steed, a U.S. Marine veteran, consented to the command to relocate the team. But he told Marsh he thought it was a bad idea.”
“During one of the final radio transmissions, according to the account, Steed told Marsh the crew was not going to make it.”
I allege that Steed, using Mitigated Speech, in deference to authority based on his Marine Corps training and experience, conceded to Marsh’s unsafe command and decision and took his men off the hill. And the GMHS influenced by Groupthink all followed him to their deaths.
The Mitigated Speech issue is classic, derived from Human Factors researcher Malcolm Gladwell in ‘Outliers.’
“Mitigated Speech: The chapter “The Ethnic Theory of Plane Crashes” describes the central role mitigated speech (the ways in which we soften the meaning of what we’re saying…for example, when your boss says, “We should probably rewrite this report,” it’s mitigated speech meaning, “Rewrite this report, now”) plays in cockpit conversations just before a plane crashes. Gladwell reviews transcripts from black box recordings to show how mitigated speech gets in the way of the clear and direct communication that needs to happen in desperate situations.”
Regarding making decisions under distractions and stress, “John Hopkins University researchers found, “By narrowing attention, … attention shifts from vision to audition caused increased activity in auditory cortex and decreased activity in visual cortex and vice versa, reflecting the effects of attention on sensory representations.” The experiment was designed to create tunnel vision, but a completely unexpected event occurred. While vision was being tunneled, performance of the audible control center decreased” [17]. The researchers further found that tunneled vision leads to diminished hearing. Tunneled hearing led to diminished vision. The researchers concluded that a person intently listening to audible cues, like a radio or cell phone, could have diminished visual performance. In some cases, when the stress is severe enough, the hearing receptors in the brain may shut off completely, referred to as auditory exclusion [17]. This clearly relates to wildland firefighting.”
“Thus, the GMHS would primarily “see” the weather and fire behavior that they were focused on, however, their own brains may have sabotaged or delayed their ability to perceive and react to threats from those recognized hazards or even from the focus they were directing their attention to, typical of all humans engaged in this type of encounter. Numerous cell phone and radio conversations occurred during the YH Fire, likely distracting them from truly ‘seeing’ the emerging weather and fire behavior hazards and reevaluating priorities contributing to their steady drift into failure. The firefighters were aware of the forecast weather that morning; the risk factor was high enough to make them think twice, but they deferred to their own judgment, unknowingly falling victim to distractions. The weather forecast warned of considerable thunderstorm outflow wind danger, but the GMHS seemingly discounted those warnings, and left their Safety Zone at the worst possible time. Arizona is well known for its dynamic, sometimes tragic large fires; late June is considered extremely hazardous, i.e. the Dude Fire (1990) when 6 WFF died, where severe outflow winds also set the stage for potential deathtraps, and where harsh Human Failure also won out.”
Source: Epic Human Failure on June 30, 2013 – 8th International AHFE Conference
It was down probably same time editing was happening rts
and you know what as well Donut…
some called me up bewildered by you recently standing with God on your public figure facebook page…I had to print it before it was edited out.
yet you know even there is an area of the movie that is not facts yet you do not have the courage to even tell the director—
that’s a mislead to the world.
hmmm?????
you just allow it to be labelled “that’s Hollywood”…looks cool.
When you get a hospital bill as hefty as I did and been paying it since 2009 slowly…you will know all too well the aftermath of the wild and how it affects ya…
your body and your pocket…I was really disturbed you would allow that to happen in the film but hell who am I…
NOBODY
I will continue to be nobody as I continue to sharpen my skills and keep training to be able to utilize the sources of information and subsequent an analysis that is pure and real and raw.
I am still ashamed Cordes ever took any accolades in reference to YHF.
I know Tarr and True had a very tough spot on that 6.30.13 yet what a shame as they go to any other fire after YHF and look out on mountain tops and do they even connect the dots…what;s really happening…
all these hotshots who brotherhood the data that Marsh was at the ranch—are you relying that information based on the EMDL? there is no actual proof that exists just voices chattering thru the brotherhood…some article out with no actual tangible source in article…yet the only thing I ever saw was a widow shared her husband went back…back from??? so really there is no source…that is like me talking about incidents within an incident within an incident….do you know one incident you could not even get it from any autopsies results…I would love for one day to go over with both True and Tarr in person the data I have and they share a few answers to my questions- just a few.
Marsh’s final hours have not been pushed forward and when it does I know alot will have to let go of the pre-judgement and knock off the bullshit narratives,,,,
it’s a bullshit.
How many brotherhood doors closed 6.30.13? how many bought into the narratives?
I would think it has to be TERRIBLE to learn and teach young men and women today…to improve and be better when people in the industry hide and omit because you are worried of some damn lawsuit….before this is all over…karma will happen.
I know RTS…live and breathe the 10 and 18 and LCES yet this a separate section-
let me dragon breath it out-
I bet there is many in leadership positions who can’t wait to get out of the business…when you use to love it. It’s a joke people.
RTS…the lies lay in areas within the industry and sure Donut lacks the comprehension he should of spoke up 6.30.13 or soon after even it was to time stamp a personal video to self BEFORE everyone got in his ears with ideologies and bullshit…or on correcting the wrong(s) on the movie about him.
Tell me what is there to be proud of if you are a current leader in the industry- if you work in an industry with management who seem to have hard time being true and honest?? You have fine men who perish yet they only look at the fact of the men Steed and Marsh and their decisions yet let’s be blinded to the big picture here people….
Wildland Firefighting. Structural Firefighting…Hybrids…CalFire…etc and what the hell are white trucks with logos reading fire remediation doing on the fire lines during an active fire not the aftermath? wtf?
How long do we have to live in agony before one of you finally get a set— and speak up?
Actually it does not matter how enormous they are…don’t matter the power you have…if you were ON the YHF and you actually would rather me a NOBODY to share…vs YOU????
Shit, now due to some of the loved ones (and I say some)…we get a super-fantastic bitchin’ HOTSHOT movie coming out that will serve to seduce multitudes of young men and women into donning greens and yellows in quest for glory… with NO TRUTHS of the real dangers of man’s hubris against natural force of wildfire…More will die.
More parents and widows and lonely lost children heartbroken-
can we finally make a change?
I changed today. I did take a risk. I had a spark happen that took my dusty bible and made my life pretty darn rusty…I assessed the risks too. I THOUGHT it out but in the end…on the line I was another person entirely- or was I? Did I emancipate earlier…
it felt liberating—felt like a life long new path—and well it really feels terrific!
Anyways- enough rambling…just speak up…the money train you got rolling is a train wreck in the waiting…
thank you for today sir-
really.
learned alot about life and about risks.
I ask the director right here right now what healing can come from your end of the movie…you want to honor the 19 then you do not end a movie in tragedy but give the world 🌎 and the men a better ending and my photo best represents because it shows the men coming Home…ending your movie in tragedy is yet another tragedy…I hope you add in more photos or footage of the men coming home…that is the right thing to do especially when this movie plans to profit and probably gain accolades too.
Fred and Provencio- take in person time to visit me and we may have to meet near Montana to go to the core but I think its time you knew an area maybe you are or are not yet familiar with…sorry for the recent Montana death of a f2f…prayers to the families…
Joy,
Do you think that marsh was not at the BSR but possibly behind the men in an effort to push them forward?
Joy,
Do you think that marsh was not at the BSR but possibly behind the men in an effort to push them forward?
Due to the sensitivity of the matter- for you I can share off here the documents of not what I feel but what is known- I will not answer that question public until I have 4 more interviews to make the proper assessment versus others perceptions- sound good. Not all the data is in to properly make that assessment on or off line. That was why I was floored others have spoken that he was at the ranch-
I was floored they mentioned the ranch with no public source- put it that way
Our lives don’t matter
Its what be leave behind
reason I do not belong to anything and have no problem being a nobody-
Its not to ourselves
But the future we give Glory
so yes you “edited” Donut- got that- well noted but if you say it right first time around no need to edit is my thinking…no need to go back and shift and omit words…there is no audience really in this life…but all we can do is take the risks…I did yesterday with well thought I would second guess my decision after and I had not—I really can see the whole picture why and how and left thinking…hmmm…wow…alrighty then…
I know the Doce fire from all the interviews and foias I personally have done and could you tell the world on your facebook page that rattlesnake moment…it would be great to hear about it…I would really love to know because as the desert walker I am always running into them here in the Rattler capital in Congress…Sonny has had an abundance on his property this Summer and just today his dog “Lucky” saved Sonny’s life with his special bark as a mojave almost got him…so it is a good topic for you to share on…how did it feel and what came of it?
Reply to Gary Olson post on July 25, 2017 at 9:24 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> And I think without trying to, the movie trailer actually captures
>> the underlying and in my opinion, the primary reason the crew died.
>> They were trying to take the fuckin’ fire head on and save “a” town,
>> as opposed to what my old friends Bob and his brother Bob would have
>> done. Fold our gloves in half for a cushion on our hardhats that we
>> are using as a pillow and kick back and watch Mother Nature’s grand show.
You may be exactly right.
Especially about the “without trying” part.
Everyone involved with making this “fillum” might THINK they have cranked out some kind of “Tribute to Hotshots” film, but in the end ( after the credits roll ) a lot of people who don’t even know anything about what REALLY happened in Yarnell might be leaving the theaters shaking their heads and saying to themselves…
“What a bunch of dumbshit yahoos”.
If they really have taken the “let’s take the fire head-on with nothing but hand tools” crap too far… I hope the actual WFC ( Wildland Firefighting Community ) as a whole officialy REJECTS this “fillum”.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> Oh… and one more thing. I really agree with WTKTT that the movie title
>> really sucks. How about we start a contest to see who can come up
>> with the best title.
I think it’s too late for that.
I just saw the new movie “Dunkirk” and this recently released “Only the Brave” fillum trailer, complete with Josh Brolin ( Eric Marsh ) talking to some cloud of smoke and asking “You wanna PIECE of me????”, was actually shown on the ‘big screen’ just before the main feature ( Dunkirk ) started.
So I guess that YouTube release of the trailer wasn’t just some kind of ‘test flight’ for the “Only the Brave” title choice, to see what a an initial public ‘reaction’ might be.
I guess they really are “going with it”.
It would be highly unusual for any Studio to change the name of a film AFTER they have already started showing the ‘official trailer’ in the actual movie theaters.
That’s too bad.
I still think it’s a VERY poor choice.
There was nothing wrong with calling the film “Granite Mountain”, as they decided to do after rejecting the FIRST title of “No Exit”.
It’s a shame the people involved didn’t have the backbone to just go with their original already thought-out choice of “Granite Mountain”.
That IS what the film is about… and if someone was going to make this ‘tribute’ movie about this crew… then the ‘crew’ deserved not to have it end up with a title that becomes just a ‘footnote’ about it being the FOURTH TIME that title has been ‘reused’.
That’s right… the FOURTH time ( not just the THIRD time ).
Turns out there was yet ANOTHER movie named “Only The Brave” released in 1930, and it starred Gary Cooper… and the ‘footnotes’ about this title being ‘reused’ yet again are already online at public sites like Wikipedia.
So the 1994 “Only the Brave” movie that was about the PYROMANIAC who ends up forcing her friends and family to watch her burn herself to death wasn’t the FIRST use of this “Only the Brave” thing. It was the SECOND ‘reboot’ of that movie title.
Here is the Wikipedia page already ‘updated’ with ‘footnotes’ that this 2017 movie entitled “Only the Brave” is the FOURTH TIME that title has been used for a ‘fillum’…
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_the_Brave&prev=search
And here is the IMDB page for the 1930 “Only the Brave” movie starring Gary Cooper, Mary Brian and Phillips Holmes.
** “Only The Brave” – 1930
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021219/
Plot…
——————————————————
The film is about a Union Army captain who travels into Confederate territory as a spy with false dispatches hoping to mislead the Confederate forces. His mission is complicated when he falls in love with a southern woman who comes to his aid.
——————————————————
So that means TWO of the FOUR movies named “Only the Brave” are ‘war movies’… and it;s just the OTHER TWO that are BOTH about people burning to death.
I agree with WTKTT and Joy that the scenes from the trailer that include the people running down the street, the crew standing in front of the Alligator Juniper and the radio transmission from Marsh saying they are going to meet the fire head on and save their town are probably from either the Doce Fire 0r a reasonable facsimile.
Which is what I thought when I wrote my insightful review of said trailer. However, I was trying not to get down into the weeds…but WTF, we have come this far. So….
I am going to bring out two theories that have been put forward on this thread over the past few YEARS (and Sonny is still with us….Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition). The first theory is courtesy of Robert the Second otherwise known as Bob and states that Marsh had a history of piss poor prior bad decisions with good outcomes, so he got in the habit of sucking eggs (this homespun analogy refers to farm dogs who get in the bad habit of suckin’ eggs laid by the chickens and therefore they are egg suckin’ dogs). I think we can all agree that usually the more people get away with pushing the envelope, the more they keep doing it…until they finally cross the line. So…I think even though the radio transmission in the trailer isn’t associated with the Yarnell Hill Fire…the attitude very much is. And it took the Yarnell Hill Fire to break Marsh of suckin’ eggs…in a very final way at the cost of the lives of his crew.
The second theory is an amalgamation of several contributors, I think…but I have lost track. And this theory states that since Marsh and his crew had such good luck being the heroes of Prescott for saving the old juniper tree and they got really great press from the Doce Fire in general, it was not only intoxicating, in the end it proved to be deadly.
And this was because they were under the gun from the pencil neck geeks MF’s who were fiddling with the City of Prescott’s budget shortfall who were looking to ax the crew because they could not submit enough falsifies expense vouchers and reimbursable invoices to make the crew “revenue neutral”,
Therefore, they were looking to cut the Wildlands Fire Division entirely and that stupid fuck Willis had put Marsh on notice that all of their jobs were on the line. So…I think Marsh pulled out all of the stops and all of these factors in addition to the chip on shoulder and his insatiable ego made him overrule Captain Steed three (3) times and order his crew to their deaths in an attempt to at least “look good” while trying to save the shit hole (sorry about that, I guess I am still a little bitter…and angry) known as Yarneli in order to generate some bitchin’ press and save their jobs.
And I think without trying to, the movie trailer actually captures the underlying and in my opinion, the primary reason the crew died. They were trying to take the fuckin’ fire head on and save “a” town, as opposed to what my old friends Bob and his brother Bob would have done. Fold our gloves in half for a cushion on our hardhats that we are using as a pillow and kick back and watch Mother Nature’s grand show.
Which in this particular case, was a firestorm of Biblical proportions while the BTU’s stored in that collection of sheet rock and plywood and other miscellaneous energy stored in the fuel bed of trees with doors and windows known as Yarnell was released by the Yarnell Hill Fire. Although once the firestorm passed, I would have moved in with my crew to help clean up the mess and look for survivors. I’m not callous…I’m just pragmatic. So…
Oh…and one more thing. I really agree with WTKTT that the movie title really sucks. How about we start a contest to see who can come up with the best title. After all…we all want the movie to do well don’t we? This movie is going to celebrate the well spent lives of the hotshots who toiled for decades in obscurity in the shadow of the candy ass smoke jumpers. The hotshots….the best of the best who are the real heroes of the big campaign or “project” fires.
So…here are my picks;
“Descent Into Hell”
“Into the Valley of Death”
“Firestorm From Hell” or just “Firestorm” if you are into the whole brevity thing (“The Big Lebowski”)
“Fire On The Mountain”
“Wildfire”
“Oh Shit…Oh Dear!”
“Fuck Me Silly & Call Me Sally”
And my personal favorite, “WTF…OVER!”
Okay….I have really enjoyed the quality time I have spent with you over the past few days, but the gentle breeze passing over the red rocks of Moab is whispering my name…I must go.
And btw…it is going to hotter than hell down there…so wish me luck. Never mind, I don’t need luck…cause I am so damn good (Yep…still got it, I can talk the talk even if I can’t walk the walk). Ciao!
How about FUBAR
Since you said it was more marine category somewhere below
Or
SUSFU
(situation unchanged: still f@€£ed up)
in much reality…the movie is not going to be about the mistakes or errors or missing data
as much as it will be about these men who were “differently” connected to the fire industry in a whole
and about their living lives…in all I know on the movie so far it really has been kept to show a piece of the industry and these 19-
and how at one time no one really even knew who they were until the saving of an alligator tree on the Doce fire which made news-
and they were the men to family and friends and community (closely knit)
but not the world
and not like it happened…
and I think that has been hard to share a loss so grand to the world for them….
so we all here have to comprehend the tone we get for being here for trying to make sense and bring forth the facts and documents…or frustrations and opinions-
and yet I do not think the people reading us here on IM really comprehend we are human and get frustrated at times especially some of us who have data awaiting for the right ones to speak up…
I try to do the men right especially when one of them put in my head long ago…July 2013 that mind set to do what is right—
and I guess that is why it always goes back to me wondering if one even thinks like that—-“how would you like someone to do that to you?”
yet we all grieve differently and as much as RTS you want to bring forth the word LIES
…this is a kid…
a kid who immediately had the world in his ears whispering then a book deal then a movie deal and he had his own stuff he was dealing with before the fire events
so I hope he does not take the world wanting answers as feeling beaten down because I have met alot of the loved ones RTS who do not feel like some of us but Donut did publicly say what he said on facebook so its natural for us to reply….
and the loved ones want to remember their living lives not them dying or how or why…it’s just too hard- especially when the world and us KEEP on talking and writing about it.
imagine being the family to one of the men as you are draped over the aftermath of that loved one when all along their Spirit was cloaked over the person tightly holding them saying we were all brothers…we are ok now…we all remained…we died warrior angels and forever they the loved ones are still here until God’s time of our time here…you almost feel a pull to Above because the pain is so much—
so the movie title because of their huge warm hearts should be called “warrior angels” for I know they help many of us carry on….vs FUBAR
Their lives want to be remembered that too much is put on Donut when in reality they all knew Donut differently than one another….there is an area as Donut spoke that can offer more…without Donut ever having to be the one and those folks are not kids but “grown ass” men and they should speak up…
and not one man in any meditation has come across that Donut is the answer but he could clear some areas up…and none feel bad for the choices he is making to life…none.
If anything I see warmth and big hearts- some frustrated yet it cores to the city folks so I tried doing my foias to gain clarity there so either I am not getting all the data from the city but there is frustration with areas tied to the city—- there is more to this story beyond anything Donut can offer RTS— he is just a young kid…. now surrounded by people who have labelled this site as a distasteful place to engage—
and people who want to name us haters for we write out our thought process vs giving nice organized views and thoughts and essays-
except AI (wwtktt)…
this is real time and real people here and so as much as I want to know more to what I eye witnessed we have to give Donut the space and time and maybe one day he will share…but yes he does have more data…his book and facebook is not THE END…
I will not tell you how to write because I am the last one to do that who never forms ONE sentence but I just want you to know we do not have to support the man who speaks not but we can pray he one day is able to share more and more…
In 2015 I had something really great happen but it just paused as fast as it happened….
https://youtu.be/IQHH6ImADXo (marker2:49/9:59)
yet I always go back to my favorite poem…because it is so true
no matter if one lives by choice or not I see them because they are always with me…my love has no time or space…just continues on forever…
and I will never ever stop and I will keep listening and looking and remembering long after the days are gone…these men deserve the truths to be known…that is what I will always do…always…
This 2017 I have been shifting out areas that have done my health no good- In it I am more aware
Not aware ENOUGH yet since I still keep DOT DOT DOT and not yet one real sentence and it about drives me batty as it would another “trying” to read it or make sense…
but I get what you meant RTS just wondering how can we do better…because he ain’t the answer—-
Joy, thanks for the heartfelt diatribe.
You posted: “… too much is put on Donut when in reality they all knew Donut differently than one another”
McDonough heaped all this upon himself, he made that choice.
I agree, he is not the answer, however, he has a lot of the answers.
I had to go google the word diatribe…
as you might of seen over time…I am not the “brightest” kid….
(di·a·tribe ˈdīəˌtrīb/ noun
a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something.)
I am not at all being attacking towards you nor bitter but when you said lies…I had to meditate on it and I was sharing maybe there is a better way to reach Donut….he is just a kid and he had concerns before the fire so that was why… I too get frustrated and feel like “come on Donut..”
I deeply apologize if I came off like that especially to you because I have the deepest respect for you the person and you in the industry
( I AM SORRY ) –
I had got a call and you actually know the person I got the call from…and in that call they explained the fact is Donut is a young kid….
Yes, McDonough heaped all this upon himself, he made that choice and he is living through it— in his way—his know how—-
I too agree, he is not the answer, however, he has a lot of the answers. YEP!
again I am sorry and thank you for getting me to google…I would of never guessed that as the definition…
———————————-
Joy, you’re fine, I did not take it personal. And surely you noticed I prefaced it with HEARTFELT so as to soften it for you a bit.
You would HAVE finally figured out what it meant.
One of the main things that irritates me is how McDonough is outright ling and then using the name of Almighty God in his Facebook posts to justify his behavior.
I believe they call that blaspheme.
RTS said “One of the main things that irritates me is how McDonough is outright ling and then using the name of Almighty God in his Facebook posts to justify his behavior.”
I believe they call that blaspheme.
————————
Joy replied:
Actually there is a few in the past week who called me or spoke to me in person who feel the same way who know the kid—-so yes, agreed.
It really makes them upset.
I just told them he is just a kid and they told me come on Joy…you can carry that so long…someone has to let him know…
my husband called and he said you more than likely meant “running on or rambling…as I tend to…without really getting to any point” because the word has a few meanings…well either way I wish Donut will share…
HERE IS LOCALS NEWS:
Mon, Jul 31, 2017 at 5:40 PM
Yarnell Hill Fire Memorial Park®
UPDATE – July 28, 2017
To our neighbors, local businesses and visitors: these updates will be provided as
regularly as possible to keep you in the loop about Progress in the Park.
1. The County inspected and approved the first 8 feet of block and rebar on
July 24.
2. The grout in the first 8 feet of block has been poured.
3. The forms on the first 8 feet of block have been removed except around the
two door frames.
COMING UP:
1. Attach the waterproofing membrane.
2. Remove the barricade supporting the dirt on the East side of the building.
3. Backfill the North, East, and South sides with pea gravel.
4. Install 2 more rows of block.
5. Have County inspect last 2 rows of block installed.
6. Welding work on Observation Deck header.
7. Install “J” bolts for floor joists.
8. Install floor joists, flooring and then waterproof it.
The Park Updates are distributed via email to the distribution lists of Leah
Tidey and Denise Roggio, plus all Bard Members of the weaver Mountains
Chamber of Commerce. It is also posted on Bulletin Boards in Yarnell, Glen
Ilah and Peeples Valley.
If you have questions about the Yarnell Hill Fire Memorial Park, or have skills,
ideas, time, energy or money to contribute – in small or large amounts – we’d
love to hear from you! PLEASE CONTACT
Memorial Committee Chair: Gerald Montgomery
Gerald@[email protected] or 480-694-9767,
Volunteer Coordinator: Linda Ma –
[email protected] or 415-823-3131
Memorial Committee Members (in addition to the above members: Jack Rauh
(Construction Manager), Lew and Marcie Theokas, Julia Dockery, Chuck Tidey
(YHRG Board Liaison), Frances Lechner
There is one FOIA of many that I always felt was odd I never got…but I did get this reply:
Tue, Nov 1, 2016 at 5:05 PM
After review, our attorney has advised that our FOIA fee policy is in conflict with State Statute i.e. there is no differentiation between commercial and non-commercial. We apologize for the mix-up and will be sending you the documents we have responsive to your request at no cost as this was our error. I have asked staff to include the mailing in tomorrows – Wednesdays – mail. As a side note, our policy is being re-written to mirror statute as I type this email.
We will levy fees for future requests in accordance with the State.
My sincerest apologies for our mistake.
————————————–
but never did hear or get anything about THE MAN who was on fire who I feel is ONE of the GROWN MEN who could tell much more than Donut…never did get that data yet…
I also thought about Donut and his age and I thought so why not include the others who were grown ups there….because I do not think he can offer the same clarity as some and my hopes is MacLean’s book touches base on that topic….
Diane Lomas, since being online what can you tell me about what you have learned so far from the missing data on aerial and how would you explain who Cordes and Abel are to me and what was their roles on the afternoon of YHF?
RTS is correct in his consistent claim of responsibility of GMHS yet it’s way more complicated than just that. It really is…
Good to hear Gary Olson again. As for the title,of the movie it would be well served named HOW THE BOSSES CAN KILL A WILDLAND FIRE CREW.
Gary is spot on like usual but nobody cares to hear the truth. If you do not believe it than watch the trailer comments by Sony official trailer on YouTube and how they delete what they want. The cookie cutter honcho lover crowd exists. Brown noser crowd. I don’t want to watch the trailer. The title was enough for me. You can’t fix stupid. Obviously there were some heroes and some bone headed negligent and careless bosses. Death of all those young men should not have been taken so lightly. Those who caused the deaths should be expelled and punished.
I agree with both of your comments Sonny.
So glad that you are still with us!
It has been stated that after Granite Mountain went into their shelters there was no further communication from them other than a keyed mic noise —-was this due to the lack of ability to use radios while in the shelters or something else?
It was alleged that the shelters caused interference, that they may have been trying to transmit but the shelters just caused static..
I have ocean front property here in Arizona Diane
.
..do you really think the story is told yet on Yarnell hill fire
and do you or anyone believe the movie is going to be the true story as Josh Brolin has it on his Instagram?
No.
It would take the collaboration of togetherness and in this tragedy all we saw all around was division…
shit..a man who use to eat with one of the loved ones just kinda vanished after the fire from the forefront in their lives ..here they were grieving a terrible loss and another who was like a son just stops all communications and visits…because you were on the fire…
that man I hope since the fire FINALLY healed and grew close again with the family.
But no … No way can there EVER be a TRUE story unless the loved ones met with everyone and told the story by fact based information not withholding…so this new movie you bet come Oct 22 I will be sharing scene by scene my humble opinions because I do have the foias…and the interviews and I was there for that fire like it or not…
and I know one day RTS will have to say I stand corrected on a topic…and a few others..
the stuff that happens is happening but slowly and justly and rightly behind the scenes and I am not gonna screw it up by saying I got the answer and say it public…
A lot of sweat and alot of choked up tears and years to screw it up because some elementary folks say show me your…
Even as a young lady and the world knows I never did.
I got news…but NOT A DAY goes by that either I or the others are not ON THIS…
The truth Josh Brolin will remain and prevail but not in any made for profit books or movies….but by making the right moves quietly….
in the end you took part in a movie to honor and memorialize the GMHS and that industry and share perceptions of others…of their truth as they saw it…
you quickly jumped on the band wagon last summer to bash John Dougherty. That shows me where your character in life lays. Instead of researching it out.
There is a lot of us me included that never even saw those first articles placed out by John Dougherty until others like you pointed it out. I came around with John right a week before Fall 2013 so when I read it I thought what the fudge…the graphics…the story…whoah…but had he not taken that risk there would be no story…had we not been on that hill ensuring the public of that WHO KNOWS what narrative would of been given…
Gary posted: “Fold our gloves in half for a cushion on our hardhats that we
>> are using as a pillow and kick back and watch Mother Nature’s grand show.”
We called it Letting the Big Dog Eat, You let the fire do it’s thing and THEN you go in and safely engage and pick up the pieces.
** “ONLY THE BRAVE”
**
** THIRD TIME IS THE CHARM?
Regarding this recently released “fillum” trailer…
Where to start?
Oh… I know… regardless of all the hot runny bullshit that is ‘previewed’ in this trailer… how about starting with the ( new ) TITLE for this “fillum”.
This will mark the THIRD TIME a major motion picture has been called “Only The Brave”.
It’s obvious that this ‘name change’ has something to do with the “musical distributors” that has been going on with original producers BlackLabel media throwing “Lionsgate” under the bus and then working a deal with Sony pictures instead ( and now, somehow, Columbia Pictures has jumped into the fray as well )…
Lionsgate were the ones who distributed the previous other two “ain’t it a shame” movies that BlackLabel media has produced recently… which have BOTH almost “lost them their shirts” and have BOTH only barely ‘broken even’.
I’m talking about the BP Oil Spill disaster movie and the Boston Marathon movie.
BOTH of them just barely broke even… and investors treat “breaking even” as bad as LOSING money.
Investors NEVER want to just “break even”. They want to MAKE MONEY.
So for this THIRD “ain’t it a shame” movie coming out of BlackLabel productions… they obviously decided that Lionsgate wasn’t up to the job and so that’s when they dumped them and “shopped it around” to someone who might help them MAKE MONEY and not just BREAK EVEN again.
Enter “Sony Pictures” ( and Columbia Pictures ).
So somewhere in there someone decided that releasing a movie titled simply “Granite Mountain” was going to be the “kiss of death” at the box office and it needed something ‘better’.
That’s fine. That’s their job. Find a way to get more people to go to the movie.
That’s why they make the “big bucks”.
But to pull the “Let’s make money” wagon up to the title “Only The Brave”… when there have already been TWO other movies with that same title?
Really?
And it’s not even the SECOND movie called “Only The Brave” that is the problem.
The SECOND one was the one about the Japanese-American Soldiers who wanted to fight for their country. That IMBD page is here…
** 2006 movie “Only The Brave”
** IMDB page..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410403/
It’s the FIRST “Only The Brave” movie that turns out to be really CREEPY here.
The FIRST major motion picture to have the name “Only The Brave” was released in 1994, and here is what it was actually ABOUT…
Drumroll, please… and hang on to your collective hat(s)…
The FIRST movie named “Only The Brave” was about a girl growing up in a troubled household who finds meaning in her life by becoming a PYROMANIAC.
She is setting shit on fire the whole move… and the climax is when she forces her friends and family to watch her set herself on fire and burn herself to death.
I shit you not.
Here is the IMBD page for that FIRST movie to be named “Only The Brave”…
** 1994 “Only The Brave”
** IMDB page…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110738/
A part of me is ready to believe that instead of this new third-time-around name choice of “Only The Brave” for this Granite Mountain Tribute film just being a total fuck-up on the part of some highly paid person sitting in a cubicle at Sony Pictures… that it might have actually been some kind of sick, cruel JOKE
The Granite Mountain Hotshots ( and their memory ) deserve better than this.
If they go ahead and RELEASE this movie under that “Only The Brave” title… then it will be forever tainted with footnotes about it being the THIRD go-around… and the fact that someone apparently didn’t even know how to use Google.
More ( about this stupid “fillum” trailer ) later.
Followup…
Here is a direct link to the official IMDB SUMMARY page for the very first motion picture to bear the title “Only The Brave”…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110738/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ov_pl
“ONLY THE BRAVE” – 1994 – PLOT SUMMARY
——————————————————————————-
Alex is in love with her best friend, Vicki, her mother has disappeared and she SETS FIRE TO THINGS in her spare time. Vicki comes from an abusive home and wants Alex to run away with her. Alex is a bit of a nerd and a teachers pet, so takes advantage of this by trying to seduce her drippy school teacher. Alex watches as Vicki, unable to escape her terrible home-life and an psychological wreck, sets alight to herself and BURNS TO DEATH
——————————————————————————-
So you do have to wonder…
Is it possible that someone at Sony Pictures who sits in a marketing cubicle making 6 figures really didn’t even know how to use Google?
also I want to share when watching trailer…remember the Doce fire was in their town so when we see trailer…keep in mind they may not be showing the Yarnell situation but their town..the Doce fire…
Reply to Joy A Collura post on July 23, 2017 at 12:18 am
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> also I want to share when watching trailer…remember the Doce fire was in their
>> town so when we see trailer…keep in mind they may not be showing the Yarnell
>> situation but their town..the Doce fire…
Correct.
It’s just a ‘trailer” ( and only the first one, as well. Even ‘trailers’ CHANGE as time goes on ).
There is a lot of “mystery meat” in any “fillum trailer”.
The audio line about “We’re gonna take the fire head on and save our town” might be just some bullshit made-up radio transmission from the part of the movie that covers the Doce Fire, near Prescott, just BEFORE they burned to death at Yarnell.
There also appears to be a scene in the trailer where ( apparently ) Christopher MacKenzie ( actor Taylor Kitsch? ) is physically DRAGGING actor Miles Teller ( Brendan McDonough ) out of some intense burnover situation.
That could just be more happy-horseshit based on the TRUE story of how MacKenzie and McDonough almost burned THEMSELVES to death on the Doce Fire with their ill-planned and ill-executed manual burnout ( as documented in McDonough’s own book ).
Well…after all of our speculation over the past few months and even years about how the movie would approach their presentation of the Yarnell Hill Fire Disaster, it now appears to me from viewing the trailer (thanks for the link Joy) they actually got the primary and overwhelmingly most important question right. And that is “The Why.”
As in…why did the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew hike down into box canyon filled with highly explosive fuel that was a natural chimney in direct violation of almost every wildland firefighting hard and fast rule (the 10) and in addition to every guideline (the 18) and every common sense recommendation (the LCES) that have been painstakingly developed over 100 years at the cost of hundreds of lives?
Which by the way, has impressed me a great deal…and I think I am pretty darn hard to impress at this point of my life when it comes to things I consider myself a subject matter expert on.
So…the trailer both leads and concludes with the answer we have all been pontificating, speculating and questioning for several years now. Of course even the movie trailer doesn’t fill in all of the gaps in our complete understanding of how our unthinkable nightmare became our horrible reality within a few New York minutes, but it’s a very public start.
The movie trailer for, “Only The Brave – The true story of the Granite Mountain Hotshots” begins with Josh Brolin, who is the actor playing Eric Marsh making a very forceful declarative statment in a radio transmission, “We’re going to take the fire head on and save our town.”
Now of course there is a small measure of literary license utilized in this statement, they were in fact in the process of executing a maneuver in an attempt to get into position to take the fire head on to save “a” town (Yarnell) not “their” town (Prescott) but those are minor details.
The salient point is this, the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew were all burned alive (save one sad sack who got lucky…but it is often better to be lucky than good) because they were doing everything they could to take the fire head on to save a town.
And taking wildfires head on is something that wildland firefighters who want to live long enough to grow old just don’t do…ever. According to my research, the Yarnell Hill Fire was generating somewhere north of 12,ooo British Termal Units (BTU’s) per foot, per second of released energy when it hit the crew.
A hand crew…even a hotshot crew, can’t possibly take a fire head on that generating more than 100 BTU’s per foot, per second of fire line intensity. That amounts to experiencing Mother Nature at one of her most fiercest moments. That is when wildland firefighters who don’t have death wishes back off, stand down and show some measure of respect for the grand spectacle God has created unfolding before their very eyes….and that was a firestorm of Biblical proportions.
Other than that folks…it looks like it is going to be one bitchin’ movie and Josh Brolin (I mean…have you seen “No Country For Old Men”) and Jeff Bridges (I mean…have you seen “The Big Lebowski” – The Dude Abides) are two of my favorite actors.
In addition to that…my stock has already gone up, now when I tell people I am a retired elite wildland firefighter…they don’t always say, “Oh…you must have been a smokejumper!” Fuck jumpers and the horses they rode in on, we have our own movie now. Hardly anyone who has even seen “Red Skies Over Montana” are still alive today anyway.
Thanks Eric Marsh…I owe you brother!
Well…I just re read my post and there are even more gramerical errors than I usually make, but I was just too DAM mad when I rote it to care. But….I’m sure you still managed to get my point, the FAMILIES, the Yavapai/Prescott Wildland Firefighting Cosa Nostra (Our Thing) and I finally agree on something. And that is the movie about the deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots looks like it is going to be pretty good, even if you discount the expected obligatory, theatrical, and usual Hollywood enhancements, God Bless America!
The only thing from the trailer that really got to me was when Jeff Bridges (Who is he playing anyway? That stupid fuck Willis or that other Prescott Fire Department jerk off Steinbrink or whatever his name is? I hope to God it isn’t that stupid fuck Willis, just sayin….) says, “…SEAL Team 6 of firefighters…”, which as I have stated before, isn’t true. Hotshots are elite grunts and groundpounders, the best of the best, but they are still “conventional” forces
that are often utilized in large numbers supported by even larger numbers of lesser crews. I don’t think Navy SEALS are used that way from watching the news.
Hotshots are often used as the “Tip of the Spear” and are given the most demanding, challenging, and dangerous assignments where the highest degree of physical conditioning, training, discipline, and determination are required, but their specialty is fighting the “Big Ones” and leaving the little baby fires to the “non conventional” forces, which are the smokejumpers. And once the little baby fires start to grow into monsters, the jumpers pack up their chutes and high tail it back to their lofts to lick their wounds cause they got their candy asses kicked.
So…I think hotshots should be compared to Marine infantry, if there is any appropriate military force comparison, because wildfires can’t think…or aim. Which is why we should win every time and there is no such thing as acceptable casualties. Everyone should go home every time (barring the occasional freak accident because wildland firefighting is an inherently dangerous job, but so is being a clerk in a convenience store as I have said before) except for ONE reason and ONE reason alone….human error.
Well…I guess I do have a couple of other complaints about the movie trailer. How do you work a blaze “near Montana” anyway? Fight fire in Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota or Canada? WTF…Over? And there was nothing preventing Granite Mountain from “setting foot” on the fire line just as hundreds of hand crews other than hotshot crews are doing today somewhere in the country and they did many times as Granite Mountain 7.
The only reason Granite Mountain wanted the hotshot designation was to satisfy Eric Marsh’s insatiable ego and because he had. a giant chip on his shoulder and he wanted to prove the U.S. Forest Service wrong because they had shit canned him for drinking alcohol and smoking dope on the fire line when he was left in charge of the Globe Hotshots for a few shifts.
Oh…and because that stupid fuck Willis and the Prescott Fire Department wanted to milk that federal cash cow dry to pad the City of Prescott’s budget by systematically falsifying their expenses and through bogus federal grants and reimbursements, but that is another story that wouldn’t make a very good fuckin’ movie.
OK…OK…I’m going to stop this waste of my time even though I have a lot of time to waste. Let’s all just enjoy the movie and the furtherance of the Eric Marsh Legend. After all…18 men paid for it with their lives.
I’m sorry…I got just one more., “as long as you can breathe, you can survive?” Well…I suspose that is true to a certain point. The crew was still breathing when their were coughing up chunks of their burned lungs so hard they disconnected their tongues from the backs of their mouths, so they were found with all of their tongues hanging out…so surely that statement is correct only to a certain point of no return…right? I mean…how much charred lung can a firefighter cough up and still survive?
Okay…you’re right, that wasn’t fair to Marsh. I should have said “19 men paid for it with their lives.”
And as I have stated before, if Marsh were here with me today, or I was with him, I would hug him and we would cry together…but only after I had slapped the bitch out of him.
Gary,
You have the ability to bring reality to the situation—men coughing so hard to expels burning material that their tongues were found out of their mouths.
Their suffering was obvious and can’t be glazed over.
I believe that Jeff Bridges played Duane Steinbrink.
FYI – I didn’t write that originally, the doctors who performed the autopsies wrote it except they used bigger and more complicated words. I am just repeating it so we don’t forget.
Back story…the official position on this thread as written by one very experienced and knowledgeable insider was that when wildland firefighters died from being burned over, they essentially sucked super heated gases into their lungs, which in turn made their lungs collapse and they died. We actually thought it wasn’t a great way to go, but we had convinced ourselves it was relatively painless all things considered and they really didn’t suffer all that much.
I was like everybody else. I accepted that explanation at face value because I had never given it a lot of thought and I wanted to believe it as much as anyone else. What a crock of shit!
I was then stunned and deeply dismayed when WTKTT explained to me exactly what the ME’s said in the autopsies and what it meant in plain English. And now I am doing penance for being so damn dumb and gullible to believe something so fucking stupid by reminding myself and everyone else every chance I get what those men went through so no one gets away with minimizing what happened to them and why it happened…not on my watch.
They endured it, the least I can do is acknowledge what they endured. I don’t want anyone to go see that movie without knowing the truth if I can help it. I don’t want the deaths of the crew to be minimized or glorified in any way, I don’t want any current and future wildland firefighters to have any misunderstanding or misconception of what it might mean if they pull an Eric Marsh.
I know from my 7 years as a hotshot crew boss just how much power and prestige goes with that title in the wildland firefighting world. And with great power and prestige comes great responsibility. We get to roll in it when it goes right and we get to own it when it goes wrong. That’s how it has to be or the system will collapse.
Well…I guess I am not really part of the “we” and haven’t been for a long time. I should have said they (hotshot crew bosses) get to roll in it when things go right and have to own it when things go wrong.
The high point in my life was as a THE hotshot crew boss on the Santa Fe National Forest and that is when I stopped developing as a person except for a very thin veneer I managed to maintain during my 18 years as a Supervisory Criminal Investigator, Senior Special Agent working for the BLM Washington D. C. Office of Law Enforcement and Security.
And now in my golden years I have retreated to the happy place in my mind…as the Santa Fe Interagency Hotshot Crew Superintendent. It’s my story…I can tell it however I want to, nobody cares anyway and it makes me happy. : )
Gary-
THAT HAPPY PLACE you go to—
what’s it like—-
I think I am there. I think I am in my happy place…
🙂
what’s it like—-Happy!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/23/29/e0/2329e09a1f4edb18f9f08a03f1bd3b2c.jpg
to be humble and to have humility and truth is better than spreading falseness and saying TRUE STORY—
so that is my happy place
diane said:
I believe that Jeff Bridges played Duane Steinbrink.
joy replied:
yes.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3829920/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
even though IMDB does not confirm it— INSTAGRAM areas do
source:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BIAsrMtjLIG/?taken-by=jonwad
see Gary—the dude WITH Duane
here is some shots of them at ease—
so when you watch film they also had alot of sit and wait time just as we saw the men 6.30.13 as actors too
Gary said:
Oh…and because that stupid fuck Willis and the Prescott Fire Department wanted to milk that federal cash cow dry to pad the City of Prescott’s budget by systematically falsifying their expenses and through bogus federal grants and reimbursements, but that is another story that wouldn’t make a very good fuckin’ movie.
Joy said: it would make a great movie the city tie to them indeed…it was sad when chief Fraijo publicly talked about Prescott like he did yet highlighted Prescott Valley like a savior- that movie should be called the sins of omissions, Gary
good to see you back. Sonny says hello. He was at er today— it’s a bullshit- the meds are a messed up world…
Tell Sonny…”Howdy, good to hear you are still tickin”, Irish…take a lickin’ and keep on tickin”!”
And thank you, but I’m not back…it’s not healthy for me and brings darkness into my Happy Place. Nothing has changed for me…I still got my ass kicked and couldn’t solve this case. I am just making a guest appearance to comment on the trailer…because, well, I don’t know why exactly?
Old Irish saying…
“Fiú i bás mheabhlaireacht minic”
Joy A Collura says
On July 22, 2017 at 11:47 pm, Joy A. Collura said…
>> Old Irish saying…
>>
>> “Fiú i bás mheabhlaireacht minic”
“Even in death there is ( often ) deception.”
On July 22, 2017 at 11:47 pm, Joy A. Collura said…
>> Old Irish saying…
>>
>> “Fiú i bás mheabhlaireacht minic”
“Even in death there is ( often ) deception.”
Well. I learned that in my own father’s death and being caregiver to some over time
Well. I learned that in my own father’s death and being caregiver to some over time
gary said:
every wildland firefighting hard and fast rule (the 10) and in addition to every guideline (the 18) and every common sense recommendation (the LCES) that have been painstakingly developed over 100 years at the cost of hundreds of lives?
joy said: it is over a thousand…not hundreds…yet here we are…2017…and still it happens
Joy,
You posted: “joy said: it is over a thousand…not hundreds…”
Thousands of what? Are you referring to Gary’s “at the cost of hundreds of lives” post?
Are you saying that there have been over a thousand lives lost in wildland fires? If so, where do you get your numbers from?
I’m pretty sure I’m gonna have to go along with Gary on the hundreds of lives. Although you may be correct if you are considering the global or international number of lives lost on wildland fires.
I am watching this global…
Every life matters
I’m out at the caves so next time I am home I will go get the sources of what I was trying to get across..
Tomorrow I have procedure…so should be back on later in week.
Just in googling which wwtktt said Sony failed to do….I am not even awake heading out but I did on this topic yet I know I have better data…
This link says U.S.
but I meant global.
http://ecowest.org/2013/06/11/a-century-of-wildland-firefighter-fatalities/
Joy,
I stand corrected. And thanks for the informative website. Good one.
I just have to laugh. Just reading this and I just mentioned it (stand
corrected) above earlier somewhere. I have been at Sonny’s scorpion black widow Brown
Recluse rattlesnake farm…aka
His
Place…seen them all today…He does not need security here…the caves and the desert are fun yet in cooler less muggier temps…
He even has swarms of bees and
flying ants here in a weird amount…must be mating season. Anything you fear in insects and wildlife Sonny loves them here…I head home soon. I was not trying to be harsh on Josh but he has to take it serious that even if I or Tex pass on we gave the data to proper folks to get this worked on RIGHT and with no bias
Cell
is
aacting
Funny.I just have to laugh. Just reading this and I just mentioned it (stand
corrected) above earlier somewhere. I have been at Sonny’s scorpion black widow Brown
Recluse rattlesnake farm…aka
His
Place…seen them all today…He does not need security here…the caves and the desert are fun yet in cooler less muggier temps…
He even has swarms of bees and
flying ants here in a weird amount…must be mating season. Anything you fear in insects and wildlife Sonny loves them here…I head home soon. I was not trying to be harsh on Josh but he has to take it serious that even if I or Tex pass on we gave the data to proper folks to get this worked on RIGHT and with no bias
My province (British Columbia) has been declared a state of emergency due to wildfires. Got about 200 on the go, many interface with evacs etc. Major cold front blew in last night and we lost a whole pile of containment that we had accomplished over the previous week..
Sorry you are facing that.
Look how busy…the maps show:
http://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/interactive-map
Or Google shows a lot of evacuations…
Stay safe…
Thank you Bill Gabbert.
I know we all want data pushed public yet in it thankful Amanda Marsh and others took time out of their lives to share a movie format sharing…
Must have been difficult yet I had hard time to view even the trailer.
Theaters are not selling tickets until Fall 2017.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/07/19/trailer-released-for-the-movie-about-the-granite-mountain-hotshots/
don’t be confused—-
there is a movie already called what they named it ONLY THE BRAVE:
After being forced into internment camps during WWII, 1400 Japanese-American men successfully petitioned the government to serve during the war. Forming the 100th Infantry Battalion, these men went on to complete impossibly dangerous missions including the rescue of the 36th Division in Texas. Today, they are the most decorated unit of their size in American history. This is their story.
Provider
Starz Media LLC
Partner rating
R
Release date
2009
http://www.comingsoon.net/g00/movies/trailers/870923-only-the-brave-trailer-the-granite-mountain-hotshots-story-comes-to-life?i10c.referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
http://www.gq.com/story/only-the-brave-exclusive
http://variety.com/2017/film/news/only-the-brave-trailer-josh-brolin-miles-teller-jeff-bridges-1202500453/
http://collider.com/only-the-brave-trailer-josh-brolin/
http://deadline.com/2017/07/only-the-brave-trailer-granite-mountain-hotshots-movie-josh-brolin-miles-teller-video-1202131321/
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-wildfires/2017/07/19/z-only-brave-cast-and-real-life-yarnell-hill-fire-heroes/493308001/
Okay …. so how does your Japanese internment camp movie even remotely relate to this ridiculous and nauseating Hollywood sham titled Only the Brave?
The YH Fire movie, allegedly “based on true events” is maybe how the GMHS really did fight wildlfires. Otherwise, it is a gross distortion, and travesty! It makes my skin crawl. Josh Brolin is a complete idiot. This is NOT how those that fight fires by the WFF Rules act. .
Hollywood has now become part of the cover up that will seal the deal for all time about this horrific event.
If the SW Regional Safety Officer doesn’t come out and completely dismiss this perpetration as total bovine feculence, then I guess we, as Safety Officers will be the only rogue mavericks out on the line trying to lookout for the young inexperienced ground pounders. No one else will.
It reminds me of the 1998 Howie Long movie titled Firestorm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcHSj4wxpMw
RTS- how does the two relate- SAME MOVIE TITLE.
Was wondering why they named it that…
It is a director’s vision along with the guidance of the loved ones and people on the line that day and etc…
and yes…safety officers are not shown the respect and appreciation as it cores down to just that—-
SAFETY MATTERS!
let us watch this film with a clean mind…yes Hollywood has glazed it even in the starting line…save our town…it was a town in their county but not their town…
https://youtu.be/DSHk_BHQxp0
do not bother leaving comments kind or not-
I left a nice one yet they are monitoring WHO can or cannot leave a comment there- I have saved every comment before they deleted it —that they eventually got rid of including mine…
That is wrong…that is more editing and cropping and its crap because I said nothing negative.
that’s a bullshit.
I looked up the movie with the same name, so thanks for pointing that out.
I still think this GMHS trailer is pure garbage, which is a reflection of what the movie will be like.
Based solely on the trailer, the YH Fire movie, allegedly “based on true events” is very likely how the GMHS really did fight wildlfires.
The many reviewer comments of this trailer on YouTube are likewise nauseating.
I figured you were slam busy. Take care.
Now on 3 days off then heading out as an ignition specialist…
Lots of targets for me…
I saw this trend coming…Chief Scott Freitag
https://youtu.be/AGtFSHFezjo
Should fire departments continues to handle EMS calls? Or should private ambulance companies take it over? Would it save cities money do to that? Join Scott as he discusses the realities of the situation with Prescott, Ariz Fire Chief Dennis Light and Central Arizona Fire & Medical Authority Chief Scott Freitag.
https://youtu.be/ZNfHcnPotVE
Granite Mountain Hotshots LODD: The Aftermath with former Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo
So Chief Fraijo was not the chief to the GMHS? he just became the “media” face for that city…???
It was Willis? who were Marsh’s boss.
Why is so much blame being laid on to the city-
I have all the documents pertaining to GMHS that they offered because I asked for it all-
paid quite a bit of monies for it—
So I wonder if the city suppressed data to me-
because in that readings it does not add up-
if anything the city shifted that it was this fire industry failing to provide me the cost data financial papers I asked in records-
which they NEVER shared that-
I do not like this shifting of blame or excusing as I hear in this podcast….we are all human beings…chief said he wanted the mayor to meet with the families and if the families were being told that…there is more to that families so please do not feed into it….the chief took role on that he felt he wanted to take role to diffuse…but there is another side…the chief senses there could of been more communications….yeah HOW ABOUT the communications between 3 to 4pm 6.30.13 where the men were told by radio a vlat was on its way…and let’s talk that 3 to 4pm chief-
Chief talks about John Dougherty on the podcast as this is all “conspiracy theorists”
Chief: I am JOY A COLLURA and you may not even know but there is much suppression and oppression and there is data…and you keep wanting the city involved as you publicly talk— how about you— come have a formal interview with me and let us go over the data. Since you are known as the “communicator”…
The fire industry folks I have shared to in person— they know — how about when Dodder told us to go to your dept. and how we were treated when she said we should show you all our photos. Your dept. did not treat us respectively or with any empathy….and no sincerity…it was like “oh crap” the way we were made to feel in your building there. So you want to talk about the city…the city is the only ones there who were active in reaching us and fulfilling all our public records requests- not you or your entity.
https://youtu.be/uunahRJrr4w
Mile High Show, Episode 11 preview- Dan Fraijo
what I find odd is he has his thoughts he shares out public as you hear the podcasts and its his thoughts but John Dougherty and people discussing the YHF are conspiracy theorists
???
Something I have been wondering about–why wasn’t Granite Mountain contacted inially as a hotshot crew for this fire?
Originally They were listed as unavailable. Two days off. That’s why they were out Partying when they were called that night. Marsh took the assignment. When the fire started and ran on Saturday they were on the Prescott NF on a Lighting Fire.
Thank you
I wonder what the investigation regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire would have looked like if Granite
Mountain had not been a city hotshot crew?
Or how the investigation would of looked like if all the data they received was put into account vs suppression and oppression
Waiting for retired school teacher say Joy…would have…not would of
Reply to Diane lomas post on July 10, 2017 at 10:06 am
>> Diane lomas said…
>>
>> I wonder what the investigation regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire
>> would have looked like if Granite Mountain had not been a
>> city hotshot crew?
Well… for starters… if ‘Granite Mountain’ had been a fully ‘Federally sponsored’ Type 1 IHC Crew ( as most of them are ) instead of just a ‘Federally certified’ crew that happened to be ‘sponsored’ by a Municipality…
…in addition to a standard US Forestry Federal level ‘SAIT’ …the incident on June 30, 2013 would have also AUTOMATICALLY ‘required’ another ( separate, independent ) investigation by the USDA ‘Office of Inspector General’ ( OIG ) office.
The additional ( independent ) OIG investigation would have been REQUIRED BY LAW regardless of whatever ‘Special Accident Investigation’ was being conducted by US Forestry itself.
It never happened.
‘Granite Mountain’ was, in fact, ‘certified’ by the Federal Government to be who they were claiming to be ( a Nationally-available Type 1 Hotshot Crew )… but regardless of that ‘Federal Certification’… when the tragedy happened the Feds basically ‘disavowed any ownership or association’ with a fire crew called ‘Granite Mountain’.
So even the ‘Special Accident Investigation’ that DID take place ( with no independent OIG investigation ) wasn’t a ‘normal’ Federal-level investigation.
It was ‘owned’ by the State of Arizona and Arizona State Forestry… the very ’employers’ of ‘Granite Moujntain’ on the day they were killed in that Arizona Forestry workplace.
All true the reason the Federal Government did not own them was they were not Federal Employees. Had Granit Mt. been on a Federal Fire then they would have been paid by the Agency and under all coverage of a Federal Investigation.
Note all Type II pickup crews are certified by the Government as well they go to different fires State, County and Federal.
Federal Jurisdiction is on Federal Land or Federal Employees only.
Reply to Bob Powers post on July 12, 2017 at 12:20 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> All true the reason the Federal Government did not
>> own them was they were not Federal Employees.
Correct… and that is why even if ‘Granite Mountain’ HAD been subcontracted for a ‘Federal Fire’… and that is where they had burned to death… I think the USDA OIG office would have found a way to ‘wiggle out’ of doing the required investigation.
See below.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Had Granit Mt. been on a Federal Fire then they
>> would have been paid by the Agency and under
>> all coverage of a Federal Investigation.
Maybe. Maybe not.
See the actual TEXT of the actual LAW below.
It ONLY refers to ‘Forest Service firefighters’ and ( in other places ) ‘Forest Service Employees’.
It says nothing about ‘subcontractors’ temporarily working for the Feds, which is what Granite Mountain would have been had they been ‘working’ a ‘Federal Fire’.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Federal Jurisdiction is on Federal Land or
>> Federal Employees only.
It all would have come down to the definition of ‘Federal Employee’, and whether the OIG’s responsibility to investigate ‘Federal employee’ deaths included ‘Sub-contractors’.
The lawyers would have had field day arguing whether or not the 19 GM Hotshots were actual ‘Federal employees’ at the moment they all burned to death.
Here is the actual LAW that REQUIRES the OIG office to do ‘independent’ investigations of Willand Fire fatalities ( but only if the deceased were actual ‘Federal employees’ )…
————————————————————–
H.R. 3971 (107th Congress): To provide for an independent investigation of Forest Service firefighter deaths that are caused by wildfire entrapment or burnover.
H.R.3971
One Hundred Seventh Congress of the United States of America
AT THE SECOND SESSION
Begun and held at the City of Washington on Wednesday,
the twenty-third day of January, two thousand and two
An Act
To provide for an independent investigation of Forest Service firefighter deaths that are caused by wildfire entrapment or burnover.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE INSPECTOR GENERAL INVESTIGATION OF FOREST SERVICE FIREFIGHTER DEATHS.
In the case of each fatality of an officer or employee of the Forest Service that occurs due to wildfire entrapment or burnover, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall conduct an investigation of the fatality. The investigation shall not rely on, and shall be completely independent of, any investigation of the fatality that is conducted by the Forest Service.
SEC. 2. SUBMISSION OF RESULTS.
As soon as possible after completing an investigation under section 1, the Inspector General of the Department of Agriculture shall submit to Congress and the Secretary of Agriculture a report containing the results of the investigation.
Signed:
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and
President of the Senate.
————————————————————–
When on a Federal Fire Sub contractors are considered under Federal Hire and Jurisdiction. That is all Sub Contractors Engines, Tractors, Crews, Bus drivers and camp help.
Federal Employees also are paid even on a fire no matter Jurisdiction their Base 40 Hours is out of the Federal Funded Budget pay. Thus the heavy toll on Budgets that has been a problem for several years. The only relief is that State and County reimburse total cost. All Federal Fires have no reimbursement to the agency.
Probably not much difference. Although there would have been more Federal investigation. It is what it is today.
John Dougherty-
You were mentioned by chief Dan F. in his podcast towards the end— on the topic of CONSPIRACY THEORISTS- but without this site and Wildfiretoday we the people do not have a way to share…around 24:58…25:09…25:16 marks…
https://youtu.be/1kB56qj5puU
Brendan at his book signing
Jun 30, 2017
https://youtu.be/r1CJ_kIKcYc
The Only Surviving Hotshot of the Yarnell Mt. Wildfire Trajedy along with his Navy SEAL Mentor – Team Never Quit Podcast
go to 19 minute mark
Sounds like he is saying what everyone wants to hear.
I don’t buy it
All of his ramblings and yet still is not willing to tell the truth..
Listened to the whole thing. What a bunch of crap… allegedly he “tells all” in his book and “tellls the truth straight up”…
Cmon dude, you never told us anything…
Like Gary Olsen says “hubris”….macho egotistical bullshiy
I listened to the whole podcast. What a bunch of crappie.
He said his book was a “tell all” and he wanted to ” do the right thing and tell the truth”.
He did none of the above..
Riding on the hero train looking for his 15 minutes of fame..
Dick!!!@
A REMINDER
The Deadliest 10 days in wild land fire history.
June 30th to July Ninth— Three crews 48 fire fighters.
The Yarnell Fire 19 June 30th
The South Canyon Fire 14 July 6th
The Rattle Snake Fire 15 July 9th
NO LCES at a critical time in the Fire activity. Over run by the main fire.
Sorry for the loss of your father.
Thank you Bob Powers.
It took me YEARS to hear it…debate it…learn it…comprehend it and really GET IT…it took many interviews…and many talks…
I truly thank you Bob Powers and RTS from day one to allow me to understand at my own pace yet you did not judge me…you remained firm and that FIRM way made me curious as a non firefighter how come these 2 men were so firm on that topic.
God Bless You Both
Yet I think he has with knowledge like that…
He not he
I for one have never been afraid to admit that My Father made a huge mistake by not posting a look out after he and the foreman hiked out to look at the Back Fire & decided not to post a Look Out.
Granit Mountain made a huge mistake. The Supervisor and Division Supervisor Made huge mistakes and men died including them.
South Canyon was no different the Division Supervisor made a huge mistake as did the Hot Shots and Smoke jumpers Men Died.
The 10 and 18 are simple not complicated we are all trained in fire suppression training manuals give us the same information as the 10 and 18 all the 10 and 18 dose is put the safety rules in one place they are ORDERS AND SITUATIONS THAT HAVE KILLED PEOPLE OVER THE YEARS WHEN NOT FOLLOWED.
THEY ARE NOT COMPLICATED.
LCES is nothing more than a piece of the orders. A critical piece.
A Fire Fighters life depends on those 4 things every minuet you are on the line.
Yes but in the start if you remember I debated without all facts public how can you assess that but after much research and learning I now see how one can firmly say that with or without more data.
Bottom line each Fire Fighter is trained and responsible for their own safety. That is and has always been the first year training of S110 which includes the 10 and 18.
From Squad Boss to Incident Commander. From First year FF to Hot Shot crewman, Smoke Jumper, Engine Crewman From a 2 man fire to a 4,000 man fire. Each individual is responsible for their safety and the safety of the people under them..
yes but what kind of training is done for “fighting fire with fire in forefront country” where there could be off the grid folks…miners…loggers…adventurous folks…etc…”human lives” …”smokey the bear” may even be in that forest…who due to large trees or boulderous ridges CANNOT see a fire happening and by distance could be .58 miles away or less…
When you are watching the fires…statistically how many end up being wildfires in forefront country vs back country and how much was because a lightning hit it and it bedded down and was almost out than boom “WOW” or more like HOW vs WOW…
the off the chart explosions of fires that are “explainable” but are not from the original lightning that bedded down…how many out there are really truly trained to fight fire with fire knowing kestrel readings and terrains’ fuels- and knowing who is in the area…without expanding them into a cluster fuc* of chaos.
and or the one who they have done there best to be a normal citizen but just cannot conform and have severe mental health concerns and opt to save the world by staying out of it and live off the land and still are one of His…they live out there where things heat up…but who cares about him right…seems like “right”….
what about firefighters who put their trust in the industry and its leaders and are brand new just to feel no way would or could I be trapped here with aerial above and radios to then hear I have to take this shelter out and get in it…????….what? why?
what about the autopsies and who was in and who was out and the placements….
if there is going to be FIRE itself (flame front) or burnout operations—wouldn’t it be nice to do a “live” aerial view of terrain (wildland drone operators-) and see with squirrelly weather might be in best interest to allow a fire to bed down so near the forefront vs back countries…
why risk lives….why?
Also I am going to have a hybrid backpack soon (https://www.firefighterturnoutbag.com/)…in honor of Gary Olson book he never published yet—The rise and fall of the hybrid firefighter. I would like to see the rising again of the stronger more trained hybrid versus any more fallen…
The point is yes safety but even more so LIVES MATTER so whomever was your boss Bob Powers (was it David Godwin??? giigling ever so softly) —can I informally interview him…I really think the glaze on his donut is different…I would love to learn who was your boss in the industry…it may help me see things…because safety of a FF is top priority but what about safety of any human lives…
I want to see them change HOW they tackle these fires—
should never ever been a 6.30.13 fateful day (South Canyon Fire/Rattlesnake Fire/etc)
after Mann Gulch or Blackwater fire and its lessons—so if they are following these FIRE ORDERS of 1957/87—whatever it was…”not a firefighter” yet have a sharp memory from reading it or hearing it somewhere…it seems it is no longer FIRE SUPPRESSION but wtf FIRE mis-MANAGEMENT..my humble opinion…let’s strengthen the tactics in how they are fighting fires…because all I see is burn baby burn…
I still do not comprehend tactics…and I am not in the industry but trying to understand it….
https://randomramblingsfromnj.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html?m=1
Has anyone read this blog ever?
I do have a fire industry inquiry.
If I got a photo of one vehicle on a fire at the scene and then get a foia or public records and see they sent out to be paid for another vehicle because it is more monies for that district…is that fraud? Or is it common deceptive practice nowadays?
Thank you for anyone in fire industry for replying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofksOghWlg0
An interesting 6 part series.
Similarities???
End of June (before monsoons)
Arizona
Ugly terrain
Aggressive fire behaviour
Planning and communications issues
Gives you some insight as to how complex things are on a wildfire incident. It is easy to sit back and type on the computer that “if they did this or that” all would have been fine… Maybe so, but at the time and in the spot they were in they did not have that luxury…
Rocksteady,
You posted: “Gives you some insight as to how complex things are on a wildfire incident. It is easy to sit back and type on the computer that “if they did this or that” all would have been fine… Maybe so, but at the time and in the spot they were in they did not have that luxury…”
I’m gonna have to disagree with you, in part, on this one. They clearly had that luxury.
If they had only followed the WFF Rules ALL their usual way of selectively following them, they
Auto correct screwed it up, so reposting.
If they had only followed ALL the WFF Rules instead of their usual way of selectively following them, they would have done just fine and still be alive.
Maybe I worded it wrong RTS,…. My point was we can analyze to death everything that occurs on a fire, post occurrence, on a site like this fairly easily, however when you are on a dynamic, ever changing incident (like Nuttall) it is not as easy as some non WFF types seem to think it is/should be.
I agree with the 10 and 18 and safety always of WFF over structures and other values…..
I also feel that the US relies too much on Hotshot crews to build and burn line UNSUPPORTED…. There may be a helicopter or 2 or a VLAT around, but the Nuttall scenario is the first time I ever recall hearing of a HotShot crew having a hoseline in place…
After what I know now
I AGREE STRONGLY with RTS and Bob Powers on the 10 and 18 and lces.
End of story.
** “THE BIG BAD FIRE JUST CAME AND GOT THEM”
The fourth anniversary of the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy has come and gone.
It was a pretty ‘quiet’ one.
Upwards of 2 million taxpayer dollars paid for the first ‘Memorial Park’ in Arizona’s history… and there wasn’t even a single ‘commerative’ event or moment held there.
Zero. Zip. Nada.
In the words of Arizona Parks Director Sue Black…
“Nothing is planned. We’re just going to have a regular day at the park.”
As for the mainstream media ( MSM )… most of the articles published were just repeating the same long-standing myth about what happened.
That they were actively ‘fighting the fire’, and then the wind changed and the fire killed them.
“The big bad fire just came and got them.”
Nothing to see here ( except 19 metal crosses stuck in the ground ).
Move along, move along.
Here is just one example.
The only thing good about this ‘article’ is that it reminds us ( as it should ) of the names and ages of the 19 men who needlessly lost their lives in Yarnell on the afternoon of June 30, 2013…
KGUN
Article Title: Remembering the Granite Mountain Hotshots four years later
Published: 5:58 PM, Jun 30, 2017
http://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/remembering-the-granite-mountain-hotshots-four-years-later
————————————————
PRESCOTT, Ariz. ( KGUN9-TV )
A time of remembrance this morning to honor the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who died fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Four years ago today, the crew was battling the fire when a wind shift sent flames racing toward them, trapping them.
The names of each firefighter was also read aloud during the ceremony.
Ashcraft, Andrew – Age: 29
Caldwell, Robert – Age: 23
Carter, Travis – Age: 31
Deford, Dustin – Age: 24
MacKenzie, Christopher – Age: 30
Marsh, Eric – Age: 43
McKee, Grant – Age: 21
Misner, Sean – Age: 26
Norris, Scott – Age: 28
Parker, Wade – Age: 22
Percin, John – Age: 24
Rose, Anthony – Age: 23
Steed, Jesse – Age: 36
Thurston, Joe – Age: 32
Turbyfill, Travis – Age: 27
Warneke, William – Age: 25
Whitted, Clayton – Age: 28
Woyjeck, Kevin – Age: 21
Zuppiger, Garret – Age: 27
The flames from the Yarnell Hill Fire destroyed 127 homes.
—————————————————–
Even the very person who is PAID to know ( and tell others ) what REALLY happened couldn’t come up with much of anything to say this year.
Brit Rosso, the actual paid Director of the actual taxpayer-funded “Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center”, ( WFLLC ) was asked to put a special ‘fourth anniversary message’ up on the official WFLLC website.
But all even he could come up was some story about how some friend of his once met the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and then wrote Rosso a letter and asked him to pass it along to all the GM family members. Rosso says he did that ( which is then disputed by a parent of one of the Hotshots ).
That ‘official fourth anniversary’ message from Rosso is here…
The Official ‘Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center’
Article Title: In Honor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
Published: June 30, 2017
By: Brit Rosso – Director of the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center.
https://wildfirelessons.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/in-honor-of-the-granite-mountain-hotshots/
The very first comment on Rosso’s offical ‘fourth anniversary message’ was from David Turbyfill… the father of deceased Granite Mountain Hotshot Travis Turbyfill.
Mr. Turbyfill points out that even now, on the fourth anniversary, more proof continues to emerge about how he ( and other family members ) have always been treated like shit because they simply dare to ‘Want To Know The Truth’ about how their loved ones REALLY died.
David Turbyfill said ( to Britt Rosso )…
————————————————————————————
Comments on “In Honor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots”
Comment by: David Turbyfill
Posted: June 30, 2017 at 6:01 am
What a lovely heartfelt, thoughtful letter.
Too bad I never got to read or know of it before, but just so typical of how I have been treated during this entire tragedy.
Yes I am mad and saddened by the system and the process.
To the leadership of Fire, be mindful of how your actions or inactions affect people,
Parents NEVER get to move on.
Sincerely
David Turbyfill
————————————————————————————–
So now that yet another anniversary has come and gone we can can back to the REAL work of finding out ( as much as humanly possible ) what really happened that day… and how to PREVENT ( as much as humanly possible ) anything similar from EVER happening again.
THAT is what those men who died would really, truly, WANT us to be doing.
Lives are STILL ‘at risk’.
Carry on.
Well…I was by mere chance at right spot at right time and had no clue it was to take place 6.30.13…Sonny was in er for a blood clot and after we happen to be at a public spot where many loved ones were and what I wish for is the loved ones to share among another versus to me what they shared because each one keep sharing to me about a certain media outlet does have stored away or made “gone” what we have gathered already over time so my question there is there a way to “PUSH” a media outlet to make public a piece of footage they were told not to…legally can we get that footage. I know foias and public records mean nothing in that area so how do I get that pushed forward and out public versus hidden. Also the park was packed on 6.30.13…my husband saw the GMHS buggies coming down the hill as he went up the hill to work- I was up in Prescott and ran into a loved one where his eyes were still filled up and wet and it was late day and that person knows without me telling so the industry and locals that were on scene already shared what I already note behind the scenes to him…David also has every right to feel sad with a vein running of disappointment because we know him and others were not shown the respect they deserved for the loss of a child. You are right wwtktt- this anniversary overall was quiet yet in Phoenix they did hold a special event for the families and loved ones…I have heard from some they were never contacted to help in contributing to the movie due out on their loved ones so they will be seeing movie to see how they portray the men as individuals.
Correction above
6.30.13s should of been 2017
How is Sonny doing with the blood clot ?
Almost got hit by a hybrid rattler he said and I am headed over there shortly to assess the situation since I know the characteristics to look for…his clot still the same…different meds…
Day before the 4th anniversary of the tragedy, but we still don’t have answers…….
The people who know the truth still have not come forward..
All of the hard work and discussion that has occurred on this site really has not helped to find out why it happened…
Frustrating that we have twenty some chapters of discussion on here, with lots of really good intel that has been analyzed and assessed…. and we don’t seem to be any closer…..
Still great to see everyone here is still fighting for answers, we have not just given up and walked away…
The lives of the GMIHS crew mean more to me than just throwing my arms in the air and saying screw it…
Tomorrow I will wear my commemorative Granite Mountain T- shirt to work, to honor those lost, as well to indicate that we still want answers…
RIP fellas, you ARE NOT forgotten…
We stand with you Rocksteady —-we are still here for the fallen 19!
I am hopeful that the lawsuit RTS has brought against the Forestry Service will give us answers from the air to ground communications.
Reading today on Wildfire Today
37 thoughts on “first claim filed for death on Yarnell Hill Fire”. Comment from Calvin Clark on nov. 17,2013 is relevant:
“At this point it seems the lack of accountability and total whitewash of any true understanding of this incident is going to cost the taxpayers dearly, maybe the lessons learned will be to TELL THE TRUTH “
Yes we as Fire man should always remember no mater what caused the Deaths. They are our brothers and on other Fires our Sisters. Rest in Peace.
The 9th of July I will again remember My Father and the 14 who died with him on the Rattle Snake Canyon Fire July 9th 1953.
REST IN PEACE. all MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS LOST TO WILDLAND FIRES.
Also in comments from 2013? Is one from joe w. Stating that the fire that trapped granite mountain came from one that was set in the vicinity of Helms ranch and that men know the truth out this who are not speaking up.
we know that the fire that trapped the men was burning at about 2,000 degrees–are these temperatures typical of a fire in that fuel or more typical in one that is set with drip torches , etc.?
The temperature would be typical of a fire in THAT fuel type… but ( more importantly ) in THAT LOCATION.
The entire box canyon served as a ‘chimney’ concentrating the heat and the intensity… just like firefighters are ( supposedly ) taught in ‘Fire Behavior 101’ classes.
It made no difference how the fire that entered the mouth of that box canyon ‘chimney’ got started.
Once it ( the fire ) DID enter that canyon… the wind and the fire and the dry, oily, explosive fuel combined to create a ‘furnace’ that could have fired pottery.
The only survivable scenario was to not have been in that location at all.
Drip Torches do not make fire any hotter.
A fire creates its own heat based on many factors.
Fuel, wind, location or Topography, slope fuel moisture,
Based on the info and time lapse photos that were done by WTKTT there were two heads that ran at the crew with high winds pushing them. There were no other flames or smoke column from the Helms area during the blow up. The Crew could see the Ranch coming down the canyon they could not see what the main fire was doing until it hit the mouth of the canyon.
Correct.
Think about it…
If a fire HAD been ‘started’ somewhere near the Helms Ranch… then even without having posted a lookout… it would have been CLEARLY visible to Acting GM Superintendent Jesse Steed when he ( and the GM crew ) arrived at that ‘Descent Point’ and/or during the whole time they were ‘Descending’ to the floor of the box canyon.
The fireline that ‘got them’ was the same one they had been photographing there in the ‘safe black’… before they decided to LEAVE that location.
And because they violated the established rules of their profession and ‘lost sight of the fire’ with ‘no lookout in place’… they had no idea how FAST that very same fireline was crossing that ‘middle bowl’ and rushing towards the mouth of the box canyon they decided to ‘drop into’.
wwtktt- a news channel took footage of over by the Shrine/Sesame/Helms that day and that footage was sealed to not go public “ever”-
there is GMHS loved ones and locals who know about this data and a father of one of the 19 men also recently shared to me more data on that very topic.
However there is no way to push a news channel to produce it publicly.
shame on that news channel.
Nice recap of the sair wwtktt yet if you are local and been interviewing and watching…too much oppression and suppression going on so again without all the facts laid out public than we will keep the pipe dream a live alive for the Sait….however wouldn’t be my first let down in life…the moment pat McMahon after decades of entertaining in one moment changed the lives of many grownup kids when he said the who lamp bag parts were rigged…I was lucky enough at legend city to get a bag from Ladmo in the 70s.. So I guess I was part of the act and did not know it…one day someone will slip from their locked in suppression…and again will affect the grown up kids of the world…seems that’s the way the world goes…still shame on pat and shame on the news channel who has hid that for 4 years.
Who lamp…my cell changes words…ugh..Ladmo bags was what I wrote
And let us look at Shrine to Helms
area
and the ACTUAL PHOTOS I took and how many of the vehicles stationed there as I took the pic as the eyewitnesses and tell me how many of those folks in the the photos and the vehicles ever even made it to inquiry day of the investigations. Please explain to the world why then if nothing took place my photos show Blue Ridge there and others yet you do not see a proper investigation done to one of the most crucial areas that a flame front is coming right yet it was not until 3 to 4 pm mark you hear the homeowners explain the chaos of vehicle events and how did George’s
Home
wall get knocked down whena dozer on trailer was eyewitnessed to make turn on that land…why so much edited moments…every point counts near the men and where they died…from the Helms to the Shrine I have people tell me they were there but yet never made it to the sair?????
Is Joe W. One of the hotshot’s father?
Is Joe W. Kevin
Woyjeck’s father?
Deceased Granite Mountain Hotshot Kevin Woyjeck’s father’s first name is, in fact, ‘Joe’.
Whether he is the ‘Joe W.’ in the comment from 2013 about a ‘fire’ being set on June 30, 2013 in the vicinity of the Boulder Springs Ranch has never been verified.
https://youtu.be/_9MTLqVS1-c
found a drone view of the GMHS memorial park on youtube
Nice look at the area thanks Joy
Wow got in that time have been trying to make a few comments but not getting in.
I have had same concern on trying to post Bob-
This might be ‘Captain Obvious’… but one thing to make sure and pay attention to with the new “Are you a Human Being?” safety catch for posting is whether or not the ‘math captcha’ has EXPIRED or not.
By the time you finish typing even a short message, the ‘captcha’ that loaded with the page has already ‘expired’… and there will be this message ( in red lettering ) under the “Are you a human?” question…
“Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.”
That does NOT mean you need to reload the PAGE.
To ‘reload the captcha’…. you need to press the little ‘circle of arrows’
just to the right of the math boxes above the ‘Post Comment’ button.
That loads a new CAPTCHA without reloading the page… then you can ‘do the math’ and hit ‘Post Comment’ and your comment should go through.
Ok that explains some of my problem
https://flic.kr/p/McMpjz (never forgotten…always remembered)
SO last Friday another fire near me…He will go to Yarnell court 7-19-17 10am for criminal citation-
I am investigating it and having hard time finding the current map of Congress Arizona as of TODAY to look over his burn scars…everything is blocked or cached even forestry link has no current look so if anyone knows how to see current TODAY map- please let me know—Rocksteady?
A pilot friend of mine is trying to see if I can fly over and get LIVE time aerial—
just google:
Yavapai County Rancher Trash Burning Leads To A Bigger Problem
What is up with watermelon in 2017? has anyone got a GOOD watermelon in 2017? I mean like a melon should be??? same with apricots….what gives…
Thank you joy for the information.
I am reading about it now.
Reply to Joy A. Collura post on June 24, 2017 at 11:25 pm
>> Joy A. Collura said…
>>
>> just google:
>> Yavapai County Rancher Trash Burning Leads To A Bigger Problem
Here is a direct link to one of the articles…
KAFF News
Article Title: Yavapai County Rancher Trash Burning Leads To A Bigger Problem Near Congress
https://gcmaz.com/yavapai-county-rancher-trash-burning-leads-to-a-bigger-problem-near-congress/
From the article…
——————————————————————————-
A Yavapai County rancher is in trouble after he conducted some burning on his ranch last Friday that led to a bigger fire. Sheriff’s officials say 82-year-old James Thompson was burning trash in a trash can on his ranch near Congress, when he went to go get some water. When he returned, the fire spread to the field and then to two sheds and a vehicle. Fire crews responded to the area on Hillside Road at Thompson Ranch, Hillside at around noon. Fire officials used water drops and other methods to keep the fire away from a nearby ranch and railroad tracks. Thompson told deputies he wasn’t aware of a countywide fire ban, even though there was a digital sign posted on Highway 89 in Congress talking about the ban. The man was cited for reckless burning.
——————————————————————————-
And from the first public comment made on the article…
——————————————————————————
On June 23, 2017 at 4:00 pm, Joy A. Collura commented…
Hello world. It is not Hillside nor Hillside Peak or Hillside Rd.
It is rd 62/S Date Creek Rd.
So that is the news nowadays huh…copy and paste media releases…
How about going and fact checking how the burn scar is and how can people believe what they read anymore…they had in police report on tenderfoot fire another rancher as suspect when the rancher was not even in the area. Do your own research world. The media is failing us by just copy and pasting media releases.
——————————————————————————
This article has a lot more detail including exact ‘times’ and what deputies say they ‘saw’ when they first arrived at the fire scene…
https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2017/06/22/unauthorized-burning-on-ranch-causes-major-fire-rancher-cited/
Joy. Thanks.
It looks like a pretty good path from the descent point to the deployment site.
Woukd you say that trail was established prior to 6/30 2013?
I do realize it would not have been improved like it is in the video.
Wtk. Any other photos that may capture the area/trail just after the fire? Thanks
I would bet that new trail meets the requirements of a hiking trail. established by the State and feds to meet grade specifications. It would not be the path taken by the crew. They would have taken the path of less resistance and striate down the mountain as much as possible.
hi calvin—reply to: JUNE 25, 2017 AT 10:26 AM
calvin asked: Would you say that trail was established prior to 6/30 2013?
joy replied: oh hell no—I am even SHOCKED BEYOND BELIEF how the very trail we bear wallowed through 6.30.13 was thought up by someone on the board to make it out that way of our way out that fateful day…it was no way a trail…not even near to the 2 track…that can be confirmed by archival satellite images as well as my photos-
From highway 89 to the Deployment Zone will always bewilder me WHO came up with the trail and did they know the very trail to honor the men would be the CBS Morgan Loew documented trail of the hikers on 6.30—but BEFORE was using washes or scaling boulders or bear wallowing through…
I am reading in The Wildfire Reader p.221 that “many in the firefighting community know their puny efforts are meaningless, but it is perceived as important to make the attempt,no matter how futile”
This struck a chord with me as I thought of granite mountain hotshots asked to undertake an impossible task but committed to it anyway to appear they were making the attempt.
Another statement in Wildfire Reader that caught my attention is on page 217
“Given the major ecological and evolutionary influence of fire in most western ecosystems, and the undisputed negative impacts on natural fire regimes from livestock grazing, it may be time to terminate livestock production on public lands”
Thoughts——
Watching coverage of the Goodwin fire near Prescott hoping it’s not as bad as it appears.
it is against the law to fly a drone in this area-
see:
https://jrupprechtlaw.com/arizona-drone-laws
**
** FINAL REPORT ON THE DEATH OF FIRST-YEAR LOLO HOTSHOT
** JUSTIN BEEBE AT THE 2016 STRAWBERRY FIRE
“…the tree did not behave as Justin thought it would.”
‘Thank you’ to forum participant ‘Robert the Second’ ( RTS ) for pointing out that the ( final ) “Strawberry Fire Fatality Learning Review” report was published just a few days ago, on June 9, 2017.
It’s the FULL report about what caused the death of first-year Lolo Hotshot Justin Beebe at the ‘Strawberry Fire’ back on August 13, 2016.
It’s a comprehensive report… but I see nothing in there that justifies the 9 ( NINE ) full months it has taken for USFS employee and investigation lead Mike Dudley ( of Yarnell investigation fame ) to finally publish THIS report.
The report is on the following page at the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center…
Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center
“A lesson is learned when we change our behavior“
The Strawberry Fire Tree Strike Fatality ( 2016 )
https://www.wildfirelessons.net/orphans/viewincident?DocumentKey=b8c4e15c-4c37-40c5-bbd8-41f95b6e750c
The report confirms the long-standing rumor that Justin Beebe was actually just ‘filling in’ that day as a member of Lolo Hotshot Saw Team 1 when he was killed by a ‘snagged tree’ that he was trying to bring to the ground with a chainsaw.
2016 was Justin Beebe’s FIRST SEASON as a ‘Lolo Hotshot’.
Beebe was NOT hired as a ‘Sawyer’. He was, officially, just a first-year basic crew member.
From the report itself…
——————————————–
Just prior to departure for the Strawberry Fire, a Lolo Senior Firefighter accepted an assignment as a Crew Boss Trainee, creating an opening for Firefighter Justin Beebe to join Saw Team 1. Justin’s previous saw experience, including hardwood logging in Vermont combined with skills demonstrated during his re-certification in May, positioned him for the assignment as sawyer. On the Strawberry Fire, Justin would get his FIRST CHANCE TO RUN A SAW on a Hotshot Crew Saw Team.
———————————————
And again, at another place in the ‘report’, it mentions that Justin Beebe was just ‘filling in’ as a Sawyer on the day he died and was only ‘hoping’ to one day be an ( offical ) IHC Sawyer “in the future”…
———————————————
Justin had recently joined Saw Team 1, having previously demonstrated he was a capable sawyer. On the Strawberry Fire assignment, he filled a position vacated when a regular saw team member accepted an assignment as Crew Boss Trainee. By filling in on Saw Team 1, Justin was demonstrating his skills for a possible saw position in the future.
———————————————
The report goes into great detail about the ‘task’ that Justin Beebe had undertaken on this, his (quote) “FIRST CHANCE TO RUN A SAW on a Hotshot Crew”.
It was a ‘double snag’ on a steep, rocky hillside.
TWO previously burned trees had gotten ‘hung up’ when they fell into a third, unburned tree.
Justin was able to ‘drop’ one of the TWO ‘hangs’ without incident, apparently.
It was his attempt to drop the SECOND of the TWO ‘hangs’ that killed him.
In a nutshell… as Justin finished his first through-cut at the base of the second ‘hung tree’… the bulk of the snag tree above his cut was then free to ‘swing towards’ the tree it was hung up in.
But the snag tree did NOT then ‘fencepost’ into the ground, as might be expected.
The upper part of the snag tree was so ‘entwined’ with the base tree that it then ( according to the report ) began to ‘swing like a pendulum’ back towards the base tree. The report itself used the example of a tetherball on a rope swinging freely back towards its own base pole.
It was only AFTER this ‘pendulum swing’ that the upper part of the ‘hung’ tree then dislodged from the base tree and began a fall to the ground… but now ( because of the momentum from the ‘pendulum swing’ ) it was reversing direction and falling back TOWARDS Beebe, instead of AWAY from him.
Beebe was trying to clear himself and ‘escape’ away from where he had been standing while making his ‘cut’, but ( according to a witness ), Beebe had his back completely turned to the site and was not really aware of the ‘pendulum swing’ and that the tree was now falling directly at him… so Justin had no chance whatsoever to even try and take any ‘evasive action’.
From the report…
————————————————
As reported by the observing Lead Sawyer, Justin “had his back to the tree and never saw what got him.” He seemed to be intent on getting distance from the snag and never determined the true direction of the fall.
————————————————
The falling tree struck Justin Beebe squarely in the head and he was knocked to the ground, immediately unconscious. The tree did NOT end up on TOP of Justin. He was not ‘pinned under it’.
The head injury Justin sustained in that one moment would prove to be fatal.
As for whether or not Justin really had the right ‘experience’ and ‘expertise’ to even be attempting this complicated ‘double snag’ on that steep hillside… the report has this to say…
———————————————
THEME 2: SAW OPERATIONS
DISCUSSION OF COMPLEXITY
Justin was qualified as a B-Faller. The felling operation in which he was engaged was within the scope of a B-certified sawyer. His crew, other saw-team members, and
Justin believed he was qualified to cut this tree. Nothing indicates that their process or reasoning was misaligned with what is normal. Saw-certified members of the Learning Review Team, including B and C Fallers, concurred that they would have attempted this falling operation.
According to his saw partner’s account, Justin felt comfortable cutting the tree. Apparently, the tree did not behave as Justin thought it would.
This situation of being carded, comfortable, and surprised is not only common but is exemplified by the frequently expressed notion that “everyone has a tree story,” meaning that nearly every sawyer is surprised by a tree at some point in his or her career.
———————————————
“…the tree did not behave as Justin thought it would.”
The report does NOT include Justin’s actual ( full )’Red Card’ qualifications, or his ‘FALB’ Taskbook’ indicating WHEN ( and HOW ) he had supposedly achieved a ‘FALB’ rating… nor does the report indicate how much actual EXPERIENCE Justin had at attempting to do what he was doing when he was killed.
The report then goes on to confirm that it really did take over an hour-and-a-half to actually get Justin back to at least the Strawberry Fire Helibase. That is where he was pronounced dead at 1746 ( 5:46 PM ).
From one of the ‘timelines’ in the report…
——————————————————————
1600 – Medical Emergency first declared over the radio.
1731 – Helicopter H551 arrives at Strawberry Helibase with Justin on board. Other professional air ambulance personnel who were already ‘waiting’ there at that Helibase for Justin to arrive ran an EKG on Justin before removing him from H551. That EKG showed ‘no signs of life’.
1746 – Patient death declared right there at the Strawberry Helibase in consultation with an ER Doctor via remote telephone link.
——————————————————————
So that’s 1 hour and 31 minutes from the time the ‘Emergency’ was first declared to when Justin Beebe finally ‘arrived’ at the Stawberry Helibase.
Helicopter H551 had actually originally ‘launched’ from the Strawberry Helibase at 1623… just 23 minutes after the ‘Emergency’ was declared and a ‘short haul’ extraction for Justin had been ‘requested’… but instead of launching already rigged for short haul extraction, H551 launched rigged for a ‘rappel mission’ instead.
As the report then details… this turned into a time-consuming situation that resulted in the ‘rappel’ mission first being attempted over the site of the emergency… and then Helicopter H551 having to abandon that first mission… much to ( as the report itself says ) the ‘anger’ of the personnel on the ground attending to Justin.
H551 had to then go BACK to the intermediate H1 Helispot between the incident and the Strawberry Helibase and spend the time to ‘reconfigure’ for a short-haul extraction before returning to where Justin Beebe was.
That ‘reconfigure for short-haul instead of rappel’ took almost another half-hour ( 23 minutes… from 1632 to 1655 )
There was also additional time lost because no one attending to Justin on the ground realized ( at first ) that the ‘basket’ which Justin Beebe was in ( a Transverse Rescue Stretcher (TRS) ) was NOT all that was going to be needed to accomplish the ‘short haul’ extraction. Even once H551 reconfigured for ‘short haul extraction’ and returned to the scene… two H551 Helitack had to be ‘inserted’ via short-haul to the scene in order to install an additional ‘Bauman Bag’ around Justin’s TRS gurney in order to actually perform the short-haul extraction.
That operation along ( according to the timeline ) took another 17 full minutes ( 1659 to 1716 ).
The report, however, says that none of this added any (quote) ‘significant time’ to the rescue mission…
———————————————————–
H551 first arrived on the accident scene rigged to rappel, did their reconnaissance, tried to rappel in the rescuers but aborted due to shifting winds, and then went to a nearby location to configure for short-haul. This did not actually add significant time to the mission. However, to the people on the ground who did not understand the sequence of events to expect in this procedure, when H551 hovered to attempt to deploy the rappellers and then flew away, it appeared that the short-haul extraction was aborted, and each minute that passed was excruciating. They did not understand why the helicopter did not have the short-haul line attached to just come in, “hook Justin up” in the TRS, and fly him away.
———————————————————–
“This did not actually add significant time to the mission.”
Really?
Almost a full-half hour isn’t considered ‘significant’ when a man is fighting for his life?
The report also verifies that for the 10-15 minutes it took to actually perform the short-haul extraction… no one was able to continue giving CPR to Justin Beebe. The report does NOT claim this was a major contributing factor to Justin’s death. CPR was ‘restarted’ as soon as possible after the short-haul extraction to Helispot H1, and it continued while Justin was then ‘onboard’ Helicopter H551 for the ‘second run’ over to the Strawberry Helibase… but even so… when Justin arrived at the Strawberry Helibase his EKG had already ‘flat-lined’ and there were (quote) “no signs of life”.
The report does NOT say what ( if any ) Justin’s “signs of life” were BEFORE the start of the short-haul extraction itself and the temporary cessation of CPR.
One of the other long-standing ‘rumors’ has also been that because of the long delay that Justin might have actually ‘bled to death’ before being extracted.
That is ( according to the report ) NOT the case… and that ‘rumor’ is now dispelled.
There is NO MENTION in the report of any significant ‘bleeding’ following the accident, and the ’cause of death’ is reported as being pure ‘head injuries’.
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
( Continued )…
And even though the report says that Justin’s simple FALB Red-Card saw rating ‘qualified’ him to be attempting what he was doing… it’s important to note that this report is also now REQUIRING what amounts to a pretty extensive OVERHAUL and UPGRADE of current NWCG chainsaw training AND ‘qualification tracking’.
In other words… is the (current ) FALB training and certification process ACTUALLY producing people who are actually able to ( safely ) do what they are supposed to be able to do?
The report seems to have its doubts.
From the report…
————————————————————
Themes 1 and 2: Risk Management/Saw Operations
1. Bolster the interagency chainsaw training curriculum and qualification tracking standards.
– Provide additional training for cutting hung trees in the S-212 curriculum or in the Advanced Feller courses, including cutting procedures that do not use the conventional pie cut method ( horizontal and sloping cut ), backcut with a stump shot, and holding wood to determine direction. The increased complexity of this style of cut is due to uncertainty in the fall direction.
– Emphasize the size-up process of cutting a hung tree, including the evaluation of escape routes. If we can increase the awareness of the complexity of cutting green or dead-hung trees to all levels of sawyers, we will begin to address the gap of experience now existing among different experience levels of fellers.
– During training and evaluations, emphasize the importance of intra-saw team communication in the risk-management process during saw operations to promote a culture where all firefighters are included in risk-management discussions.
– Evaluate ways to improve how sawyers communicate about the options available when given a cutting assignment, including whether to cut or to flag and make known.
– Expedite release of the newly developed US Forest Service guidance on saw operation complexity so that it can be included in seasonal saw refresher classes as soon as possible.
– NPS will evaluate the newly developed US Forest Service guidance on saw operation complexity for use in Service or across agencies.
– The US Forest Service will develop a consistent saw training tracking system ( e.g., use IQCS as an interagency standard for saw qualification tracking ).
————————————————————
Thanks again to RTS for the alert about the appearance of this final report.
It SHOULD now be REQUIRED READING for anyone trying to achieve ANY of the NWCG FALx sawyer ratings… and for anyone who ever pulls a rope on a chainsaw anywhere near a Wildland Fire.
WTKTT, thanks for posting this.
Focus on these items:
(1) Figures 5 and 7 on pages 9 and 10. They want you to believe that the fatal falling accident occurred on terrain this steep. It did NOT. The fatality site was basically on a flat bench with steep, 60% to 80% slopes above and below it.
(2) “The Accident” on page 11, paragraph 2 has some inaccurate and/or questionable information, e.g whether or not he was still carrying his saw, the distance “away from his cutting position” was much more than 15 feet, more like 50 feet or more.
(3) Figure 8 on page 12 suggests that the support tree and “hang up” was on a very steep slope. See (1). Totally FALSE! The slopes above and below the fatality site were that steep, however, the fatality site was on a fairly flat bench.
(4) “1620 – Line Medic (1 Tango), a paramedic, arrived on scene and administered drugs.” Those drugs were in the form of Epinephrine, or ‘Epi.’ Page 16
(5) “Appendix C – Helmet Report” on pages 39-40, Figures C1 and C2. This is clearly NOT his hardhat because personnel on the scene at the time stated the front of his hardhat was shattered away on one side and his helmet suspension webbing and stitching did NOT remain intact as they claim. They stated the suspension clips were all shattered.
Surprisingly, the CRP Team makes an accurate statement here: “The impact of this tree was likely far greater than that, [3780 Newtons (850 Pounds)] thus beyond the limitations of the helmet,” however, they do NOT go into any other detail. Instead, they show us a hardhat that indicates scuff marks and minimal damage clearly survivable with none to minimal injury.
Robert the second and wants to know the truth,
Thank you for your comments and information. You give us the facts and truth when it is hard to find in these documents.
The AZ Supreme Court denied Ms. McKee a review of her YH Fire lawsuit.
SCOTT BALES JANET JOHNSON
CHIEF JUSTICE CLERK OF THE COURT
Supreme Court
STATE OF ARIZONA
ARIZONA STATE COURTS BUILDING
1501 WEST WASHINGTON STREET, SUITE 402
PHOENIX, ARIZONA 85007-3231
TELEPHONE: (602) 452-3396
May 15, 2017
RE: MARCIA MCKEE v STATE OF ARIZONA
Arizona Supreme Court No. CV-17-0045-PR
Court of Appeals, Division One No. 1 CA-CV 15-0800
Maricopa County Superior Court Nos. CV2014-009068,
CV2014-009069, and CV2014-009070
GREETINGS:
The following action was taken by the Supreme Court of the State of Arizona on May 15, 2017, in regard to the above-referenced cause:
ORDERED: Petition for Review = DENIED.
Justice Gould did not participate in the determination of this matter.
Janet Johnson, Clerk
TO:
David L Abney
Brock J Heathcotte
Daniel P Schaack
Michael L Parrish
Amy M Wood
bp
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on May 20, 2017 at 9:50 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> The AZ Supreme Court denied Ms. McKee a review of her YH Fire lawsuit.
Thank you for the ‘heads up’ on that.
I have always believed that if you are looking for any actual ‘bravery’ with regards to the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy and its aftermath… you need not look any farther than Marcia McKee.
I hope she continues to fight for finding out the TRUTH about why she needlessly lost her only son and her best friend on June 30, 2013.
As for this most recent development…
At least they ( the Arizona supreme court ) acknowledged the fact that ( now ) supreme court justice Andrew Gould was one of the judges on the appeals court who ruled against Marcia McKee’s original appeal, and they ( apparently ) cut him out of the loop on THIS decision ( as they should ).
That means the ‘decision’ came down to just 6 others.
Scott Bales, John Pelander, Ann Timmer, Robert Brutinel, Clint Bolick, John Lopez IV.
Obviously it wasn’t a 3/3 tie… or the ‘decision’ would have had to default in Marcia Mckee’s favor.
I wonder what the actual ‘vote count’ was.
I know it has to be difficult to hear news in hopes of resolution Marcia-
Yet in His time there will be-
(((R E S O L U T I O N)))
….or was it revolution…
terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible
news in Manchester- Sorry for the losses there.
I use to get so offended that a group tied me to any kind of medium who-hoo stuff awhile back and then some lady said take my class on animal communications- it is your path to life and I was like “I know—I am living it”….
I do not need a class on it but maybe fine tune my thought process.
The only thing I do which I learned from Dr. Ted Putnam early on was be mindful focused and I began meditation. I have no whoopie-dee-do weirdo crap born as a medium except depth meditation is all I have done alot of this 2017-
For a goof and only that due to heat temps rising (my thermometer says 104) I have attended class via telepathic…conference call…the ladies all range in age all the way up to almost 70 years old and all professionals of elite areas and wow amazing life histories even one is a kick ass scientist I wish I had that brain of hers. I always use the word “creepy” if I do not know why or how something is happening in my space…like when Sonny’s counselor found her daughter dead on the floor yet her daughter is as alive as I ever seen and I am sharing data only they knew or understood….or the sheriff sends me a link to a thief and I got right on who I felt could identify them and then I got a missing person report and it just keeps rolling…we went to pick up free Craigslist telephone poles and I meet the young man who I have no clue his name just his face as a man stands next to him saying he is Jack and told me things to bring up to him—things only him and Jack knew who ends up being his deceased father— whoah…then I had in meditation a woman and dead 2 yr old and Sonny had a roll in the yard thinking it was recent visitor and yet 2 days later at the library Charla comes in asking about 2yr old Ronnie McGee (I saw it before the event happened)—
then class came
“Joy, I want you to read “NAME OF PERSON”‘s pet(s)
and I replied how can I read- what book should I read to…her pets?.
I just do not get that whole way of things and if I see stuff I usually rebuke it
but I have to be straight I have not rebuked fire data…they all laughed as I explained and they said I share my thought process aloud in vocal as well as in writing and its about true isn’t it—I did not have the structure or parental moments others did or even the proper schooling—I mean the variety of early-hood schools I went to were not that great…the name Constitution or such sounds better than to actually attend it- zip code it and access the area; I ain’t kidding. I lived all over Phoenix…so anyways…
“Joy, read her pet animal(s)”
and I said “I am blank…is there a system to do this magic moment. I don’t see anything…what am I to do or look for”
and as I said it I did see and the teacher said “share what you are seeing I know you see something” and I was vulnerable so deeply reminded of how a small group labelled me so I felt stuck to speak what I seen- what if I see something my mind just made up- they convinced me to share and as I did it was like explaining a scene by scene tv episode and the women said to the teacher can I say something and the teacher said ok…”Joy is spot on with every detail- she is gifted “…
Funny. me? gifted?
To me a gift for Joy would be a free year of massages or vanity back for I have no clue the lady I see as I pass a mirror here and there…or free fresh produce for a year- those are gifts I would like not this shit. That is for others- I do not know why I always rebuke it but I do know I can connect to alot that others cannot and they have confirmed the data I see is spot on and accurate and consistent. The reason I bring this up. Recently Bill Gabbert went on leave from WILDFIRE TODAY and Jason P. is there and I get updates and in one update I used the data in my meditation and I just want to mark this date because the bleachers tell me this Summer is “it” and I think for the first time I think he is right…I really feel confident now even though I am away from home..helping clear an area and working on a few cases….there is a lady KEELY CHRISTABEL BEAUDRY CULVER who was in news recently as MISSING since 2015 yet I feel she is alive and living away from family and police….I do not think like others say she has to be dead being gone that long…I feel she led an early to life reckless way and she had to escape the area…I think she is lost for her reasons not something bad but if anyone here knows that name let the people know who are searching for her as if she died—let them know she is at least alive….
Marcia, I again am deeply sorry for your losses and how you were treated after the fire- and I hope one day at least you get to see your seeds flourish—
Happy Summer All-
Marcia.
Thank you for your strength and perseverance.
Gary…remember about my dad and how he died raised red flags…finally since December 2015 the police finally are on the investigation log report for me. Maybe see something…but it made me think of how many in the world who lose someone and do not get the proper assessments or proper closure.
Recently an author/writer asked me to recollect my 6.30.13 and my account is very public but glad to see them still fact checking…because if it was written as it was asked to me I know wwtktt would be like another book of incorrects…
I just hope everyone is well and happy. ☺
A few days back…Tex wanted to break down a 3300sqft barn for the free material at a Cave Creek home and next time I agree to help I will make sure its not 109 degrees out…ouch.
Nothing yet on my end but I imagine its coming as it usually does near the anniversary of. 6.30.13…seems like that’s when it all happens all over again.
I came here to ask Wwtktt a question:
From day one to now what year do you feel showed the most progress in learning about the true parts to not only yhf but to other fires similiar in nature as well.
Black Label and Lionsgate have not commented on why their distribution agreement collapsed. But informed sources indicated that disagreements on release dates and marketing strategies were factors.
Sony pictures and Black Label made deal and new release date of Granite Mountain movie is October 20 2017.
I was at a Prescott event yesterday overhearing a firefighter talking about the gmhs trail and how he is so familiar to the entire trail the men hiked so I said “are you talking about the gmhs memorial trail or the staff ride trail or the trail the men took 6.30.13?” He said the memorial park trail is the entire trail the men took 6.30.13 and that is where I asked where he got his source and he said he was there that day so not to embarrass the fella but I asked you know the trail and all the plaques well? And he replied I can tell you where they all are he said. He only knew 5 of the 19 plaques
and again in wrong order. World, the observation desk is the only known area as we found flagging and that entire gmhs trail is not the way the men were that day 6.30.13 and I know the plaques so well because I have been to area 34 times and I know each men where there plaque is because in reality that was our trail out 6.30.13 except the decline to 89…we went Acri’s way…but I can go blindfolded and still tell you it begins with Eric than Jesse than Clayton than Robert than both Travis’ than Chris than Ashcraft than Joe than Wade than Anthony (he is near where we dropped down to Acri’s) than Garret than Scott than Dustin than Billy than Kevin than John than Grant than Sean…the guy was like why remember where they all were…I said you said you knew the entire park so well yet I guarantee there is not many that know the history and the terrain and the wildlife as much as it is engrained in me and just yesterday a waitress asked how come I tipped $19 on a ten dollar meal and I said thank you for your service but I tip always a dollar for each man who no longer has that opportunity to tip or engage in life as we all do…it is a very sad memory to think this was avoidable in many ways…happy birthday Clayton and in all my travels you all will be remembered as heroes and I am still working on getting stuff out there even though Sonny and I no longer trail…and he is more about building shade areas…cannot blame him when it is about to be 115 to 118 degree weather. I have paused on Ronny McGee and Keely Christabel beaudry culver until after 6.30.13,
my bday and the 4th of July. Thank you for the tips I got from people reading here. The firefighter also did not know the deployment zone area and where the men took their last breathes. If you are a firefighter and you are taking the trail to honor the men…terrific but if any of you go speaking public at an event be careful who is listening because there is more to the 19 than the steps you took and you brag in the manner you did like you know it all and I am financially invested beyond and I was there and even I do not know it all. I am not bragging but stating facts…I was there and I will always be there and I will not be taken that freedom away as it once was…and the men will always be remembered every day not just 6.30 each year.
Defensible space education is my number one focus for a lot of people do not know what is really happening across this USA and I will always help to make sure residents cooperate a safer terrain from the way these wildfires are happening…Happy 4th y’all…and Happy Summer Birthdays
Also there is locals hoping chief Ben Palm sees Avondale posting for fire chief n asst for … $100,000 to $150,000…wishful thinking….be nice to see Yarnell gets the fresh start they deserve….
If he does not see it….there has to be someone who wants $150,000 a year…maybe someone will come out of retirement again?
Joy, thanks for posting this about the wanna-be braggart and Poser. It’s a good thing you set him straight and kinda put him in his place, hopefully, in front of others.
For the bleachers who read this—
some of the experts who did the interviews on both investigations did not ask the questions you thought would be asked…. I get ya there…
Some of the entities really do not give a shit about the truth…
some really wanted to know what are the questions that need to be asked…
some had no idea where to look for stuff….
ADOSH was about getting the documents and personnel areas and pay attention to training they had or didn’t have..get all the records…
so when I finally read your bleacher comment I have to stick up for some of these HUMAN BEINGS assigned to investigate this tragedy…
what factors were they looking for…
you see they do not know what you know so it is not like they could ask questions unless they knew what you know…
there was some predisposed concerns….
alot of us know the jist so far…why did GMHS take that assignment anyways?
Noone ever removed the BIAS in this tragedy even to this date-
None of the people have yet connected to understand the ergonomics of this all…
In my opinion EVERY person who signed off on a FINAL INVESTIGATION REPORT did the world a great disservice if you felt what you placed out acceptable. I may be offline mainly for 2017 but I want the world to know June and July is going to be very productive months behind the scenes.
I also want to ask the world if anyone knew about the two year old DEE RONALD MCGEE (Ronnie) found dead over in my area February 10 1942…I am looking for data there— if you have any please call 480.280.5813 or email [email protected] or a man named “Blackey”…
Did Marty Cole serve as safety officer for the Yarnell Fire?
Diane Lomas says
MAY 18, 2017 AT 11:33 AM
Did Marty Cole serve as safety officer for the Yarnell Fire?
Maybe John Dougherty is detained at the moment Diane to answer you—the answer may be in his article at this link:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/yarnell-hill-fire-investigation-ignored-major-mistakes-by-the-state-6667860
A state dispatcher contacted Marty Cole at 2:24 p.m. and requested that he report to the fire as a safety officer. Cole lives in Chino Valley and faced at least an hourlong drive to reach the incident command center in Peeples Valley.
As with New Times’ other request of her, Forestry Division public information officer Dennett didn’t respond to e-mails and voicemails requesting information on when Cole and two other safety officers, also requested on the afternoon of June 30, arrived and assumed duties in Yarnell.
Safety officers are principal advisers to incident commanders in fire-management operations.
Among safety officers’ primary concerns are extreme fire behavior, escape routes, and safe zones — the exact issues that Granite Mountain discussed but operational chiefs ignored or misunderstood.
It’s vital to note that a safety officer has authority to override chain of command when an immediate threat to life or risk of serious injury is evident.
Reply to Joy about safety officers on the Yarnell Hill Fire,
So apparently there were about three safety officers including Marty Cole that arrived at the fire on the afternoon of June 30,2013. The reason I inquired about Marty Cole is because with what I was reading it sounded like there was a lack of safety officers on this fire.
Maybe these officers arrived in the midst of the chaos and didn’t have an opportunity to get ahead of events of that day to be effective?
Were safety officers assigned and reported to the Yarnell Fire prior to about 2 pm on June 30,2013?
If evidence is produced that that Yarnell Hill Fire was accelerated by artificial means after the initial lightning strike what could be the consequences?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
May 24, 2017 at 10:21 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> If evidence is produced that that Yarnell Hill
>> Fire was accelerated by artificial means after
>> the initial lightning strike what could be the
>> consequences?
That completely depends on the ‘evidence’ itself.
It also depends on whether any ‘intent’ can be proved.
In a worst-case scenario ( for whoever might have been ‘accelerating’ the fire and for what reason )… such ‘evidence’ could produce 19 murder charges.
Thank you WTKTT
Joy,
Thank you for the link to the article that John Dougherty wrote regarding safety officers on the Yarnell Hill Fire–it did answer my questions and I thought it was an informative article.
It appears that there were no safety officers on the fire prior to at least 2 pm when things were chaotic.
The article noted that IF a safety officer had been present earlier they could have requested that when Marsh stated they were moving from the ridge Marsh could have been requested to provide more information and thus the crew may have been stopped from moving off the ridge.
Interesting statement from Campbell in this article–“they (Granite Mountain) knew the rules were against them when they were going downhill in the green but rules don’t always stop hotshots from attempting to accomplish a mission. The culture of a hotshot crew is a problem-they aren’t one to hold back. They are braver than they ought to be”.
I have a thought about the saddle where Granite Mountain descended downward toward Boulder Springs Ranch.
Is there any evidence that anyone in the hotshot crew resisted taking this route?
I thought that I saw a photograph earlier of Eric Marsh pointing directly to this path off the two track in front of Jesse Steed as if insisting that he go down there. Maybe not–does anyone have information about this?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
May 31, 2017 at 2:01 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> I have a thought about the saddle where
>> Granite Mountain descended downward
>> toward Boulder Springs Ranch.
>>
>> Is there any evidence that anyone in the
>> hotshot crew resisted taking this route?
Yes. Brendan McDonough himself eventually reported to Darrell Willis that he had heard ( over the GM intra-crew radio channel ) what amounts to an ‘argument’ between DIVSA Eric Marsh and acting GM Superintendent Jesse Steed.
McDonough would later ‘confirm’ this testimony he initially gave to Willis when McDonough was interviewed by Mr. Bill Gabbert of ‘Wildfire Today’.
Others in a position to know have reported that this argument/discussion referred to by McDonough actually resulted in Jesse Steed basically REFUSING to take GM down to the Boulder Springs Ranch via the route he was being told to take ( through the blind box canyon and unburned fuel )… and that the ‘discussion’ ended when Eric Marsh finally gave Steed a ‘direct order’ to do it… and Steed eventually gave in.
What has never been fully known is the exact TIME of this ‘discussion/argument’ between Steed and Marsh.
Did it all take place between about 3:50 PM and 4:04 PM, and BEFORE Granite Mountain ever left the ‘safe black’ and started to head south?
** OR ***
Did it take place only after Jesse Steed ‘arrived’ at what is now known as the ‘Descent Point’ up there on that ‘Saddle’ and Steed finally saw Marsh’s pink ribbons indicating he should take the men down into that unburned fuel in that blind box canyon?
** OR **
Was there a ‘discussion/argument’ in BOTH places?
Once back at the safe-black, when Steed didn’t think it was a good idea to even attempt the ‘move’ at all… and then ( perhaps ) AGAIN at the ‘Descent Point’ when Steed himself could finally see the insanity he was being asked to commit himself and the men under his charge to?
We still don’t know.
No one ( that we know of, including Bill Gabbert ) has ever had the good sense to try and get Brendan to indicate the exact TIME he heard this ‘discussion/argument’ between Steed and Marsh.
I could understand McDonough not knowing ( himself ) the exact TIME he heard it… but I’m sure he can recall the ‘circumstances’ when he heard it… such as WHERE he was at that moment and WHAT he was doing when he heard it.
All Brendan has to do is supply the WHERE and the WHAT and his exact whereabouts and and the exact TIME can easily be determined from ‘other evidence’.
Brendan’s exact whereabouts from the time he left his Lookout Mound to the moment he pulled into the Ranch House Restaurant as part of the ‘Blue Ridge Convoy’ are completely KNOWN, at this point… right down to the minute/second.
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> I thought that I saw a photograph earlier of
>> Eric Marsh pointing directly to this path off
>> the two track in front of Jesse Steed as if
>> insisting that he go down there. Maybe not–does
>> anyone have information about this?
I know of no such photograph that is in the ‘public record’.
Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
We KNOW there was a massive ‘coverup’ following this tragedy and it is still not clear if even ALL the photographs that might have been recovered from the devices being used by the deceased Granite Mountain Hotshots have ever actually seen the light of day.
WTKTT,
This points to the fact that turning down assignments in reality can be very difficult.
Apparently Jesse Steed may not have thought that the path down off the two track road through unburned vegetation under current conditions was an acceptable option for his men and may not have been able to adequately advocate for them under the circumstances to protect them
Diane,
Or you could go to this post to you from May 26th
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-471280
Yes, turning down assignments for some can be difficult.
Jesse Steed definitely thought that the path down off the two track road through unburned vegetation under current conditions was an unacceptable option for his men and most definitely did not adequately advocate for them under the circumstances to protect them; the primary responsibility of every WFF supervisor.
He was following the classic deference to authority and using Mitigating (Indirect / Hinting) Speech, most likely from his Marine Corps training and experience.
https://m.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1442346725809253&set=a.138645232846082.18945.100001018185161&type=3&theater
Reply to rocksteady post on April 21, 2017 at 1:28 pm
( Brought up from down below in a thread that was running out of room. )
>> Rocksteady said…
>>
>> He ( Air Attack Rory Collins ) suggested ( Lead Plane ‘Bravo 33 ) go
>> there ( the Yarnell side of the fire ), as an Air Attack has a view
>> of the fire that the ground forces do not.
Granted… MOST of the time the ‘conversations’ between the designated ‘Air Attack’ and his/her ‘Lead Plane’ come across sounding like ‘suggestions’…
…but there are STILL times when the ‘Air Attack’ can/should outright TELL his ‘Lead Plane’ to change the priorities and TELL the ‘Air Support’ under his/her command what to do.
And that is exactly what happened in Yarnell at 3:50 PM.
The current/active/designated ‘Air Attack’ ( Rory Collins ) TOLD his ‘Lead Plane’ ( pilot = Thomas French ) to switch priority to the Yarnell side of the fire.
It was NOT simply a ‘suggestion’.
Rory Collins told Thomas French ( at exactly 3:50 PM )… “I NEED you to swing down there”.
That’s as close as you get to an actual ORDER in this confusing pseudo-military style command/control organizational environment.
Thomas French in ‘Bravo 33’ even SAID ( immediately ) that he was ‘complying’ with that ‘directive’ and was ( immediately ) “headed that way”…
…but then he did no such thing.
It took ‘Bravo 33’ another 40 minutes before they even bothered to ‘fly down’ to the Yarnell side to even begin evaluating the situation.
Reply to WTKTT’s comment on April 23,2017 at 1:21 pm regarding AA
Why do you think that AA ignored Rory Collins’ directive to go to the Yarnell side of the fire for an additional 40 minutes after stating that they were basically “on their way” ?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 24, 2017 at 9:08 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Why do you think that AA ignored Rory Collins’ directive to go
>> to the Yarnell side of the fire for an additional 40 minutes after
>> stating that they were basically “on their way” ?
I believe the ‘answer’ is absurdly ( and tragically ) simple.
I don’t think it had anything to do with any ‘ranchers’ or, indeed, any post-3:50 PM ‘override’ directives that we still may not know about coming from the ground.
I believe that it all simply had to do with ‘task fixation’.
Thomas French had been working hard ( as Lead Plane ) guiding retardant drops there on the north side of the fire for some time prior to 3:50 PM.
He had been ‘laying retardant lines’ in both the Model Creek Road and the Miner’s Camp Road area(s).
But circa 3:50 PM… he had not ‘completed’ that task to his own satisfaction.
As the Air-To-Air channel recordings do indicate… he ( himself ) was concerned about a ‘gap’ that still existed between the east end of the retardant line in the Miner’s Camp Road area and the west end of the retardant line in the Model Creek Road area.
He wanted to ‘connect the dots’ and JOIN those two retardant lines together.
He was in the process of lining up some drops to do that very thing at 3:50 PM, when Air Attack Rory Collins called on the radio and told hm “We’ve got a heck of a lot of fire headed straight for Yarnell” and Collins then TOLD French he NEEDED to “swing around” and go to the south side of the fire.
French acknowledged that ‘directive’ at 3:50 PM and said (quote) “We’re headed that way”.
He received permission from Collins to do one more SEAT drop there on the north end of the fire ( since that is what he was about to do when Collins called on the radio )… and both Collins and French AGREED that both the on-scene and the incoming VLATs should then be immediately put to use on the Yarnell side of the fire.
But then Air Attack Rory Collins left the Yarnell airspace just 8 minutes later, at 3:58 PM.
Thomas French then ignored everything he had agreed to with Collins at 3:50, and he proceeded to use ALL the available air tankers in an effort to ‘finish up’ that retardant line project on the north side… even though the wind had already drastically changed and the actual threat on the north side had abated.
According to the Air-To-Air radio channel recordings… it was only when Thomas French became ‘happy’ with the way those retardant lines came out on the north side that he even bothered to try and head to the Yarnell side of the fire.
So what I ‘think’ is that the answer is tragically simple.
Thomas French got ‘anal retentive’ and ‘task fixated’ about that ‘gap’ between his retardant lines on the north side and when Collins left the airspace and he then felt free to do whatever the fuck HE wanted to do… HE decided to use ALL the available tankers just to ‘fill in the gap’ between his two little retardant lines.
He thought he had the TIME for that kind of ‘task fixation’… and he went right about making HIMSELF happy with how that ‘project’ on the north side looked before ever starting to even turn his attention to the Yarnell side.
TIME was the ‘enemy’ circa 3:50 PM… but French either didn’t realize that or simply didn’t care.
How is French being held accountable for his decisions?
His conscience?
Could French have been guided by Willis or others on the ground to finish up the retardant line in peeples valley at 4-425 pm?
Yes. That is ( and always has been ) possible.
But there is no ‘evidence’ that is what was going down that afternoon.
It really does look like the ‘decision’ to ‘stay’ task-fixated on the north end of the fire ( even though the real threat there had abated and the real ’emergency’ was on the opposite end of the fire ) took place inside the ‘Bravo 33’ aircraft itself. Occupants were Thomas French, John Burfiend and trainee Clint Cross.
French was the actual ‘pilot’… so that plane did nothing unless it was French’s decision or something he was in agreement with.
Did the original Air Attack know that GMIHS was seeking black ops through unburned fuel to the Boulder Springs bombproof ranch? Did he tell the Air Attack taking over this?
If its no to either or both, you can not blame the Bravo 33 crew for completing an assignment. All they knew was GMIHS was supposedly in the black hunkering down…. Even with the fire transitioning to the South, if they were not told before hand that Granite was gonna be in there, how would you hold them accountable for not going to the South? From the air it would look like the fire is turning to the South, driven by the Wind, evacs were complete and retardant drops would have done sweet nothing to prevent the homes from burning. Lost Cause.
Reply to rocksteady post on
May 4, 2017 at 12:36 pm
>> rocksteady asked…
>>
>> Did the original Air Attack know that
>> GMIHS was seeking black ops through
>> unburned fuel to the Boulder Springs
>> bombproof ranch?
In what timeframe?
SIDENOTE: By ‘original Air Attack’ I’m assuming you are referring to Air Attack Rory Collins, who left the Yarnell airspace at 3:58 PM because his pilot was ‘timing out’ on the maximum hours he/she was allowed to fly that day.
ADOSH was never allowed to interview Rory Collins.
The following SAIT members DID ‘interview’ Collins just 13 days after the tragedy, at 11:00 AM on July 13, 2013…
SAIT Co-Lead Jim Karels ( Florida State Forester )
SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley ( US Forestry employee )
SAIT support person Jimmy Rocha
SAIT support person Jay Kurth
…but in the few ‘notes’ that have ever been published from that SAIT interview there is NOTHING to indicate Air Attack Rory Collins knew that Granite Mountain had ever left the ‘safe black’, or were even ‘planning’ to do any such foolish thing.
But that stands to reason… since Air Attack Rory Collins did, in fact, have to leave the Yarnell airspace at 3:58 PM.
The SAIT says GM didn’t actually leave the ‘safe black’ until right after Wade Parker’s final photo taken at the ‘rest spot’ location at 4:04 PM. ( 6 minutes AFTER Collins left the Yarnell airspace ).
At exactly 3:50:08 PM, OPS1 Todd Abel is heard telling Eric Marsh ( directly )…
“Okay… I copy… ah… just keep me updated… ah… ya know… you guys hunker and be safe and then… ah… we’ll get some air support down there ASAP.”
SIDENOTE: We still do NOT know what OPS1 Todd Abel’s “Okay, I copy” was about at the start of that audio clip captured by Robert Caldwell. Abel was obviously ‘acknowledging’ some other piece of ‘information’ that Eric Marsh had just given him… but we still don’t know what Marsh had just told Abel at that point. It remains possible that Marsh had, in fact, just informed Abel that he had every intention of bringing GM out of the safe black and down to the Boulder Springs Ranch… and when OPS1 Abel then said “hunker and be safe” he meant “Once you get to that RANCH”. OPS1 Todd Abel testified that he recalls NOTHING about this recorded conversation he obviously had with Eric Marsh at exactly 3:50:08 PM.
The 3:50:08 conversation between OPS1 Todd Abel and DIVSA Eric Marsh lasted exactly 12 seconds, and ended at exactly 3:50:20 PM.
Exactly 16 seconds later, at 3:50:36 PM, is when we hear Air Attack Rory Collins telling his ‘Lead Plane’ ( pilot = Thomas French ) that there had been a “heck of a wind shift”, and that there was now “a lot of fire headed towards Yarnell” and that they ( Bravo 33 ) should immediately “swing around and take a look at that”.
And at exactly 3:50:56 PM… ‘Lead Plane’ pilot Thomas French acknowledged that ‘directive’ from his current ‘Air Attack’ and said “Copy… we’re headed that way”.
At no time during that 3:50:36 PM to 3:51:03 radio exchange on the A2A channel between Air Attack Rory Collins and his ‘Lead Plane’ pilot Thomas French is there any mention or discussion of ‘Granite Mountain’.
>> rocksteady also asked…
>>
>> Did he tell the Air Attack taking over this?
See above. There is absolutely nothing on any A2A radio channel recording which shows that Air Attack Rory Collins ever mentioned ‘Granite Mountain’ to his Lead Plane pilot ‘Thomas French’.
The closest we get is that during that 3:50:36 PM when Collins told French to switch priority to the Yarnell side of the fire… Collins DID mention Eric Marsh ( indirectly ).
Right after French ‘acknowledged’ the ‘directive’ from Collins to head to Yarnell with “Copy… we’re headed that way”… Rory Collins then simply informed French that the person to ‘contact’ once French flew down to that side of the fire was ‘Division Alpha’ ( Eric Marsh )…
What Collins actually said to French ( at exactly 3:50:58 PM ) was…
“Ground contact out there… ahhh… I was talkin’ to… Alpha”
Then French responded/acknowledged by saying…
<i""Ground Contact Alpha"
But there was no mention of ‘Granite Mountain’ or that there were any ‘Hotshot’ crews working that end of the fire at all.
>> rocksteady also said…
>>
>> If its no to either or both, you can not blame
>> the Bravo 33 crew for completing an assignment.
You seem to be equating whether or not ‘Air Support’ was fully aware some Hotshot crew was ‘moving’ to whether or not there was any reason for ‘Air Support’ to feel any sense of ‘importance’ and switch their priority to the Yarnell/Glen Ilah side of the fire.
What about the TOWN(S)… and the PEOPLE in them?
See above.
Air Attack Rory Collins is recorded TELLING his ‘Lead Plane’ to switch focus to the Yarnell / Glen Ilah side of the fire because THAT is where the FIRE was now heading… and he ( Collins ) felt that was certainly a good enough reason ( all by itself ) to give his ‘Lead Plane’ that directive at 3:50:36 PM.
>> rocksteady also said…
>>
>> All they knew was GMIHS was supposedly
>> in the black hunkering down….
If by ‘they’… you mean Thomas French, John Burfiend and Clint Cross ( the occupants of aircraft ‘Bravo 33’ )… then it is still a mystery what they did or didn’t know about the status of ‘Granite Mountain’ at any time from 3:50 PM onward.
Again… there was NO MENTION of ‘Granite Mountain’ ( or any other Hotshot crew or ground resource ) when Air Attack Rory Collins gave French the ‘directive’ to switch his focus to the Yarnell / Glen Ilah side of the fire.
There is also still the ongoing controversy about whether or not ‘Bravo 33’ ever ‘flew down to check on them’.
Thomas French and John Burfiend testified that ( at some still-unknown time ) it was THEY who called OPS1 Todd Abel on the Air-To-Ground channel and it was THEY who were asking HIM whether they should do a ‘full stop’ and go ‘check’ on some ‘crew’ they thought they heard was ‘headed to a safety’ zone.
They ( French and Burfiend ) testified it was OPS1 Todd Abel ( not Air Attack Rory Collins ) who then informed them that it was just ‘Granite Mountain’… and they were ‘in the safe black’… and so NO… there was NO NEED for them ( French and Burfiend ) to ‘fly down there’ to check on anyone at all.
But OPS1 Todd Abel testified it was the exact OPPOSITE.
OPS1 Todd Able testified that HE was the one who CALLED ‘Bravo 33’ and ASKED them ‘go check on Granite Mountain’… and then they DID…. and reported back to Abel that GM was, in fact, ‘in the safe black’.
So which is it?
Did ‘Bravo 33’ ( French, Burfiend and Cross ) ever actually DO that ‘safety check’ on GM that Abel swears they did?
We still don’t know.
Someone on either side of that ‘testimony’ is ( and always has been ) LYING about what really did ( or didn’t ) happen there.
WTKTT,
Thank you for providing more details about AA’s information and what is known about communication between AA and Granite Mountain.
As we seek access to the Air to Ground communications on 6/30/2013 it is helpful to know a little more about that afternoon.
I don’t understand how so much of this information is held in private. Initially I thought that criminal charges could be brought against personnel if facts were revealed as to what happened but as I believe you pointed out that may not be the case so how can people withhold facts that will bring clarity to this situation?
Lying and protecting reputations is unacceptable.
WTKTT,
Thank you!
I so agree!
WTKTT,
You posted: “It remains possible that Marsh had, in fact, just informed Abel that he had every intention of bringing GM out of the safe black and down to the Boulder Springs Ranch… and when OPS1 Abel then said “hunker and be safe” HE MEANT ONCE YOU GET TO THAT RANCH.” (EMPHASIS ADDED) OPS1 Todd Abel testified that he recalls NOTHING about this recorded conversation he obviously had with Eric Marsh at exactly 3:50:08 PM.”
I disagree. Abel was telling him/them to “hunker and be safe” right where they were, in the good black.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on May 6, 2017 at 9:02 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> I disagree. Abel was telling him/them
>> to “hunker and be safe” right where
>> they were, in the good black.
That has always been the most accepted ‘assumption’… but the truth is… we don;t really know that for sure.
At exactly 3:50:08 PM, when Robert Caldwell captured only that 12 second long exchange between OPS1 Todd Abel and DIVSA Eric Marsh… you can hear Marsh ‘breathing hard’ as if he was walking along petty fast… and it’s pretty much accepted now that by 3:50 PM, Marsh was, in fact, already ‘scouting ahead’ to the Boulder Springs ranch.
If Marsh had left that ‘rest spot’ area circa 3:40 PM, when he learned that Brian Frisby was NOT going to continue on up to the saddle for that ‘face-to-face’ Marsh had requested… then 10 minutes later ( at 3:50 PM ) Marsh was probably almost to ( or already at ) the spot now known as the ‘Descent Point’.
Marsh might have actually already began his ‘descent’ into the fuel-filled blind box canyon and that is the explanation for his recorded statement to OPS Abel… “I’m makin’ my way off the top”.
So either Marsh really did tell OPS1 Todd Abel exactly what he was doing and exactly what his intentions were ( to bring GM down to the Boulder Springs Ranch ) during the parts of that 3:50 PM exchange, or he did not.
If he did NOT tell OPS1 Abel exactly what he was doing at that moment, and exactly what he meant by <"I'm makin' my way off the top"… then Marsh was intentionally LYING to OPS1 Todd Abel during that 3:50 PM radio exchange.
It remains possible that Marsh was NOT ‘lying’ during that conversation… and that OPS1 Todd Abel was now informed exactly what the ‘plan’ was… and all we hear Abel telling Marsh was “Okay… I copy ( about the plan )”… and then telling Marsh to ‘hunker and be safe’ once reaching that ranch ‘safety zone’.
It remains non-credible that OPS1 Todd Abel doesn’t ‘recall’ that 3:50 PM conversation with Marsh… or any additional details.
RTS,
The fact that Todd Abel does not recall the 3:50 pm conversation with Marsh is troubling—-it gives the impression that he (Abel) is not being truthful and is hiding information.
Diane,
Hearken back to this post regarding stress, multitasking, and tunnel vision on sight and sound regarding your comment.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470103
Here is another link to an article on similar matters regarding memory under stress.
https://www.policeone.com/officer-shootings/articles/1247087-New-findings-expand-understanding-of-tunnel-vision-auditory-blocking-and-lag-time/
I am somewhat ambivalent on what he says regarding this, however, I will say that whenever a Hot Shot Crew Superintendent tells you they are “in good black” you tend to believe them AND you just chock that away in the back of your mind that they are in a safe place, so you can focus on other matters.
Marsh, on the other hand, was know to be disingenuous and less than truthful at times.
Just had a thought about litigation—-
Are air attack and forestry departments both subject to litigation?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
May 15, 2017 at 10:48 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Just had a thought about litigation—-
>>
>> Are air attack and forestry departments
>> both subject to litigation?
Just about anyone is ‘subject to litigation’.
‘Any dispute’ can end up ‘in litigation’.
Even ‘US Forestry’.
Example: The reason the ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ ( AFUE ) was even taking place that day in Yarnell is because US Forestry LOST ‘litigation’ that had been brought against it and a JUDGE ‘ordered’ them to do such a study.
US Forestry had ALSO been ordered ( by a JUDGE, in court ) to do an ‘Environmental’ study when it was proven that US Forestry had been dropping retardant for YEARS without having ANY idea what it impact it was having on the environment… or people.
So yea… just about anything can be ‘litigated’, at some point.
From ‘The Free Dictionary’…
———————————————
Litigation ( noun )
An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute.
———————————————
WTKTT,
The answer that you provided about litigation for air attack and the Forestry Dept. seemed to apply more to the Forestry Dept than air attack.
Does air attack have more latitude with their decisions?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
May 16, 2017 at 10:18 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Does air attack have more latitude with
>> their decisions?
According to the WFFs who have been posting to this discussion ( some of whom have actual ‘Air Attack’ background and experience )… the answer is ‘yes”.
‘Air Attack’ has a GREAT deal of ‘latitude’ with regard to ‘decision making’… including not really ever being REQUIRED to do anything at all with regards to request ‘coming from the ground’.
And that probably is as it should be.
Only the ‘flyboys’ themselves know what it is ( or is not ) possible to do at any given moment while flying a fire.
Ground forces might ‘request’ things all day long… but only the guys/gals in the air know the capabilities of the aircrafts, and whether something can be done ‘safely’.
Rocksteady,
When you say that “evacs were complete” were you referring to evacuations in Yarnell?
My information is that evacuations were not complete in Yarnell leaving most of the town’s residents vulnerable to the approaching fire.
Sorry, I meant to say that the evacs were underway, by another resource assigned to do it, so why would Granite head there to do it? There is video showing the other resource getting people out..
I am not sure why another resource assigned to Yarnell did not take care of evacuations but by all accounts that I know of it did not go smoothly with the assigned resource and it appears that Granite Mountain was called upon to assist with this.
Diane Lomas says
“I am not sure why another resource assigned to Yarnell did not take care of evacuations but by all accounts that I know of it did not go smoothly with the assigned resource and it appears that Granite Mountain was called upon to assist with this.”
You are assuming that Granite was asked to do this, however in all of the documentation by Abel et al, they all deny ever asking Granite to do this….
SO, we have 2 options:
A) Abel et al are lying under oath
B) Granite went rogue and paid the price.
Someday, maybe someday, the truth about which option really occurred will be known.
Wasn’t Granite Mountain called to help in the Yarnell area when they were in the black?
Asked if they could spare resources by maybe Musser?
First time they were asked they declined but later agreed.
Diane,
You posted: “Wasn’t Granite Mountain called to help in the Yarnell area when they were in the black?”
Yes, Yarnell Structure Protection Specialist Cordes requested them through OPS, OPS then requested them through DVIS A??, and he / they said they were “committed to the black, send BRHS, they’re already there.”
WTKTT can cite chapter and verse of the above.
“First time they were asked they declined but later agreed.”
I agree with the first half (see above) and disagree with the second half.
Yes, they declined, however, they did not “later agree,” but instead left without informing and/or advising anyone (OPS, AA, Adjoining Forces, etc.) because of their habit of being disingenuous and coy.
Moreover, they had been “discussing our options” for hours that day on the GMHS Crew Net about whether to remain in the black or whether to leave the black and reroute elsewhere, likely the BSR.
In other words, they had basically planned on leaving, and as usual, they just didn’t want anyone to know their intentions, what they were doing, where they were going, etc.
WTKTT,
I could understand AA taking the time to complete one more seat drop that he and Collins agreed to but after that no.
His supervisor had given him a directive which he acknowledged so until we can obtain more records I think that we will need to agree to disagree on this WTKTT.
Diane Lomas says
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 26, 2017 at 11:01 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> I could understand AA taking the time to complete one
>> more seat drop that he and Collins agreed to but after
>> that no.
I agree.
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> His supervisor had given him a directive which he
>> acknowledged so until we can obtain more records
>> I think that we will need to agree to disagree on this WTKTT.
Just to be clear… I was in no way ‘justifying’ what happened by proposing the ‘explanation’ above.
You asked me WHY I thought there was a 40 minute delay, and based on the available evidence ( including all the Air-To-Air radio channel recordings ) I think the ‘task fixation’ scenario is the most likely ‘explanation’.
I also believe Rory Collins failed to make it CRYSTAL CLEAR to his ‘Lead Plane’ that the situation had risen to the level of an ’emergency’.
I think Collins should have said ( over the radio ) something more along the lines of…
“The wind has shifted drastically, and we’ve now got a heck of a lot of fire headed straight for Yarnell. If there’s any chance of protecting anything down on that end of the fire we have to do it NOW… before we lose the chance. So you NEED to head down there RIGHT NOW. Do you COPY?”
“The wind has shifted drastically, and we’ve now got a heck of a lot of fire headed straight for Yarnell. If there’s any chance of protecting anything down on that end of the fire we have to do it NOW… before we lose the chance. So you NEED to head down there RIGHT NOW. Do you COPY?”…..
and he should have added….
“and I think those Granite boys have left their safe zone and are going black ops to get to the damn ranch, which is bomb proof by the way…”……
Reply to rocksteady post on
May 4, 2017 at 12:38 pm
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> and he should have added….
>> “and I think those Granite boys have left their
>> safe zone and are going black ops to get to
>> the damn ranch, which is bomb proof by the way…”……
The SAIT says that Granite Mountian ‘Gaggled up’ and left the safe black circa 4:04 PM. They were basing that solely on an assumption that Wade Parker took a ‘photo’ at the ‘rest spot’ at 4:04 PM… but that has never actually been the case.
Yes… Wade Parker’s ( final ) text message to his mother WAS sent at 4:04 PM… but the photograph attached to it was onethat he ( Parker ) actually took 13 minutes earlier, at 3:51 PM.
It still remains possible that GM had ALREADY ‘gaggled up’ and were ALREADY ‘heading south’ circa 4:04 PM… and Wade Parker simply sent that final ‘text’ to his mother while they were ALREADY ‘hiking south’ and towards the Boulder Springs Ranch.
But either way… Air Attack Rory Collins really did leave the Yarnell airspace at 3:58 PM, and there is still no indication that Air Atack Rory Collins himself was ever aware that ‘Granite Mountain’ had already ( or even had any plans to ) “leave the safe black”.
When Air Attack Rory Collins called his ‘Lead Plane’ ( pilot = Thomas French ) at exactly 3:50:36 PM and TOLD him to switch the attention of Air Support to the Yarnell / Glen Ilah side of the fire… it was because that is where the FIRE was now HEADED… and they were going to quickly lose any ‘window of opportunity’ to even try and protect anything down there unless they shifted the focus RIGHT THEN ( at 3:50 PM ).
According to the Air-To-Air radio channel recordings… Collins’ directive to his ‘Lead Plane’ to switch the focus of Air Support to the Yarnell / Glen Ilah side of the fire had NOTHING to do with ‘Granite Mountain’.
Reply to WTKTT’s comment on May 7 ,2017 at 9:02 p.m.:
Did Marsh tell Todd Able that he was bringing Granite Mountain to Boulder Springs Ranch?
I think it is more likely that Marsh did tell Able what he was doing and what his intentions were (to being Granite Mountain to Boulder Springs Ranch)
OPS Able doesnt recall that 3:50 p.m. conversation with Marsh yet Able is heard saying “ok I copy that about the plan” (Hail Mary Plan)
I think that Able’s statements regarding the 3:50 pm conversation on 6/30/2013 are unbelievable and that he was involved in the planing and execution of “the Hail Mary Plan”
The 3:50:08 PM Robert Caldwell recording ( which only lasts for 12 seconds, as far as we know ) BEGINS with DIVSA ( Eric Marsh ) FINISHING a ‘status report’ to OPS1 ( Todd Abel ).
We do NOT here the ‘full report’ that Marsh was supplying at that time.
We ONLY hear the LAST SENTENCE of that ‘report’ when Marsh finishes with the sentence “…I’m workin’ my way off the top”.
That is when Todd Abel replies with just…
” Okay… I copy”.
He does NOT mention a plan… Abut his “I copy” WAS in response to everything Marsh had just reported to him.
Followup…
Since we only hear 12 seconds from that 3:50:08 PM radio conversation between OPS1 Todd Abel and DIVSA Eric Marsh… it may NOT have been just a ‘status report’ coming from Marsh to Abel.
There is no telling how LONG that ‘conversation’ really was… or what was really fully exchanged between those two men.
The SAIT actually ‘played’ those 12 seconds out of that full ‘conversation’ for OPS1 Todd Abel when he was interviewed.
Todd Abel actually ‘confirmed’ that was him talking to Eric Marsh in that 12 second video ( recorded by now-deceased GM Hotshot Robert Caldwell )… but then Abel testified that he absolutely doesn’t recall ever having that conversation with Marsh… or what ELSE they discussed.
That has always been ( and remains ) non-credible.
Reply to RTS
Granite mounrIn had been discussing their options for hours over the crew radio
Where does this information come from?
Diane,
This is a link for an April 2015 AZCentral article for starters
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
Just saw news headline about the proposed Rosemont Copper mine in the Santa Rita mountains near Tucson——-
“US Forest Service is poised to sign one of the two federal permits needed for a giant mile wide open pit copper mine in Arizona”
From a study done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT )…
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/problems/mining.html
———————————————————————
Environmental Damages of Mining
Open pit mining
Open pit mining, where material is excavated from an open pit, is one of the most common forms of mining for strategic minerals. This type of mining is particularly damaging to the environment because strategic minerals are often only available in small concentrations, which increases the amount of ore needed to be mined.
Environmental hazards are present during every step of the open-pit mining process. Hardrock mining exposes rock that has lain unexposed for geological eras. When crushed, these rocks expose radioactive elements, asbestos-like minerals, and metallic dust. During separation, residual rock slurries, which are mixtures of pulverized rock and liquid, are produced as tailings, toxic and radioactive elements from these liquids can leak into bedrock if not properly contained.
———————————————————————
See article in DC report.org by Sarah Okeson
http://www.iheartradio.ca/cfax-1070/shows/the-drive-with-mark-brennae-1.1821472
John doesn’t realize how those countries operate or else he does and has a lot more bravery than I do. I was married to a lady who’s father was a high official in another country and at that time Tito Herra was president of the state of Chihuahua and it was well known that certain parties and drug operations were protected. This situation extends to all Latin American countries. If a mining company pays off the right officials they can operate carte blanche. We listened to your interview John and your looking at that kind if influence you run a high risk being IN those countries and exposing the crony system there. It is not much difference on the 19 and its aftermath. There is a book on a guy…Irish man…that worked against the rubber industry that was into murder and so forth…he exposed a bunch of English influence that gave more importance to profit vs human lives…he eventually got hung…he was hired by the English to investigate their own companies…so be careful John exposing these assholes…we still have Yarnell and the other fires to do. Smiles.
The above is a statement from Tex Gilligan on Joy’s cell.
Joy: remember the Peru/Chile/Argentina…alike protected the Nazis…they were the safe haven for the German Nazis.
Money…money…money…
A lot of buy offs in the universe.
You are in our prayers.
Peru is rough in false arrests….stay safe.
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 14, 2017 at 3:18 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> CELL PHONE Communications on YHF:
>>
>> I cannot understand why phone records haven’t been obtained from 6/30/2013.
Some of them were.
ADOSH obtained the cellphone ‘call records’ for Darrell Willis for the entire year of 2013… up to and including June 30, 2013.
ADOSH also requested the same records for Eric Marsh… but even though Marsh was being paid a stipend by the City of Prescott for his cellphone and the City of Prescott consequently had every right to request his cellphone records… they refused to do so and told ADOSH that if they wanted Eric Marsh’s cellphone records they would have to get them via his widow… Amanda Marsh.
There is no other information in the public evidence record about whether ADOSH requested and/or obtained the cellphone records of anyone else… but there IS a document which proves that Jim Karels of the Arizona Forestry SAIT investigation requested not only the ‘call records’… but the actual RTT ( Range To Tower ) packet history for up to 26 different Yarnell-related cellphone numbers.
See below for a copy of that actual document.
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> Even in the case of cell phones being destroyed in the fire and elsewhere I thought
>> it was possible to recover the records.
It is ( and was ).
The Arizona Counter-Terrorism Information Center ( ACTIC ) was given all the phones that were recovered from the deployment site… except for Eric Marsh’s, which mysteriously ‘disappeared’ from the Coroner’s office after having been removed from his front short pocket at the start of his autopsy.
They ( ACTIC ) were the ones who recovered most of the ‘data’ from most of the phones. Many of the ‘photographs’ they recovered became part of the public evidence record… but none of the ‘other data’ ( like call histories ) ever did.
Rest assured… ACTIC doesn’t just ‘scrape’ smartphones just to find ‘pictures’.
If they are able to recover ‘photos’… then they were also able to ‘recover’ everything else from that phone and that ‘data’ was most assuredly delivered back to Arizona Forestry on the same hard-drive containing the recovered ‘pictures’ and ‘videos’.
No one seems to know whatever happened to those actual hard drives that were used to contain the full ‘data’ recovered from those smartphones.
All Jim Karels and Mike Dudley and Randy Okon and the rest of the SAIT ever ‘published’ were whatever photos or videos they ‘chose’ to.
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> Isn’t this accomplished by law enforcement agencies in criminal situations?
Yes. See above.
If you ask ACTIC to ‘scrape’ a phone… they give you EVERYTHING ( Call Logs and Call History and Browser Cache/History data included ).
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> How can this information be obtained? FOIAs?
If you are using a phone that is being paid for with taxpayer dollars… then yes… a ‘Freedom of Information Act’ request can be used to obtain call records.
This is why the City of Prescott HAD to supply ADOSH with ALL of Darrell Willis’ cellphone records when asked to do so. Darrell Willis was using a ‘company phone’, totally paid for with tax dollars from the City of Prescott.
For ‘personal phones’… then you have to either be the owner/subscriber to obtain the records… OR part of a legal ‘investigation’ ( and not necessarily just a ‘criminal’ investigation.
Both the SAIT and ADOSH would have had the ‘authority’ to obtain the call records of pretty much anyone they wanted to… even if it had taken some back-and-forth with some lawyers to get it done.
>> On April 20, 2017 at 11:00 am, Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> In videos firefighters can be heard asking for Musser’s cell phone number.
Yes. In one of the Aaron Hulburd videos filmed right there in the parking lot of the Shrine of St. Joseph… we actually SEE and HEAR newly arrived Safety Officer Tony Sciacca placing a cellphone call to ( apparently ) Arizona Forestry’s Russ Shumate just to ASK Shumate for Paul Musser’s cellphone number.
The transcript of that part of that video is as follows…
—————————————————————————–
VIDEO FILENAME: M2U00262
—————————————————————————–
Video length: 28.512 seconds
NOTE: As the video starts… Safety Officer Tony Sciacca is out of his truck and walking around right where the pavement of Shrine road ends there at the St. Joseph Shrine parking lot. He has just called someone named ‘Russ’ with his cellphone and he is going to ask ‘Russ’ for Paul Musser’s new cellphone number. This is most likely ‘Russ Shumate’… the ICT4 in Yarnell on Saturday who also knows Paul Musser.
+0:01
Safety Officer Tony Sciacca: ( talking on his cellphone )
Hey Russ… Tony Sciacca… how are ya, brother?
Hey… I’m lookin’ for Paul Musser’s phone number. I’m in a pinch and I… I had his old number but I don’t have his new number. Do you hav… can you text it to me?
Please. I really need it bad right ’bout now.
+0:16
Safety Officer Tony Sciacca: Thanks. Bye.
—————————————————————————–
>> Diane Lomas also asked…
>>
>> Where are these records?
>>
>> Some of these cell phone conversations must contain vital information about
>> what was occurring on the fire and may prevent a future disaster.
Agreed… but if you are talking about ‘conversations’… it is not likely the carriers themselves were ‘recording’ any of the actual ‘conversations’ themselves.
( Notice I said “not likely”. These days… who the hell knows ).
As Edward Snowden has let us all know… the National Security Agency ( NSA ) can ( and DOES ) do that anytime they simply ‘feel’ like doing it… but even though the NSA has plenty of taxpayer dollars ( actual NSA budget is, of course, classified, but in 2013 it was estimated at around $10.8 billion )… and plenty of ‘juice’ ( the NSA facility in Fort Meade, Maryland is the largest single consumer of ‘electricity’ in the entire State of Maryland )… even they still don’t have the ‘disk space’ to be recording every freakin’ cellphone conversation.
Even THEY only record the ones they simply want/need to.
If you decide to run for public office… and you end up hiring people to run your campaign who turn out to be unregistered ‘foreign agents’ and/or actively being recruited as Russian spies… then YEA… don’t be surprised ‘down the road’ to discover that at some point some donut-eating tech at NSA was told to ‘throw the switch’ and start ‘recording’ you…
…but a bunch of firefighters just working some wildfire somewhere?… not likely.
** SAIT CO-LEAD JIM KARELS REQUESTED 26 CELLPHONE HISTORIES
Just 11 days after the tragedy of June 30, 2013, newly established SAIT Co-Leader Jim Karels sent a FAX request directly to Verizon Wireless asking them to ‘preserve’ the cellular network call/location records ( RTTs ) for 26 different cellphone numbers.
The actual cellphone numbers listed in the FAX request were all REDACTED in the copy of the FAX request that Arizona Forestry eventually released.
A copy of this FAX request to Verizon is the second page ( PDF page 2 ) of a document in the public evidence record named…
“A01-A04 – ASF000001 – INV to 80INV.pdf”
It is sitting in this Folder in the public evidence record…
Dropbox / AZ Forestry Division Investigation / Correspondence
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/02ue6bnjp6nazkm/AADnlV4xKqQwhwgzoVcD2jNqa/Correspondence?dl=0
It is the only PDF document in the ‘Correspondence’ Folder that was part of the original Arizona Forestry SAIT investigation records dump.
Here is a TEXT version of that same document ( including the 26 REDACTED cellphone numbers )…
——————————————————————————–
FAX TRANSMITTAL
To: Verizon Wireless
From: Jim Karels, SAI Team Leader
Date: July 11, 2013
The Arizona State Forester has delegated authority to me to lead a Serious Accident Investigation into the deaths of 19 firefighters on the Yarnell Hill Fire. In that capacity, I am requesting preservation of the RTTs for the following cell phone numbers from 1300 to 1645 ( 1:00 pm to 4:45 pm ) on June 30, 2013.
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
XXX-XXXX / XXX-XXXX
If you have questions, you may contact me at 850-228-7763 or Randy Okon at 406-531-1570.
Thank you for your assistance in this matter.
Signed: Jim Karels
——————————————————————————–
The ‘RTTs’ that Jim Karels was asking Verizon to ‘preseve’ are MORE than just the ‘call records’ ( who was talking to who and when ) for a Verizon cellphone.
RTT stands for ‘Range To Tower’.
Every time you use your cellphone ( to either call or text ), the ‘Range To Tower’ information is also being ‘recorded’ as part of your call history.
This RTT ‘history’ can, in fact, be used to LOCATE your exact position at the time you were either making a call or sending a text.
It has nothing to do with GPS. These ‘Range To Tower’ packets existed before they even started putting actual GPS chips into smartphones, and even with your GPS turned OFF… the RTT information can be used to pinpoint your location.
So Jim Karels was obviously interested in not only the basic ‘who was talking to who when’ call record information. He was obviously curious whether any of the RTT information for any of the cellphones used by any of the Granite Mountain Hotshots might be able to ‘fill in some blanks’ about exactly where they WERE that afternoon… and WHEN.
Verizon used to only preserve the full ‘RTT’ information on any particular cellphone number for 7 days… but they changed that prior to 2013 and now preserve that information for ( supposedly ) only 30 days.
Jim Karels’ FAX request to Verizon was just 11 days after June 30, so the RTTs for all 26 numbers should have been still available.
There is no document in the SAIT evidence folder which shows any ‘response’ from ‘Verizon’ to this request… of if any of the ‘data’ was ever supplied back to the SAIT.
Followup…
** MORE THAN YOU WANTED TO KNOW
An interesting ( and informative ) document.
The same RTTs that SAIT Co-Lead Jim Karels was requesting from Verizon for 26 different cellphone numbers would be known as PCMDs on the Sprint network… or simply ‘Activity Logs’ on the T-Mobile network.
Law and Order – Cellphone Analysis – Part 2
http://www.hendonpub.com/law_and_order/articles/2012/12/cell_phone_analysis_part_2
From that document…
———————————————————————————
Historical Tracking
Cell Site Analysis (CSA) is the science of reconstructing the physical movements of a mobile phone or communication device. The evidence from this advanced investigation can attribute contact between individuals, indicate proximity to a crime scene, define patterns of movement of suspects, and confirm or dispute alibi statements.
To perform a Cell Site Analysis, you have to understand how cell towers are built and operate.
Most (but not all) cell towers are three-sided. On each of these sides, there are three panels. The middle panel is the transmitter, while the outer panels are the receivers. The two outside panels “listen” for inbound signals. Something like how our two ears compare slight differences in sound to determine location and direction of movement, these two outside panels do the same. This allows a smooth hand-off from tower to tower when the caller is mobile.
Each tower has three directional antennas. A directional antenna receives signals with more intensity from the direction it is pointed. It filters this, versus signals it receives from directions outside its field.
Cell Site Analysis
The Cell Site Analysis (CSA) starts with a court order or search warrant requesting call detail records with the cell tower that were used doing the call. The CSA, with information from particular tower locations, will tell you what parts of the city you are in but not what street you are on. For most investigations, knowing the handset was in a general area—and could not have been in another area—is enough to confirm or deny an alibi about a date, time, location.
The CSA will only allow an investigator to state the call was from an area covered by the cell tower, not a single address. That means it is better suited to eliminate alibi locations than to prove the handset was in one specific house or block.
However, some pretty strong inferences can be made based on the CSA and how towers work. Most towers are divided into three 120-degree sides. (Some are six 60-degree sides.) Depending on the cellular service provider who operates the cell tower, these sectors will be identified as 1,2,3; A,B,C; Alpha, Beta, Gamma for a beam width of 120-degree coverage tower. For a 60-degree coverage tower, combinations of this alpha-numeric will identify which slice of the pie is involved. Each tower has a reception range from less than a mile to 12 miles. Each area covered by the sector can be narrowed to within one-tenth of a mile. Side 1 on AT&T and Verizon towers faces north. This is for the typical tower…exceptions exist.
If possible, ask for cell tower information within 7 to 15 days. Then ask the service provider to provide the PCMD (Sprint), RTT (Verizon) or Activity Log (T-Mobile). This can put a handset down to a certain distance from the tower.
For example, the handset was between 6/10 ths and 7/10 ths of a mile from this specific tower within the sector with compass readings of 300 degrees (WNW) and 60 degrees (ENE).
———————————————————————————
WTKTT,
Good info and thanks for the lesson.
According to Wired magazine, the largest (one million square feet) NSA data center is near Bluffdale, Utah.
https://www.wired.com/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/
And for a “balanced” view, here is the “Domestic Surveillance Directorate “Defending Our Nation. Securing The Citizens,” code-named “Bumblehive.”
https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/
“It is the first Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative (IC CNCI) data center designed to support the Intelligence Community’s efforts to monitor, strengthen and protect the nation. Our Utah “massive data repository” is designed to cope with the vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network.”
“NSA is the executive agent for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and is the lead agency at the center.”
How nice, one of the “3 Big Lies.” Trust me, I work for the Government, and I’m here to help you.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on April 21, 2017 at 6:56 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> According to Wired magazine, the largest (one million square
>> feet) NSA data center is near Bluffdale, Utah.
“Our Utah ‘massive data repository’ is designed to cope with the vast increases in digital data that have accompanied the rise of the global network.”
Well then… I take back what I said up above.
Maybe they really DO now have the ‘disk capacity’ to record every freakin’ cellphone conversation.
Again, as Edward Snowden has kindly now let us ALL know, the NSA operates from the perspective that their MANDATE is to COLLECT information… and that no ‘permission’ is needed.
If it CAN be ‘collected’… then they just go ahead and do it.
The ANALYSIS of that ‘collected data’ is where they think silly things like LAWS then enter into the picture.
Your tax dollars at work.
The following ‘report’ just appeared.
It confirms that what Eric Snowden has kindly ( and bravely ) let us ALL know about the MASSIVE surveillance that the NSA is constantly doing DID have some ‘impact’…
…but only kinda sorta.
NBC News
Article Title: NSA Collected Americans’ Phone Records Despite Law Change: DNI Report
Published: May 2, 2017 – By: Reuters
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nsa-collected-americans-phone-records-despite-law-change-dni-report-n754091
——————————————————-
WASHINGTON — The U.S. National Security Agency ( NSA ) collected more than 151 million records of Americans’ phone calls last year, even after Congress limited its ability to collect bulk phone records, according to an annual report issued Tuesday by the top U.S. intelligence officer.
It found that the NSA collected the 151 million records even though it had warrants from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on only 42 terrorism suspects in 2016.
Officials argued Tuesday that the 151 million records collected last year were relatively few compared with the number collected under procedures that were stopped after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the surveillance program in 2013.
——————————————————-
WTKTT,
I’m impressed that you came up with all this information so quickly!
Thank you!
Reply to WTKTT regarding Darrell Willis’ cell phone :
I understand that Willis’ cell phone, paid for by city of Prescott, was searched for records–could he have possibly had another private cell phone with him that he paid for and which records were not submitted after the fire?
Extreme temperature of Yarnell fire:
“in the case of the Biscuit fire and many other fires, the hottest and most dangerous burns were those set by the firefighters themselves as backburns”
The Wildfire Reader page 335
Can anyone explain where backburns were set on the Yarnell fire that could explain how hot this fire was burning?
Diane,
Wildfire Reader author George Wuerthner is the ecological projects director for the Foundation for Deep Ecology, where he does research and writes about environmental issues. For many years he was a full-time freelance photographer and writer and has published thirty-eight books on natural history, conservation history, ecology, and environmental issues.
He is also a professional photographer and the co-author of Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West (Island Press 2002).
Laudable experience and qualities indeed, however, I see NO wildland fire and/or prescribed burning EXPERIENCE in there. So then, I would discount his claims of “the hottest and most dangerous burns were those set by the firefighters themselves as backburns.” He has no idea what he is talking about.
First off, there are no such thing as backburns.
The Biscuit Fire was one of many fires in areas the USFS manged for Spotted Owl habitat, therefore they excluded RX burning and any other form of fuel treatments because of the Endangered Feces Act. This lack of fire resulted in massive dead and down fuel loadings that resulted in explosive and extreme plume dominated fire behavior when they finally burned.
On the contrary, the hottest and most dangerous burns are NOT those set by the firefighters themselves, but those where the Federal land Management Agencies refuse to do their jobs as land managers and utilize fire as the historical “tool” it has been for thousands of years.
The Yarnell Fire burnouts were very minor compared to the fire behavior in the natural drought-stressed, massive fuel loadings of decadent chaparral that had not burned in over 48 years.
Wildfire Reader author George Wuerthner is merely using drama and hyperbole to stimulate his readers.
Reply to RTS:
What is the difference between a back burn and burn out?
For example, fire chiefs who are hybrid called it back burn on the Tenderfoot fire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA1AXjRlmwo
1:43/4:06 marker
I just had to resource where a chief stated it in a video-
I was text that John Dougherty was detained so I came here to show him support-
Diane-
A good piece of data to share to you about the chief on Tenderfoot fire—if you ask him before 2013 what was his earned experiences with actual fires or fighting fires or even training with wildfires or any fires or his fire folk mentors—see what he says—see if it matches up to what I has been God guided and gathered from people who went to school with him …worked with him and EMT trained with him and were buffaloed how he was a chief all of a sudden after YHF without the proper legal posting of the position so other qualified could apply…what happen to that proper route that local FFs were disturbed about to this day on that topic- Never has been answered yet— years later.
See if it matches up to some of the amazing people who really have spent time and passion dealing with fires and their transparency- and see if they say BACK BURN…probably won’t see it said much from fire industry veterans.
We all fight fires different. I mean as an example just today in defensible space work Tex puts on his flame thrower and turns it wrong way and blows out flames; big swoosh…no biggie and his spot with no wind burned out fast yet Joy the more reserved avoidable gal gives it a try doing it a tiny right in front of her only spot so she could quickly shovel it out and Tex says something about snake holes and I look his way and not in front of me and this weird crazy high wind took my tiny spot into me taking a shovel and putting it out and so it taught me you can have the seasoned experience like Tex but when he jumps on ya saying “Jesus F’ing Christ”—that seems like poor leadership when he is suppose to be showing me how to help him out yet to know him he was keeping it down and real talk but when I go in saying I am not flame thrower savvy—stay close by and he opts not because I want to burn right in front of me not in a walk sway back and forth way wide experienced way because I want to learn what I am holding first…so patience should be a leaders top priority as well as comprehension we all observe and absorb at different pace and levels…Tex is very experienced when it comes to fighting fires probably much more than some who are currently fighting them but hell he is horrible as a trainee or leadership role and if that same wind happened at his SHWOOSH moment he would feel the desert needed some cleaning up…let it burn…it will burn out…(maybe that’s the new leader ways) Has anyone really looked at all the maps on fires since YHF and thereafter…really PAID ATTENTION to what they place out public on their map to eyewitness and property owners pictures to see real time data versus maps just placed out public…
Diane- keep reading that book Wildfire Reader as there IS fire industry folks in that book. Stephen Pyne who we hiked is in there and what about page 276/286 Ingalsbee….GO DIANE!!!
You should read and jot down corresponding cross references to any and all items and statistics you feel particularly noteworthy and drawn to— than your references catalog then becomes YOUR expertise which you can utilize to bolster the GEM YOU ARE FOR YOUR PARTICIPATION THIS LONG and continue to ask the questions becomes then you become de facto an EXPERT in your own right- Secondly chapter 24 covered alot and any questions you have an are ensure if it has been asked already— GO TO EACH CHAPTER and click CTRL and F and the search box pops up and write in your inquiry words and it will share if we discussed it already-
December 1st 2016 marked for me the most important fire data I learned thus far…and as people come here PLEASE QUESTION after all a fire that died down quite a bit….June 28 to 29 2013 really watch the fire…around noon when Fernandez shows up in the hovering BLM helicopter on the morning of June 30 2013…look at ADOSH line 1436…A: “I guess the significant thing is the fire stopped moving. Um and by morning there was very little smoke left on it.”
Take line 890…Q2: “Is,uh, he he did give you a size on it? A. “when he finally found it. He he he had a hard time finding it.” That Shumate answer corresponds to the data of the folks referring to the same size of a Buick…the interview has many incongruencies like the timeline the eyewitness (US Tex and Joy) has as we watched and listened on 6-30-13….Barry Hicks (line 2044, Q2) “How’d they describe it to you?” (line 2046 A: “Um, very little activity until the spot fire, then phenomenal fire behavior uphill, downhill, runs simultaneously.” Line 2049, Q2: “Both directions?”…SOME OF THE MISSING ELEMENTS hinges on “keeping the fire active” when it was not…was this a medieval feast that fed and nurtured such an affair until it just got too hot and too windy…what about the interviews and times we the hikers spent with some from DOC-LEWIS CREW…Why hasn’t Craig Knapp learned the soul of this fire for McKee and the homeowners or the lack of since some remain quiet all these years later—….and why hasn’t he interviewed or spent time early on with some of these willing folks…why wait for a court time—some were willing to do depositions very early on—Has anyone focused to other data that is not ye PUBLIC on fires…YHF…any…and really PAID ATTENTION…answer me this—WHAT HAD BEEN GOING ON JUST PRIOR TO CHANGE OF COMMAND 6-30-13….oh yes the FIRE STOPPED MOVING and LITTLE SMOKE LEFT ON IT…
Narrow it down to the FINAL TRUE TO LIFE DATA—their testimony—and our own EYEWITNESS accounts and photos of hearing and seeing the explosions and seeing flames….SHUMATE LINE 2046, A: “Um, very little activity until the spot fire then phenomenal fire behavior uphill, downhill runs simultaneously.” Sooooooo here is where the WORLD fails me the eyewitness that to date noone wants to publicly engage or “go there” with timeline logical set of detailed and direct questions and answers…such as HOW BIG was that spot fire Hick should of asked Shumate…and how far did it jump in order to be this ferocious ninja bad ass spot fire…was it an acre in size???? was it 10 acres? did it travel a 100 yards??? or 1000??? was it in an odd straight line or a teardrop in shape?
YOU SEE WE THE EYEWITNESS WATCHED AND TIMED HOW LONG IT TOOK TO TRAVEL UP THE MOUNTAIN AND GAVE THE WORLD OUR ACCOUNT yet some missing elements still have not…why not those in the industry on that fire when 19 men died….how come when in 1995 3 firefighters died atf jumped in saying that is what they do when firefighters fall…well how about 19 men???? where was atf????
Diane- this was a commercial request and I enclose what that chief Ben Palm wrote me:
Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 5:17 PM
Joy,
Here is some information that was asked about from the district.
Commercial Request:
1. There has never been a document giving me authority or agreement to access any State Park.
2. I do not have a document of any type of someone who has been granted “special access”, you might need to take that up with the State Parks.
3. There was never an agreement between YFD and state park. I do not have any information on state land and state parks. You will have to ask them about this issue.
4. I am waiting on the board to get my evaluations from board records.
The Red Card is one paper .25
The qualifications that are asked for must be specific. Please submit new request.
5. I do not have paperwork that shows position or role on Memorial Board. State Parks will have that and it might be in minutes.
6. We do not have any paperwork on use of Hummer. This vehicle is used for official fire duties. It is a command vehicle and the Fire Chief is the only person who uses it. GMC, H3, 2008
7. I do not know what you mean by film industry accounts with the staff rides. The Fire Chief was on every Staff Ride the state had for 2016. Role calls or lists of names will have to be given by the Department of Forestry and Fire Management.
8. There is no documentation of presence of Fire Chief on the hill with A.C.E.
9. The Fire Chief receives a salary of 42,000 per year for all years asked.
10. There were no Staff Rides for the Film industry that Yarnell Fire was involved with.
11. The map that was shown to Santos was already given in last request. If an additional paper is needed .25
The total price for this request will be .50 for two pages.
Thanks,
Yarnell Fire Department
Chief Ben Palm
(928) 671-0553-cell
(928) 427-6578-office
PO Box 581
Yarnell, AZ. 85362
—————————–
Diane- I never heard anything further after this email from the chief nor received that foia where he states some fees on some pages and that was in January–So what I can say as much investigating that I have done..the best is yet to come out…and it will….we are reaching the right spots behind the scenes and this blog will be first to hear about it when it does happen…I have not looked at my USDA…forestry….state…blm FOIAS much this 2017 due to getting Tex situated and just never the proper sit down time…
Sitting where he is now is not organically the right spot to be for me…hoping to dodge death from disease in his new area—
I shake my head and limit my times…what he has there is aggressive and fighting flies that would win any UFC fight anytime of the year even with the Irish McGregor…a losing battle when a landfill and horse/goat farm and crop farms are within miles…
Diane- thank you for your participation. I do not know HOW you learned about IM yet it is nice to see outside the fire industry folks involved too….
All my best to John Dougherty and I am so sorry to hear you were detained recently- home on my anniversary….known each other almost 30 years yet married 24 of them…however cannot explain 2011 to present except you ever watch Twilight Zone?
https://youtu.be/Gx515KBs2hI
53 YEARS AGO TODAY—I DO FEEL LIKE THERE IS THIS “GIANT” TOYING WITH US—
What would cause a fire to go from almost out to burning actively in two opposite directions?
Accelerant? Something else?
As for the Yarnell Fire…
The fire went from ‘almost out’ to ‘flaring up’ and ‘escaping’ over the east-flank two-track road at the same time helicopter N14HX was hovering directly over the fire and ‘delivering’ a load of ‘bladder bags’ late Saturday afternoon.
Helitack Nate Peck had been ‘dropped off’ out at the old hang-gliding launch pad being used as the ‘helispot’ that day when N14HX first landed there about 11:00 AM Saturday morning.
That ‘helispot’ was about 1/4 mile north of the fire location and well clear of the fire itself.
Nate Peck left the Helispot and joined the 6 members of the Lewis DOC Crew to help ‘mop up’ the fire during Saturday afternoon.
Later that afternoon, when it was decided ( by ICT4 Russ Shumate ) to deliver ‘bladder bags’ to the men rather than use the available N14HX ‘Bambi Bucket’ for water drops, Helitack Nate Peck was still at the fire location along with the Lewis DOC Crew.
Helitack Nate Peck ( the one certified to ‘receive’ and ‘unhook’ any Helicopter deliveries ) did NOT return to the Helispot to ‘receive’ the bladder bags.
Since Peck was right there at the actual active fire location with the other men, someone ( the N14HX pilot? ) decided the easiest and fastest thing to do was to hover directly over the men where they were already fighting the fire and deliver the bladder bags directly to them.
It was while Helicopter N14HX was ‘hovering’ over them and ‘delivering’ the bladder bags that the fire ‘flared up’ and ‘escaped’ over the two-track road and down into the ‘drainages’ on the eastern slope.
It remains perfectly possible ( if not highly likely ) that the ‘rotor wash’ from Helicopter N14HX is what actually CAUSED this ‘flare up’ and was the reason the Saturday initial attack on an almost-out fire then became the SECOND ( and eventually tragic ) Yarnell Fire being fought on Sunday.
No investigators ever even bothered to interview the PILOT of BLM-contract Helicopter N14HX.
We still have no idea WHO the PILOT of Helicopter N14HX was… or whether he/she really had any Wildland Firefighting experience ( or savvy ) at all.
Wildfire is a very dynamic thing… It can go from setting very idle to a active fire with very little change in perceived weather conditions.
For example, (these are just hypothetical numbers, not true validated measurements)…
Overnight, the air temperature would have been down quite a bit, relative humidity should have been up a bit…
Not sure if there was an inversion or not (an inversion is layer of stagnant air that traps air movement from rising upwards (hot air rises). With an inversion, the higher you go the warmer the air is (usually, as you go higher the air gets colder).
Once you reach a certain air temperature, you “break the inversion”… This means the stagnant trapped air on the ground starts to rise significantly, at a an accelerated rate as compared to normal day time heating air movement.. Once it breaks, the air rises, drawing in air at the ground level in, causing a fresh supply of oxygen. Once the cycle begins, it is like when you are lighting a woodstove and finally get the chimney to “draft”….
Another possibility is just the conditions themselves… The area was drought ridden, with excessive amounts of cured fuels. A fire burning at 80 F, with a wind speed of 2 mph may look fairly benign, however, once that temp hits 90 F with a wind of 6 mph, the characteristics totally change..
In my organization we call it “being on the bubble”… temp and RH and wind are not at the point where real fire behaviour is experienced, but change the numbers by a small amount and suddenly you will get very aggressive behaviour, then once convection develops (major column going skyward, sucking in air from all directions, fanning the fire) you can get a convection driven fire which is basically unstoppable. It takes Mother Nature to change the weather conditions to get the fire to slow (temp/rh/wind/time of day etc etc)
Experienced fire fighters have seen a fire go from a “piece of crap scrub fire’ (aka Yarnell on the 29th) to a massive beast (Yarnell on the 30th)….
That is why it is totally imperative that a FIRE BEHAVIOUR SPECIALIST analyzes the forecasted weather predictions, to create a fire behaviour advisory, showing the potential rates of spread of the fire, intensities, flame heights etc to ensure that fire fighters are kept safe. Then it is imperative that everyone knows about the forecast (morning briefing), THEN EVERYONE ACT ACCORDING TO THE PREDICTION (no going rogue, leaving the black, travelling through unburned fuels, without anyone knowing where you are), then screaming for help, when you are in such deep shit that no resource available on the fire can save your ass for making such a stupid decision, then crawling into a fire shelter cause every other single option to survive has been taken off the board.
To quote Randall O’Toole:
The decline in logging and grazing due to ecological concerns fire has become the new gravy train–
money for fire suppression is nearly unlimited but activities to reduce fire hazards like prescribed burning are woefully underfunded”
So—if fire is burning out there is limited funding available but if it is increasing in activity more funds and resources can be released to the situation.
I am wondering if manipulation through a helicopter hovering low over spot fire or other strategies to increase fire behavior on the yhf as it appeared to be dying down on June 29 could account for the fire getting out of control?
Joy,
You asked how I learned about IM——
I was living in Tucson at the time of the fire and began reading news coverage. Some of the articles that I read referenced IM so I started reading to learn more.
I also read other news accounts but have styed with IM.
http://theconversation.com/explainer-back-burning-and-fuel-reduction-20605
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
in case that assumptions falls down or someone says that is AU not USA— here is his email reply:
Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 5:37 PM
see
h t tps://w ww.g oogle.com.au/w ebhp?sourceid=c hrome-instant&ion=1&e spv=2&ie=U TF-8#q=glossary+firefighting+terms
have a nice ANZAC day
David Bowman
Professor of Environmental Change Biology
School of Biological Sciences
The University of Tasmania
Private Bag 55
Hobart TAS 7001
Australia
[email protected]
mobile: 042 88 94 500
Tel (Int): +61 3 6226 1943
Tel (Aus): 03 6226 1943
Fax (Int): +61 3 6226 2698
Fax (Aus): 03 6226 2698
ht tp://w ww.u tas.edu.au/plant-science/people/academic/David-Bowman
skyp e davi d.bow man0
Research ID A-2930-2011
Honorary Professor
Archaeology and Natural History
School of Culture, History and Language
The Australian National University
Canberra, ACT 2601
burnout: a tactic that involves burning the area between an established control line some distance from the fire and the main fire; sometimes called backburn or backfire, but the official term is burnout
source: h t tp:// methowvalleynews. co m/2014/ 08/15/a-wildfire-glossary-what-the-firefighters-terms-mean/
Diane,
Backburn is not a proper wildland firefighting term. It’s a term those not practiced and versed in WF have used for a few years now.
It’s either burning out or backfiring. Burning out is to be done in the normal course of building fireline, burning out the unburned pockets of fuel.
A back fire usually is a major operational endeavor that may require a lot of resources and always is based on weather and fire conditions and timing.
We you hear someone using the term ‘backburn’ then you know that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
RTS,
I have been reading about explosives being used in firefighting.
Wildfire Reader page 264—“most technological ‘advance in fire line construction involves explosives. Devices like ‘blaster cord’ are used to blast still and brush for fire lines especially on very steep and rocky ground”
The YHF was burning on steep and rocky ground (boulders) etc.
Do you know if explosives were utilized on this fire?
soil not still
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 26, 2017 at 11:17 am
>> Daine Lomas asked…
>>
>> The YHF was burning on steep and rocky ground (boulders) etc.
>> Do you know if explosives were utilized on this fire?
There is absolutely no evidence that any ‘explosives’ were used, at any time, in the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire firefighting efforts.
What would explain explosions being heard during the fire?
Diane,
It could have been any number of things, found in most rural communities, mostly in residents’ shed:s:
Large or small Propane Tanks, especially 5 gallon BBQ ones
Dynamite and/or other mining explosives
Stored gasoline or any other fuel
Old military ordnance, i.e souvenirs
Abandoned vehicles with gasoline in the tank still
Diane-
Rts is correct yet in addition I have interviews from both the homeowners to people in the fire industry on that fire who report of an “unknown/unidentifiable” explosion noise 6.30.13 out past Baluco/Whitehead area and the ones in the fire industry can identify the items listed in RTS list but not the noise they heard-
as for Sonny the man who cannot hear but certain noises; he heard it—what I heard sounded like gun shots fired than flames- that is all I can say from the mountain tops but Sonny has his way which differs from mine.
as I shared to a widow of the GMHS October 2013 via email—I will turn over every spot when it comes to wildfires and how 19 men died 6-30-13— which use to be just YHF and Tenderfoot but now sadly its many more wildfires because anyone who is anyone knows there is more to hear about on the gatlinburg fire that affected people I care about…and in about 10 to 15 years you might just be sitting aside a lake fishing hearing a retired FF nearby as he is drinking and fishing as he cusses to the line that catches zip and you hear him talking to the fallen…or maybe finally someone that was a part in this all will just come here one late night anonymously and open up with no fears or pressures—just lay it out as pure as possible.
Hold on to hope Diane that people will eventually open up-
below content is spoken from the bleachers:
((((((April 27 2017 3:17pm correspondence from bleachers to Woodsman’s “cheerleader”—>))))))
Diane thank you for staying here &, WTKTT, thank you for your detailed answer, regarding the Saturday “escape across the two-track” which, according to the ADOSH interview, referenced earlier, in Line1050-1060 turns out to be “sometime in mid-afternoon” and coincides, later with narrative starting at Line 1082, which refer to the “slopover” occurring at the same time as the sling-load of bladder bags are being dropped off… do you think that is before or after 3:30pm… and do you think, the reference to “getting more people up there” might have been before or shortly after the “slopover event”? At any rate, please, drop back a few hours in time to between 11:00am and 12:00noon and revisit the dropbox with the various Dean Fernandez photos and compare ALL those (plus, any Rory Collins shots, you feel might be appopriate) views of the actual fire status… STILL ON THE ORIGIN SIDE of the two-track… pretty clean dirt pathway with seemingly well-defined “burnscar” flank dimensions, right or wrong? Back to the above Line 1082 segment and the Q&A is defining “creep” and the rate-of-creep at some point, prior to “slopover” …with SHUMATE’S reply to the question of “One to two foot?” being, “It was probably less than that because it was on the grass that they were describing to me.” What do you think, either, the “one to two foot” or “probably less” refers to as a rate-of-time, as in the Q2 “(unintelligible)” notation? If we back up to “creep” being “probably less… than one foot per whatever” and assume, we are not dealing with “per second” rates… and return-back-in-time to the Fernandez photos… WHAT IS YOUR DESCRIPTION OF THE FIRE INTENSITY AND ESTIMATE OF UNBURNED FUEL REMAINING ON THE “FIRE” SIDE OF THE TWO-TRACK? From this point in tune/time and “fire activity status”…temps-wind-humidity of that specific time of day and TheCREEP versus TheMEN (how-many-men-against-how-long-and-wide-is-the-two-track-with-what-amount-of-unburned-fuel)… 11:30 tick-tick-tick 3:30pm ??? OK… that is Saturday’s “challenge” of MAN-against-FIRE! Sunday is a WHOLE DIFFERENT STORY and that is where the questions surrounding “both directions” and “two witnesses” and ”mystery man” and the-stage-is-set by starting with Line 1429 (Q2) leading into Line 1436 of SHUMATE’S answer of “I guess the significant thing is the fire finally stopped moving. Um and by morning there was very little smoke left on it.” The primary open question is the *****time frame******* from the above description until the Q&A of “both directions” and “phenomenal fire behavior” (perhaps, best to start with Line 2028) and consider, if you will, the same set of questions as have been postulated for the
MAN-against-FIRE “challenge” of Saturday (same men, maybe more men… same approximate time of day and weather… same intensity or lack thereof of fire or not)?
Diane, just, needs to politely define the time frame on her explosion inquiry because there would be no items that RTS listed out in the desert areas where the early day explosion noise was noted and heard by many. I would anticipate such noises on his list closer to Glen Ilah and Yarnell later that day on 6.30.13 and already have time stamped and identified those noises and locations and what blew up. I have that already mapped out.
Also it is time to locate the “cowboy” who, also, heard an explosion (and try, as best we can, to narrow down his timeline, as well).
Diane, Wildfire Reader is good to read yet Bill Gabbert’s page “WildfireToday”… an absolute “treasure-trove” for someone, like myself and others (many-missing-puzzle-pieces).
Some have traveled recently to a “fire collaterative meeting” and listened (as well, commented, as appropriate)… all the while, intently observing the various primary participants and even gained key EYEWITNESS to their own fire—who watched, as a pivotal burnout operations not reported on another fire was set, which ran “backwards” in the direction of some land that should of never happened—
Diane- h ttp ://quillandfox.c om/main/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/sincerelyty.jpg
We appreciate you.
Reply to explosions and loud noises like gunfire on YHF:
I’m reading that:
Firefighters may use a “wide arsenal of incendiary devices to ignite burnouts; handheld drip torches,fusees,flares launched by special pistols and mortars,truck mounted flame-throwers ‘terratorches’,helicopters with suspended barrels of diesel fuel and aircraft delivered incendiary bomblets called ‘ping pong balls”.
I am wondering how many of these devices may have been used on the Yarnell Hill Fire to increase the fire activity?
Wildfire Reader p. 273
Reply to Bleachers and Cheerleader,
Thank you for your encouraging and supportive comments.
I enjoy being a part of this blog and discussion.
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 22, 2017 at 10:04 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> I understand that Willis’ cell phone, paid for by city of Prescott,
>> was searched for records
Actually… that is not the case.
His ‘physical phone’ was never ‘confiscated’ by anyone… nor ‘searched’.
It was ADOSH that requested his ‘call records’ from the City of Prescott and they, in turn, got Willis’ records from the cell carrier and turned them over to ADOSH.
Willis willingly turned over some photographs he had taken that Sunday with his ‘smartphone’ to the SAIT investigators… but no one ever actually ‘scraped’ Willis’ physical phone.
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> could he have possibly had another private cell phone with him
>> that he paid for and which records were not submitted after the fire?
By all accounts… no.
Willis appears to have only had the one ‘smartphone’… and he was using that ‘City of Prescott’ supplied ‘smartphone’ as both his business and personal device.
It was Eric Marsh that has always been rumored to have had TWO cellphones.
It was Deborah Pfingston herself ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) that first stated ( on this public forum ) that ( paraphrasing ) “Anyone who knew Eric knows that he always had TWO cellphones with him out in the field”.
It has never been verified whether Eric Marsh really did ( or did not ) have TWO cellphones or whether he had both of them with him in Yarnell.
Did ATF participate in the investigation of the deaths of Granite Mountain?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 24, 2017 at 9:51 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Did ATF participate in the investigation of the deaths
>> of Granite Mountain?
As far as I know… no.
The moment it was discovered that this Federally-certified Type 1 IHC Hotshot crew was not, in fact, ‘owned and operated’ by the Federal Government… all Federal agencies did all they could to ‘distance’ themselves from the ‘investigations’.
The only ‘exception’ was the obvious ‘insertion’ of Mike Dudley, USDA US Forestry employee, as a Co-Leader of the ‘official’ investigation ( along with all the other Federal employees that were also brought in as subject matter experts, etc. ).
The only reason the cellphones were submitted to the Arizona Counter-Terrorism Information Center ( ACTIC ) for full analysis is because the only thing the Yavapai County Sheriff’s office had to try and ‘examine’ the phones is this bullshit piece of software called ‘Cellibrite’.
‘Cellibrite’ is used by most municipal and state-level law enforcement agencies to ‘scrape’ cellphones and pull all the data off them… but it ONLY works if the device is able to power on and function normally. ‘Cellibrite’ also can’t get around any password protection on the devices… which was necessary for a few of the Granite Mountain cellphones.
So Yavapai County Sheriff’s office simply asked ACTIC for their technical expertise and ‘equipement’ to help scrape ALL of the recovered cellphones.
By the way… It’s actually the ATFE now.
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Darryl Wllis’ work phone was not scraped.
How can that information be acquired ? Seems like it is vital information?
Daryl Willis was deemed to be ‘cooperating’ with investigators.
He had already supplied what he said were any ‘pertinent’ photographs from his phone to the SAIT… and the City of Prescott cooperated fully with ADOSH’s request for ALL of his ‘phone call records’ for even the entire month of June, 2013.
The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office had already decided there had been no direct ‘foul play’ ( from a law enforcement perspective ) involved in any of the 19 deaths, so there was no active ‘criminal’ investigation.
Could ADOSH have decided they NEEDED to ‘scrape’ Darrell Willis’ phone and made a request for it? Sure… but the Prescott City Attorney would have probably put up a pretty good fight over that and ADOSH would have had to supply some good PCRTB ( Probable Cause, Reason To Believe ) in order to win that legal fight.
Darrell Willis was most certainly a ‘suspect’ with regards to who might have given some kind of ‘order’ or ‘directive’ to Granite Mountain that afternoon… and the ADOSH investigators most certainly looked hard and long at that possibility… but there has never been any ‘evidence’ that Willis was actually involved in the actual ‘move’ out of the ‘safe black’ that day.
Without scraping his phone how can it be proved that Willis did not order Granite mountain to leave their black (burned) spot to come to Yarnell or influnce AA to stay in Peeples Valley after 2pm on 6/30/2013 to drop retardant?
Correction above—4 pm not 2 pm
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 26, 2017 at 3:21 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Without scraping his phone how can it be proved
>> that Willis did not order Granite mountain to
>> leave their black (burned) spot to come to Yarnell
>> or influnce AA to stay in Peeples Valley after 2pm
>> on 6/30/2013 to drop retardant?
As in… how do you prove a ‘negative’?
That’s always hard… but the standard approach is that if there is no evidence that someone ever actually DID something… then it can be assumed they did NOT.
That’s pretty much the case with Darrell Willis.
There is ( currently ) no evidence that he did either of those things… and a ‘scrape’ of his phone would probably not supply any more ‘negative evidence’ than his actual phone records.
There is, of course, always the ‘Air-To-Ground’ radio channel conversations.
If Willis was ‘talking’ to ‘Bravo 33’ and telling them to do anything… that is where that ‘evidence’ lies.
But no ‘Air-To-Ground’ radio channel recordings have ( as yet ) surfaced.
All we have to go on there are the occasional captures of the A2G conversations accidentally recorded in some of the Panebaker Air-Drop videos and in some of the Aaron Hulburd videos.
In none of those ‘accidental’ A2G conversation captures do we ever hear Willis talking directly to ‘Air Attack’ about anything.
Air to Ground communications—
These records have been very difficult to uncover.
I am assuming that they could reveal facts about the fire that may incriminate personnel at the fire which could lead to charges but what about the widows who just want the truth so they know wht happened to their loved ones?
Is there not a way that the truth can be laid out without criminal charges ensuing?
I don’t know about there being anything in the ‘Air To Ground’ radio channel recordings that might ‘automatically’ lead to any ‘charges’… but they would most certainly provide the ‘answers’ to many ongoing ‘mysteries’ about what really happened that tragic afternoon.
There are MANY reports ( even in the SAIT ) of both Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed themselves actually ‘talking’ to ‘Bravo 33’ ( Thomas French, John Burfiend and Clint Cross ) over the A2G radio channel.
But those ‘reports’ ( some of which we still have no idea where they came from ) remain confusing.
Example: There is a ‘report’ that at some point, Jesse Steed himself was talking directly to ‘Air Attack Bravo 33’ and telling them ( quote ) “We are headed to a RANCH that we have IN SIGHT”.
There has never been any full ‘context’ provided for this ‘reported’ conversations… such as exactly WHEN that happened… and/or whether or not the reason Jesse Steed was ‘informing’ Air Attack about that was also accompanied by some kind of ‘request’ for ‘Air Attack’ to either act as their ‘lookout’ at that time and/or provide any kind of ‘support’ for their risky ‘move’ through that blind box canyon.
The only proof we have that this ‘reported’ conversation actually DID take place is the fact that DPS Officer Eric Tarr later ‘testified’ that the REASON he suggested they ‘fly a search line’ in the helicopter towards the Boulder Springs Ranch is because he ( Tarr ) had, in fact, OVERHEARD this ‘conversation’ between Jesse Steed and ‘Bravo 33’… and Eric Tarr DID recall hearing Steed say “We’re headed to a RANCH we have IN SIGHT”.
Eric Tarr said he overheard this while he was, in fact, monitoring the ‘Air To Ground’ radio channel that afternoon.
The FULL ‘conversation’ that might have taken place at that time would certainly provide more details about what led to the actual tragedy.
That’s just ONE example of what a complete recording of all the A2G conversations might reveal about what was really happening that afternoon.
There are MANY other ‘mysteries’ that could ALSO be solved via the A2G recordings.
A2G recordings:
Is there a possibility that these recordings may reveal communication between Bravo 33 and Granite Mountain in the hour or so leading up to the deployment that could have included Granite Mountain requesting air support and Bravo 33 not responding due to committments in Peeples Valey after 4 pm on 6/30/2013?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 20, 2017 at 4:00 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> As I listened to an earlier video where Mike Dudley was speaking
>> to a group of firefighters about the Yarnell Hill Fire he stated that
>> in the box canyon where Granite Mountain was trapped they had
>> fire in back of them and fire in front of them.
>>
>> Where was the fire in back of them coming from?
From the same ‘fireline’ that is clearly seen in all of the photos they took at the ‘rest spot’ in the safe black, just before leaving that area.
That ‘fireline’ eventually spread due south and first ‘flowed’ around the mounds out in the middle bowl known as ‘Big Round Top’ and ‘Little Round Top’, and then ‘flowed’ in two directions
Due south towards the mouth of the box canyon.
Due southwest ( and up the slope ) towards the ‘Descent Point’ saddle
Remember that both ‘fire’ and ‘water’ are similar in that they will both follow the laws of ‘fluid dynamics’. They will both ‘flow’ along the path of ‘least resistance’.
Watch the following video ( the whole thing ).
It is a ‘through the looking glass’ style video based on actual raw aerial footage taken by the ABC 15 media helicopter as it was filming over Yarnell from 4:00 PM to 4:50 PM that tragic afternoon.
The helicopter footage used for the following video was taken in the 4:20 PM timeframe, after the fireline had crossed over Brendan’s ‘lookout mound’ location, and was then ‘flowing’ around those mounds out in the ‘middle bowl’ and heading right at the ‘box canyon’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYpnPMfPmc
This ‘idea’ that at the moment Granite Mountain realized they were in trouble, they were then immediately seeing fire both ‘ahead’ and ‘behind’ them was first ‘floated’ by Darrell Willis during that initial July 23, 2013 press conference that was held at the deployment site.
Darrell Willis first put that ‘idea’ out there as just some way to possibly explain WHY Granite Mountain chose to deploy on the floor of the box canyon, rather than make any attempt at all to ‘drop packs and run’ and even TRY to make it back up over the ridge they had just come down from.
It was in the ‘lead up’ to Willis’ now infamous statement saying that the offical reason all those men burned to death was because it was “God’s plan”.
Here is exactly what Darrell Willis first said back on July 23, 2013 during that initial press conference at the deployment site…
—————————————————————————————————–
Darrell Willis: They had committed to go downhill.
They were committed to come downhill.
They… they probably saw the fire in this area and then… ah… were looking for a place because they knew that they had fire on both sides of ’em… they had fire behind ’em… and now they had fire ahead of them… and so at the site that’s fenced behind me they began to do some work… and… ya know… the timeframe is really, really short… that they had to work. Ah… they carved… started cuttin’ out a safety zone with their saws.
The… the voice of what actually happened… we’ll never know.
We’re not gonna have that information from them.
But… uh… I can tell ya that they died with honor.
That… uh… they stuck together.
They… uh… nobody cut and run the other direction.
Nobody tried to get out of the way.
They all deployed.
They were a very cohesive team.
uh… ya can call it an accident… I just say…
God had a different plan for that crew at this time.
—————————————————————————————————–
Oddly enough, though… this is the ONLY time during that press conference that Darrell Willis spouted that ‘official line’ that was emerging back in the ongoing SAIT investigation that Granite Mountain must have chose to ‘deploy’ because they must have simultaneously seen fire ‘ahead’ and ‘behind’ them.
Later in the same press conference… Willis then only relies on the ‘uphill versus downhill’ rate-of travel argument for the reason why GM decided to ‘deploy’ on the floor of the box canyon.
He never again says ( with the same certainty ) “They saw fire BEHIND them”.
Willis ‘drops back’ to only suggesting they MIGHT have.
** From the Q/A part of the press conference…
Even in this question from a reporter, after Willis was specifically asked to EXPLAIN how it was that fire came at them from BOTH directions at the same time… Willis only mentions the fire that was AHEAD of them and coming at them from the mouth of the box canyon.
And he is now just saying that the reason they didn’t ‘retreat’ was just because of TIME and ‘uphill versus downhill’ travel rate argument and is only now saying IF they ‘saw fire’ behind them… not that they actually DID with the same certainty he has ‘announced’ during the narrative part of the press conference.
———————————————————————————————-
Q: Chief… they came down… I mean it all looks black right now. Is there a way you can tell, you know, did the fire come down there and around here at the same time… or how did this area get engulfed in flames?
Darrell Willis: The fire behavior… ah… folks have said that it came around here ( points to mouth of canyon ).. and if ya look… uh… if ya look at that… uh… little swale here it’s… it basically would lead you to believe that the fire came up this direction and up these little drainages here.
Q: And they wouldn’t have been able to get up that way ( points up to the ridge )?
Willis: No. They couldn’t of… it… ya know… it may have taken ’em… uh… 20 minutes to get off that… it woulda taken ’em 45 to get back up… or… or more… to get back up that… so once you’re committed downhill there’s really no way to make any time goin’ uphill. So IF they had fire here and they were tryin’ to climb… they woulda never made it… their best option was where they deployed
————————————————————————————–
Later… same thing… no mention of ‘fire behind them’ when asked about their ‘options’…
———————————————————————————————–
Q: Chief… I know they only had a very short time to pick a spot to deploy their shelters… but can you talk about how optimal a spot this is for shelter deployment… um… I guess the goal is to try and get as much of a seal around ya as ya can?
Darrell Willis: It was the best they had at the time.
Uh… it… at the time… based.. ya know… on our… uh… thought that the fire was movin’ up this camon… canyon… it’s the best they had at the time.
There was NO other options.
There wasn’t an option to escape… uphill.
This is where they had to deploy.
—————————————————————————————————–
Keep in mind that it is still totally unknown when the ‘moment of realization’ was, or how much TIME Granite Mountain really had that afternoon.
That would have been the moment that Willis was referring to when he first said publicly, and with an air of ‘certainty’…
“…they knew that they had fire on both sides of ’em… they had fire behind ’em… and now they had fire ahead of them”
Willis was actually making it SOUND like they FIRST saw fire ‘behind them’… and only AFTER that saw fire ‘ahead’ of them and felt ‘trapped’ enough to believe that deploying on the floor of the fuel-filled canyon was their ‘only option’.
The only thing we know for sure is that by 16:39:25 ( 4:39 PM plus 25 seconds ), when we first hear Jesse Steed trying to contact John Burfiend in ‘Bravo 33’… Granite Mountain had ALREADY done all of the following things…
1. Realized they were in deep trouble.
2. Considered ALL their options.
3. Decided to deploy there on the floor of the fuel-filled box canyon.
4. SEARCHED for the right place to deploy.
5. Chosen a place and committed to it.
6. Given out work assignments to ‘improve the site’
7. Sawyers pulled ropes on their saws and were already ‘at work’
8. Others assisting with brush removal and ‘burning out around ourselves’ work.
We know they were already ‘at work’ actually clearing the deployment site when we first hear Jesse Steed because that is not ‘over modulation’ being heard on that first transmission. You can already HEAR the chainsaws running ( at least two ) in the background… and the primary reason Jesse Steed is heard YELLING in that first transmission is because he was close to the saws running and was raising his voice just as much to make sure he could hear HIMSELF speaking into the radio as to be sure the receiving party could hear/understand him over the din as well.
So the actual ‘moment of realization’ itself that afternoon still all depends on how much TIME had actually elapsed BEFORE 4:39:25 PM in order to complete all the ‘tasks’ listed above.
It could have only been a few minutes… but could easily have also been as long as 5 to 8 ( or even 10 ) minutes.
Probably the MOST time-consuming ‘task’ from the list above is the part about searching/finding/choosing the actual place to deploy.
Maybe they had ‘seen’ that ‘clearing’ already as they were moving east and BEFORE the ‘moment of realization’ and were able to ‘retreat’ to it fairly quickly and ‘get to work’ improving it.
But maybe not.
Maybe they really had to ‘struggle’ to even FIND that small clearing in the middle of that tangled mess of vegetation… and wasted MANY precious minutes doing so.
Courthouse News article on latest AZ Appeals Court ruling against the families that sued the State of AZ for their homes destroyed by yhe YH Fire.
The actual ruling in in a link at the word “ruling” in BLUE in the first sentence.
http://www.courthousenews.com/arizona-ducks-small-towns-wildfire-claims/
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on April 1, 2017 at 10:06 am
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Courthouse News article on latest AZ Appeals Court ruling against the
>> families that sued the State of AZ for their homes destroyed by yhe YH Fire.
Thanks for the ‘heads up’ on this latest ‘ruling’ in the ‘property damage’ lawsuit(s).
Courthouse News Service
Article Title: Arizona Ducks Small Town’s Wildfire Claims
Published: March 31, 2017 by Allie Weintraub
http://www.courthousenews.com/arizona-ducks-small-towns-wildfire-claims/
From the article…
———————————————————————————–
PHOENIX (CN) – ( The State of ) Arizona is off the hook for extensive property damage caused by a deadly lightning-sparked wildfire in 2013, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.
The property owners claimed state officials’ negligence, along with their failure to give timely evacuation notice to residents, made Arizona liable for damages.
The appellate court disagreed.
Ruling in the residents’ favor would require Arizona to act as insurer of all private property against natural disasters, Judge Kent Cattani wrote for the three-judge panel. Requiring that would create a “self-defeating incentive” for Arizona to stop fighting wildland fires, Cattani concluded.
———————————————————————————–
Direct link to the actual ‘ruling’ document…
http://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/0/OpinionFiles/Div1/2017/1%20CA-CV%2015-0349,%201%20CA-CV%2015-0350.pdf
The ( Arizona ) Appellate Court did NOT actually ‘disagree’ with the following…
“The property owners claimed state officials’ negligence, along with their failure to give timely evacuation notice to residents, made Arizona liable for damages.”
Instead… the Appellate Court said they must ‘ASSUME’ the allegations of negligence are CORRECT…
From PDF page 2 of the ‘ruling’ itself…
———————————————————————————
The Residents asserted civil claims against the State, alleging that the State had negligently managed the firefighting efforts, negligently failed to protect Yarnell from the fire, and negligently failed to provide a timely evacuation notice, all leading to the destruction of their property.
We consider only the ( original ) pleading itself, and we ASSUME THE TRUTH of all well-pleaded factual allegations and indulge all reasonable inferences from those facts.
———————————————————————————
In other words… Appellate Court Judge Kent E. Cattani ( speaking for himself AND on behalf of the Judge Lawrence F. Winthrop and Judge Peter B. Swann ) is NOT rendering any opinion on the FACTS of the original ‘pleading’.
Only an actual ‘day in court’ ( which the residents of Yarnell still DESERVE ) can decide that.
Judge Cattani is ONLY stating ( as Appeal Court judges for cases that have NOT ever even been to trial are REQUIRED to do ) that it MUST be ASSUMED that the alleged FACTS in the pleading are CORRECT… and that the ‘suppression’ efforts at the Yarnell Hill Fire were an absolute cluster-fuck and one of the greatest examples of ‘negligence’ one could ever imagine.
All he is doing is ‘affirming’ the decision of Judge Gama from the lower court who said that it doesn’t matter if it was all a gigantic display of gross negligence and incompetence. The only thing that ‘matters’ is that despite what most of the good ‘citizens’ of Arizona might BELIEVE… Arizona State Forestry never has one single atomic molecule of ‘responsibility’ or ‘duty’ to ever lift a single finger to ever ‘protect’ any Arizona citizen and/or their property.
Not EVER ( no matter what all the fireman who get dispatched BELIEVE their ‘job’ is ).
But Katani takes his “opinion” one step further and basically says that if it were ever possible for any ‘fireman’ working for Arizona State Forestry to EVER be held ‘accountable’ for even the worst negligence and incomptence one could ever imagine… that would just result in Arizona Forestry never bothering to ever do anything at all.
From PDF page 4 of the ‘ruling’ itself…
———————————————————————————
The parties AGREE that prevention or suppression of wildfires ( like the emergency response to any natural disaster ) is a fundamental public safety obligation, and that public policy should encourage a prompt and efficacious response from the State. But imposing a tort duty based on the State’s undertaking to provide an emergency response could instead encourage inaction: the State could shield itself from liability by simply doing nothing.
———————————————————————————
Total horseshit.
The GOOD news is that attorney Craig Knapp himself KNOWS this is ‘Total horseshit’.
Also from the article…
———————————————————————————-
“The Arizona Court of Appeals incorrectly concluded that it would be bad public policy to hold the state liable for negligence in fighting wildfires,” attorney Craig Knapp said in a statement. “The best public policy is, we believe, to hold the state as liable as any private citizen for any negligence that it commits when it decides to act.”
Attorney Craig Knapp said they plan to file a motion for reconsideration by April 14.
If denied, the residents plan to appeal their case to the Arizona Supreme Court.
“What we can say for certain is that we will keep fighting for the residents of Yarnell,” Knapp said.
———————————————————————————-
More to come… and it will now be up to the Arizona Supreme Court to decide what ‘good public policy’ means… and whether ‘good public policy’ really means you can/should have a bunch of incompetent yahoos on the ‘public payroll’ running around committing ‘gross negligence’ who are NEVER capable of being held ‘accountable’ for their fuck-ups.
This is disappointing news but thank you for letting us know about this ruling.
CELL PHONE Communications on YHF:
I cannot understand why phone records haven’t been obtained from 6/30/2013.
Even in the case of cell phones being destroyed in the fire and elsewhere I thought it was possible to recover the records.
Isn’t this accomplished by law enforcement agencies in criminal situations?
How can this information be obtained? FOIAs?
In videos firefighters can be heard asking for Musser’s cell phone number.
Where are these records?
Some of these cell phone conversations must contain vital information about what was occurring on the fire and may prevent a future disaster.
Cell phone communication :
To quote WTKTT:
SAIT and ADOSH would have had “the authority” to obtain the call records of
pretty much anyone they wanted to–even if it had taken some back and forth with some lawyers to get it done
Why didn’t this happen especially for Eric Marsh’s cell phone?
Reply to Diane Lomas post on April 23, 2017 at 7:28 am
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Cell phone communication :
>>
>> To quote WTKTT:
>>
>> SAIT and ADOSH would have had “the authority” to
>> obtain the call records of pretty much anyone they
>> wanted to–even if it had taken some back and forth
>> with some lawyers to get it done
>>
>> Why didn’t this happen especially for Eric Marsh’s cell phone?
No one knows.
Not yet, anyway.
Remember, however, that even though the Arizona Department Of Health and Safety ( ADOSH ) is an official State-level investigation authority ( and with all the powers that go with it )… it was never the JOB of ADOSH to determine exactly what happened with the deaths of the 19 Hotshots.
There came a point in their ‘workplace safety’ investigation where they already had enough ‘evidence’ to issue multiple ‘willful serious’ workplace safety violations for that screwed-up Yarnell workplace… and they also realized that they were now ‘pegging the meter’ on the actual maximum level of fines they are even allowed ( by law ) to levy on any Arizona employer.
So they really didn’t ‘finish’ their investigation.
Once they were already ‘pegging the meter’ and had hit the ‘maximum fines allowed’ just based on the evidence and testimony they had already ‘collected’… they ‘called it a day’ and really didn’t bother pursuing things that they still could have just to find out what REALLY happened.
As for the SAIT… look above at that document which shows Jim Karels officially requesting the RTT ( Range To Tower ) records for 26 different Yarnell-related cellphone numbers.
Probably a large majority of those cellphone numbers belonged to the Granite Mountain Hotshots themselves ( however many of them actually had valid cellphone numbers ).
But there is NOTHING in the SAIT ‘evidence record’ to indicate if Verizon ever did ‘comply’ with that request and NOTHING to indicate whether the SAIT ever received the ‘call records’ and the RTT data for those 26 cellphone numbers.
What?… did Verizon REFUSE to supply the information?
Even that ‘refusal letter’ ( if it happened at all ) should have been part of the ‘public evidence record’ once the SAIT was forced ( via Arizona Open Records laws ) to supply ALL of their ‘evidence’.
This is probably just more proof that, just like the original Aaron Hulburd videos, Jim Karels and Mike Dudley and Randy Okon ended up LYING about what was actually ‘in their possession’ and they never actually released ALL of the ‘evidence’ that had been assembled by the SAIT… even though that is what the LAW required them to do.
They only ‘released’ what they WANTED to… and to hell with silly little things like LAWS.
Reply to WTKTT
Regarding cell phones:
What can be done at this point to access cell phone records for all Granite Mountain hotshot cell records including Eric marsh?
Reply to Diane lomas post on
April 23, 2017 at 7:51 pm
>> Diane lomas said…
>>
>> Regarding cell phones:
>>
>> What can be done at this point to access
>> cell phone records for all Granite Mountain
>> hotshot cell records including Eric marsh?
Unless VERIZON actually REFUSED to supply the records officially requested by SAIT Co-Lead Jim Karels… then whatever the SAIT received should still be sitting in a filing cabinet somewhere, even though they ‘pretended’ to not have this information when it came time for a PUBLIC release of ALL the evidence obtained during this totally-tapayer funded ‘investigation’.
An ‘Arizona Open Records Request’ and/or an FOIA should produce those records. Remember… it is a FELONY to actually DESTROY ‘evidence’.
As for Eric Marsh’s cellphone… his widow got tired of all the controversy and supposedly shared some kind of ‘Eric Marsh cellphone records’ with people.
Kinda, sorta.
She still refuses to show the actual ‘documents’ and just expects everyone to ‘take her word for it’ regarding what may or may not be in those ‘records’.
It is also still not known if these ‘records’ she is/was referring to are just a copy of the usual phone bill one might get in the mail… or whether they really are the FULL packet-level records that can/should be supplied by the Carrier.
John Dougherty wrote an article about this and was able to talk to Amanda Marsh herself about it…
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: Eric Marsh had no cell phone communications in hours before deployment, his widow says
Published: December 20, 2015, by John Dougherty
(Story updated at 9:05 a.m., Dec. 21, 2015 to include Amanda Marsh’s statement that Eric Marsh only carried ONE cell phone.)
http://www.investigativemedia.com/eric-marsh-had-no-cell-phone-communications-in-hours-before-deployment-his-widow-says/
Who can folow through and discover the facts of this incomplete investigation?
And always remember that in spite of any and all ASF and/or IMT blunders or anything else, it was the sole responsibility of the GMHS Crew Leaders on the YH Fire on June 30, 2013, to protect the safety and welfare of those they supervised, i.e. the GMHS, which included themselves.
Only an actual “day in court”, with witnesses finally being FORCED to ” tell the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing BUT the truth”, will reveal the FULL scope of what really happened that weekend… and not just on Sunday.
The ‘negligence’ started on Friday… and CONTINUED for the entire weekend.
Yes, agreed. But a competent HS Crew with good, competent supervisors would have remained in the good black and not traveled through the green when they did. They’d all still be alive.
And competent ‘management’ would have made SURE they DID.
It still remains an absolute mystery whether or not Thomas French and John Burfiend and Clint Cross ( in aircraft ‘Bravo 33’ ) were ever actually ‘instructed’ to fly down to the Yarnell side of the fire to make SURE that Granite Mountain was ‘staying put’ in the ‘safe black’… or… if they even WERE ‘instructed’ to do so… whether they actually DID.
OPS1 Todd Abel ‘testified’ that he DID ‘instruct’ them to do so… and that they DID do the ‘safety check’… and then reported back that GM was, in fact, ‘safe’.
But Thomas French and John Burfiend ‘testifed’ it was the exact OPPOSITE. They ‘testified’ that it was THEIR idea to go and do a ‘safety check’ on a ‘crew headed to a safety zone’ ( GM )… but that it was then OPS1 Todd Abel who ‘called them off’ on that ‘mission’ and said it wasn’t necessary. So they did NOT do the ‘safety check’.
Both of those ‘versions’ of what happened that afternoon CANNOT both be TRUE.
Someone has always been ‘lying’ about it.
Is this the same radio conversation where AA heard that Granite Mountain was moving to their safety zone as asked if they should take a time to check out their situation and were told that there was no need as it was Granite Mountain who were safe?
Typos-“should take a time” should be “take time”
“as asked” should be “and asked”
Possibly Todd Able did not want AA to be aware of Granite Mountain’s movements toward Yarnell as it might interfere with the Hail Mary plan that was in process and needed to be kept secret as it went against wildland firefighting rules.
Diane,
What WFF Rules are you referring to here?: “the Hail Mary plan that was in process and needed to be kept secret as it went against wildland firefighting rules.”
RTS,
As you may know I am a retired elementary school teacher without fire training but from what I have read one of the wild land fire “rules” or watchout situations” that I was referring to here is *no unburned fuel between firefighters and the fire* .
Diane,
Okay. That’s a Watch Out Situation, so one can violate or break a but fail to know it, recognize it and mitigate it.
There were other Watch Outs in place that likely precluded them from accomplishing this operatiion, like
Weather getting hitter and drier, the winds increasing and/or changing direction,
Instructions and assignments not clear, no communication, etc.
Doing this on my phone so insure of how this will come out
RTS,
Thank you for engaging in this dialogue with me. I usually prefer to follow facts in a situation and resist jumping to conclusions but the resistance to cooperate block access to necessary information has changed my mind.
WTKTT suggested earlier on this blog that I should “fire away with my theories” about what I think could have happened on Yarnell when we have been stonewalled and had important evidence withheld .
My point is that with the dynamic and dangerous conditions present at the Yarnell Hill fire
on the afternoon of 6/30/2013 fire fighters (and commanders) in the
area were well aware of the dangers of all the conditions that you mentioned above and if they knew that a crew was ignoring these dangers and
engaging in what could be conceived as a
suicide mission steps would have most likely been
taken to stop them.
Not everyone would have tried to stop them—- those who were trying to stop the disaster unfolding that they allowed would be pulling out all the stops to
prevent what mismangement had created and would have worked with Granite Mountain to try to pull off this audacious feat—to help Yarnell and its citizens and save face for the agencies in charge of the fire.
Again—these are my theories based on what could have happened
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
April 10, 2017 at 12:00 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> …if they ( other ‘managers’ ) knew that a
>> crew was ignoring these dangers and
>> engaging in what could be conceived
>> as a suicide mission steps would have
>> most likely been taken to stop them.
In a public speech to a roomful of firefighters on June 20, 2014… Yarnell SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley admitted that the fact that DIVSA Eric Marsh was using the ‘private’ GM Intra-crew radio frequency to communicate with the only resouce in his Division ( Granite Mountain ) was definitely a ‘contributing factor’ to what eventually happened that tragic Sunday.
DIVSA Marsh was moving his ‘resources’ ( GM ) OUT of their ‘assigned division’ ( Division A ) and into ANOTHER adjacent ‘Division’ ( DIVS Z )… but since that move and the discussions over the radio that led up to it were NOT taking place over the ‘open TAC’ radio channels… other managers and personnel on the fire were not fully aware of what was taking place.
According to Mike Dudley… this DID ‘short circuit’ the ‘normal’ process of other ‘managers’ on the fire becoming fully aware of the movement of resources… and the normal chance to provide ‘input’ or… indeed… perform an intervention.
If ALL the other ‘managers’ on the fire HAD been fully aware of what Marsh was trying to pull off and ‘ordering’ Granite Mountain to do… would Marsh and/or Steed had ‘listened’ to anyone or followed any advice to NOT make the attempt and ‘stay in the black’?
Hard to say.
But even though the published SAIR report did NOT mention this… SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley himself later admitted that these ‘private conversations’ over a ‘private channel’ between a DIVS ( Marsh ) and a resource Superintendent ( Steed ) which could NOT be ‘heard’ by anyone who didn’t have the GM ‘private’ radio frequency was definitely a ‘contributing factor’ to the tragedy.
People like RTS ( and others ) can go on all day long about how it wasn’t anyone else’s ‘responsibility’ to monitor GM’s movements that day… but the REALITY is that…. given the conditions that afternoon… if more ‘managers’ HAD been FULLY aware of what Marsh was ordering GM to do… there MIGHT have been an ‘intervention’ that day… or at least some ‘gut check’ radio calls along the lines of…
“Are you SURE you know what the fuck you are doing? Are you SURE you have a ‘lookout’ and your own ‘eyes’ on this thing? Are you FULLY aware how fast this fire is moving towards your planned ‘escape route’?”
Diane,
I’m clarifying my reply to you regarding the alleged
Hail Mary
Plan
and firing their line.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470802
I meant to say that the Watch
Out
Situation s
CANNOT
be
‘ violate d.’
The
Fire
Orders and LCES
can
be
violated
but not the Watch
Outs, as they are
Guidelines.
Hope this helps and clarifies.
WTKTT,
On April 13th you posted:
“But even though the published SAIR report did NOT mention this… SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley himself later admitted that these ‘private conversations’ over a ‘private channel’ between a DIVS ( Marsh ) and a resource Superintendent ( Steed ) which could NOT be ‘heard’ by anyone who didn’t have the GM ‘private’ radio frequency was definitely a ‘contributing factor’ to the tragedy.”
“People like RTS ( and others ) can go on all day long about how it wasn’t anyone else’s ‘responsibility’ to monitor GM’s movements that day… but the REALITY is that…. given the conditions that afternoon… if more ‘managers’ HAD been FULLY aware of what Marsh was ordering GM to do… there MIGHT have been an ‘intervention’ that day… or at least some ‘gut check’ radio calls along the lines of…”
Really? Will you kindly refresh my memory and people like me on me/us “go[ing] on all day long about how it wasn’t anyone else’s ‘responsibility’ to monitor GM’s movements that day…’
All Wildland Fire Supervisors have the responsibility to monitor their Resources as much as those Resources also have the same responsibility to notify their supervisors, i.e. Fire Order No. 7 “Maintain prompt communications with your forces [resources], your supervisor, …”
Todd Able did contact them, verified their location, and told them to “hunker and be safe.”
I assure you that I would have been inquiring about what Marsh and/or the GMHS was up to, what they were doing, their location, etc. because of his past experience of being disingenuous, outright lying, and “deliberately vague” according to SAIT Co-Tea Leader Mike Dudley, addressing those same Utah WFF’s.
So, please refresh mine and others’ memories on this matter. Thanks.
WTKTT,
I disagree. Neither competent or incompetent management would have ensure the GMHS safety that day. Only GMHS could ensured their safety.
Nobody held a literal or figurative gun to the GMHS’ head(s) – individually or collectively – and forced them to leave the safe black. And retardant air support on the fire and/or on the GMHS especially would have been a near possibility even in ‘perfect’ weather according to French and Burfiend.
And I agree with Rocksteady and his conclusions on AA. AA cannot order anyone in the air to do anything, They were more like suggestions.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470659
Did politics and Peeple’s Valley landowners play a role in the loss of Yarnell and 19 mens’ lives?
If the AA supervisor had not left Peeple’s Valley air space at 3:50 pm on 6/30/2013 perhaps the remaining AA would have flown to Yarnell at that time and reduced some of the destruction that the fire caused and even helped Granite Mountain.
I think that AA could have been influenced through political pressure to continue dropping retardant in Peeple’s Valley to protect wealthy ranchers’ property and without their supervisor on site they were free to do that.
If this is the case no wonder there is so much GUILT over the loss of these men.
AA supervisor left Peeples Valley air space—–
Could the AA supervisor have left Peeple’s Valley airspace due to a disagreement among AA pilots, ground supervisors etc and himself about continued support in that area after a wind shift and resources being needed in Yarnell?
Not likely.
If you look carefully at all the ‘Air Logs’ that are in the public evidence record… and you ‘add up’ the time that Rory Collins was ‘in the air’ that day… then what Rory Collins himself said about his pilot ‘timing out’ turns out to be TRUE.
Rory Collins was not flying the small plane he was in that Sunday over Yarnell.
Some other guy ( or gal ) was.
After two full investigations… we still don’t really know WHO that ‘pilot’ was that was flying AA Rory Collins around all day Sunday.
But if you add up the HOURS in the ‘Aircraft Logs’ for that plane for Sunday, June 30, 2013… then yes… that ‘pilot’ really was about to ‘time out’ circa 4:00 PM on Sunday, June 30, 2013…. and THAT is why Rory Collins had to pass off the AA duties to John Burfiend in ‘Bravo 33’ at 3:58 PM, when Collins and his pilot actually left the Yarnell airspace.
I’m not ‘dissing’ any of your theories about who or what might have been fully influencing the air support that day.
I’m just saying that when it comes to WHY AA Rory Collins had to leave Yarnell at 3:58 PM… it really does appear to be what he said.
His ‘pilot’ had flown all the hours he was ‘allowed’ to that day.
April 13 reply to WTKTT:
Thank you WTKTT for your measured informative reply.
I do not feel that you are dissing my theories about what could have happened on the Yarnell Hill fire on 6/30/2013–they are theories to be hashed out ,as you indicated,on this site.
Your evidence of the logs totally the amount of hours that Rory Collins’ pilot had flown on 6/30/2013 indicated that indeed his pilot needed to leave at that point for safety reasons,not because of a possible power struggle.
Strange that we do not know the pilot’s name-I assume that this was requested in a FOIA.
As I listened to an earlier video where Mike Dudley was speaking to a group of firefighters about the Yarnell Hill Fire he stated that in the box canyon where Granite Mountain was trapped they had fire in back of them and fire in front of them.
Where was the fire in back of them coming from?
Diane,
There was NO fire in back of them.The SAIT completely made that up.
Go to the SAIR link below and to page 77, and the idealized image in Figure 16 allegedly indicating the “Fire splitting with south head entering the middle bowl and north head moving toward the entrapment bowl”
http://wildfiretoday.com/documents/Yarnell_Hill_Fire_report.pdf
This is in step with the ongoing SAIT past practice of first establishing a conclusion and then finding the facts to fit that conclusion in all wildland fire fatality “factual reports” where WFF are killed by fire.
The world first heard of this “They had fire both BEHIND them and AHEAD of them” theory that the SAIT was coming up with when Darrell Willis towed the line and ‘announced’ it at the first press conference on July 23, 2013.
But even in that press conference… Willis only ‘postulated’ that theory to help explain WHY Granite Mountain decided to deploy on the floor of the canyon when he was delivering the ‘narrative’ part of the press conference.
In the following Q/A session… Willis went right back to only suggesting they MIGHT have seen fire ‘behind’ them ( up on the ridge where they came from ) and that it only MIGHT have factored into their decision making.
See the following additional ‘post’ about this up above…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470900
Reply to Diane Lomas post on
April 20, 2017 at 4:00 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> As I listened to an earlier video where
>> Mike Dudley was speaking to a group
>> of firefighters about the Yarnell Hill Fire
>> he stated that in the box canyon where
>> Granite Mountain was trapped they had
>> fire in back of them and fire in front of them.
>>
>> Where was the fire in back of them
>> coming from?
Diane… see a longer ‘Reply’ up above posted as a new ‘Parent Comment’…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470900
Please note: This comment includes some of my “theories” for which there is not direct evidence at this time but rather are possibilites that make sense to me and are open to discussion.
Granite Mountain declined the first time they were requested to move resources to Yarnell to help but shortly after began moving in that direction in spite of the danger . Initially Granite Mountain asked if Blue Ridge could do it as they were closer but since that wasn’t going to happen Granite Mountain took the job after Marsh was pressured by his supervisors and convinced that Granite Mountain was the only unit that could save Yarnell. This argument not only appealed to Marsh’s “can do” spirit and fit in with him needing to prove himself as well as the idea of “risk a lot to save a lot”. He then ordered Steed ,who pointed out the dangers, to move the men.
What could have overridden their concern for their personal safety??Not only were their jobs on the line but possibly more important to the men was their moral obligation to help if they could.
With the fire out of control and previous plans failing, Marsh ,in cooperation with others on the fire such as Todd Able and Cortes entered into the Hail Mary plan in a last minute attempt to save Yarnell and the vulnerable residents in that area.
Aware of the dangers but hoping that with AA support, cooperation from peers and their skills it was worth the risk . They just might have been successful if AA had not remained in Peeple’s Valley for 40 minutes during the critical timeframe when they were directed to Yarnell on the afternoon of 6/30/2013.
To be continued——
Continuation of Yarnell Hill Fire theories—–(again, these are theories based on what could have happened)
Afternoon of 6/30/2013:
With fire north of Yarnell in Peeple’s Valley retardant drops were focused in Peeple’s Valley to protect buildings and ranch land in that area. Darryl Willis was coordinating drops from AA up until about 3;50 pm. About this time there was a wind shift which changed the fire threat from the North (Peeple’s Valley area) to the South (Yarnell area). This is when the air attack supervisor left the air space directing remaining AA to head to Yarnell and help out there. AA stayed in Peeple’s Valley instead . The ranchers would have been opposed to this loss of protection for themselves even though the wind shift reduced their threat and would most likely have used political pressure to keep Willis and others dropping retardant in Peeple’s valley rather than allow support to Yarnell. .At this point Willis could have authorized Dan Sullivan or others qualified to continue the drops in Peeple’s Valley while he tended to other fire issues.
With the fire behaviour intensities and rates of spread exhibited by this fire, IF, even IF, Air Attack could have got in there, retardant would not have been effective. The spotting from the fire would have jumped across any retardant line they laid.
Retardant does not put out fire, it suppresses it. It is put out by men and women with hoses and hand tools.
Laying load after load of fire suppression agent (aka retardant) would have been futile and useless. yeah, they could have tried it, but as I said above the spotting would have jumped across the retardant and kept going..
Rocksteady,
Why do you think that Granite Mountain called so desperately in their final moments for AA if they could not help?
Cause they were in deep shit and knew that they had to try something…
Sort of like their attempt to clear out a safe zone, burn off and deploy.
They were in deep deep shit and had to try… Did not work..
Reply to Rocksteady,
Rocksteady I believe that you are describing how fire retardant would have been ineffective as fire gathered more strength about 4:30pm
Prior to that at about 3:50 pm when AA remained in Peeple’s Valley for another 40 minutes maybe there had been a chance for the retardant to reduce fire to Yarnell
structures and possibly help granite mountain. Dropping retardant in Peeple’s Valley after the wind shift at 3:50 pm helped ranchers in that area who had political influence.
In my opinion Yarnell and granite mountain didn’t receive the protection they deserved because ranchers and politicians influenced fire managers and others to stay in an area that no longer needed their protection at the expense of another (Yarnell) that desperately needed it.
I have to disagree.
When the original fire was doing its thing, the Peeples Valley side was the priority, as it was the active front. Because it was the priority, due to fire behaviour, that is where the retardant was being placed. Once the wind shifted, the South flank then became the head of the fire, thus the active front. However, at that time there was considerable distance for the fire to cover until it reached YArnell.
I believe the managers etc on the fire underestimated the potential for the fire to reach Yarnell as aggressively as it did.
It still baffles me that based on the forecast weather etc for the day, as well as existing fuel moisture content that the warning signs were ignored. The fire behaviour forecast for the operational period (that was allegedly talked about in the morning briefing), as well as the radio updates from the weather specialist, seem to have gone right over peoples heads.
I do not believe that political pressure from ranchers etc made any difference in where the priority was. The priority would always be the value at risk (which may be ranches/homes etc) regardless of location or ownership.
Granite did not receive the protection they needed, as you put it because:
a) they went black ops and made a move without the overhead knowing it.
b) they went rogue, breaking or bending most of the watch outs and fire orders on a “suicide mission” in order to get to Yarnell and help evacuate and then be declared as “heroes”… Well, that was the intention anyways… did not work out as planned.
c) they were not following the plans of the morning briefing OR any amendments to the plan that were evolving during the day… “stay in the black, hunker down…”
Even if they had laid retardant along the South side, as you suggest, in those sort of winds it is absolutely no guarantee that spotting would not have occurred across that line.
One ember spewing juniper, mesquite, manzanita etc in a wind of 50 mph will cross a 100 foot wide retardant line like it was not there.
Reply to Rocksteady’s comment about AA dropping retardant in the Yarnell area at 3:50-4:30 pm:
You stated that dropping retardant in Yarnell at that time would have been ineffective due to weather conditions etc.—-Then why did Rory Collins suggest that AA fly to Yarnell and “see what they could do there” due to changing weather conditions. He made a point of bringing this to their attention before he left that airspace so he must have been concerned and thought that they could help in spite of the conditions.
Rocksteady,
You are correct on all your assumptions and conclusions regarding the GMHS that day
He suggested Rory go there, as an Air Attack has a view of the fire that the ground forces do not. So he was suggesting that if Rory went down there and found suitable, effective targets, that they should be attempted. However I suspect even if he had gone down there, it would have been a no -go due to the weather and smoke.
It is a very common practice that if air attack or other aircraft are in the air that ground personnel ask the to “look at things”…. The air attack plane is fast, agile and has an experienced fire person in the passengers seat.
I agree 100 percent with my old friend. And I’m pretty darn happy to still see him posting. I was even happier to see my relatively new friend, since I measure most my friends in decades now, Bob Powers make some guest appearances.
I haven’t gone away, just in case anybody was worried about me. I just haven’t had anything worthwhile to add for quite some time, although I know that hasn’t ever stopped me before, but people do change.
I am still willing to be a good listener who will promise anyone who wants to share with me anonymity, although I won’t keep what you tell me a secret. There are too many people who have already made that deal with the Devil. : )
[email protected]
Gary,
Some of my ” theories”” are stated in a post on IM on the afternoon of April 8
This includes leaving the black and AA..
There has been push back from RTS which is fine-all part of a good discussion I think.
Looking forward to your reactions,
Diane
Yes, I agree with your theory on why the crew left the black (if I remember right, Steed refused twice and had to ordered to do it a third time) except I would add to “Marsh ,in cooperation with others on the fire such as Todd Able and Cortes entered into the Hail Mary plan in a last minute attempt to save Yarnell and the vulnerable residents in that area.”
And here I would add “Or at least look good while trying even though any reasonable WF at their collective fire experience either did know, or should have know that their efforts didn’t have a chance of succeeding under those fire conditions and other circumstances…so heavy on the look good trying.”
I know you have suggested AA stayed up north in an effort to protect rich and influential ranch owners at the expense of the town, that may be true, I just hope its not because that would be much worse than my lowest opinion of those who were involved such as Willis.
I can also tell you that IMHO, no reasonable and experienced line WF would ever attempt such a risky maneuver based on hoping they get air support because air support is so fickle and dependent on so many uncontrollable variables.
I never assumed air attack would be able to help us on the line ever, and so they never disappointed me. I’m not saying that could not have been Marsh’s plan, I am just saying that anybody who did that would have to have a death wish.
I can also tell you that in my four years of fire management once I was off the line as a grunt, I never experienced, or even heard of, or suspected that fire teams were putting that kind of priority on private land, but Arizona Division of Forestry is a highly political organization and they might be susceptible to that kind of pressure from people like Maughn, Pierce and Fann.
And Willis survived as the Fire Chief of a inbred small town fire chief for about 15 years…so I do know he was and still is very savvy at playing in cut throat political circles. And even when he was fired as Chief, he was given a Golden Parachute that would make anyone envious…including me. So…if we ever find out that is what really happened, I will neither be surprised or disappointed. I will just say, “That figures.”
And please keep in mind, my old friend RTS, is an apologist for “them” depending on who “them” are and what day of the week it is, bless his heart, but nobody is perfect. Some of them he guts and some of them he lets live, bless his heart.
Gary,
Thank you for addressing “my theories”. I appreciate your candor and insights
I will write more later.
Diane
A friend in Tucson just let me know about the fire on Mt. Lemmon-started in Molino Basin a few days ago and is now called “Shovel Fire” which appears to be further north on Mt. Lemmon.
Mesa IHC working both fires
Reposting the question, as it got buried under some Trump political/absolutely non fire related posts..
So has there been any significant push for fuels management activities around communities since the Yarnell Fire????
Being that its all chaparral, manzanita, mesquite (whatever) that has zero timber value, why not go out and treat areas around communities to 1000 yards (be it with mechanical mulching or prescribed fire) and then maintain it thru fire or what have you every 3 to 5 years???
Just looking at photos and maps, seems to be pretty easy ground that a large mulcher type machine could do a lot of ground in a day…
Do I detect just a hint of recrimination? OK…fair enough. And yes, I saw your question but I did not take a stab at it because there was a whole bunch of discussion a while back on exactly that and it is far too complicated and nuanced for me to try and explain, so someone like Joy, Sonny or WTKTT need to point you to where it was at…because it was a lot.
And it had to do with large amounts of grant money perhaps being misspent and maybe just outright fraud from Chief Ben D’Over and gross exaggeration of what was accomplished becyaseJoy and Sonny could not see what they had claimed to accomplish on the ground or get them to give up budgets, and accounting records by FOIA. It sounds like it was a real mess.
Oh…and one more thing. You are going to have to start worrying about Trump soon enough because I am pretty sure after we invade Australia and Mexico…Canada is next! Sure, yeah, yeah becha…so heads up Canuck!
Yeah, I remember that there were issues of the $ being handed over but no treatments being done…
I was just wondering if the practice had come to the forefront and been implemented to help protect communities? as it is apparent that all of the fire fighting resources in the world can’t stop some fires…
The Trump stuff to me is pure entertainment… I have no ability to vote him in or out, so just watch the “show” and either laff my arse off or shake my head, depending on what he is saying or doing at that particular moment…
You have the right attitude brother. That’s pretty much where I am at as well. He can’t restore the USA to where we were and who we were in the 1950’s. And just as soon as his supporters accept that one simple fact…he will become a footnote, albeit a very bad one in our nations colorful and tumultuous history.
When thinking about what we do sometimes, I like to remember what Sir Winston Churchill said about Americans and that was we always do the right thing, but only after exhausting all other possibilities.
Reply to Gary Olson and WTKTT about Granite Mountain Hot shots autopsies:
After reading your comments as to what torture the hotshots endured rather than instant death I am wondering if that is why the autopsy reports were so long in coming out—–the effect the reports may have had on lawsuits rather than privacy issues.
So glad that folks like Gary and WTKTT are providing their input as well as JD to get the truth out.
They said it was to protect the privacy of the families. I have no interest in protecting the privacy of the families, but I have a lot of interest in acknowledging how the hotshots died and all of the circumstances surrounding their deaths in the public interest of preventing this from happening a fourth time.
I personally think it was to protect the privacy of the agencies and their employees who were responsible for all of the contributing factors in those deaths.
Gary,
I agree. Also to relieve some of the ones responsible of guilt.
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/03/06/one-option-for-removing-pinyonjuniper/
Utah is doing something…
I apologize if my question below seems repetitive but the answer is not clear to me. The 40 minutes that air attack stayed in Peeple’s Valley at 3;50 p.m. on 6/30/2013 seems like the “elephant in the room” that could have made a difference for Granite Mountain.
If air attack had flown to the Yarnell area at 3:50 pm on 6/30/2013 , as directed by their supervisor, what would have been the chances of saving Granite Mountain?
They could not see and did not know where they were.
Hi Bob,
Good to see you jump on here with all your experience.
You mentioned that air attack did not fly to Yarnell at 3:50 p.m. on 6/30/2013 because no one knew the location of Granite Mountain. As I recall air attack was directed at that time to Yarnell to assist with changing conditions in Yarnell area–Granite Mountain wasn’t mentioned.
So why didn’t air attack fly over that area as directed? In moving from Peeple’s Valley to Yarnell they may have caught sight of the yellow shirts or something else identifying Granite Mountain—AA did not leave Peeple’s Valley for another 40 minutes when conditions had badly deteriorated due to smoke, wind and fire.
Unless there is information that I am missing AA did not even try to comply with directives to at least help Yarnell and in the process may have helped Granite Mountain.
Bob,
I understand that by the time that AA arrived in the Yarnell area at about 4:30 p.m. 6/30/2013 there would have been considerably more smoke and fire than at 3:50 pm when they were first directed to Yarnell limiting visibility on the ground. What I dont understand is why AA didn’t follow their supervisor’s directive and fly directly to Yarnell at 3:50 p.m. What delayed them in Peeple’s Valley for 40 minutes and how can we find out?
Diane, something that non fire folks don’t seem to understand is that even though it appears quasi military, the fire fighting game is not as strict as some are reading into it.
Air attack was working on Peebles Valley, trying to complete a mission, the outgoing air attack said “take a run down to Yarnell and see what you can do there”…
That was not a “direct order”. One air attack to another is not a command position, so in all reality it was more of a suggestion. Air attack is spinning around in the air, assessing fire movement and behaviour and deciding what is the best usage of the incoming loaded air tankers. Firefighting is a very dynamic activity, making changes and split second decisions is very common.
The air attack that took over felt it was important to finish off the Peebles Valley assignment (leaving a retardant line incomplete leaves opportunity for escapes to sneak around and bite you in the butt), as well, from what I have read, he had no idea that Granite Mountain was down to the South. From all accounts, the other fire fighting forces were evacuating the Yarnell area, so air attack did not realize that there were 19 guys in the middle of nowhere in trouble. Communications on this fire were an absolute cluster. A full hot shot crew going “black ops” and moving from one flank of a fire to another without supervisors knowing of the move is absolutely unheard of.
It just is not done… If they would have survived, they would have been fired.
Have been having trouble getting on here.
Granite Mountain Autopsies:
I noticed that there were varying amounts of carbon monoxide in their systems—some as high as 25% others much lower
Ranchers in vicinity of Yarnell hill fire —did anyone influence air attack to remain in the Peeples Valley in the timeframe of 3:50-5p.m. When air attack was directed to assist in Yarnell?
There is no evidence currently in the public record that would support that… but since there is also still no evidence or testimony that explains WHY ‘Bravo 33’ ( John Burfiend, Thomas French and Clint Cross ) did NOT proceed down to the Yarnell side of the fire when they were TOLD to do so by their Air Attack Supervisor ( Rory Collins ) at 3:50 PM… I suppose anything is still possible.
The ranchers had the most to benefit from the additional air attack support during that timeframe . Makes me wonder if the outcome could have been different for granite mountain if air attack had flown to the Yarnell area when they were directed to.
Who was directing retardant drops from the ground for air attack prior to 3:50 pm on 6/30/2013?
Can we confirm that it was Darrell Willis directing the drops?
Circa NOON, when the first VLAT arrived, the answer is yes.
‘Bravo 3’ became the air attack at that time ( when Rory Collins had to leave Yarnell and go refuel )… and Rusty Warbis and Paul Lenmark absolutely confirmed to ADOSH investigators that they were coordinating those first VLAT drops of the day with someone on the ground named ‘Darrell Willis’.
But the ‘ground contacts’ for the rest of the afternoon remain a bit of a mystery.
There is SOME evidence that, as the retardant drops continued throughthroughout the afternoon there on the NORTH side of the fire that the ‘ground contacts’ varied and included a list of people such as ( but not even limited to ) OPS1 Todd Abel, SPGS2 Darrell Willis, OPS2 Paul Missed, Fireman Corey Moser… etc. etc.
Typo up above.
This dumbphone spell checker turned the word “Musser” into the word “Missed”.
OPS2’s name was ” Musser”. Paul Musser.
WTKTT,
Thank you for clarifying about the retardant drops.
Second thoughts about air attack’s delay in flying to Yarnell area at 3:50 p.m. on 6/30/2013——–
Could it have been a safety concern for planes dropping the retardant?
I am reading in My Lost Brothers that ” a pilot can only fly a few feet above the ground when he’s carrying the slurry. A lot of the time, he’s putting the aircraft through severe updrafts and plumes of hot ash rising from the fire. Those plumes cause turbulence.”
Does this statement apply only to the DC-10s or can it also pertain to the aircraft that the air attack crew were flying that day?
Not sure if the statement above about the need for air attack to fly at low altitude for retardant drops is accurate—maybe someone who has time can weigh in.
I have experience with air tankers and retardant drop but am not an air attack officer, but here is my thoughts.
The tankers do not drop from too low down for several reasons a) safety of course. If something goes wrong in the plane they need the extra altitude in order to try to make a safe landing somewhere. b) The retardant, when released comes from a confined tank, and requires time to spread, in order to provide effective coverage. If it the plane was too low, it would just be a big old mud pie hitting the ground.
From my experience, the tankers drop at approximately 100 feet above tree top, however with there not being any real trees in Yarnell, they would not have been 100 feet off the ground only. Mud pie would have been the result.
Each aircraft has specific parameters of how high they fly when they release the load, based on air speed, based on release system (belly tank or MAFFS, etc) as well as the desired coverage level on the forest fuels targeted.
If you look at the video footage of the supertanker dropping on Yarnell or other fires, you can see that they are not flying too low.
An experienced air attack officer, such as Bob Powers (HEY! Anyone seen Bob around?? )….would be able to provide more technical data.
Rocksteady,
Thank you for taking the time to give your input. It is appreciated.
If I understand correctly Bravo 33 would have been a smaller plane but capable of making retardant drops.
In your opinion would the weather and fire conditions at 3:50-4:15 p.m. on 6/30/2013 have created unsafe flying conditions for Bravo 33 to fly from Peeple’s Valley to Yarnell and participate in retardant drops during that time?
Bravo 33 was a Lead Plane or Bird Dog plane. It is a small twin engine plane, not capable of dropping retardant. It is an overhead supervisory aircraft.
MINIMALIZING
Earlier on this blog Gary Olson mentioned the issue of minimalizing regarding issues on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
With Gary’s background as an investigator I trust that he can give us insight into this factor as it affects covering up what we still don’t know about this fire.
My question is—-how do we effectively deal with minimalizing in our efforts to reveal the truth?
We can’t. I tried…I lost. They won. They hold all of the cards, but thanks for thinking of me. You can’t fight city hall.
Or in this case, the city, county, state and federal governments. Public opinion, private opinion, family’s opinions, WF community opinion, non WF community opinion, mainstream media opinion. You name it.
Does this mean that we are left to come to our own conclusions based on the few facts that we have ?
If so, I have a few theories that I would like to put out there for what it is worth.
Fire away with any ‘theories’ you like. This is probably the best place to ‘hash them out’.
There are MANY people following this ongoing discussion who are familiar with the ‘existing’ evidence ( and the lack thereof ).
Well…I was probably being a little overly pessimistic, I just meant I can’t solve the case like I thought I could when I started.
Everything that happened on the God forsaken Yarnell Hill Fire will eventually be known, it’s just taking longer than I hoped it would.
If two people know a secret, it will usually only stay a secret if one of them is dead. I think there are a lot of people who know everything that happened on the YHF.
But in any case, I agree with the Wizard, I would love to read your theories.
Rocksteady,
Would an air attack supervisor have authority over air attack personnel?
When Roy Collins directed Bravo 33 to fly to Yarnell to address the situation there would he have more authority than an air attack crew or was Bravo 33 empowered to disregard his communication and make their own decisions?
It is not a matter of disregarding communications. It is more like here are the objectives, do what you can based on weather, visibility, resources, chance of success etc etc.
But there are STILL times when the ‘Air Attack’ can/should outright TELL his ‘Lead Plane’ to change the priorities and TELL the ‘Air Support’ under his/her command what to do.
And that is exactly what happened in Yarnell at 3:50 PM.
The current/active/designated ‘Air Attack’ ( Rory Collins ) TOLD his ‘Lead Plane’ ( pilot = Thomas French ) to switch priority to the Yarnell side of the fire.
Thomas French ( and John Burfiend ) in ‘Bravo 33’ even SAID they were then ( and immediately ) “headed that way”…
…but they did no such thing.
It took them another 40 minutes before they even bothered to ‘fly down’ to the Yarnell side to even begin evaluating the situation.
Dear Woodsman,
I know you are fearless, but are you scared yet? I am, in fact…I am terrified something is very wrong and I am powerless to do anything about it. I need a hug.
Please pray for our constituional federal representative democracy also commonly known as a Constitutional Republic. I’m afraid all hope is lost.
Thank you, your old friend, comrade-in-arms seperated by time and space and brother from another mother. I hope to see you on the other side when this veil of tears is finally lifted.
Sincerely,
Gary, AKA Big G, the Jackhammer, El Oslo, Dad, Pappa, Pappy, Big G little O, El Jefe, Fuckin’ Asshole and too many others to list in this format.
Oh…and one more thing. Almost everyday there is something so alarming on the MSM it makes me pee pee a little bit on myself. How is that even possible? I mean…almost every DAY!
I learned a long time ago to NEVER ask the question I don’t want to know the answer to, but I am going to break that rule. Is this what you had in mind when you helped elect Our Dear Leader?
I mean…every reasonable person suspected he was Arizona Road Lizard CRAZY, but he is exceeding everyone’s expectations…by a lot.
Here is just one really small example that struck a chord with me because of my age.
You do know they were shipping Australians home in body bags from our war in the former colony of French Indochina that was run Michelin to make tires while that coke whore was snortin’ lines and bangin’ models in Club 54 (or was it bangin’ lines of coke and snortin’ whores…I bet he was too fucked up most of the time to know the difference) on five (5) separate bogus deferments his daddy Morebucks paid for…right?
What kind of an American can’t get along with the Australians for God’s sake! What comes next…declaring war on Canada? I mean…the cray fuck has already threatened to invade Mexico. I would support that if his Spawn of Satan ( Don Jr. and Eric) will lead the invasion force.
I really hate to make this personal for you Woodsman, but you are my people. And I pray to God you don’t have any sons and maybe any daughters if you help that madman get another four years as the most powerful person on the planet and maybe even finish out his first four.
From your descriptions of where you live (rural Red America), your job (working class) and your socioeconomic status…your kids are exactly who that madman will send to die in a foreign land for reasons you won’t even be able to understand once you strip the red, white and blue bunting off of his lies.
I’m not even going down the road that there is no question in my mind he has been fully compromised by the Russian intelligence services and Putin owns him…that is too scary for me to even think about for very long…whoops, I just had a little accident and it wasn’t just a little pee pee. I pissed all over myself thinking about what Putin is going to get him to do to us…fuck me and call me Sally!
Whoops, I was too shook up from pissing myself to even get my very own catch phrase I made up right,
Fuck me silly and call me Sally! (C. G. Olson, Circa 1976)
OK…I want you to stay with me for just a little while longer. YOU people voted for Trump because he is such a great businessman who makes great decisions, picks the best people, and will do the best job to make America Great Again…right?
I want you to think about something with complete and total objectivity for just a few minutes…OK.
President Trump selected the point man for his administration and our entire nation to be the guy who didn’t stop to think that the phone calls and text messages he is making to the fuckin’ Russian Ambassador to the United States are going to be monitored by our intelligence services in and around Washington D.C.!!!
This same guy was a Three Star General and was in charge of military intelligence for our war of choice in Iraq for God’s sake! And then he ran the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is just one (1) of something like seventeen (17) separate U.S. Intelligence services that are all headquartered within a 50 mile radius of where the fuckin’ Russian Ambassador normally operate
I mean…everyone who doesn’t live in a Cone Of Silence knows (thanks to Edward Snowden if for no other reason AND the movie they made about him) that the NSA listens to what everybody says whenever the fuck they want to. That is how they put those Hellfire misses from the Predator and Reaper drones down the dung burning stove pipes of those Islamic terrorists and send them them to hell while their playin’ stinky finger.with each other in shit hole backwater of the tribal lands in all of those shithole “Stan” countries like Arizonistan.
Who the fuck doesn’t about that and you don’t have to be a former Lt. General who ran G2 for all of Iraq…you just have to go to the fuckin’ movies once in a while or whatch TV…sometimes.
And then he gets caught…gee whiz, who the fuck could see that one coming…assures our Vice President he only talked about the weather and never even brought up, “oh yeah, and don’t worry about those sanctions because they are good as gone when we get in office…so”, so the VP goes on all of the talk shows and puts his credibility with the American people on the line…and now he can’t be sure he didn’t talk about lifting the sanctions with the fuckin’ Russian Ambassador because he can’t remember what they talked about.
Forget about all of the reasons why this was a bad idea and how many laws were violated…and just think about how FUCKIN’ STUPID CAN THIS FLYN GUY CAN BE?
But he can’t be stupid…that isn’t possible. They say he was the greatest intelligence officer of his generation. So…then, you have to ask yourself just how bad is his JUDGEMENT AND JUST HOW BAD IS THE JUDGEMENT OF THE MAN WHO MADE SOMEONE LIKE THAT THE POINT MAN FOR ALL U.S. INTELLIGENCE THAT IS SUPPOSED TO KEEP ALL OF US SAFE!
What the fuck am I missing in this equation?
Well…even I can recognize my Trump Tracking is NOT healthy so I am going to check out again. It’s just been raining and cold here in the Dunes so I have been watching Way to much of the lyin’ fake news MSM.
I really do need to switch over and start drinking the Fox News(?) Kool Aid. Where cain I order that anyway? Does it come in a powder that is water soluble? Or is it more like a big tube of shit I have to squeeze into my mouth?
I am guessing from the Woodsman’s rant about Whoopee do fuckin’ ding dong are we going to start following the Constitution now…fuck me silly and call me Sally (paraphrased) that he was referring to Obama’s use of Presidential Orders to circumvent Congress, but that is just a guess?
So…my question is (after noting Our Dear Leaders excessive use of Presidential Orders in his first three years in office, it has been at least that long…right? Frankly, I have lost track of time) do two Constitutional Wrongs make a Constitutional Right?
And I didn’t make it through today without making a little pee pee on myself when I heard Our Dear Leader was openly discussing the latest North Korean missle crisis in public in a busy restaurant with the Prime Minister of Japan and it looked like the New England Patriots owner Bob (if you aren’t cheating, you aren’t trying hard enough) Kraft and their bimbo’s, I mean Mrs. Abe and Our Dear Leaders bimbo.
I wonder what level of security clearance most of the people in that restaurant have? I know what I had to go through every five years to keep my Top Secret security clearance and it was about as pleasant as I would imagine it would be to have a gerbil crawl up my ass (please note how I worded that although IF I ever did have a gerbil crawl up my ass, I would tell you because you are among my closest friends and confidants and I am off the Rez so I have nothing to hide…anymore)!
Some of the fake news MSM call Mar-a-Largo Our Dear Leaders “estate” and nothing could be further from the truth. Anybody with an Amex card and more money than brains (unless they have an ulterior motives…say like about half of the worlds security services including those of our “friends and allies, if the fuckin’ Canadians are smart they will start tracking Our Dear Leaders calls and conversations) in addition to all of the people who pay the two hundred grand to have memberships there (at Mar-a-Largo) so whatever Mar-a-Largo is…it is not Trumps estate…it is a commercial hotel and resort with a fancy restaurant where they won’t let my people stay or even eat (sorry Woodsman) and they serve snails and fish eggs and call it food.
Sooooooooo……who out there in cyber land thinks Lt. General Michael Flynn who was a three star career military lifer who lived and died for his entire adult life by a strict chain-of-command thinks he was on a one mission to interface with the fuckin’ Russians on his own accord…a loose cannon?
And who thinks he was on a specific mission under the direct control of POTUS and was acting on and speaking on his behalf, with not only his knowledge and support, but acting under his (POTUS) direct control?
Hmmmmmmm?
Reply to Gary Olson says
February 13, 2017 at 10:11 pm
>> Reply to Gary Olson…
>>
>> Sooooooooo……who out there in cyber land
>> thinks Lt. General Michael Flynn who was
>> a three star career military lifer who lived
>> and died for his entire adult life by a strict
>> chain-of-command thinks he was on a one
>> mission to interface with the fuckin’ Russians
>> on his own accord…a loose cannon?
And just HOURS after the man he and his boss think was born in Kenya actually ‘announced’ the ‘sanctions’ for the known ‘help’ another country gave in getting them elected?
Hmmmm…. let me see…
( Hand NOT raised ).
>> And who thinks he was on a specific mission
>> under the direct control of POTUS and was
>> acting on and speaking on his behalf, with not
>> only his knowledge and support, but acting
>> under his (POTUS) direct control?
( Hand raised ).
And if anyone also thinks ( tonight ) that the ‘resignation’ negotiations that were obviously going on all today didn’t include some ‘promise’ of a PARDON for Flynn if/when he is arrested for violating the Logan Act and/or arrested for outright TREASON…
…then ( as I said in my other post above )… I have some Mar-A-Lago ski-lift tickets to sell you.
I actually have access to some actual Donald Dumpster ‘supporters’… and even THEY have confided they have had to change their underwear many times recently…
….and some of those underwear changes were when they were actually watching Saturday Night Live.
It’s nice to see SNL ‘relevant’ again.
Reply to Gary Olson post on
February 13, 2017 at 7:17 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> OK…I want you to stay with me for just a little
>> while longer. YOU people voted for Trump
>> because he is such a great businessman who
>> makes great decisions, picks the best people,
>> and will do the best job to make America Great
>> Again…right?
>>
>> I want you to think about something with complete
>> and total objectivity for just a few minutes…OK.
>>
>> President Trump selected the point man for his
>> administration and our entire nation to be the guy
>> who didn’t stop to think that the phone calls and
>> text messages he is making to the fuckin’ Russian
>> Ambassador to the United States are going to be
>> monitored by our intelligence services in and
>> around Washington D.C.!!!
>>
>> What the fuck am I missing in this equation?
Of course he ‘stopped and thought about it’.
For anyone who thinks a former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency didn’t know there was a high likelihood that anything he might have said over ANY telephone line that gets answered inside the US Russian Embassy in Washington would NOT be ‘fully recorded’ by BOTH the US and the Russian Intelligence services… then I have some ski lift tickets to sell you for Mar-A-Lago.
So now that Flynn has been thrown under the bus just like Donald Dumpster flushes his own undocumented workers down the toilet there at ‘Mar-A-Lago’ on a regular basis… there really is only one big question remaining.
WHY did Flynn still feel like it was okay to jump on a most-likely-to-be-recorded telephone line anyway, and tell the Russians not to ‘worry’ about the Obama sanctions put in place for Russia knowingly ‘helping’ the Dumpster win the election?
Gee….. I dunno… let’s take some ‘guesses’.
1. Maybe because the person you helped get elected and who has now elevated your failed career as an intelligence officer to the most important ‘intelligence’ assignment in this country simply TOLD you to make the call(s) just hours after the guy who you BOTH think was born in Kenya put the sanctions into place?
2. ( This is actually part of #1 ) Maybe because the guy TELLING you to make the calls and who is so stupid that he thinks you can’t even trace hackers unless you catch them in act is also now the same guy who can PARDON you if any shit hits the fan like you going on trial for violations of the Logan Act and/or actual TREASON charges? ( Both of which could still happen if Flynn doesn’t wander over to Arlington and eat his gun ) ?
3. ( This is long shot… but also possible ) Maybe because, as just a Director of ONE of the Intelligence agencies ( the DIA )… you THOUGHT that no other agency had ‘cracked’ the telecom at the Russian embassy… and so you still THOUGHT that YOUR call to the Russian ambassador would NOT be ‘recorded’… but since you were just DIA and not NSA you had no idea that you were WRONG… and that every word you would say WOULD be recorded by the NSA?
SIDENOTE: The DIA guys/gals are good… but as compared to the guys/gals over at the NSA… the DIA folks might as well consider themselves as employees at Radio Shack.
4. ( This is actually part of #3 ) Maybe that along with only THINKING you were ‘safe’ to make the call ( as just a DIA flunkee Director and not a real NSA guy )… you also then didn’t realize that the narcissistic sociopath that you tied your wagon to when you started the “Lock Her Up” chant at his convention would then also FIRE the ‘acting Attorney General’… who had already been ADVISED of the content of your telephone conversations with the Russian Ambassador?
Not exactly the ‘someone’ you want suddenly ‘cut loose’ by your 13-year-old-trapped-in-a-71-and-a-half-year-old-body boss and now free to ‘back-channel’ the MSM, eh?
5. ( Maybe this is actually the simplest explanation ).
He ( Flynn ) just didn’t care. His new chance to create this new ‘world order’ that he and Steve Bannon and Bannon’s own ‘Reichland Minister of Information’ Stephen Miller have beenworking so hard on was just too much of a driving force for Flynn to stop and worry about pesky crap like ‘laws’ and whatnot.
Flynn is ( and has been for some time ) simply ‘out there’.
It’s the reason he was forced to RESIGN as Defense Intelligence Director in the first place, which then led him to fire up his own ‘Global Intelligence’ company with his own bat-crap crazy son and go to work for BOTH the Turkish government AND the Russians. ( Putins version of FOX NEWS, RT Television, etc. ).
In his waning days at DIA… Flynn’s ‘intelligence assesments’ were known to contain nothing but what his colleagues started to call ‘Flynn Facts’.
As in… delusions that Flynn was trying to pawn off as ‘facts’.
It reached the point where his ‘Intelligence Assesments’ were nothing but reprints of the same bat-shit crazy stuff Steve Bannon was printing on a daily basis over at ‘Breitbart’.
Anyway… all of the above are just ‘educated guesses’… but you were wondering what you might be ‘missing’… so there are just some ‘suggestions’ to think about.
The karma is building fast.
Even faster than I thought it would.
And we all know that when you base a campaign on nothing but racism, bigotry and hatred… the ‘karma’ most often turns out to be a WHOPPING ( non-gender specific, of course ) bitch.
I for one have my hand raised to pardon General Flynn. Something made him go off the rails, but he is a true American hero and patriot. I personally think he let his very well earned hatred of Islamic terrorists cloud his judgement.
Four Star General Barry McCaffrey, who has been critical of General Flynn has described his military intelligence service and that of special operations commander General Stanley McChrystal as being a very effective and particularly deadly team who destroyed so many of our enemies in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
We all owe General Flynn our deepest respect and gratitude for his stellar military service to our nation. His subsequent civilian service…not so much.
In other words, I think General Flynn was prepared to sell out the Crimea and the rest of Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and the entire Balkan Pennisula in addition to perhaps Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and maybe even Finland in exchange for an alliance with the white, Christian radical Islamic hating and powerful nuclear armed Russian Federation led by a stone cold killer of epic proportions…Vladimir Putin.
Would it have been worth it for U.S. Who the fuck knows, that is way over my pay grade?
But I have got to admit, it does sound a little crazy when I add up what I think Flynn was going to give up to buy the help of that rat faced bastard Putin. Just sayin….
As I am watching the current news about Flynn and Trump and the role of investigative journalists in this issue I am wondering what it will take to bring about the whole truth of the Yarnell Hill Fire?
Will key people such as Eric Panabaker,
blue Ridge hotshots,Brendan (doughnut) and others not interviewed by the investigations be subpoenaed to testify and answer important questions?
Unfortunately Diane, I think I can say without fear of being guilty of using hyperbole that no one, other than a few of us who participate here are not only comfortable, but completely happy with the status quo.
And the status quo is essentially the following;
“The Yarnell Hill Fire burned with the intensity and unpredictability that was impossible to predict in advance and therefore the deaths that resulted from this extreme fire behavior were a tragic accident that was impossible to prevent.
No one who was involved in the suppression efforts of the Yarnell Hill Fire, from either on the Granite Mountain Hotshots, actual fire overhead team or the agencies responsible for these suppression efforts did anything wrong, nor was there anything they could have done differently to foresee or prevent this terrible tragedy.”
The following is a partial list of those who support the preceding statement.
1. Arizona State Division of Forestry
2. Governor of Arizona
3. Arizona State Legislature
4. Almost every citizen of Arizona and every other State of Arizona employee or official led by Senator Karen Fann and Speaker Shit For Brains Tobin.
5. Main Stream Media led by the Arizona Republic, Prescott Courier and Arizona television stations.
6. Yavapai Couty officials led by the Sheriff’s Office, Cental Yavapai Fire Department and the County Board of Supervisors and almost every county resident.
7. The City of Prescott Mayor, City Council , City Manager
City Attorney, City Fire Department and almost all citizens of the city.
8. The U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, everyone else in the USDA, the USDI and all of their attorneys, officials, managers and all other employees plus everyone else who works for the federal government as either an employee or in an elected official.
9. All family members of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots who were burned alive and coughed up their own burning lung tissue so hard they detached their tongues from the back of their mouths with the exception of Mrs. McKee who was taken advantage of and/or cheated by almost everyone who was charged with finding some way to help or mitigate the resulting family disaster which included but was not limited to, the Arizona 100 Club, attorney Alex Vakula, City of Prescott officials and the State of Arizona officials, the Arizona Court system and a bunch of other people, all of whom I, Gary L. Olson personally think are dirty low down worthless bags of swine excrement who should all be tarred and feather and then run out of the state on a rail and a bunch of other really bad and disgusting things I am to ashamed to type out in this format and all of you know I have not found anything before now that has ashamed me so it must be really, really, really bad.
Everyone else who has any power or influence in Prescott, Yavapai County, the State of Arizona or the federal government and a bunch of other people but I am tired of this whole 1 finger typing thing.
I am holding out for the best Apple computer money can buy with all related peripherals, attachments, and bells and whistles because I am so sick and tired of constantly spending an inordinate amount of time fuckin’ around with PC’s.
So…if you have four thousand dollars or any part thereof, you want to contribute to my, “Buy Gary a bitchin’ (non gender specific) Apple Computer” please email me at [email protected].
If on the other hand, you are an attorney representing the Arizona 100 Club, Prescott Arizona attorney Alex Vakula, or any one else I may have offended please call me at 1-800-EAT-SHIT to discuss terms of a settlement.
Thank You
Gary
P.S., Yes you are correct. It rained today and was cold so I have just been hangin’ out. So, you know…fuck it. But at least I am not on Trump Watch tonight, it’s someone else’s turn but as usual I do appreciate WTKTT filling in so many blanks. Now…if I could just get him and the Woodsman off their dead asses my book project might get somewhere.
Diane,
Do you think I am an incredibly lonely, bored and pathetic person so l have to deliberately try to provoke people to fuck with me just so I have someone to interact with?
I think we know each other well enough and we are close enough you can and will tell me the truth. Do you think I am a sad person?
Oh…and one more thing. LinkIn ask me again a couple of days ago if I wanted to link with Mrs. McKee’s dead son.
Which really pissed me off all over again. Actually that is hyperbole…it just made me feel sad.
Oh…and one more thing. What I think is happening with LinkedIn, is that when I signed up with them, I must have given them authorization to send crawler sniffer bots inside my computer’s hard drive to match names they find there with the same names registered with their service.
So it is all done automatically with one computer communicating with another and comparing their files. Kind of spooky…huh?
I think this will periodically continue until a person who is authorized to do so…tells LinkedIn that Grant McKee was burned alive on the Yarnell Hill Fire due to the extreme incompetence of those whose
duty and responsibility it was to properly recruit, train, manage, supervise and lead him into situations that are frequently managed by Chaos where the SNAFU and FUBAR, which are further complicated and made even more challenging and dangerous by REMF.
But the Granite Mountain Hotshot management tea catastrophically failed in the most basic task of leading a hotshot crew into battle because all of the problems I listed above are present to varying degrees on every large complex campaign wildfire…and hotshots are just expected to deal with them while still fighting fire aggressively but providing for safety first.
The only thing wrong with my theory about how LinkedIn works, is that their computer keeps trying to link me with people like Jenna Jameson, Mia Malcova and Alexis Texas?
And I don’t even know who these people are, much less personally know them, or know of them, so…
Fuck me silly and call me Sally…this tablet misspelled El Oso. This auto correct on this iPad is driving me fuckin’ crazy…and I don’t have far to go. Actually…typing with one finger on this fuckin’ thing is about to drive me crazy for keeps.
I am actually a pretty good typist on a regular computer but mine crapped out a few months ago (yes…I told you all about it) because I took a typing class at the Santa Fe Community College (but I dropped out of class when I hit 30 words per minute) when I I went from being a hotshot crew boss to an office worker…talk about a hard fuckin’ transition,
I never was worth a shit as an office worker (even in my second career) and I think everybody knew that about me but they felt sorry for me and I was pretty good in the field so they let me slide on the office work part.
The USFS isn’t worth a flyin’ fuck in general but almost all FIRE people (including most of those who don’t work for the USFS, except for those dipshits they call Battalion Chiefs…right Woodsman) are the salt of the earth! Even if you fuckers still haven’t told me what the fuck happened to our crew on the YHF.
Gary,
You asked if i thought you are a lonely,pathetic person that provokes others to interact with you and do I think you are a sad person.
My answer, since you asked is that you ,along with many of us who are retired and aging, are searching for relevance in your life where you can bring your experience to make a difference.
You have helped me understand what the hotshots experienced as they were dying–I might have concluded that they died very quickly from noxious gases and superheated air without your information. It spotlights the enormity of the wrong done to the hotshots and the need to find justice for them. You seem committed to make this right for them in spite of all the roadblocks.
Perhaps I am naive in my thinking but it seems to me that what people want most regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire is the truth pure and simple— continued attempts to brush it under the rug is an insult to the men that died.
Reply to Diane Lomas post on February 16, 2017 at 1:07 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> Perhaps I am naive in my thinking but it seems to me that
>> what people want most regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire is the
>> truth pure and simple
Some ‘people’ still do… but ( as Gary was pointing out ) some ‘people’ do not… and they NEVER have ( wanted to know the truth ).
Knowing EXACTLY what happened to cause a group of men who were supposed to be highly trained wildland firefighters to ignore all the established rules of their own profession and die horribly on the floor of an explosive fuel-filled blind box canyon still represents the BEST way to try, as much as humanly possible, to make sure nothing similar ever happens again.
But first… you have to WANT to make sure ( as much as humanly possible ) that it never happens again.
If you really don’t even CARE if it ever happens again… then you also don’t care what really happened in Yarnell.
The moniker I have always used to participate in this public discussion is still exactly the way I feel about it.
I ( for one ) still “Want To Know The Truth’.
There are still LIVES at stake.
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered.
The POINT is to DISCOVER them.”
Galileo Galilei
“Truths and roses both have thorns about them… but neither should ever be avoided,”
Henry David Thoreau
“Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance.”
W. Clement Stone
>> Diane Lomas also said…
>>
>> continued attempts to brush it under the rug is
>> an insult to the men that died.
Totally agree.
Anyone who has either already lied or is still withholding information about what really happened in Yarnell on Sunday, June 30, 2013… should be ashamed of themselves.
Thank you WTKTT.
There is no ‘expiration date’ for ‘Wanting To Know The Truth’ about what really happened in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
As long as people are being asked to ‘suit up’ and go trapsing into the boondock to fight wildland fires… it will ALWAYS remain important to know EXACTLY how the leadership decisions and failures in Yarnell contributed to so many lives being lost… and WHY so many young men, who had put their faith in that same ‘leadership’, never got to live out the rest of their lives.
Reply to Diane Lomas post on February 15, 2017 at 3:50 pm
>> Diane Lomas said…
>>
>> You have helped me understand what the hotshots experienced
>> as they were dying–I might have concluded that they died very
>> quickly from noxious gases and superheated air without
>> your information. It spotlights the enormity of the wrong done
>> to the hotshots and the need to find justice for them.
‘Died very quickly’ is relative.
It depends on what your definition of ‘very quickly’ is.
Some people ( firefighters included ) think that ‘dying from the inhalation of noxious gases and/or superheated air’ is like some kind of ‘light switch’.
That the moment your lungs fill with what is going to kill you… you simply ‘turn off’ like a light switch.
That is not the case ( as Gary pointed out above and as the Yarnell-related autopsy reports confirm ).
Just take the case of ‘drowning’.
Same thing. Most people think that when your lungs fill with the water that is going to now kill you… that you simply ‘turn off’ like a light switch.
Again… that is NOT the case.
Even people who have ‘come back from the dead’ in drowning related incidents have verified that you remain fully conscious while you witness your own brain-stem survival functions kick in to try and save your life and ‘expel’ whatever it is in your lungs that is trying to kill you.
And it’s not pretty.
The published autopsy reports related to the tragedy in Yarnell on June 30, 2013, should be REQUIRED READING for anyone who wants to be a wildland firefighter.
Indeed… when you take your ‘Shelter Training’ course… you should be REQUIRED to read those autopsy reports… every single word of them.
The life that gets saved by doing that might be your own.
I remember when I was being taught to drive a car.
The ‘Drivers Education’ course at my high school REQUIRED us to watch a movie called ‘Mechanized Death’.
It was not pretty… and that was the point.
There was a ‘waiver form’ you could get signed by your parents if you did NOT want to watch this ‘movie’ about what can happen to the human body in various sorts of car accidents… but I have always been GLAD I chose to watch this movie. I believe it has made me a safer driver for my whole life.
Anyone who participates in any activity where YOUR attention to SAFETY is the only thing that can prevent terrible things from happening to you and/or others SHOULD be made fully aware of what CAN happen if you IGNORE those ‘safety rules’.
I suppose that even if wildland firefighter trainees can/should be REQUIRED to read those autopsy reports… there would still have to be some kind of ‘waiver form’ so that those who think they are ‘too delicate’ to read such a thing have a way to ‘opt out’… and that’s okay… but for most ‘trainees’ it would certainly behoove them to read those autopsy reports and KNOW what CAN happen if they ever ignore the rules of their profession.
I believe it would make them ‘safer drivers’ out on the firelines.
Well…you did a really good job of describing where I am at in my life…searching for meaning and relevance. And yes, I would very much like to re-write history and in my revision this tragedy would never have even have happened and the Granite Mountain Hotshots would still be alive to grow old with those who love them, just like almost all WF do.
But…since that isn’t a possibility, I would at least like history and the rest of us to acknowledge what how much they suffered in the end and how they ended up deploying fire shelters in an area about the garage when they needed an area about the size of a horse pasture in which to successfully do so.
And FYI, it was JD who fought for and ultimately got the autopsy reports from the establishment that revealed the truth…they suffered unimaginable pain and death was their best friend that day that finally released them from their agony.
And it was WTKTT who read and interpreted those autopsy reports that made me understand exactly how much they suffered. All I did was write it in plain terms everyone can understand on this blog, because if they suffered the pain,the least I can do is acknowledge their suffering.
And yes…until those reports were released, the common thinking on this blog was that they suffered very little, which makes us and everyone who loved them feel better, but it was a great disservice to their memory. It was understood here that they were hit by a fast moving blast of superheated air that instantly collapsed their lungs and they simply died. I guess this has happened some of the times WF died, that kind of sounds like that was how it is believed the 14 on the South Canyon Fire died, but that is probably a lie as well.
I honestly believe that if Eric Marsh could speak to us…he would want the truth told in order to save WF lives in the future by stripping any heroics or misconceptions from the bare truth so everyone can easily understand exactly what happened and thereby lessen the chances the very same thing will happen a FOURTH time to a hotshot crew.
They say history doesn’t repeat itself…but it rhymes. One time is an anomaly, two times is a coincidence, and the three times is a pattern. Somebody I have a lot of respect for told me in a sidebar email that they thought my role here and in writing about what happened in a book was one more assignment for me from our fire gods.
Oh…and one more thing. Even though Fred, Bob, the Woodsman and I have had some public slap fights like little bitches (non gender specific) behind the scene, we have remained as brothers from other mothers. WF are like a lot of other organized gangs…it’s blood in and blood out.
Oh…and one more thing Diane,
I think of the way the WF culture has described how WF die as being similar to what is known as minimization by criminals to describe their culpability in their crimes.
Everywhere you look in the case of the YHF…those who were partly responsible have done their best to minimize their participation in everything that went wrong that day. And it was literally everything in the cascading and sequential falling of dominoes, one right after the other.
Investigators are trained in interrogation techniques that encourages this type of behavior. For example, if someone is describing how they raped and murdered a girl, but they also explain they didn’t mean for it to happen and it was her fault because she screamed…the investigator agrees by saying something like, “That’s right… it’s wasn’t your fault, you just did what she made you do, if you were really an evil person, why heck…you would have cut her up and eaten her too! But you didn’t do that, in fact, you covered her up with dirt so she wouldn’t be laying out exposed. You not really a bad person, we can work this out together.”
And pretty soon, everybody is on the same page and the investigator has bonded with the bad guy while they work together to fill in the blanks.
Minimization…listen for it wherever and whenever guilty people are trying to hide the truth and their own culpability. .
And just to be clear since I might be assuming everyone knows what I am referring to with my reference above, this is the third time in history I believer the same exact thing has happened in the same exact way for the same exact reasons to hotshot crews.
This is my count, even though there have been four disaster fires that involved hotshot crews in history.
My list goes like this;
The Loop Fire of 1966, 12 El Cariso Hotshots burned alive and several others seriously burned because of hotshot crew boss hubris and agency mismanagement.
The Battlement Creek Fire of 1976, 3 Mormon Lake Hotshots burned alive and a fourth seriously burned because of hotshot crew boss hubris and agency mismanagement.
The South Canyon Fire of 1994, 9 Prineville Hotshots burned alive along with two helitack and 3 smokejumpers. Incident Commander stupidity, inexperience and agency mismanagement.
The Yarnell Hill Fire of 2013, 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots burned alive because of hotshot crew boss hubris and agency mismanagement.
And that is why I always say, “One time is an anomaly, two times is a coincidence, and the three times is a pattern.”
There will be a fourth time, it’s only a question of when and then everyone will have to ask themselves, “What could I have done to prevent this from happening a fourth time?”
Oh…and one more thing Diane, just in case you weren’t with us the last time I wrote about the following, which I am planning on detailing out in my highly acclaimed and much anticipated tome, “Rise of the Hybrid Firefighters.”
Even though I consider the South Canyon Fire, which most people mistakenly call the Storm King Fire, an outlier fire from the Loop, the Battlement Creek and the Yarnell Hill Fires, it was eerily similar to the Battlement Creek Fire in terms of the primary factors as well as contributing factors in the deaths of the WF.
The ones that jump into my mind are as follows;
1. These fires were less than 40 miles apart.
2. The significant presence of Fuel Type X, which was known to burn so hot it could carry carry fire wildfire fast enough to run down and kill adult Mule deer.
3. Out of state WF which included the Prineville Hotshots who were from Oregon, who were unfamiliar with the fuel types on the fire, especially Fuel Type X (frost killed Gambel Oak).
4. Working above an uncontrolled wildfire during the burning period which was the hottest and windiest part of the day.
5. Inadequate look outs and failure to follow multiple WF safety guidelines and rules.
6. Both fires burned in early to mid July.
7. Both fires were mis-management by the BLM.
8. Neither fire had pre-determined escape routes or safety zones that were realistic for WF to be able to get to.
**
** THE ACTUAL ‘PETITION FOR REVIEW’ FILED WITH THE ARIZONA SUPREME COURT
** REGARDING GRANT MCKEE’S ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’ LAWSUIT.
Followup to the post directly below, which contains just a TEXT version of the document filed with the Arizona Supreme Court.
InvestigativeMEDIA has now run an article on this filing….
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: Mother of deceased Granite Mountain Hotshot firefighter files petition with Arizona Supreme Court
Published: February 4, 2017 – By John Dougherty
http://www.investigativemedia.com/mother-of-deceased-granite-mountain-hotshot-firefighter-files-petition-with-arizona-supreme-court/
There is a link in the article to a copy of the ACTUAL ( PDF ) document that was filed with the Arizona Supreme Court.
A direct link to that copy of the ACTUAL document is as follows…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/PetitionforReview.pdf
**
** THE ACTUAL ‘PETITION FOR REVIEW’ FILED WITH THE ARIZONA SUPREME COURT
** REGARDING GRANT MCKEE’S ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’ LAWSUIT.
Below is a TEXT version of the actual ‘Petition for Review’ that has now been officially filed with the Arizona Supreme Court regarding the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit being brought on behalf of deceased Granite Mountain Hotshot Grant McKee. The suit is being legally filed on Grant Mckee’s behalf by his biological mother, Marcia McKee.
The document is now a PUBLIC document and can be viewed by anyone with a valid PACER ( Public Access To Court Records ) account… but for those who don’t have one… a TEXT version of the complete ‘Petition for Review’ is now included below.
NOTE: This TEXT version of the document is being shown here with the complete and full ‘permission’ of Marcia McKee herself.
There were two EXHIBITS also included in this ‘Petition for Review’ submitted to the Arizona Supreme Court. Those lengthy EXHIBITS are simply copies of other already-existing PUBLIC documents and this TEXT version of the ‘Petition’ just ‘summarizes’ those documents.
The document gives at least FOUR reasons WHY the Arizona Supreme Court should rule that the Arizona Appeals Court has erred in their recent decision to NOT allow this ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit to proceed to trial.
Those FOUR reasons are ‘summarized’ in the very first paragraphs of the ‘Petition’.
Here are those ‘summations’ ( in order ) from the top of the document…
——————————————————————————–
PETITION FOR REVIEW
The Court should grant the petition because the Court of Appeals’ Opinion conflicts
with a 2006 Opinion by Division Two finding no waiver of a widow’s right to sue an
employer for wrongful death of her employee husband, although the widow was entitled to
workers’-compensation death benefits—and had actually applied for them. MA Cab
Service, Inc. v. Industrial Comm ‘n, 213 Ariz. 342 (App. 2006).
———————————————————————————
This is exactly what ‘State Supreme Courts’ are FOR.
Resolve ‘conflicts of justice’ being delivered by other courts in the State.
‘Division One’ of the Arizona Court of Appeals has just recently ruled AGAINST Marcia McKee when the ‘other’ Division ( Division Two ) of the same damn Appeals Court ruled in the exact opposite way in an almost identical case that THEY ‘reviewed’.
So now the Arizona Supreme Court has to decided WHICH of their own two ‘Court of Appeals’ Divisions might have had their heads up their asses.
In other words… ‘Division One’ of the Appeals Court didn’t seem to give a damn what the OTHER ‘Division’ of the same Arizona Appeals Court had ALREADY decided in a previous case… and if Marcia McKee’s case had simply been heard by that ‘other Division’ of the same damn Court then it would probably already be headed back to TRIAL, as it should.
So yea… time for the ‘Supremes’ in Arizona to weigh in.
Here are the OTHER ‘summaries’ at the top of the document…
———————————————————————————
Second, another recurring issue of statewide importance supporting the petition’s grant is Division One’s approval of Intergovernmental Agreements between cities and the State without the required, specific city approval of the duration of the IGAs, in violation of A.R.S. 11-952(F)’s plain words.
———————————————————————————
This is probably the most complicated ‘legal’ argument still ‘attached’ to this case and it has to do with ‘Intergovernmental Agreements’ ( IGAs ) like the one that was ( supposedly ) in place between The City of Prescott ( the owners of the Granite Mountain Hotshots ) and Arizona Forestry ( the owners of the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire and one of the ‘Employers’ involved on the day the 19 GM Hotshots died ). See the full document below for the ongoing ‘arguments’ here about IGAs.
———————————————————————————
Third, Division One failed to allow jury resolution of the employer’s “willful misconduct,” a purely fact-based defense to employer immunity
———————————————————————————-
This is another BIG one… and another one of the ‘issues’ that can now ONLY be decided by the State ‘Supreme Court’.
It’s the CATCH-22 issue whereby the Arizona State Constitution has ‘definitions’ in it about when someone is allowed to at least have their ‘day in court’ over a ‘wrongful death’ allegation that are in complete CONTRADICTION with each other.
When you have these kinds of blatant CONTRADICTIONS in a ‘State Constitution’… only a State Supreme Court can ‘decide’ the ‘issues’.
This is the part of the ‘Petition’ that also has the potential to go all the way up to the actual United States Supreme Court.
Only SOME States have these kinds of ‘contradictions’ regarding ‘wrongful death’ suits… and that is what the US Supreme Court is FOR. Only THEY can decide if some States in the Union should be allowed to be doing things one way… while others abridge their US/State citizens rights. ( See “Equal Justice and Protection Under the Law’ in the US Constitution ( Bill of Rights ).
———————————————————————————-
Fourth, Division One has limited the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress tort in
ways that will adversely affect tort litigants and cases across Arizona
———————————————————————————-
This is the ‘issue’ that still includes the fact that there is clear evidence of a potential ‘coverup’ on the part of Arizona Forestry ( and US Forestry ) in the aftermath of the Yarnell tragedy, the details of which can ONLY be fully known if/when this case is ALLOWED to PROCEED.
** THE ‘TEXT’ VERSION OF THE ‘PETITION’…
Due to LENGTH… it will take a couple of ‘Replies’ ( below ) to display the entire document.
So here it is ( starting with the next ‘Reply’ )…
KNAPP & ROBERTS, P.C.
8777 North Gainey Center Drive, Suite 165
Scottsdale, Arizona 85258, (480) 991-7677
David L. Abney, Esq. (009001) — abney (at) krattorneys.com
Attorneys for Petitioners / Plaintiffs / Appellants
IN THE SUPREME COURT STATE OF ARIZONA
Case No.: ( TBA )
Petitioners / Plaintiffs / Appellants
MARCIA McKEE, the surviving mother of
GRANT QUINN McKEE, both individually
and on behalf of all statutory beneficiaries
of GRANT QUINN McKEE, deceased,
v.
Respondents / Defendants / Appellees.
STATE OF ARIZONA, a public entity; and
the ARIZONA STATE FORESTRY
DIVISION, apublic entity,
Arizona Court of Appeals, Div. One
Case No. 1 CA-CV 15-0800
Maricopa County Superior Court
CV 2014-009068, CV 2014-009069 and
CV 2014-009070 (consolidated)
Hon. J. Richard Gama
PETITION FOR REVIEW
The Court should grant the petition because the Court of Appeals’ Opinion conflicts with a 2006 Opinion by Division Two finding no waiver of a widow’s right to sue an employer for wrongful death of her employee husband, although the widow was entitled to workers’ compensation death benefits—and had actually applied for them. MA Cab Service, Inc. v. Industrial Comm ‘n, 213 Ariz. 342 (App. 2006).
Second, another recurring issue of statewide importance supporting the petition’s grant is Division One’s approval of Intergovernmental Agreements between cities and the State without the required, specific city approval of the duration of the IGAs, in violation of A.R.S. 11-952(F)’s plain words. Third, Division One failed to allow jury resolution of the employer’s “willful misconduct,” a purely fact-based defense to employer immunity. Fourth, Division One has limited the intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress tort in ways that will adversely affect tort litigants and cases across Arizona
The Four Issues
Intergovernmental Agreement (“IGA”). An Arizona city can make an IGA with the State turning one of its firefighters into a temporary State employee. But to do that, the city must first pass an ordinance or resolution “approving” the IGA’s “duration.” A.R.S 11-952(F). If the city fails to do that, the IGA cannot even “be filed or become effective.” Id.
But Prescott passed no ordinance approving the purported IGA’s duration. Thus, Grant McKee was never a State employee and the State has no employer-based immunity from suit under A.R.S. 23-1022(A). Did the trial court and Court of Appeals err by finding the State had employer immunity under A.R.S. 23-1022(A)?
Willful misconduct. The State’s misconduct killed Grant and his 18 Hot Shot companions. Marcia McKee alleged—and the Industrial Commission of Arizona found— that the State Forestry Division had committed willful misconduct. See Complaint 232-36 and Exh. 2. Should the jury have been allowed to determine that the State’s conduct was willful misconduct nullifying any A.R.S. 23-1022(A) immunity?
Waiver. Grant McKee was an adult not dependent on his mother for support; she was not dependent on him for support. Neither asked for nor accepted any workers’ compensation benefits. Thus, no waiver occurred of Marcia’s A.R.S. 12-611 right to sue the State for causing her son’s wrongful death. Did the trial court and Court of Appeals err by finding waiver and approving immunity under A.R.S. 23-1022(A)?
Intentional infliction of emotional distress. Is Marcia McKee entitled to assert claims for intentional infliction of emotional distress arising: (1) from the State causing her son to suffer a horrendous death or (2) from the State’s cover-up of its wrongdoing?
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )
1. This Court should grant review because properly interpreting IGAs is a matter of statewide importance.
The Court of Appeals found immunity because it held that a purported IGA between Prescott and the State transformed Grant from a Prescott firefighter into a temporary State employee. After all, a public agency’s employee who works under another public agency’s jurisdiction or control because of an IGA is deemed to be an employee of both agencies under the workers’ compensation immunity provisions. A.R.S. 23-1022(D).
But grant of immunity to the State arose from misreading the plain words of A.R.S. 11-952(F), which provide that:
Appropriate action by ordinance or resolution or otherwise pursuant to the laws applicable to the governing bodies of the participating agencies approving or extending the duration of the agreement or contract shall be necessary before any such agreement, contract or extension may be filed or become effective.
Prescott did pass a resolution approving the IGA, under the IGA-approval statute, A.R.S. 11-952(A) (“[T]wo or more public agencies . . . may enter into agreements with one another for joint or cooperative action.”). This is the Prescott resolution:
—————————————————————————————-
RESOLUTION NO. 2952
A RESOLUTION OF THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PRESCOTT, YAVAPAI COUNTY, ARIZONA, AUTHORIZING THE CITY OF PRESCOTT TO ENTER INTO AN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT WITH THE ARIZONA STATE LAND DEPARTMENT – FIRE MANAGEMENT DIVISION FOR A COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT FOR FIRES ON FOREST, WILD AND AGRICULTURAL LANDS, AND AUTHORIZING THE MAYOR AND STAFF TO TAKE ANY AND ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO ACCOMPLISH THE ABOVE,
WHEREAS, the parties hereto are empowered to enter Into cooperative intergovernmental agreements pursuant to ARS Section 37-623(E) for the prevention and suppression of wildfires on forest, wIld and agricultural lands; and
WHEREAS, the CIly of Prescott operates a fire department within the corporate limits of the City of Prescott, and In close proximity to forest, wild and agricultural lands; and
WHEREAS, It would be to the benefit of the citizens of Prescott and the citizens of the community for the City of Rescott to enter Into a cooperative intergovernmental agreement for the prevention and suppression of wfidfires on forest, wild and agricultural lands with the State Forester.
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE MAYOR AND COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PRESCOTT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. THAT, the City of Prescott hereby approves the Intergovernmental Agreement with the Arizona State Land Department – Fire Management Division for the prevention and suppression of wildfires on forest, wild and agrioultural lands, attached hereto as Exhibit “A”.
SECTION 2, THAT, the Mayor and Staff we hereby authorized to execute the attached Intergovernmental Agreement and to take any and all steps deemed necessary to accomplish the above.
PASSED, APPROVED AND ADOPTED by the Mayor and Council of the City of Prescott. Arizona, this 11th day of MARCH 1997.
Signed: PAUL S. DALY, Mayor
ATTEST:
Signed: JUDY CARSON, Acting City Clerk
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
Signed: JOHN R. MOFFITT, City Attorney
——————————————————————————————
But although Prescott approved the IGA, it never passed any ordinance or resolution “approving or extending the duration of the agreement.” A.R.S. 11-952(F). Thus, the IGA could not be “filed or become effective.” Id.
Despite the statute’s actual words, the Court of Appeals held that “approving or extending the duration of the agreement” did not mean approving the duration of the agreement or extending the duration of the agreement, but instead meant “approving (1) the agreement, or (2) the duration of any extension of the agreement.” Opinion at 12.
That rewriting of A.R.S. 11-952(F): (1) adds more to the statute than exists within it; (2) nullifies the need for specific action approving or extending the duration of an IGA before it can be filed or become effective; (3) violates the plain-meaning rule; and (4) ignores English grammar and usage. The Court of Appeals has effectively re-drafted the statute’s key phrase by adding two commas, changing the meaning of that phrase from its original “approving or extending the duration of the agreement” to “approving, or extending the duration of, the agreement.”
In statutes, commas are not mere ornaments. In Braden, for example, this Court found the State immune from APSA claims based on one missing comma. Estate of Braden ex rel. Gabaldon v. State, 228 Ariz. 323, 326 12 (2011) (“The absence of a comma after the phrase ‘labor union’ makes a difference.”). “The plain meaning of a statute,” after all, “will typicalIy heed the commands of its punctuation.” Pawn 1st, L.L.C. v. City of Phoenix, 231 Ariz. 309, 311 16 (App. 2013).
The two commas the Court of Appeals effectively added to the statute are not grammatically optional. Instead, adding them fundamentally changes the meaning. The Court of Appeals should have refused to rework the statute. See Int’l Chiropractors Ass’n v. N.M. Bd. of Chiro. Examiners, 323 P.3d 914, 923 (N.M. App. 2013) (Court declines invitation to “re-punctuate” a statute to add two commas that would “re-write” the statute to comport with its opinion on how the statute should be interpreted.).
After all, there already is a statute dealing with approving an IGA. A.R.S. 11-952(A) (“two or more public agencies . . . may enter into agreements”). So there is no need to re-punctuate the statute dealing with approving or extending an IGA’s duration to turn it into yet another stature dealing with approving an IGA. As this Court has instructed, every phrase, clause, and sentence of a statute must be given meaning so no part will be redundant. Deer Valley Unified Sch. Dist. No. 97 v. Houser, 214 Ariz. 293, 295 8 (2007). Division One’s rewrite, however, creates a redundancy out of whole cloth.
This Court should grant review since a strict, narrow interpretation of A.R.S. 11-952(F) is vital for cities and fire departments across Arizona because of the importance of the duration of IGAs. They should be as long as needed, and no longer. After all, IGAs alter the sovereign, legal, and financial rights: (1) of the State, (2) of local governing authorities with which the State is trying to make IGAs, and (3) of local employees and their families and loved ones.
The State Forestry Division, which operates what amounts to a core skeleton staff depends on IGAs to obtain the innumerable firefighters needed to actually handle its vital wildfire containment efforts. Making sure there is proper approval of the duration of IGAs is thus a matter of statewide interest and importance supporting grant of this petition.
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
2. This Court should grant review because whether an employer engaged in “willful misconduct” is an issue reserved for Arizona juries.
Even if the purported IGA were valid—which it is not—under A.R.S. 23-1022(A), if an employer’s willful misconduct causes an employee’s injury, and the misconduct indicates willful disregard of the employee’s life, limb, or bodily safety, “the injured employee may either claim compensation or maintain an action at law for damages against the person or entity alleged to have engaged in the willful misconduct.” A.R.S. 23-1022(B) explains that: “Willful misconduct” in this context means “an act done knowingly and purposely with the direct object of injuring another.”
The Opinion stated the Complaint “does not allege these acts were done knowingly and purposely with the direct object of injuring the firefighters.” Opinion 19. But Marcia specifically alleged the State committed “willful misconduct.” Complaint 236.
Moreover, Marcia was not alone in alleging “willful misconduct.” The Industrial Commission of Arizona (“ICA”) investigated this disaster and officially found—as the Complaint alleged—that the State’s failure to protect the firefighters had caused their deaths and was not just “serious” misconduct, but misconduct that was both “serious” and “willful Complaint 232-35, 246. The ICA not only found willful and serious misconduct, it imposed an unprecedented penalty against the State Forestry Division of $25,000 for each firefighter it killed. A copy of the ICA ‘s “Citation and Notice of Penalty”—a public record subject to judicial notice—is attached as Exh. 2.
As far as “willful misconduct” under A.R.S. 23-1022(A), Marcia has the right to have the jury decide intent, which does not need to be established by direct proof, and which the jury may determine and infer from all the facts and evidence. State v. Quatsling, 24 Ariz. App. 105, 108 (1975). See Harris v. Itzhaki, 183 F.3d 1043, 1051 (9th Ci r. 1999) (Intent “should be left to the jury.”). Here, reasonable jurors could conclude just what the ICA found, that the State’s conduct was “serious” and “willful.” For instance:
– At about 1:00 p.m. on June 30, 2013, the Division Zulu Supervisor abandoned the Hotshots to their fate, fled to the incident command post, and never returned. Complaint at 164-68 (IR 1). Reasonable jurors could conclude that only someone who intended to injure the Hotshots would act so wantonly.
– At about 3:58 p.m. on June 30, 2013, Air Tactical Group Supervisor Rory Collins left the firefighting effort with no explanation or proper turn-over and went to his Deer Valley home. Collins had been in charge of the aerial water and retardant drops needed to fight the fire and protect the Hotshots. Abandonment of his post left the Hotshots, including Grant, confronting death with no hope of rescue or safety. Complaint 207-10 (IR 1). Reasonable jurors could find he displayed “willful misconduct.”
Because Marcia McKee’s case ended through a motion to dismiss, the Complaint’s facts asserting a basis for finding willful misconduct must be taken as true and all reasonable inferences from them must be taken in Marcia’s favor. Steinberger v. McVey ex rel. County of Maricopa, 234 Ariz. 125, 131 1123 (App. 2014).
Moreover, a defendant’s “mental state must necessarily be ascertained by inference from all relevant surrounding circumstances.” In re William G., 192 Ariz. 208, 213 (App. 1997). A party is responsible for intentionally causing a harmful consequence if the party “knows or believes that the consequence is certain, or substantially certain, to result from [the party’s] act.” Restatement (Second) of Torts 870 at 280, cmt. b (1979). Intent is evident if a person acts “knowing that the consequence is substantially certain to result.” Restatement (Third) of Torts; Physical and Emotional Harm 1(b) at 3 (2010). It is an old story that deliberately leaving a person in danger’s path can show intent to kill. 2 Samuel 11:14-17 (King James 1611) (soldier deliberately left in harm’s way is killed).
Here, a reasonable jury could find that State employees harbored an intent to injure amounting to “willful misconduct,” since they acted knowing the deaths of some or all of the Hotshots, including Grant, were substantially certain.
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
It is stated above that :Rory Collins left the Yarnell Hil fire at 3:58 pm 6-30-2013 to return to his Deer Valley home.
I thought that Rory Collins was from Oregon and was returning there from the fire.
Interesting that both Zulu supervisor and Rory Collins are named for being responsible in the deaths of the Granite Mountain hotshots.
What have been the consequences for Rory Collins and the Zulu supervisor for abandoning their positions on the fire ?
If Rory Collins was responsible for water and retardant drops who was responsible when he left the fire at about 3:50 pm on 6/30/2013?
3. Division One and Division Two are in direct conflict on when waiver arises when an employer’s misconduct kills an employee.
Division One found waiver of the right to pursue a wrongful-death claim in a workers’ compensation case under circumstances where Division Two would find no waiver. AAA Cab Service, Inc. v. Industrial Commission, 213 Ariz. 342, 344 6 (App. 2006) (Because of “the legislative history of 23-1024(A), we conclude that, if the legislature had intended a final award to constitute an election of workers’ compensation, it would have included express language to that effect. This court cannot write a term into the statute that the legislature did not include.”). The importance of the waiver issue statewide—and the divisional conflict—support granting the petition for review.
The conflict between Division One and Division Two involves the workers’ compensation waiver-of-immunity statute, A.R.S. 23-1024, which provides:
A. An employee, or his legal representative in event death results, who accepts compensation waives the right to exercise any option to institute proceedings in court against his employer or any co-employee acting within the scope of his employment, or against the employer’s workers’ compensation insurance carrier or administrative service representative.
B. An employee, or his legal representative in event death results, who exercises any option to institute a proceeding in court against his employer waives any right to compensation.
Four principles flow from A.R.S. 23-1024. First, a deceased worker’s “legal representative” may bring a wrongful-death action if the estate has not accepted workers’ compensation. A “legal representative” is a “personal representative or conservator.” A.R.S. 14-9101(8). There can be a wrongful-death action as long as the deceased worker’s legal representative has not accepted any workers’ compensation.
Second, under A.R.S. 23-1024, the only categories of litigants expressly subject to waiver are (1) employees and (2) deceased employees’ legal representatives. Either category must have accepted workers’ compensation benefits. Marcia is not suing as legal representative. A.R.S. 14-9101(8). Instead, Marcia is directly suing in her own name as a surviving parent. She never accepted any workers’ compensation benefits for her son’s death; her son never accepted any benefits for his injuries. He died before that could happen. So he never waived his right to sue.
Third, since there has been no actual waiver of any right to sue, the state’s claim that A.R.S. 12-611 prevents a wrongful-death lawsuit is untenable. Because there has been no waiver (by Grant, his nonexistent legal representative, or Marcia), the State’s negligence in causing Grant’s death “is such, as would, if death had not ensued, have entitled” Grant “to maintain an action to recover damages.” A.R.S. 12-611.
Fourth, accepting workers’ compensation benefits is the “single” legislatively- designated act creating waiver of an injured worker’s right to sue the employer. AAA Cab Service, Inc. v. Industrial Comm’n, 213 Ariz. 342, 343 3 (App. 2006).
In AAA Cab Service, a taxicab driver died on the job, allegedly because of his employer’s negligence. His widow filed a wrongful-death action against the employer and then, one month later, also filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. The ICA issued an award to the widow. The widow then withdrew her ICA claim and proceeded solely with her superior-court wrongful-death claim. An ALJ found that, under A.R.S.23-1024, the widow could withdraw her workers’ compensation claim since she had never accepted workers’ compensation benefits (like Marcia McKee). Id. at 343 1-2.
The employer appealed, arguing the widow’s original pursuit of a claim “for workers’ compensation” barred her from a civil wrongful-death action. The employer, however, conceded that “the legislature designated a single act as creating a waiver of an injured worker’s right to file a lawsuit against his or her employer: `accept[ing] compensation.’ 23-1024(A).” Id. at 343 113.
AAA Cab Service held that A.R.S. 23-1024, as “the relevant statute,” “designates only one act triggering its waiver provision—accepting compensation.” Id. at 343-44 5 (emphasis added). Under A.R.S. 23-1024, “acceptance of benefits [is] the ‘sole statutory test'” for deciding existence of waiver for a survivor seeking to bring a wrongful-death action. Id. at 344 5, 141 P.3d at 824 (quoting Southwest Cooperative Wholesale v. Superior Court, 13 Ariz. App. 453, 459 (1970)).
Besides 23-1024’s controlling terms, neither Grant nor Marcia took any workers’ compensation benefits. Thus, neither of them committed waiver, which is either the express, voluntary, intentional relinquishment of a known right or conduct warranting an inference of an intentional relinquishment. Compass Bank v. Bennett, 240 Ariz. 58, 60 11 (App. 2016). Absent waiver, which never occurred, the State can claim no immunity.
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
4. This Court should grant review because a victim’s physical presence at the scene and specific targeting of the victim are not essential IIED elements.
The Court of Appeals found Marcia had no IIED claim because she “failed to allege that she was present at the time of the allegedly extreme and outrageous conduct leading to her son’s death, or that any of defendants’ conduct was directed at her.” Opinion at 26.
This Court should grant review because IIED claims are a key feature of many Arizona tort cases. Interpreting the IIED tort to require a victim’s physical presence at the scene of the wrongdoing or specific targeting of the IIED victim unfairly limits the effective prosecution of IIED claims across Arizona.
Naturally enough, Marcia did not allege she was in the canyon where her son perished and did not allege she was in the back rooms where the State concocted the cover-up directed both at the public and at the firefighters’ statutory beneficiaries. But physical presence is not an essential element to an IIED claim.
Contemporaneous perception is required for some IIED claims. Restatement (Third) of Torts: Physical & Emotional Harm 46 cmt. m (2012). But as much as anyone else, given the conflagration’s remote site, Marcia was a contemporaneous witness. She saw the dreadful images of the wildfire and heard news reports about Grant’s death. Practically speaking, she contemporaneously perceived this tragedy. Id. See also Croft v. Wicker, 737 P.2d 789, 792 (Alaska 1987) (A third person “foreseeabl y harmed by extreme and outrageous conduct may state [an IIED] cause of action.”). As much as anyone else not in on it, Marcia contemporaneously perceived the cover-up. She was thus effectively “present” during the State’s extreme and outrageous cover-up. Opinion at 26.
Physical presence is not essential for the tort—nor should it be. After all, Section 46 only requires that: “An actor who by extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally or recklessly causes severe emotional harm to another is subject to liability for that emotional harm and, if the emotional harm causes bodily harm, also for the bodily harm.”
Ultimately, whether conduct is extreme and outrageous depends on each case’s facts, including the parties’ relationship (State v. grieving mother), whether the defendant abused a position of authority (the State did), whether the victim was especially vulnerable (she was), whether the defendant knew of the vulnerability (it was obvious), and the defendant’s motive (evade blame). Id. at 46 cmt. d.
The Complaint alleged the State was liable for IIED because it: (1) had committed extreme and outrageous misconduct; (2) recklessly disregarded the near certainty that emotional distress to Marcia would result; and (3) caused Marcia to suffer severe emotional distress Complaint 308, 311-12 (IR 1). Those are the standard IIED elements. Intentional Torts 16, Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress (Elements of Claim), RAJI (Civil) (5th ed. July 2013).
The State acted recklessly despite knowing the risk of severe emotional harm to relatives of firefighters combating the fire. The State did that although the burden to protect the firefighters was slight relative to the magnitude of risk. Complaint 309 (IR 1). The State’s misconduct killed Grant horribly, giving Marcia a claim for IIED.
The State continued its extreme and outrageous conduct after Grant died by conducting a cover-up to avoid blame. Complaint 314 (IR 1). The State’s cover-up violated the public trust and multiplied Marcia’s “emotional devastation.” Complaint 315 (IR 1). She trusted the State with her son’s life during the State’s firefighting efforts. Complaint 316 (IR 1). The State’s betrayal of her trust, and its cover-up, caused her to suffer severe emotional distress and depression—just when she was most vulnerable. Complaint 316-17 (IR 1).
The IIED claim arising from the State’s cover-up is not subject to any immunity defense. After all, the cover-up began after Grant died. This IIED claim is separate from Marcia’s other claims. This, if all other claims fail, the IIED claim survives.
A cover-up concerning how a loved one died is extreme and outrageous conduct intentionally inflicting extreme emotional distress. For instance, in Thomas v. Hospital Bd. of Directors of Lee County, 41 So.3d 246 (Fla App. 2010), a nurse and doctor tried to protect themselves from being sued by lying about the cause of their patient’s death.
Based on that cover-up, the Florida Court of Appeals approved the IIED claim: “We believe that in a situation where a person’s loved one has died, it would be apparent to anyone that the person would be susceptible to emotional distress and, therefore, that the action of providing false information concerning the loved one’s cause of death meets the standard for a claim of outrage (intentional infliction of emotional distress).” Id. at 256.
That reasonable and just principle should apply here as well.
( Continued next ‘Reply’ )…
Conclusion
Marcia McKee respectfully asks the Court to grant the petition for review.
DATED this 27th day of January, 2017.
KNAPP & ROBERTS, P.C.
/s/ David L. Abney, Esq.
Signed: David L. Abney
Attorneys for Petitioners/Plaintiffs/Appellants
Certificate of Compliance
This document: (1) uses Times New Roman 14-point proportionately spaced typeface for text and footnotes; (2) contains 3,492 words (by computer count); and (3) averages less than 280 words per page, including footnotes and quotations.
Certificate of Service
On this date, the above-signing lawyer e-filed this document with the Clerk of the Arizona Supreme Court, and mailed two copies of it to each of the following:
– Mark Brnovich, Esq. and Brock Heathcotte, Esq.,
OFFICE OF ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL,
1275 West Washington Street, Phoenix, Arizona 85007-2926,
DefensePhx (at) azag.gov, Brock.Heathcotte (at) az.ag, (602) 542-7664, Fax: (602) 542-3393,
Attorneys for Respondents/Defendants/Appellees.
– Michael L. Parrish, Esq.,
STINSON LEONARD STREET LLP,
1850 N. Central Ave., Ste. 2100, Phoenix, AZ 85004,
(602) 279-1600, mike.parrish (at) stinsonleonard.com,
Attorneys for Respondents/Defendants/Appellees.
/s/ David L. Abney, Esq.
Signed: David L. Abney
Exhibit 1
A copy of the original decision issued by the Arizona Court of Appeals regarding MCKEE v. STATE, et al.
Arizona Division 1 Court of Appeals Presiding Judge Andrew W. Gould ( who had already been sworn in as one of Governor Doug Ducey’s 2 new Arizona Supreme Court Justices ) delivered the opinion of the Appeals Court, in which Judge Peter B. Swann and Judge Patricia A. Orozco joined.
NOTE: See the original document for the complete ‘Exhibit 1’.
Exhibit 2
A copy of just part of the original Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health ( ADOSH ) investigation report related to the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire, including the 4 ‘Willful Serious’ Workplace Safety Violations ( one of which caused the death of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots ) and the associated ( maximum and historic ) fines and penalties that were levied against employer Arizona Forestry.
————————————————————————————–
Industrial Commission. of Arizona
Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health ( ADOSH )
Inspection Number: 317242683
Inspection Dates: 07/01/2013 – 12/03/2013
Issuance Date: 12/05/2013
CSHO ID: L3419
Citation and Notification of Penalty
Company Name: Arizona State Forestry Division, State of Arizona
Inspection Site: Weaver Mountains/Yarnell Hill Fire, Yarnell, AZ 85362
Citation 1 Item 1 Type of Violation: Willful Serious
Date By Which Violation Must be Abated: 12/11/2013
Assessed PENALTY: $70,000 ( SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS )
A.R.S. Section 23-403(A): The employer did not furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which were free from recognized hazards that were causing or likely to cause death or serious physical harm to their employees, in that the employer implemented suppression strategies that prioritized protection of non-defensible structures and pastureland over firefighter safety, and failed to prioritize strategies consistent with Arizona State Forestry Division – Standard Operational Guideline 701 Fire Suppression and Prescribed Fire Policy (2008). When the employer knew that suppression of extremely active chaparral fuels was ineffective and that wind would push active fire towards non-defensible structures, firefighters working downwind were not promptly removed from exposure to smoke inhalation, bums, and death:
FOUR Distinct ( and separate ) WILLFUL / SERIOUS violations are cited:
a) Yarnell Hill Fire, Yarnell, Arizona: On June 30, 2013, between 1230 and 1430, and after the general public had been evacuated, thirty-one members of Structure Protection Group 2, charged with protecting non-defensible structures in the vicinity of the Double Bar A Ranch, were exposed to smoke inhalation, burns, and death by wind driven wildland fire.
b) Yarnell Hill Fire, Yarnell, Arizona: On June 30, 2013, from and after 1530, one member of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew that continued to serve as a lookout was exposed to smoke inhalation, burns, and death by a rapidly progressing wind driven wildland fire.
c) Yarnell Hill Fire, Yarnell, Arizona: On June 30, 2013, from and after 1530, approximately thirty firefighters continued indirect attack activities in Division Z (Zulu) and were exposed to smoke inhalation, burns, and death by a rapidly progressing wind driven wildland fire.
d) Yarnell Hill Fire, Yarnell, Arizona: On June 30, 2013, from and after 1530, 19 members of the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew continued in suppression activities, until 1642 when they were entrapped by a rapidly progressing wind driven wildland fire.
Date By Which Violation Must be Abated: 12/11/2013
Assessed PENALTY: $70,000 ( SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS )
————————————————————————————————-
END OF ‘PETITION FOR REVIEW’
**
** MARCIA MCKEE IS TAKING HER ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’ CASE
** FILED ON BEHALF OF HER SON ( DECEASED GRANITE MOUNTAIN HOTSHOT
** GRANT MCKEE ) ALL THE WAY TO THE ARIZONA SUPREME COURT
As part of her continuing example of bravery, tenacity, and her simple ‘Search for the Truth’… just 48 hours ago, Marcia McKee ( and her lawyers ) filed an official ‘Petition for Review’ with the Arizona Supreme Court.
She is now officially asking the ‘Arizona Supreme Court’ itself to ‘Review’ the recent decision made by the lower ‘Arizona Court of Appeals’.
That ‘filing’ is now showing up on the case ‘docket’ at the following link…
http://apps.supremecourt.az.gov/aacc/appella/1CA/CV/CV150800.PDF
See the ( new ) entry number 28 in the ‘Case History’ record…
—————————————————————————————-
28. 30-Jan-2017 FILED: Email Notice from ASC ( Arizona Supreme Court )
re: Petition for Review filed 1/27/17, request for partial record.
—————————————————————————————-
The ‘request for partial record’ part of that entry means that the Arizona Court of Appeals has been officially ‘notified’ by the Arizona Supreme Court to supply the ‘records’ of their hearing of the case up to the Supreme Court.
This does not automatically mean that the Arizona Supreme Court has decided to ‘allow’ the ‘Petition for Review’. It just means they need the ‘records’ from the Court of Appeals so they can make that ‘decision’.
I don’t have a PACER ( Public Access to Court Electronic Records ) account, so I can’t see what was actually just ‘filed’ with the Arizona Supreme Court, but maybe someone else can.
Either way… here is what is supposed to be contained in that ‘Petition for Review’ submitted to the Arizona Supreme Court.
Arizona Judicial Branch
Court of Appeals
Procedures Manual
http://www.azcourts.gov/Portals/21/Pro%20Se%20Forms/ProSeGuide.pdf
On PDF page 8, which explains the ‘progression’ of an Arizona Court of Appeals case… and what can happen even after the Court of Appeals has made a ‘decision’…
———————————————————————————————
19. The ‘Losing’ party ( in an Arizona Court of Appeals decision ) may file a
‘Motion for Reconsideration’ with the Court of Appeals, and/or a ‘Petition for Review’
with the Arizona Supreme Court
20. The ‘Winning’ party ( in the same case ) may timely file a ‘Response to Petition
for Review’ with the Arizona Supreme Court
21. Arizona Supreme Court either grants or denies ‘Petition for Review’ and issues
appropriate order
———————————————————————————————
So Marcia McKee is now at ‘Step 19’ and has now filed her ‘Petition for Review’ of the Arizona Court of Appeals decision with the Arizona Supreme Court.
Here is what the Arizona Supreme Court ‘Procedures’ manual says about that…
PDF page 32
———————————————————————————————-
Chapter XII – The Petition for Review
Seeking Further Review in the Arizona Supreme Court
Any party who believes that the Court of Appeals decision was wrong can file a “Petition for Review” with the Clerk of the Arizona Supreme Court within thirty (30) days after the Court of Appeals issues its decision. That time is not extended if the decision is sent to the parties by mail.
The party opposing the Petition for Review may file a “Response to the Petition for Review” in the Arizona Supreme Court. (A form of the Petition for Review is attached as Form 23, and a form of the Response to the Petition for Review is attached as Form 24.) Below is a description of the formatting requirements and contents of the Petition for Review and the Response to the Petition for Review.
STEP 1 – PREPARATION
A. The parties filing the Petition for Review and the Response to the Petition for Review should follow all of the requirements for paper size, font size, margins, page numbers, headings, etc. described in Step 1 of “Opening Brief.”
B. The Petition for Review and the Response to the Petition for Review may not exceed 3,500 words. A Cross-Petition combined with a Response to a Petition for Review may not exceed 6,500 words.
C. A copy of the Court of Appeals decision must be attached to the Petition for Review.
STEP 2 – CONTENTS
A. The Petition for Review (Form 23) and the Response to the Petition for Review (Form 24) must contain a discussion of:
1. The issues presented for review;
2. A list of additional issues not decided by the Court of Appeals that may need to be decided by the Arizona Supreme Court if review is granted;
3. A statement of the important facts; and
4. The reasons for granting or denying the Petition for Review, such as whether (1) an Arizona decision controls the point of law in question, (2) a decision of the Arizona Supreme Court should be overruled or modified, (3) the Court of Appeals has made conflicting decisions, or (4) an important issue of law has been decided incorrectly. This section is important because the Supreme Court is not required to review Court of Appeals decisions.
TIMING
The Petition for Review must be filed within 30 days after entry of the Court of Appeals’ decision.
A party opposing the Petition for Review ( then ) has thirty (30) days to file a Response to the Petition for Review if the Petition for Review was hand-delivered or electronically served. If the Petition for Review was mailed, the opposing party has thirty-five (35) days from the date of mailing to file the Response to the Petition for Review.
When the Arizona Supreme Court decides whether it will grant or deny the Petition for Review, it will mail a copy of its decision to the parties. You may provide consent to receive documents from the court electronically by completing, signing and filing Form 26.
If the Petition for Review is GRANTED, the Supreme Court will issue an Order stating whether supplemental briefs or oral argument will be permitted.
If a Petition for Review is DENIED, no further appeal to a state court is permitted. Motions to reconsider the denial of a petition for review are not allowed.
———————————————————————————————–
Good for Marcia… I hope she keeps pushing until the truth comes out
Reply to Rocksteady post on February 3, 2017 at 6:47 pm
>> Rocksteady said…
>>
>> Good for Marcia… I hope she keeps pushing until the truth comes out
Someone should make a ‘movie’ about THIS brave woman.
I wonder if Meryl Streep ( you know… that ‘underrated actress’ ) is available?
See the FULL TEXT of the ‘Petition for Review’ that Marcia McKee has filed with the Arizona Supreme Court up in this new posting…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxv-here/#comment-470213
NOTE: This TEXT version of the PUBLIC document has been posted here to the forum with the full permission of Marcia McKee, in case someone doesn’t have a PACER ( Public Access to Court Electronic Documents ) account.
There are still undecided ‘issues’ here that could cause this case to go all the way to the United States Supreme Court.
Such as…
Is a STATE allowed to have LAWS on its books that directly CONTRADICT each other with regards to who is ‘allowed’ to file a ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit… and under what circumstances.
So has there been any significant push for fuels management activities around communities since the Yarnell Fire????
Being that its all chaparral, manzanita, mesquite (whatever) that has zero timber value, why not go out and treat areas around communities to 1000 yards (be it with mechanical mulching or prescribed fire) and then maintain it thru fire or what have you every 3 to 5 years???
Just looking at photos and maps, seems to be pretty easy ground that a large mulcher type machine could do a lot of ground in a day…
Joy?? Sonny??
Can either of you help me out on this question????
**
** THE ‘CHAIN OF CUSTODY’ FOR THE PANEBAKER YARNELL
** AFUE AIR STUDY VIDEOS AND RADIO RECORDINGS
** THE SHORT STORY
Only 32 days after the June 30, 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy… ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek had already learned that there had been some kind of ‘Aerial Firefighting Study Group’ present in Yarnell the day of the tragedy, and they were there ‘recording data’.
On August 1, 2013… James Gordon Meek sent his first ( of many ) ’email’ to Jennifer Jones ( APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service, Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management ) inquiring about this ‘Air Study’ at the Yarnell Hill Fire.
SIDENOTE: As far as we know… James Gordon Meek’s inquiries to USFS were the FIRST ones coming ‘from the outside’ regarding these AFUE recordings. Others would follow in the weeks and months to come ( and after the SAIR report was released in September of 2013 )… but James Gordon Meek ( apparently ) submitted the first FOIA requests for these ‘AFUE recordings’.
After several email exchanges back and forth… the US Forestry Service finally admitted to him that YES… there HAD been a USFS sponsored ‘AFUE Air Study’ team operating in Yarnell on the day of the tragedy… and they HAD been making ‘recordings’ at the time prior to, during, and after the 19 Hotshots died.
On August 5, 2013… James Gordon Meek submitted his own FOIA request(s) on behalf of ABC NEWS requesting ALL of these ‘USFS AFUE recordings’… and his FOIA included a stern WARNING to U.S. Forestry that these recordings were obviously of ‘strong’ interest to the ‘public’… and that USFS should not attempt to declare a ‘privacy’ exemption.
His actual WARNING to USFS in his FOIA included the following paragraph(s)…
————————————————————————————
Presidential Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies Concerning the Freedom of lnformation Act, 74 Fed. Reg. 4683 (Jan. 21, 2009) emphasizes that the Freedom of Information Act reflects a “profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government” and directing agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure.”
ln this case, the public interest is strong because the information reveals the operations or activities of the government in carrying out a firefighting operation that led to the deaths of 19 firefighters.
There is significant media and public interest about what went wrong at Yarnell Hill. The U.S. Forest Service should NOT deny access to the requested records because they may be embarrassing; that rationale is NOT permissible.
Sincerely,
James Gordon Meek ( Investigative Producer for ABC NEWS )
————————————————————————————–
James Gordon Meek also sent an email directly to the head of U.S. Forestry ( Tom Harbour, at that time ) requesting details regarding the ‘chain of custody’ for these USFS AFUE Air Study recordings.
2 days later, on August 7, 2013, USFS Public Affairs person Jennifer Jones responded to James Gordon Meek with a ‘chain of custody’ description regarding the USFS AFUE Air Study ‘recordings’.
That email revealed that only HOURS after the tragedy on June 30, 2013, A ‘USFS employee’ on the AFUE team ( presumably USFS employee Eric Panebaker, but she does not name him ) realized the IMPORTANCE of the recordings they now had in their possession… and he immediately gathered the full ‘team’ together to ‘collect’ ALL of the recordings they had ALL been making that day.
He ( Eric Panebaker ) then collected ALL of those ‘recordings’ onto a ‘hard drive’, and then waited 3 days ( until July 4, 2013 ) until the SAIT had finally ‘assembled’ in Yarnell ( Mike Dudley, Jim Karels, etc. ) and he then informed THEM of this ‘evidence’ they had.
The next day… he ( Eric Panebaker ) handed the ‘hard drive’ with ALL of the AFUE recordings to a ( quote ) ‘SAIT team member’.
So Mike Dudley, Jim Karels and the SAIT were the ones to first actually receive ALL of the ‘AFUE’ recordings just as soon as the SAIT had assembled and been given its ‘delegation of authority’ to begin investigating the Yarnell tragedy.
That complete email to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek was as follows…
—————————————————————————————
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS ( mailto – jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 11:42 AM
To: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS Investigative Producer )
Cc: Harbour, Tom -FS; Drelick, Donna -FS; Kay, Leo F -FS
Subject: AFUE Recordings Info
To: James Gordon Meek
ABC NEWS Investigative Producer
24-hour mobile/text: 202-236-XXXX james.meek (at) abc.com
Hi James, per your request to Tom Harbour, here is information on the chain of custody of the AFUE recordings – if you have any questions about this, please let me know, thanks!
June 30, 2013 – A U.S. Forest Service employee who was with the AFUE group when they were recording the data on the Yarnell Hill Fire asked the group to provide him with all of the data that they had collected.
July 1, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee took possession of the data and contacted their supervisor to find out when the Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT) would be arriving in Phoenix and how the AFUE data could be provided to them.
July 4, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee met with the SAIT and told them that they had raw data from the AFUE group that was on the Yarnell Hill fire on the day of the incident.
July 5 or 6, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee passed off the hard drive containing the data to an SAIT team member.
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-0406
—————————————————————————————
** THE LONG STORY
I’ll post some more emails about this as a ‘Reply’ to this posting.
WTKTT,
Thanks for posting this.
There’s more. I’m putting it together right now.
These are just some of the USFS ’emails’ related to the Yarnell AFUE study that were already obtained via FOIA… and if anyone is now pretending they don’t have them… they are ( of course ) LYING.
Followup…
What that first email above PROVES is that it really WAS Mike Dudley, Jim Karels and the SAIT who were the very FIRST ‘recipients’ of the actual FULL ‘raw data files’ that were ‘collected’ from the AFUE team members the very night ( and the following morning ) from whatever devices the AFUE team had been using on June 30, 2013.
That ‘hard drive’ which ( supposedly ) contained absolutely EVERYTHING they had ( including possibly BOTH their A2A and A2G recordings ) never left Arizona before it was physically HANDED to some unnamed person on the SAIT team ( on July 5 or 6 ).
It is still not known if Eric Panebaker ‘handed over’ a COPY of ALL the data that was collected… or whether he actually gave that mysterious SAIT member the ACTUAL ( original ) hard drive he had used to ‘collect’ the data from his team members just hours after the tragedy itself.
And where is that actual ( original ) hard-drive now?
Are we supposed to believe it was DESTROYED, or something?
Wondering if Fred Schofflen (sp?) experienced harrassment from USFS after requesting FOIA for radio transmissions on the Yarnell Hill fire?
** THE ‘CHAIN OF POSSESSION’ FOR THE PANEBAKER YARNELL
** AFUE AIR STUDY VIDEOS AND RADIO RECORDINGS
** THE LONG STORY
This is just sort of going to be a ‘dump’ of many other emails related to the original FOIA request(s) made to USFS by ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek just 32 days after the Yarnell Tragedy.. but they all ‘lead up’ to the email already printed above.
This is just what went on ‘leading up’ to that email above… and will include ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek’s actual FOIA request to U.S. Forestry.
They are mostly in SEQUENTIAL order… starting with USFS ‘Public Affairs Specialist’ Jennifer Jones’ very first ’email’ response to James Gordon Meek.
What you will see is a ‘progression’ on the part of Jennifer Jones of first trying to supply ABC NEWS with ‘unrelated’ information ‘not responsive to the request’, but then she sends OTHER emails off to Arizona Forestry and gets ‘educated’ herself about what does or doesn’t exist with regards to the AFUE recordings.
But as you read… keep in mind that even though Jennifer Jones is a top level USFS PIO… she seems totally unaware that USFS employee ( and SAIT Co-Lead ) Mike Dudley has ALREADY been in possession of a ‘hard drive’ that contains ( supposedly ) ALL of the actual AFUE ‘raw data’ collected the night of June 30, 2013.
She eventually ‘discovers’ this… even though that hard drive had been ‘handed’ to USFS employee Mike Dudley and his SAIT team a MONTH earlier… on July 5 ( or 6 ).
It’s going to take a few ‘Replies’ to ‘dump’ these emails, due to length limits for any one post.
So away we go.
Here is USFS Public Affaris Specialist Jennifer Jones ( in the USDA USFS Washington office ) responding to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek’s FIRST email to HER, on August 1, 2013… followed by the sequential ‘responses’…
** AUGUST 1, 2013
NOTE: The ‘Carl Bambarger’ that USFS Public Affairs Specialist ‘Jennifer Jones’ is about to refer to has a ‘LinkedIN’ page that says…
Carl Bamburger: Aviation Program Leader at US Forest Service, San Dimas Technology Development Center
———————————————————————————————-
From: “Jones, Jennifer E -FS” ( jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Aug 1, 2013, at 10:00 AM,
To: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS Investigative Producer )
Subject: Re: Airtanker Study Info
Hi James, per your request, here is info about the airtanker study/testing that Carl Bambarger is currently engaged in, if you have any additional questions or need more info, shout, thanks!
Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) Study
– The Forest Service initiated the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study to evaluate the effectiveness of firefighting aircraft that deliver water or wildland fire chemicals to support incident management objectives on wildfires.
– The AFUE study will develop processes, technology, and performance metrics that will, when implemented, become part of Forest Service aerial firefighting operations.
– The AFUE study addreses questions such as:
Was the aircraft used on initial attack, extended attack, or a large fire?
Did the aircraft support incident objectives?
On how many fires-and which ones-were airtankers used?
Was the drop at the right height and speed for that aircraft and its delivery system?
How many gallons were dropped, and what was the level of coverage?
How can technology improve tracking, documentation, evaluation, and avoidance in delivery of water or wildland fire chemicals?
– Phase 1 of AFUE began in summer 2012 and is continuing in 2013, collecting data on a limited number of incidents using a specifically designed form to capture the above information and other fire, aircraft and drop data.
– Phase 2, which will begin when Phase 1 is completed, will focus on metrics developed during Phase 1 and any data gaps. Phase 2 will also address the implementation of processes, systems, and technology that may be more complex in terms of funding, technology, operational changes, or additional time requirements.
– Next Generation Airtanker Testing
– Next Generation Airtankers must receive Interagency Airtanker Board (IAB) approval for their tanking systems and retardant delivery performance standards before they can begin flying wildfire suppression missions.
– Testing is being conducted in support of the IAB approval process. This includes grid testing, which is one of the requirements to attain IAB approval. During this test, the Airtanker drops retardant that is captured in containers and measured to determine whether it can provide sufficient levels of coverage to be used in wildfire suppression.
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-XXXX
——————————————————————————————-
NOTE: James Gordon Meeks knows that response is NOT what he was ‘asking for’… but he sticks with the ‘game’ and just clarifies his request…
——————————————————————————————-
From: Meek, James [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 11:10 AM
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Subject: Re: Airtanker Study Info
Thanks, Jennifer. I appreciate the quick response.
What data or records were collected on airtanker ops on the Yarnell Hill Fire?
Also, I was looking at some AP photos of Yarnell Hill and it looks like USFS released photos to the media of the fire being fought. Is there a way to obtain those?
—————————————————————————————–
NOTE: Jennifer Jones is now either ‘pretending’… or really did NOT know ( as of August 1, 2013 ) that USFS employee Mike Dudley and his SAIT team had already been in possession of the ‘AFUE recordings’ that Meek is asking about for over a MONTH…
—————————————————————————————–
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS” ( jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Aug 1, 2013, at 10:23 AM,
To: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS Investigative Producer )
Subject: Re: Airtanker Study Info
Hi James, I am sorry but I am not clear on your first question – are you talking about what data or records may have been collected on airtanker ops on the Yarnell Hill fire in relation to the study you are inquiring about? If not, if you could please be more specific about what information you ‘re looking for, that would be helpful.
Second, the Yarnell Hill fire was an Arizona State Forestry Division Fire, not a U.S. Forest Service fire, so I am guessing that the photos were released by them – their information officer is Carrie Dennett, you can reach her at (602) 399-3078. If you are sure that photos were released by the U.S. Forest Service, please send me the AP info and I will try to run down where they came from as they didn’t come from my office.
Thanks!
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-XXXX
———————————————————————————————-
NOTE: James Meek now makes it CLEAR to USFS employee Jennifer Jones what it is he has already HEARD about ( the AFUE study in Yarnell and possible ‘recordings’ made )… and THAT is what he is actually ‘inquiring’ about…
———————————————————————————————-
From: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS – Investigative Producer )
Sent: 1 Aug 2013 13:46:27 -0400
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Subject: Re: Airtanker Study Info
I’ll look for the photo cutline. I’m aware of the state having operational control of the Yarnell Hill Fire but USPS assets were also used, as you know.
To clarify, I’m asking what kind of records or data related to the USFS study were collected on the Yarnell Hill Fire. I’m aware generally of devices being placed on airtankers as part of the study to log drops of retardant, for example.
An official also mentioned to me that as part of the USFS study that radio transmissions of pilots, incident commanders, dispatch and/or ground crews, etc., may have been RECORDED as well.
James Gordon Meek ( ABC NEWS – Investigative Producer )
———————————————————————————————–
Continued next ‘Reply’…
Thanks WTKTT. This information and obvious withholding of information and defensive measures taken to the extreme tell us that the FS has taken a stand of us against them-FS vs Public. This stance is a crack in their armor indeed.
We hope that the information that WTKTT has revealed and its layout are forwarded to the FBI and our new President Trump so he can have a better look at how the USFS has been operating. He might want to have one of his investigators have a close look at the way the FS has continued to hide and redact documents essential to the understanding of what went wrong at the Yarnell Hill Wild Land fire debacle. I am certain our President will consider the truth of the cause of the deaths of those 19 men a matter of utmost importance. He will perhaps give it a very close look especially seeing how some in the Department of Interior system are using the system for political ends–for example using Twitter to compare photos of Obama vs Trump inaugural attendance, something totally inappropriate for the job they are hired to do.
What is the FS hiding on the retardant plane videos and communication recordings. Will they show the back burns, and will they show how inept bosses and communicators were and how the men were actually positioned with their obvious commands to go where no man should go. It might even show Joy and Sonny going away from the Atom Bomb Wild Fire to a safe zone on the west side of the Weavers while the men were going straight into a death trap. Good Lord what idiot ordered them down there to die like that?
Reply to Charlie post on January 23, 2017 at 12:00 pm
>> Charlie said…
>>
>> I am certain our President will consider the truth of the cause
>> of the deaths of those 19 men a matter of utmost importance.
You really don’t have a clue who just ‘accidentally’ got elected President.
“‘Accidentally”‘? WTF does that mean?
He’s certifiable.
His narcissism appears to have no boundaries.
Even worse than Nixon.
Even today, after 3 of his own cabinet picks and all major Congressional representatives have disavowed the use of ‘torture’… HE is STILL saying he ‘believes in it’. He says it is probably not ‘pleasant’… but it’s NOT torture and it is ‘useful’.
He stood in front of the memorial ‘wall of stars’ at the CIA and rambled incoherently about his inauguration… and then committed actual treason by ‘announcing’ that he endorses committing ‘war crimes’ overseas.
‘Treason’ is defined in the Constitution ( Article III ) as giving “Aid and Comfort to the enemy”. Videos of Trump’s statement that he will just “take the oil” the next chance he gets are circulating all over the Middle East… and our actual ‘enemies’ are now saying they are ‘inspired to fight even harder’ and kill even more of our servicemen and servicewomen abroad. Trump has given them new ‘Aid and Comfort’ to fight on ( even harder ).
As for ‘Accidental President’… that is now just one of the ‘labels’ being assigned to him.
He LOST the popular vote by more votes than anyone in history who was still allowed to actually take the oath of office.
Trump was only ‘allowed’ to take the actual oath of office because of a total of just 77,744 votes spread out over 3 different states ( Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan ).
That isn’t even enough people to fill the ‘FedExField’ football stadium in Landover, Maryland, where the Washington Redskins play ( Capacity: 79,000 seats ).
That is also just 0.06 ( SIX ONE-HUNDRETHS OF ONE PERCENT ) of the total votes cast for either Trump or Clinton… and any ‘statistician’ will tell you a ‘margin’ that LOW is well into the ‘Accidental’ category.
Just Google the following 3 words…
Trump Accidental President
OR… just click the following link and it will do the search for you…
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=Trump+accidental+president&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=
WTKTT,
Thanks for the dialogue and your help with the FOIA Dropbox.
USFS EMAILS ( continued )…
Now that ABC NEWS Investigative Producer Gordon Meek has made it CLEAR to Jennifer Jones that he has already heard ( from an unnamed source ) about the USFS AFUE ‘Study’ that was taking place in Yarnell on June 30, 2013… here is USFS Public Affairs Specialist Jennifer Jones now asking Arizona Forestry PIO Carrie Dennet about the ‘Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness’ ( AFUE ) recordings that are being ‘requested’ by ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek…
NOTE: Jennifer Jones has NOT responded back to James Gordon Meek yet, but would do so one half hour after this email to Carrie Dennet ( at 5:02 PM ) and would then CONFIRM to James Gordon Meek that an AFUE study HAD been taking place in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
But Arizona Forestry’s Carrie Dennet herself would NOT respond to this email from Jennifer Jones until the NEXT DAY… when she tells Jones that she, herself, is ‘clueless’ about any sort of ‘radio captures’ related to any ‘Aerial Study’.
So somehow… in the half-hour between when Jennifer Jones sent the following email to Carrie Dennet and when she would CONFIRM back to James Meek that there HAD been an ‘AFUE Study’ going on in Yarnell… Jennifer Jones had that CONFIRMED to her in some other way.
There is no email showing HOW Jennifer Jones got that ‘confirmation’… at least nothing that is ‘undredacted’… so perhaps in that half-hour she made some ‘phone calls’ which didn’t get documented *OR* she was ‘informed’ via one of the ‘FULLY REDACTED’ emails shown below.
Maybe she actually called USFS employee Mike Dudley herself in this ‘half hour’ timeframe and finally found out that Dudley really did have this AFUE ‘raw data’ hard drive for over a MONTH already.
———————————————————————————
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS ( jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 4:26 PM
To: Carrie Dennett ( Fire Information and Prevention Officer for Arizona Forestry )
Subject: ABC News Inquiry
Hi Carrie, my name is Jennifer Jones, I work for the U.S. Forest Service at the National lnteragency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho. I am the person that Mary Zabinski said could send a few examples of investigation report release communication plans, which I am happy to do and will do by the end of this week or the first of next week.
Meantime, when we get calls regarding the investigation of the Yarnell Hill accident, should we direct those to you or is there another PIO who has been assigned to the investigation team?
If you could please provide me with some contact information, that would be really helpful.
FYI, ABC News is inquiring about recordings of radio transmissions that may have been made as part of an airtanker study as aircraft involved in that study were apparently in the area of the Yarnell Hill fire when the accident occurred – our aviation staff believes that the request for the recordings should be made to the investigation team.
If you have any questions or need more information, please let me know, thanks!
Jennifer Jones, APR
Public Affairs Specialist
U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-0406
———————————————————————————————-
NOTE: Here is Arizona Forestry’s PIO Carrie Dennet’s response sent the next day.. August 2, 2016. She ( Dennett ) herself seems ‘clueless’ about the AFUE ‘raw data’ already in the possession of the Arizona Forestry SAIT for over a month at this point…
ALSO NOTE: This Arizona Forestry Carrie Dennet person ( with a wink/wink nod/nod back to Jennifer Jones ) refers to valid ‘media requests’ as them just ‘trying to find a (quote) “crack in our armor”… as if it’s just a ‘contest’ and some kind of “US against THEM’ situation for her and Jones.
———————————————————————————————
From: Carrie Dennett
Sent: 2 Aug 2013 00:39:00 +0000
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Subject: RE: ABC News Inquiry
Hi Jennifer,
Yes, we would love any examples you have. I have some examples from Carrie Templin ( BLM )… but the more I have, the better.
You can refer any investigation questions to me. At this point, our position is that the investigation is still ongoing, and the report will be released sometime in September.
Beyond that, no one is saying any more. All of the media knows that… they are just looking for a crack in our armor, as you well know.
As for the airtanker study radio transmissions …they want transmissions for stuff not related to Yarnell Hill? I’m not sure how that will help them. If it’s not transmissions related to the Yarnell Hill Fire, the investigation team wouldn’t have them. The airtanker study was done by the USFS, right? I guess I’m confused as to what they want.
Thanks for the help!
Carrie Dennett
Fire Information and Prevention Officer
Arizona State Forestry Division
1110 W. Washington St., Suite 100
Phoenix, AZ 85007
602-399-XXXX (mobile)
——————————————————————————-
At this point… we see ‘Jennifer Jones’ communicating with all kinds of people like the ‘Carl Bambarger’ at San Dimas who was in charge of the AFUE Study… and Mike Dudley and USFS Director Tom Harbour… but the actual CONTENT of all of these emails has been REDACTED…
…but ALL of these ‘FULLY REDACTED’ emails were definitely ‘discussing’ the ABC NEWS inquiry about the AFUE Study. Notice all the NAMES that are now being ‘included’ in this ‘discussion’ about James Gordon Meek’s emails.
NOTICE the first one here… someone named ‘Sharp, Drag B’, a USFS employee, is sending an email to ‘KlassyKayel’ at a private email address with YAHOO.COM, regarding the ‘ABC News Inquiry’… and the content of that email has also been REDACTED…
———————————————————————–
From: Sharp, Drag B -FS
Sent: 2 Aug 2013 11:17:43 +0000
To: ‘[email protected]’
Subject: Fw: ABC News Inquiry
( EMAIL CONTENT FULLY REDACTED )
————————————————————————–
————————————————————————–
From: Baird, Robert A -FS
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 07:26 PM
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS; Harbour, Tom -FS; Hinaman, Arthur W -FS; Olsen, Dan -FS; Fortner, James P -FS; Sharp, Drag B -FS
Subject: Re: ABC News Inquiry
( EMAIL CONTENT FULLY REDACTED )
————————————————————————–
————————————————————————–
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 11:12 PM Coordinated Universal Time
To: Harbour, Tom -FS; Hinaman, Arthur W -FS; Baird, Robert A -FS; Olsen, Dan -FS;
Fortner, James P -FS; Sharp, Drag B -FS
Subject: FW: ABC News Inquiry
(110)(5).Deliberative Process Privilege
( ‘DELIBERATIVE PROCESS’ EXEMPTION BEING CLAIMED )
( EMAIL CONTENT FULLY REDACTED )
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-0406
————————————————————————–
————————————————————————–
From: Roth, Robert -FS
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 5:07 PM
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS; Bambarger, Carl D -FS; Dudley, Mike -FS
Cc: Linse, Paul -FS
Subject: Re: ABC News Inquiry
( EMAIL CONTENT FULLY REDACTED )
————————————————————————–
————————————————————————–
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2013 11:03 PM Coordinated Universal Time
To: Roth, Robert -FS; Bambarger, Carl D -FS
Cc: Linse, Paul -FS
Subject: ABC News Inquiry
( EMAIL CONTENT FULLY REDACTED )
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-0406
————————————————————————–
Continued next ‘Reply’…
USFS EMAILS ( continued )…
Jennifer Jones didn’t hear back from Arizona Forestry’s Carrie Dennet until the next day ( August 2 )… but somewhere in the half-hour between her last email to James Meek on August 1, 2013 and the very next one she would send to James Meek ( at 5:02 PM ) SOMEONE finally ‘clued her in’ that that really WERE actual RECORDINGS made by a USFS AFUE ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ team there in Yarnell on Sunday, June 30, 2013.
So here is Jennifer Jones ( armed with this new knowledge about the existence of the AFUE recordings ) responding to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek at 5:02 PM on August 1, 2013.
USFS Public Affairs Specialist ‘Jennifer Jones’ now CONFIRMS to James Gordon Meek that an AFUE study WAS taking place in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
It is also now obvious that in that half-hour since her last email to Meeks… she was TOLD to ‘inform’ him that he would now have to submit an official FOIA to get those recordings.
She was probably TOLD to do that in either some phone calls during that half hour… or perhaps in one of the UNREDACTED emails ( or even in an email that has been OMITTED from their response to the FOIA for ALL these Yarnell related emails ).
Either way… here is the actual ‘August 1’ email exchange continuing between USFS employee Jennifer Jones and ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Meek…
She also ‘knows enough’ now about the existing AFUE RECORDINGS to tell Meek that further requests are going to have to go through the USFS ‘Regional’ office out there in Arizona ( as in… where USDA OGC lawyer Steve Hattenbach works )…
——————————————————————————————–
From: Jennifer Jones E-FS;
Sent: August 1. 2013, 5:02 PM
To: James Gordon Meek ( Investigative Producer for ABC NEWS )
Subject: AFUE Study Aerial Recordings
Hi James…
I have confirmed that an Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study crew was in the vicinity of the Yarnell Hill fire when the accident with the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew occurred and WAS RECORDING AUDIO.
The audio recordings HAVE been turned over to the Yarnell Hill fire accident investigation team.
Per our conversation, you will need to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for them.
Information about how to do that is available on this website
http://www.fs.fed.us/irn/foia/
I am still waiting to hear back from our southwest regional office staff about the best point of contact for you to request any other audio recordings that may exist, they have told me they will let me know by tomorrow.
Hope that helps, if you have any additional questions or need more information, let me know, thanks!
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National fnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-XXXX
——————————————————————————————
NOTE: James Gordon Meek responds immediately and says he will send the FOIA for the now-known-to-exist AFUE RECORDINGS the very next day…
——————————————————————————————
From: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS – Investigative Producer )
Sent: 1 Aug 2013 20:23:39 -0400
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Subject: Re: AFUE Study Recordings
Thanks. I’ll send the FOIA tonight.
——————————————————————————————
Continued next ‘Reply’…
AFUE Study Recordings——–
There is plenty of evidence existing to not disclose these recordings which attaches more importance to them and makes us wonder what can possibly be contained there?
FOIA information and radio transmissions —
By what criteria other than personal info can this Ido be redacted? I am speaking specifically of radio communication between pilots and those on the ground from 3:00-4:30 p.m. On June 30,2013.
Reply to Diane lomas post on February 9, 2017 at 1:53 pm
>> Diane lomas said…
>>
>> FOIA information and radio transmissions —
>> By what criteria other than personal info can this Ido be redacted?
The U.S. Government official FOIA website
Frequently Asked Questions
https://www.foia.gov/faq.html
From that official U.S. Government website…
———————————————————————
What are FOIA EXEMPTIONS?
Not all records are required to be released under the FOIA. Congress established NINE exemptions from disclosure for certain categories of information to protect against certain harms, such as an invasion of personal privacy, or harm to law enforcement investigations. The FOIA authorizes agencies to withhold information when they reasonably foresee that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of these nine exemptions. The nine exemptions are described below.
Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security.
Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.
Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.
Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged.
Exemption 5: Privileged communications within or between agencies, including those protected by the:
– Deliberative Process Privilege ( provided the records were created less than 25 years before the date on which they were requested )
– Attorney-Work Product Privilege
– Attorney-Client Privilege
Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual’s personal privacy.
Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:
– 7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings
– 7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication
– 7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy
– 7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source
– 7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions
– 7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual
Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.
Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.
What are FOIA EXCLUSIONS?
Congress has provided special protection in the FOIA for three narrow categories of law enforcement and national security records. The provisions protecting those records are known as “exclusions.” The first exclusion protects the existence of an ongoing criminal law enforcement investigation when the subject of the investigation is unaware that it is pending and disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings. The second exclusion is limited to criminal law enforcement agencies and protects the existence of informant records when the informant’s status has not been officially confirmed.. The third exclusion is limited to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and protects the existence of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence, or international terrorism records when the existence of such records is classified. Records falling within an exclusion are not subject to the requirements of the FOIA. So, when an office or agency responds to your request, its response will encompass those records that are subject to the FOIA.
———————————————————————
The most ‘abused’ exemption ( and, indeed, the one used most often by the U.S. Forestry Service as they try to make it look like they are cooperating but also still trying to ‘hide’ information ) is the ‘Deliberative Process’ exemption.
Some Federal managers and employees ( like those at U.S. Forestry ) think that ‘exemption’ means they can ‘exclude’ anything that shows anyone even asking other managers or employees a ‘question’… and then also redacting the ‘responses’ they might be receiving to those ‘questions’.
That was never the ‘intent’ of the ‘Deliberative Process’ FOIA exemption.
When U.S. Forestry finally supplied the written ‘Unit Logs’ from all of the Blue Ridge Hotshots with regards to the Yarnell incident… they also tried to claim that the MASSIVE REDACTIONS they performed on THOSE ‘Unit Logs’ were due to what THEY called ‘Sensitive Information’.
‘Sensitive’… to WHO?… and WHY?
They have never said.
Look at the list of valid FOIA exemptions above.
There is nothing that says ‘Sensitive Information’.
They ( USFS ) continue to think THEY can pretend to be a branch of the ‘military’ and make decisions about what information they think is ‘Sensitive’ ( or not ) like it was some kind of ‘National Security’ issue, or something.
Total horseshit.
If all Federal agencies were free to decide, for themselves, what information THEY consider to be ‘Sensitive’ or ‘Emnbarassing’… then the response to most FOIAs would be nothing but piles and piles of BLACK PAGES.
>> Diane lomas also said…
>>
>> I am speaking specifically of radio communication between
>> pilots and those on the ground from 3:00-4:30 p.m. On June 30,2013.
When U.S. Forestry was finally forced to release the known-to-exist AFUE Air Study recordings ( made by their own employees being paid to participate in their own USFS-funded Aerial Firefighting Study )… someone at USFS still took the time to go through every recording and manually insert an audible ‘tone’ at every point in the recordings where the beginning of a transmission was identifying either the aircraft calling/responding, or the designations of the responders themselves.
That was an enormous effort on someone’s part… yet they still ‘screwed up’ and forgot to insert ‘tones’ into the recordings when the airmen were actually using someone’s NAME while they were talking to them on the radio.
But what that ‘effort’ demonstrates is that the USFS lawyers KNEW they could no longer keep the ‘recordings’ a secret under any of the NINE valid FOIA ‘exemptions’.
The effort they made to ‘tone out’ personal aircraft identifications and call-signs just meant they were admitting the only valid FOIA ‘exemption’ they could ‘cling’ to would be the one(s) about ‘personal information’, or something.
When the SAIT was also finally forced to release its own ‘evidence’ folder… it also included an ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ folder.
But even after all the effort made to ‘hide’ the identities of aircraft and airmen in the USFS FOIA release… the SAIT had made no such effort and there were no ‘tones’ inserted into THEIR copies of the recordings at all.
It is still not known if that ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ folder in the SAIT evidence package actually contains ALL of the ‘recordings’ made by the AFUE Air Study team on June 30, 2013.
According to already-public USFS emails… AFUE team member and USFS employee Eric Panebaker handed an actual ‘hard drive’ over to the Yarnell SAIT investigation team on July 5, 2013, just after the SAIT had received its initial ‘Delegation of Authority’ to start their investigation.
That known-to-exist ‘hard drive’ handed over to the SAIT just days after the tragedy supposedly contained EVERYTHING that Eric Panebaker and his fellow AFUE Air Study team members had been ‘recording’ on June 30, 2013.
That ‘hard drive’ ( and the information on it ) was the ‘property’ of U.S. Forestry, since they ( and us taxpayers, of course ) were the ones paying for that ‘Study’ and for ALL of the hardware being used.
But it is still NOT KNOWN if what was eventually contained in the SAIT ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ evidence folder contains the TOTALITY of what was actually ON that known-to-exist ‘hard drive’ that Eric Panebaker handed to the SAIT on July 5, 2013.
A couple links regarding Government and public records which includes any and all AFUE recordings and / or transcripts.
18 USC 1663. Protection of Government Property – Protection of Public Records and Documents.
https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1663-protection-government-property-protection-public-records-and
“There are several important aspects to this offense. First, it is a specific intent crime. This means that the defendant must act intentionally with knowledge that he is violating the law. See United States v. Simpson, 460 F.2d 515, 518 (9th Cir. 1972). Moreover, one case has suggested that this specific intent requires that the defendant know that the documents involved are public records. See United States v. DeGroat, 30 F. 764, 765 (E.D.Mich. 1887).
“The acts proscribed by this section are defined broadly. Essentially three types of conduct are prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 2071(a). These are: (1) concealment, removal, mutilation, obliteration or destruction of records; (2) any attempt to commit these proscribed acts; and (3) carrying away any record with the intent to conceal, remove, mutilate or destroy it. It should be noted that all of these acts involve either misappropriation of or damage to public records. ….”
18 USC 1664. Protection of Government Property – Theft of Government Information
ttps://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1664-protection-government-property-theft-government-information
“Section 641 of Title 18 prohibits theft or receipt of stolen government information as well as theft of the documents, computer discs, etc., that contain the information. ….”
” … the Criminal Division believes that it is inappropriate to bring a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 641 when: (1) the subject of the theft is intangible property, i.e., government information owned by, or under the care, custody, or control of the United States; (2) the defendant obtained or used the property primarily for the purpose of disseminating it to the public; …”
The correct 18 USC 1664. Protection of Government Property – Theft of Government Information link
https://www.justice.gov/usam/criminal-resource-manual-1664-protection-government-property-theft-government-information
Can Eric Panabaker be suppoened to testify to what he knows about the events of 6/30/2013?
Yes.
Anyone who has the ‘power to subpoena’ can issue one to just about anyone, for just about anything.
That includes ‘depositions’… which can happen outside of a courtroom but you are still ‘under oath’ and required to tell “The TRUTH, the WHOLE truth and nothing BUT the TRUTH” and subject to the same potential perjury charges as would be the case in an actual courtroom.
In all cases… a person still has the right the take the ‘5th ammendment’. ( and not answer any questions )… but remember that many people are confused about the 5th amendment.
It can only be invoked if you think answering the question(s) might lead to your OWN ‘self-incrimination’.
You can’t invoke the 5th amendment just because you think answering a certain question might be bad for someone ELSE.
In other words… you can’t invoke the 5th amendment and refuse to answer question(s) just to protect your ‘buddies’.
USFS EMAILS ( continued )…
So now that USFS employee Jennifer Jones has CONFIRMED to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Meek ( at 5:02 PM on August 1, 2013 ) that the AFUE RECORDINGS he was asking her about really DO exist… here comes the ABC NEWS FOIA request.
It actually wasn’t the very next day, as Meek had indicated he would do.
It obviously went through the ABC NEWS lawyers first so they could ‘get it right’… and include all the legal ‘shots across the bow’ to USFS about WHY they should not ( and could not ) try to ‘withhold’ the now-known-to-exist AFUE RECORDINGS.
On August 5, 2013, ABC NEWS Investigative Reporter Producer James Gordon Meek
then made his first FOIA request directly to US Forestry.
NOTE: ABC Producer James Gordon Meek still did not know, as of this email, that these AFUE recordings were already being referred to by ‘people in the know’ ( and by Mike Dudley and his SAIT team, who had the actual ‘raw recordings’ for over a month now ) as the ‘Panebaker Recordings’, after AFUE Group Member and USFS employee Eric Panebaker.
This is a VERY well written FOIA request coming from ABC NEWS…
——————————————————————————————-
From: Meek, James – ABC NEWS Producer – ( mailto: James.Meek (at) abc.com )
Sent: Monday, August 05, 2013 12:39 AM
To: Jones, Jennifer E-FS; Chambers, Lawrence F -FS; FS-wo FOIA
Cc: Galli, Cindy
Subject: ABC NEWS FOIA REQUEST: Yarnell Fire radio recordings by USFS
JAMES GORDON MEEK Investigative Producer ABC NEWS
1717 Desales St., NW, Suite 440
Washington, DC 20036 (202) 236-1931 [email protected]
United States Forest Service
U.S. Department of Agriculture
USDA Forest Service – FOIA Service Center
1400 Independence Avenue, SW Mail Stop: 1143
Washington, DC 20250-1143
5 August 2013
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT REQUEST
Dear Sir or Madam:
ABC NEWS requests under the Freedom of Information Act the following sets of files which currently reside within the offices of the United States Forest Service of the United States Department of Agriculture:
1) A copy of the audio files and/or tape recordings of all nearby radio traffic made by an Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study crew in the vicinity of the Yarnell Hill, Arizona, Fire on 30 June 2013, when the Prescott, Arizona, Fire Department’s Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew engaged the fire and 19 firefighters from the crew were subsequently killed by the blaze. The existence of these recordings in USFS holdings was confirmed in an email from public affairs officer Jennifer Jones on August 1, 2013 (attached).
2) We also request a copy of any and all transcript or transcripts of the above mentioned audio files and/or tape recordings.
3) I also request a copy of any memoranda, reports or other documents concerning the above mentioned tape recordings and/or digital audio files.
This FOIA request is by a representative of the news media for news reporting purposes.
This request should be placed into the FOIA processing fee category “representative of the news media,” and therefore no fees should be assessed for search, review nor duplication costs of the first 100 pages of records.
I agree to pay reasonable costs associated with the reproduction of the requested records, up to a maximum of$200 without requesting my further permission.
In order to assist you in properly classifying this non-commercial FOIA request, I assert that I am a professional journalist actively engaged in news reporting as an investigative producer in Washington, D.C., for ABC NEWS, a major news organization. The records I am requesting will be used for news reporting purposes. Please release all segregable and releasable portions in an expedited fashion.
It will be highly inappropriate for the U.S. Forest Service to withhold these materials.
For example, exemption b(6) and b(7)(c) would not be applicable.
Exemption 6 protects information about individuals in “personnel and medical files and similar files” when the disclosure of such information “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Determining whether there is a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy requires a balancing of the public’s right to disclosure against the individual’s right to privacy. The release of these materials would not be a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.
Many of the individuals are deceased and no protectable privacy interest exists. Any residual family interest is strongly counterbalanced by the families’ interest in getting to the truth about this horrific incident, and in preventing any such future occurrence.
Furthermore, the public interest in preventing future such disasters strongly dictates release.
The Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has declared that, “under Exemption 6, the presumption in favor of disclosure is as strong as can be found anywhere in the Act.”
The D.C. Circuit has observed that if there is a public interest in disclosure that outweighs the privacy interest, the information should be disclosed.
The President has issued instructions to agencies to presume disclosure.
Presidential Memorandum for Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies Concerning the Freedom of lnformation Act, 74 Fed. Reg. 4683 (Jan. 21, 2009) emphasizes that the Freedom of Information Act reflects a “profound national commitment to ensuring an open Government” and directing agencies to “adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure.”
ln this case, the public interest is strong because the information reveals the operations or activities of the government in carrying out a firefighting operation that led to the deaths of 19 firefighters.
The U.S. Forest Service may be erroneously tempted to rely on the Favish case or the New York Times v. NASA case to deny access to these records. The Favish case is readily distinguishable because the Supreme Court ruled that the protectable privacy interest in the Favish death scene photographs was based on the family’s fears of “intense scrutiny by the media” and cultural traditions relating to the treatment of bodies.
In this case, these factors are inapplicable; the subject matter is different and the families want to see the TRUTH come out about this incident.
The New York Times case is also distinguishable because the purpose of withholding the records was to protect family members from the pain of hearing final words of loved ones. In that situation, the words had no probative value in learning what happened to astronauts. In the present case of the requested audio files or tapes, the communications recorded encompassed a broad sweep of time, not just the final moments, and more importantly, the communications help to inform the public of what transpired, given conflicting accounts.
There is significant media and public interest about what went wrong at Yarnell Hill. The U.S. Forest Service should not deny access to the requested records because they may be embarrassing; that rationale is not permissible.
Similarly, Exemption 7(C) provides protection for law enforcement information, the disclosure of which “could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
While the audio file or tape might be considered, loosely, law enforcement information, the exemption is also inapplicable for the reasons described above. The public interest in this material outweighs the negligible privacy interest.
The presumption of openness described by the PRESIDENT in his Freedom of Information Act Memorandum applies as well.
Sincerely,
James Gordon Meek ( Investigative Producer for ABC NEWS )
——————————————————————————–
Continued next ‘Reply’…
USFS EMAILS ( continued )…
At the same time that ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Meek submitted that FOIA for the AFUE RECORDINGS… he also ( apparently ) sent an email directly to USFS Director ( at that time ) Tom Harbor requesting to know the ‘chain of custody’ for the AFUE RECORDINGS that were now known to exist.
I say ‘apparently’ because while we see ‘Jennifer Jones’ responding to this ‘request’ ( and referring to Meek’s request to Harbor )… USFS did NOT supply the actual email that Meek sent to Harbor.
NOTE: The following email is the same one already printed up above in the “SHORT STORY” section which PROVES that USFS Mike Dudley and his SAIT were in full possession of a ‘hard drive’ supposedly containing ALL of the AFUE recordings as early as July 5 or July 6, 2013.
So TWO days after receiving the ABC NEWS FOIA request… on August 7, 2013… USFS Press Officer ‘Jennifer Jones’ responded to ABC Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek…
Notice, at this point, that USFS Press Officer ‘Jennifer Jones’ is now ‘including’ the absolute head of US Forestry ( at that time ), ‘Tom Harbour’, on the emails back to ABC NEWS… and Jones mentions that this ‘timeline of possession’ and ‘chain of custody’ information regarding the ‘Panebaker AFUE Recordings’ was the result of a direct ‘request’ from ABC News Producer James Meek sent to USFS Director ‘Tom Harbour’ himself…
——————————————————————————–
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS ( mailto – jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Wednesday, August 07, 2013 11:42 AM
To: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS Investigative Producer )
Cc: Harbour, Tom -FS; Drelick, Donna -FS; Kay, Leo F -FS
Subject: AFUE Recordings Info
To: James Gordon Meek
ABC NEWS Investigative Producer
24-hour mobile/text: 202-236-XXXX james.meek (at) abc.com
Hi James, per your request to Tom Harbour, here is information on the chain of custody of the AFUE recordings – if you have any questions about this, please let me know, thanks!
June 30, 2013 – A U.S. Forest Service employee who was with the AFUE group when they were recording the data on the Yarnell Hill Fire asked the group to provide him with all of the data that they had collected.
July 1, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee took possession of the data and contacted their supervisor to find out when the Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT) would be arriving in Phoenix and how the AFUE data could be provided to them.
July 4, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee met with the SAIT and told them that they had raw data from the AFUE group that was on the Yarnell Hill fire on the day of the incident.
July 5 or 6, 2013 – The U.S. Forest Service employee passed off the hard drive containing the data to an SAIT team member.
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-0406
——————————————————————————————–
2 minutes later.. ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek ‘acknowledges’ the email he just received from ‘Jennifer Jones’… ( and CCs ‘Tom Harbour’ as well )…
——————————————————————————————–
From: Meek, James
Sent: 7 Aug 2013 11:44:45 -0400
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Cc: Harbour, Tom -FS;Drelick, Donna -FS;Kay, Leo F -FS;Galli, Cindy
Subject: RE: AFUE Recordings Info
Thank you.
———————————————————————————————
9 minutes later… ABC Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek sends this ‘followup’ email to USFS Director ‘Tom Harbour’ himself… with the ‘chain of possession’ timeline on the AFUE recordings that Meek just received attached to the email…
James Gordon Meek is ‘appreciative’ of the ‘chain of custody’ information… but he now wants to know whose ass he needs to light a fire under to get the ACTUAL RECORDINGS…
———————————————————————————————-
From: Meek, James
Sent: 7 Aug 2013 11:53:12 -0400
To: Kay, Leo F -FS; Harbour, Tom -FS
Subject: RE: AFUE Recordings Info
Gentlemen – This is helpful. But if we could also determine today how to release the recordings as soon as possible to ABC News, I’d be grateful to get some guidance on that. I understand the sensitivities, but as I said to you both yesterday, and wrote in our FOIA request, the public interest clearly outweighs any impulse not to release it.
The State of Arizona quickly released its audio recordings of DPS phone calls and radio traffic two weeks ago, so precedent has been established for the USFS to do it expeditiously, particularly in light of the fact that USFS officials failed to publicly disclose this evidence was collected on Yarnell Hill, much less disclose it to USFS leadership ( apparently ) or to Arizona’s Forester Scott Hunt or the Prescott Fire Department’s leadership prior to an ABC News inquiry on 1 August. I also offered in a call to Larry chambers last week to make our request outside of the FOIA process, and I received no guidance whatsoever.
James Gordon Meek
ABC NEWS Investigative Producer
24-hour mobile/text: 202-236-1931 – james.meek (at) abc.com
———————————————————————————————-
Continued next ‘Reply’…
WTKTT,
Thank you once again for all your thorough, informative posts. Please keep up your usual good work.
USFS EMAILS ( continued )…
In-between the time when USFS Public Affairs Specialist Jennifer Jones first admitted to ABC NEWS Inestigative Producer James Gordon Meek that the Yarnell AFUE recordings DID exist ( on August 1, 2013 ) and the time when ABC NEWS submitted it’s FOIA request for those recordings ( on August 5, 2013 ), Jennifer Jones was sent ‘another’ email to James Meek.
On August 2, 2013, at 1:06 PM, USFS Public Affairs Specialist Jennifer Jones sent the following ‘new’ ( unsolicited ) followup email to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek.
It contains ‘other information’ that Jones had now been ‘fed’ ( by others ) about ‘audio recordings’ that might exist…
———————————————————————————————
From: Jones, Jennifer E -FS ( jejones (at) fs.fed.us )
Sent: Aug 2, 2013, at 1:06 PM
To: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS Investigative Producer )
Subject: Airtanker/Dispatch Recording Follow-up
Hi James, per our conversations over the last couple of days, here is additional info I have gained pertaining to any audio recordings that might exist in relation to the Yarnell Hill Fire:
* The regional dispatch center, ( Southwest Coordination Center in Albuquerque, NM ) does not record audio nor do airtanker bases.
* Audio recordings may or may not have been made at local dispatch centers, such as the Prescott dispatch center. To find out what recordings may exist, and to request copies, please contact Carrie Dennett, public affairs officer for the Arizona State Forestry Division, her email is carriedennett (at) azsf.gov
* In case you’re interested, here is a link to the Yarnell Hill fire aircraft log. It has all the information on the aircraft that were dispatched, the Estimated Time of Arrivals as well as the information about the weather hold at the Prescott dispatch center for the airtankers. I am told by staff there is an error in the 6/30 1731 log entry where it states that T-911 (DC-10) was coming from Prescott, apparently it was flying out of Mesa-Gateway.
http://fire.az.gov/node/409/attachment/newest
Hope that helps, thanks!
Jennifer Jones, APR Public Affairs Specialist – U.S. Forest Service
Washington Office, Fire and Aviation Management
National lnteragency Fire Center
Office (208) 387-5437
Mobile (208) 631-XXXX
———————————————————————————————
Then James Gordon Meek responded…
———————————————————————————————
From: Meek, James ( ABC NEWS – Investigative Producer )
Sent: 2 Aug 2013 16:22:59 -0400
To: Jones, Jennifer E -FS
Subject: Re: Airtanker/Dispatch Recording Follow-up
Thanks. But the USFS study aircraft DID record radio traffic, you said yesterday.
———————————————————————————————-
NOTE: The ‘quote’ that James Gordon Meek is referring to from ‘yesterday’ ( August 1 ) is when Jennifer Jones confirmed that the AFUE Study in Yarnell WAS ‘recording audio’…
The day before ( August 1 ) Jennifer Jones had finally admitted to Meek…
“Hi James, I have confirmed that an Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness (AFUE) study crew was in the vicinity of the Yarnell Hill fire when the accident with the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew occurred and WAS RECORDING AUDIO.”
NOTE: All of the ’email exchanges’ above ( including the FOIA request from ABC NEWS Investigative Producer ) eventually led to the ‘release’ of REDACTED copies of ( just SOME of? ) the Panabaker AFUE raw audio and video recordings that Mike Dudley and the SAIT already had in their possession since just days after the tragedy.
What was eventually ‘released’ in reponse to this ABC NEWS FOIA request were copies of the recordings whereby someone had actually taken the time to ‘TONE OUT’ all references to ANY ‘call signs’ or ‘aircraft designations’ in ALL of the VIDEO and AUDIO recordings.
It wasn’t until the SAIT was FORCED to release its ( supposedly ) complete ‘evidence folder’ that there were finally ‘unredacted’ copies of these AFUE recordings available… but it is still NOT KNOWN if that ‘Aerial Firefighting Study’ FOLDER that was in the FOIA-forced SAIT ‘evidence’ release contains ALL of the AFUE ‘raw-data’ that was on that original ‘hard-drive’ that was physically ‘handed over’ to the SAIT team just 5 days after the tragedy and immediately after they had ‘assembled’ in Arizona.
The WHEREABOUTS of that ORIGINAL ‘hard-drive’ which ( supposedly ) contained
ALL of the AFUE raw-data ( including possible Air-To-Ground radio channel recordings
as well as Air-To-Air radio channel recordings ) is still UNKNOWN.
Minor ‘typos’ in the first paragraph of the last post.
I said ‘was sent’ when I should have just said ‘sent’.
That August 2 email from Jennifer Jones to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek was just a ‘followup’ email that Jones herself SENT back to Meek.
So that first paragraph above should have read like this…
————————————————————————
In-between the time when USFS Public Affairs Specialist Jennifer Jones first admitted to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Gordon Meek that the Yarnell AFUE recordings DID exist ( on August 1, 2013 ) and the time when ABC NEWS submitted its FOIA request for those recordings ( on August 5, 2013 ), Jennifer Jones SENT ‘another’ email to James Meek.
————————————————————————-
As for the following statement from Jennifer Jones in her August 2 ‘followup’
email back to ABC NEWS Investigative Producer James Meek…
* Audio recordings may or may not have been made at local dispatch centers,
On October 18, 2013, ADOSH conducted their own in-person interview with Norval Tyler, the DIRECTOR of the Arizona State Forestry Dispatch Center.
The very FIRST question he was asked was whether or not that ‘Dispatch Center’ had the ability to RECORD AUDIO… and Tyler said YES.
From the very start of ADOSH’s interview with Norval Tyler…
Q2 = Marshal Krotenberg, ADOSH Lead Investigator
Q3 = Dave Larsen, WFA / ADOSH Investigator ( Rest in Peace )
A = Norval Tyler, Director of the Arizona State Forestry Dispatch Center
——————————————————————————-
36 Q3: Can I, can I get the name of the interviewee again? I didn’t, I didn’t catch
37 that.
38
39 A: Norval Tyler; first name N-O-R-V-A-L, last name Tyler, T-Y-L-E-R.
40
41 Q3: Thank you very much.
42
43 Q2: Norval I-I – how is — how is the communication center working, currently?
44
45 A: How is it currently working? In what aspect?
46
47 Q2: Are all the features and functions that, uh, are intended to be functioning
48 functioning as they should?
49
50 A: They are, yes.
51
52 Q2: Um, have there been any, uh, communication problems in the last, uh, year
53 maybe that, that’s been problematic at the Deer Valley Center?
54
55 A: Nothing with the hardware that’s in place at Deer Valley.
56
57 Q2: Um, does, uh, d- do you have the ability to, uh, record audio?
58
59 A: We do.
60
61 Q2: And has that always – was that in place in June?
62
63 A: There are audio recording capabilities on our – not on all our consoles, but
64 they – there are on three-quarters of the consoles in there.
——————————————————————————–
GraniteMountain Hotshots—-
Was consideration given by the hotshots to leave a lookout at the descent point?
Diane,
Maybe …. but it’s obviously not in either the SAIR or the ADOSH Reports.
I would hope and think that it was at least considered and/or discussed amongst the GMHS Crew itself and/or with the Squad Bosses and/or with Acting Supt. Steed!
However, I doubt it would have been discussed with DIVS A Marsh because that would have been a Crew decision, not necessarily a DIVS one.
Eric Panebaker
I am trying to understand Eric Panebaker’s role in the firefighting evidence of the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Was he an employee of the USFS when he collected this evidence?
The air tanker study was done by the USFS from what I have read.
Does any of this overrule FOIA requests?
It appears that all legal avenues have been pursued through FOIA requests etc. Are there other options such as assistance from senators and govt officials to release this information?
Diane,
Eric Panebaker works in Region 5 – Pacific Southwest (Calif., Hawaii, Guam, Trust Territories) for R5, Regional Office,Fire And Aviation Management. Email address is [email protected].
Yes, the air tanker study was done by the USFS, a Federal Agency
The FOIA request route is the means of access.
All legal avenues are in the process of being pursued through FOIA requests ,etc.
The other options such as assistance from senators relies on information form and govt officials to release this information.
Thank you, RTS
The Woodsman wrote,
Trump’s message seems to be in response to a intel agency purposely sowing mis-information in order to benefit certain political establishments over another in the midst of an election & transfer of power.
and
I’m not well researched on that entire story about the Russian hacking our election which turned out to be made up by our own intel community out of whole cloth.
And I say, I missed that whole thing but I don’t watch that much Fox News?. The only part of that I’m aware of is that Brennan and everyone else has said from day one there were no indication the vote tallies had been manipulated by anyone or that any voting machines were hacked into?
The only part of that issue I am aware of, are allegations that the Russian intelligence services, primarily the GRU, released damaging information from Podesta’s (and others in the Clinton campaign) email account to embarrass and discredit Hillary Clinton and although the Russians had similar information from hacks into the Republican campaign they didn’t release any of that through a third party to Julian Assange to publish in Wikileaks.
Bottom line…I have never heard anyone say Trump didn’t win legitimately by having the needed votes to win the Electoral College and therefore legitimately won the election. The only thing that is an unknown…is however many people voted for Trump or didn’t vote for Hillary by either staying home or giving a protest for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein.
That is why I am following both Obama’s and Clinton’s example and accepting Trump as the legitimate President of the United States. I think that is part of my job as an American Citizen. Trump won and that is why I think it is part of his job to now stop SHITTING IN FRONT OF ME AND THEN RUBBING MY NOSE IN IT while he smirks that tiny round hole in his face he calls his mouth and making nonsensical and erratic gestures with his tiny hands because it’s distracting. BUT…he can’t seem to stop himself…or control his mouth or tiny hand gestures.
President Trump is NOT the President of the Republican Party Base…he is the President of the United States and I think he should start acting like it.
Which is just one reason I am a far better man than he is. Why is it important if he keeps hurting my feelings? Because there are tens of millions of people just like me and the biggest tool a President has is the support of the majority American people and without that…he will have a failed Presidency and then we will all lose.
Oh and one more thing. From your description of yourself and socioeconomic status…Donald Trump would,t walk across the street to piss on you if you were on fire. I believe however you think President Obama or Hillary were or are…both of them would have least pissed on you.
Oh and one more thing. From your description of yourself and socioeconomic status…Donald Trump wouldn’t walk across the street to piss on you if you were on fire. I firmly believe however, regardless of what you think about President Obama and Hillary…both of them will at least piss on you, especially if you are on fire.
Fox, faux, fake.
Coincidence???
Good point I never thought of. And of course I don’t believe in coincidences…so I would say…no.
OK…just ONE more post on this subject and then I am going to let it go. I got some ridin’ to do.
The other day I mentioned the vast army of private contractors who made and are still making the wars of both Iraq and Afghanistan possible while keeping troop levels at artificially low numbers.
This has enabled private companies like former Vice President Dick Cheney’s firm Halliburton to make unimaginable profits from those wars. Halliburton focuses on service jobs like truck drivers but other firms hire private armies of security contractors. I used to work with three guys who disappeared to that part of the world several years ago to work as security contractors.
The founder of what was the biggest and most successful mercenary firm was called Blackwater (my former partner went to work for them in about 2004) and was named Erik Prince. Blackwater did have the contract to provide security for all of the state department staff but were finally put out of business in name only after several of them lit up a roundabout with automatic weapons after somebody’s car backfired and they killed a couple of dozen Iraqi civilians.
Erik Prince then went on to rename Blackwater and start building a private army for the United Arab Emirates because their ruling class is not the same as the majority of their citizens so they need mercs who will kill their own people on demand. Erik Prince is now working for the Trump transition team hiring executives to run the federal government.
Guess who is Erik Prince’s sister is? That’s right, she is President Trump’s pick to be the Secretary of Education…Betsy Devos, who made a name for herself, other than by being the heiress to Amway, by privatizing schools in Michigan. And that is now what she is going to try and do nationwide with lots of Department of Education money. She and her Republican donors then own the companies that run the private schools and they make a butt load of money, taxpayer money then goes to their bottom line rather than into educating children or paying teachers livable wages.
Republican politicians equals privatization because they and their donors can make unimaginable wealth off of the sweat of men like the Woodsman. Private prisons has been a huge best seller for them now nationwide for decades. Why should some of the people who read this blog care?
A lot of forestry technician work is already contracted out, building fuel breaks, planting trees AND wildland firefighting. Hear me now and believe me later (SNL) IF you are voting for your pocketbooks, you had damn well better vote for a progressive next time or you are going to vote yourself out of any chance for a career because it will just be a few more short steps until almost all wildland firefighting is contracted out and then there goes any sense of normalcy, benefits, or pensions, while they hire the same type of team (retired USFS) who ran the Yarnell Hill Fire on contract.
That is all those boys were, hired fire mercs who had no accountability when the shit hit the fan because many of them even refused to even show up and answer questions.
You think it is bad now. Just wait a few more years years of Republican, especially Team Trump control and you might very well see it get a whole lot worse, especially after they privatize Medicare, Social Security and most of the rest of the federal government, not so they can do a better job or save money, but just so they can make UNIMAGINABLE profits, just sayin….
Oh…and one more thing. Have you noticed that little round hole in Trump’s face he calls his mouth…looks just like the mouth on a blow up sex doll?
Not that I ever seen one of those close up you understand. But check it out and you will see I am right.
Hey great news everyone. I found President Trump’s illegitimate daughter (or at least ONE of his illegitimate daughters/children)…Dooneese.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/the-lawrence-welk-show/n12318?snl=1
Gary,
Thank you for the background info & your honest concern with the ‘working class’ folks like me. I appreciate it. I may end up getting screwed but I haven’t met a politician yet that has my interests in mind over theirs That’s why I believe that I’m personally responsible for my own success or failure based on my own merits & God given abilities. It’s possible to create a system of equal opportunity but not one of equal outcomes for all people.
I also get a huge kick out of the banter back & forth between two antique hotshot crew bosses about the fires of yesterday – good stuff! Your respective primary responsibilities were to ensure the general welfare of your crews & I’m certain you both did that at all times to the best of your abilities. I found it an enormous challenge being the leader of a type 2 hand crew which was fraught with many disadvantages over what both you & RTS enjoyed. Primarily you 2 enjoyed a more cohesive group of men that were accustomed to working together. The worst part for me was building & maintaining this type of cohesiveness with a gaggle of men thrown together by management at the last minute for a 14-21 day assignment populated with wff that many were total strangers to the rest. Maybe my leadership style or expectations of crew performance was too high but it was no cake walk holding these crews together to meet the mission while getting no one injured or killed – so HATS OFF to both of you! I’ve always respected the type 1 crews & at the same time been envious of the way they work so well together. I never asked any of my crew to do something I had not done before many times. I never ate before them or had better perks than they did. I looked out for them first & management later once my crew was taken care of.
Thank you both (you & RTS – Bob too!) for the many lessons and laughs.
I would ask you to consider in the future that ‘privatization’ & organizations manipulating government (the people) so that they can enjoy ‘UNIMAGINABLE profits’ off the backs of the taxpayers IS NOT the exclusive domain of one political party over another. ‘The guise’ of Republican or Democrat makes neither ‘right.’ ‘Climate Issues’, ‘Health Care Issues’ and many other ‘Issues’ are linked to many for-profit & ‘non-profit’ making simply obscene amounts of money. In fact, it’s ALL about the money. I would just ask the you ‘share the wealth’ when rightfully condemning this vile behavior across the board regardless of political affiliation. The behavior on behalf on 1 ideology over another still does not excuse the behavior or make it better or worse.
The Clinton foundation, in 2014, had:
“Total revenue (line 12) ……………………… $177,804,612.00
Total grants to charity (line 13) ………………$5,160,385. 00
Total expenses of………………………. ……….$91,281,145.00
Expenses include: salaries (line 15)……….$34,838,106.00
Fund raising fees (line 16a)……………….$850, 803.00
Other expenses (line 17)……………$50,431,851.00!
They list 486 employees (line 5).
So it took 486 people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and ‘expenses’, to give away $5.1 MILLION WHICH IS LESS THAN 3% OF TOTAL REVENUES!
Line 22 shows ending year net assets/fund balances of $332,471,349.00 which is up $85,171,891 from the year prior!”
Would you classify this example as ‘unimaginable profits?’ I’d add a link but I’d rather not get ‘Fostered’.
Thanks to both you, RTS, & Bob for many lessons learned and the banter of 2 old hotshot crew bosses. I enjoy that! Good health & blessings to you guys!
Woodsman
Ps: and now I discover that one of you antique hotshot crew bosses has PLEDGED his own $$, time, and put HIS OWN reputation ON THE LINE for HIS LOVE of people generally & firefighters and their families specifically in order to find the truth, maximize lessons learned, & prevent incidents like Yarnell Hill from ever happening again!!! THAT is an act of unselfish LOVE. God bless you & keep you in good health, Mr. Schoeffler!
Touché Woodsman! I think we can both agree there is no one (at least that we know of) in Washington who is looking out for either one of our interests over their own. And I know that you know, that I do not have a dog in this fight, my lot is cast and I am satisfied with it. I am however, deeply concerned for those are following in my footsteps just like I followed in Bob’s and I want everyone to have the same opportunities that Bob, Fred and I had to have a great career, or at least a good one fightin’ fire…because it was an E-Ticket ride to be sure.
And no…my job (at least) was much easier than running any lesser crew. I did have to take a Type II SWFF crew (Hispanic not Native American) to Washington State ONCE for a few weeks in the fall for some control burns that got a way from them as a CLO. It was without a doubt the worst experience I ever had on a fire line and one I did not want in the first place because I knew exactly how it was going to be and I was thankfully able to resist ever doing it again.
As you know, hotshot crews by comparison are tight, cohesive, bonded, units held together by a common purpose and a common goal….fight fire safely, aggressively and effectively while making as much money as is possible which all comes under the banner of esprit de corps. Anyone, or anything that got in the way of that was at risk from the group, especially anyone from inside the crew itself.
Almost everything we did, from donating blood as a crew (I told them they had two choices, they could either give blood…or sweat it. Everyone always chose to freely give) to sitting in a bar together for hours while reliving the last fire, the next fire or some other fire was designed around building our cohesiveness and esprit de corps as a unit.
As a result, anyone who was not willing and able to be a productive and happy cog in the engine of a high performance turbo charged firefighting machine was not there for very long one way or the other. Hotshot crews usually police themselves and impose their own common mores, ethos, crew culture and traditions on each member of the crew that is willing and able to accept those conditions to become, and then remain part of the crew.
Most hotshot crews are built upon so much experience and inner strength with deep,reserves of highly capable and willing crew members, who can seamlessly move up, down or sideways in the hierarchy and command and control structure as the situation demands without a problem. Especially in today’s WF world because of the professionalization of hotshot crews with the administrative standards that are now required of every hotshot crew. In short, a good hotshot crew can be put on autopilot if the situation on conditions arise and they can safely and productively manage themselves while doing the right thing.
Which need I say it again? Is why what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire is so…inexplicable as in…something that can not be explained or understood.
A good hotshot crew, and I never worked on anything but a good hotshot crew, are a true joy and pleasure to manage. A bad hotshot crew can be one of your worst nightmares come true and should be avoided at all costs. Fortunately…there aren’t many crews like the Carson Hotshots around. And I seriously doubt they have changed except to maybe get worse since I last worked around them in 1988.
But hey…thanks for the slow pitch. I must be in a mood to pontificate today.
Gary,
You posted: “… what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire is so…inexplicable as in…something that can not be explained or understood.”
Exactly. It painfully and fatally defies logic.
And I believe that the Carson Hot Shot Crew, under recent new management, has vastly improved.
RTS said, “It painfully and fatally defies logic.”
And I say, I will never be able to describe exactly how I feel as succinctly or as well as you have.
and
And I believe that the Carson Hot Shot Crew, under recent new management, has vastly improved.
Thank God…those boys were more like an organized gang of hoodlums and thugs than hotshots back in the day. I used to feel so sorry for Al Lopez…they never gave him a break. I wouldn’t have lasted a week with that crew…I would have been disappeared if I hadn’t run away first. And I would have RUN..
And I just have got to say it one more time with the Woodsman…you be the MAN!
Woodyman,
Once again, thank you for the kind words My Friend. We were obviously raised different, to stand up for what is right and what we believe in.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/womens-march-on-washington-jan-21-2017/_dsc0083/
Agent orange slurry drop poster used during Dump Trump march in above link. This was interesting since some others are getting wise to the sickness and death caused by this secret ingredient infested ammonium sulfate and nitrate pollutant. Not only does it have its detrimental effects on humans, it instantly kills fish and other aquatic life then enters off into the Pacific Coast Ocean waters to cause the red bloom and the huge areas of dead ocean zones. Nitrogen and Phosphorous, the greater constituents of retardant, are the nutrients that feed these algae blooms that create the dead zones. Nitrates also come from sewage so combine the sewage with retardant and the algae bloom becomes even more abundant. In effect the agent orange retardant dumps are not only contributors to killing life but that of killing the planet. When the fish are all gone, then the planet itself becomes threatened. Sad part–these billion dollar retardant companies have all these facts–most of this is easily seen on Wikipedia, even to how retardant dumped on burning embers produces cyanide. Yet they are able to not only convince the public that this slop is good for us, but they can add certain “secret ingredients”–something they want to hide from public view since they are afraid these ingredients will be found for what they are–dangers to the health of people and pollutants to the environment. Fortunately there are a few wise people out there protesting the use of these poisons.
Fred Shoeffler is becoming a hero in his own right. . He is suing to get his FOIA information. This type information should be instantly public because there are enough experienced and educated individuals with no hooks to be able to give unbiased opinions and advice to help prevent future casualties in the wild land fire fighting industry. They need every bit of that hidden and redacted information so they can explain the unthinkable–what the GMHS 19 were ;prodded into doing. By all accounts of experienced men of the ilk of Fred we know that every safety rule was broken, yet the Marsh and Steed, with Steed quite reluctant, did strictly follow orders, as did their subordinates to do the unthinkable in an Atom Bomb type wild fire even knowing weather conditions, the density of the manzanita, and the absolute gamble of lives with men armed with no more than pick axes (so called Pulaskis) to defend structures that could not even be defended with huge fire engines. On the death of these young men it is absolutely mandatory that their deaths and any information related to those deaths be made up to public scrutiny and wild land experienced fire men. Grand Jury should be convened to ascertain if criminal charges should be made. Unless all information is out and any responsible parties prosecuted, these practices will continue.
There are a few who will continue in their quest for the truth in these wild fire disasters despite the billion dollar industry that wants to keep all truth hidden under the heroism banner by redactions, threats, and subterfuge. As citizens we applaud those citizens and wild land fire fighting elite who continue to work toward a better and safer wild land fire fighting situation. Many future lives will be saved in this work–generally young men in their 20’s, such as the GMHS young heroes who have had all their life deprived from them and the devastation it has brought to their families and loved ones.
One can only give shame to those that have hidden the truth and had anything to do with causing this tragedy.
If you really want to get the truth about Eric Marsh, go to the Prescott Fire Department and get your FOIA –you will be enlightened and many questions will be answered. Prescott Fire Department has been open and willing to answer questions to help people get at the truth and Joy has gotten all she asked there. Now the local Yarnell fire department, Peeples Valley Fire Departmen, and the FS are having to be sued to get any facts from them. They simply believe that the public does not have the right to their information without a court order. BLM will give you some information but at an exorbitant cost–yet these people sit in an office working for you. I hope Trump passes a law that when requested, this information should be published in the media so that all know what their public servants and these billion dollar industries are doing with their tax monies.
http://courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Yarnell.pdf
Here is a link to give you a look into how much trouble Fred is having to get what should be an easy task–especially for a person of his standing.
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/20298342/Schoeffler_v_United_States_Department_of_Agriculture
I hope he gets them
It has ALWAYS been ‘highly likely’ that the Panebaker ‘Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness’ ( AFUE ) team that was there ‘filming’ and ‘recording’ in Yarnell on Sunday, June 30, 2013 was ALSO recording the ‘Air To Ground’ radio channel traffic in the same way they were recording ALL of the ‘Air-To-Air’ radio channel traffic.
As far as can be determined… it would have been a REQUIREMENT of ANY ‘AFUE’ team to be doing it.
Documents related to this AFUE ‘Study’ state that the recording of ALL RADIO TRAFFIC ( including both the A2A and A2G channels ) is essential to the ‘Effectiveness’ part of the actual AFUE acronym.
Government ‘Contracts’ being offered for ‘Aerial Modules’ to participate in this AFUE study state clearly that the recording of ALL RADIO TRAFFIC ( especially all A2A and A2G radio traffic ) is not ‘OPTIONAL’ for participation in the AFUE Study. It is an absolute REQUIREMENT.
If the Panebaker AFUE team was NOT making contiguous recordings of BOTH the A2A and the A2G radio channel traffic on June 30, 2013… then it remains to be learned WHY they were NOT… because it seems like that was/is an absolute REQUIREMENT for the AFUE study ‘protocol’ itself.
YES
Reply to Charlie post on January 22, 2017 at 9:52 am
>> Charlie said…
>>
>> Here is a link to give you a look into how much trouble Fred is
>> having to get what should be an easy task–especially for a
>> person of his standing.
>>
>> ( See link above )
Back in the previous Chapter 24, I posted an email that was obtained via FOIA that was ‘authored’ ( back in April of 2014 ) by USDA ( United States Department of Agriculture ) OGC ( Office of General Counsel ) lawyer Steve Hattenbach.
USDA OGC lawyer Steve Hattenbach ( based in the USDA Arizona Regional office ) was the one handling ( at that time ) FOIA requests directed at US Forestry regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire.
In this email… we see USDA OGC lawyer Hattenbach telling US Forestry employees that he considers one of their ‘options’ is to have him simply REFUSE to respond to a valid ( legal ) FOIA request, if they ( the USFS employees ) don’t feel like responding to it.
The SUBJECT of this FOIA request that Hattenbach was suggesting he was ‘inclined’ to just simply REFUSE to respond to was, in fact, the “Panebaker Air Study Videos”.
Here is that original posting…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/please-begin-yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xxiv-here/#comment-348378
On October 1, 2016 at 3:08 pm, WantsToKnowTheTruth posted…
Speaking of the ‘infamous Steve Hattenbach’, the USDA ‘Office of General Counsel’ ( OGC ) lawyer who was ‘helping’ US Forestry hide information regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire…
Here is USDA OGC lawyer Steve Hattenbach communicating directly with US Forestry employees asking them if he should just go ahead and flat-out REFUSE to fulfill valid, legal ‘Freedom of Information Act’ ( FOIA ) requests coming from the Arizona ADOSH investigators.
This was just one in a series of FOIA requests whereby ADOSH was trying to obtain copies of the ‘Panebaker AFUE Air Study’ videos shot in Yarnell that were already known to exist and were already known to have been in the possession of Mike Dudley, Jim Karels, and the rest of the SAIT investigation ‘team’.
Your tax dollars at work…
————————————————————————————–
From: Hattenbach, Steve – OGC ( Lawyer – USDA Office of General Counsel )
Sent: Tuesday, April 22, 2014 10:51 AM
To: Joyner, Calvin -FS; Agpaoa, Liz -FS
Cc: Daniels, Janine -FS; VanBruggen, Bill -FS
Subject: Yarnell Hill
Cal, Liz, Bill,
I would like 30 minutes with you to discuss 3 topics related to inquiries about Yarnell Hill.
First: Attached is the draft response letter back to ADOSH from your employees responsive to the February request. It has been reviewed and approved by each employee. I simply want to run it by you before I send it.
Second: Attached is a SECOND ( FOIA ) request from ADOSH. When I sent my letters offering written questions from ADOSH for unanswered or remaining questions, I was not anticipating multiple requests. However, I am not sure we want to deny this on that basis alone.
The referenced video is publicly posted on YouTube by our recent FOIA requestor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y07WjZGdJQ4
This video was released as part of the air retardant study videos released by Washington last year. There is one person in the agency named Panebaker who is a Forestry tech in R4. I do not know whether that is the person who the video is ascribed to. I can speculate the purpose of the questions. I asked my WO ( USDA OGC Washingtion Office ) for direction or advice on April 4th and received none. I thought I’d run this by you also.
Options:
1). I refuse.
2). Someone (me) tries to figure out if we know who took the video and try to answer the questions.
Third: AZ Attorney General has asked me several questions verbally.
I am inclined to REFUSE to provide further information however I wanted to run that by you as well.
Steve Hattenbach ( Lawyer – USDA OGC )
———————————————————————————————-
OMG! My already sky high opinion of RTS just shot up into outer space. Now there is a MAN who doesn’t **** around and puts his money and time were his mouth is.
I take back everything bad I have ever said about RTS and I now forgive him for being a shirker and begging for the day shift from Plans on the Murdock Basin Fire so he could have good light in order to change his hotshot crews messy diapers.
OK…just one more war story. Hotshot crews always used to be instructed to carry at least two weeks worth of clothing and other supplies in their fire packs. This was almost always more than enough because we usually didn’t spend more than 3 to 5 days on any given fire.
We normally pulled one really long shift when we first arrived of up to 36 hours with just cat naps on the line during breaks while CHAOS was in control and managing the fire. Then there would be either one or two follow up shifts of 16 hours or so with a goal of working 12 hours on the line.
There would then typically be one or maybe two shifts of mop up while the fire team satisfied themselves we had caught the fire and then all of the mop up would be turned over to Type 2, 3 or 4 hand crews and engine crews with hose lays from roads or cat lines.
A day shift went (in theory) from 0600 until 1800 and then the night shift worked (on the line) from 1800 until 0600 hours. Each shift would hold their positions on the line until relieved by the next shift. And of course with travel by army trucks, buses or vans to drop points and then long hikes up the mountain, those times could widely vary with significant delays..
So anyway…the Murdock Basin Fire was very high up and almost to the tree line and I remember pulling about 14 shifts which as I said, was highly unusual. Of course to be on the line by 0600 counting travel time we would be awoken from our slumber next to the Klieg flood lights and huge diesel generators to in line for chow at 0400 when it was dark and cold and our boots would be frozen or at least very stiff from heavy dew, sweat and or water from the day before if we were working a day shift.
We must have shifted to a day shift at some point (right before we were snowed in…in July probably) because the overhead asked me if my crew needed a day of R & R to do laundry. So I remember sitting up in the cold, wet, dark morning next to one of my squad bosses. And I said to him while I searched for my frozen Whites with 12 inch tops in the dark, “Hey… overhead wants to know if we need R&R to do laundry? How you doing on changes of underwear?
Because of course underwear could get pretty crusty filled with bacteria with all of the sweating from hiking and taking messy dumps near the line (which was why Fred had the Payson Hotshots all wear diapers, but he had to change them) bad food etc. so crotch rot and funky butt could become a real problem without any showers or even with showers without a change of underwear. .
He sat up in the dark…looked at me and replied, “Well, I got one pair on and another pair in my fire pack…so I guess I’m good for another two weeks.”
So I told the overhead we didn’t need no stinkin’ R&R to do laundry. That’s how we fought fire back in the day, crotch rot and funky butt be damned when wildland firefighters were manly men, doing masculine things, in a macho way (SNL) and the sheep ran scared!
Actually Fred is right. I am just an old bullshitter. The truth is…Fred just changed his squad bosses diapers and then they changed the diapers for their respective squads.
Gary,
Thanks for the remarks. However, it’s not quite how I remember the Murdoch Basin Fire.
You posted: “I take back everything bad I have ever said about RTS and I now forgive him for being a shirker and begging for the day shift from Plans on the Murdock Basin Fire so he could have good light in order to change his hotshot crews messy diapers.”
Not a shirker and definitely not begging for day shift. I never beg.
And I think you were confused on and disappointed about lack of good light for your Hot Shot Crew.
But that’s okay because I know you’re getting older and ore feeble and your memory is failing as evidenced by your “oh one more thing” posts.
It’s okay
Thank you RTS…and like I said, you are a real GEM! Please Keep up the good work!
Oh…and one more thing. I’m pretty sure Fred did take the overhead up on their offer to take his crew to town for R&R so they could hand wash their panties and other unmentionables, so…
Reply to Woodsman post on January 21, 2017 at 12:54 pm
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> I am encouraged by Zinke as head of the Interior dept.
>> There is no way that someone of his credentials will not
>> see the problems in the current national fire policy. It’s
>> blatantly obvious there are real problems with the way
>> we manage wildfire on public lands currently.
I wonder how he feels about ‘access to information’… because the Trump team just TODAY made that a ‘big issue’ for the Department of the Interior ( generally ) and the National Park Service ( specifically ).
Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, Trump’s nominee to lead the Deaprtment of the Interior ( DOI… which, of course, includes the National Park Service ( NPS ), BIA and Bureau of Land Management ( BLM )…
…is mentioned in the following article about how the new administration immediately ‘shut down’ the National Park Service’s Twitter accounts ( ALL of them… INCLUDING the ones that report EMERGENCIES to the PUBLIC ) just because a photo was posted that compared the crowds at Obama’s inaUguration to the crowds at Trump’s inaUguration yesterday.
Article Title: Trump Administration tells National Park Service to halt tweets
Published: 8:05 PM ET, Sat January 21, 2017
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/trump-national-park-service-tweets/
Zinke does not appear to have been ‘involved’ in this ‘shutdown’ of the Twitter accounts just because Trump didn’t like what was showing up there, but he is mentioned in the article.
From the article…
————————————————————————-
After the National Park Service retweeted messages that negatively compared the crowd sizes at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration to Donald Trump’s inauguration Friday, representatives from the new administration asked the Interior Department’s digital team to temporarily STOP using Twitter — a decision the agency now claims was out of a concern the account was HACKED.
————————————————————————-
So that’s the new ‘public media policy’ for this administration?
If ANYTHING shows up that THEY simply don’t like… it is immediately going to be considered possible ‘hacking’ ( cough, cough )… and that alone will be their ‘justification’ for shutting things down and/or removing the posts they don’t like?
Well, isn’t that special.
What’s also ‘special’ is that their obsession with controlling Trump’s image also shut down some very IMPORTANT accounts…
————————————————————————-
That order ( from the new administration ) to STOP tweeting impacted ALL accounts under the Interior Department’s purview, including individual National Park accounts that are, at times, used to communicate EMERGENCY MESSAGES to visitors.
————————————————————————-
There were thousands upon thousands of visitors in Washington this weekend.
As it turns out… MOST of them were there for the RALLIES today and not even for the inauguration itself, but BOTH ‘groups’ were actually ‘overlapping’ and there in/around the ‘National Parks’ at the same time, compounding the situation.
What if some ’emergency’ had actually developed today in or around the MALL or the National Park(s) there in DC?
Now we learn that at some point… and just because the new administration didn’t like a ‘Tweet’… there’s a chance that people might NOT have had access to ( perhaps ) important ’emergency’ information in the normal way if/when they needed it.
Unbelievable.
Once the Trump media control team ( Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, etc. ) realized they had shut down ALL of the DOI / NPS Twitter accounts… including the ones that report EMERGENCIES… they issued an ‘update’ to their ‘social media guidance’ directives and allowed their Twitter accounts to become active again… but NOT for anything to do with any ‘policy’.
They still want a ‘Social Media gag order’ in place on anything related to ‘Policy Matters’ until Zinke is confirmed.
Again… from the article…
————————————————————————-
“Now that social media guidance has been clarified, the Department and its bureaus should resume Twitter engagement as normal this weekend, with the exception of social media posts on the Secretary’s policy priorities, which will be outlined upon confirmation.”
Trump’s nominee to lead the department, Montana Rep. Ryan Zinke, is expected to be confirmed in the near future.
————————————————————————-
So the big question now is…
If the ‘new administration’ is obviously going to be this paranoid about ‘bad news’ across the board… and this ‘trigger happy’ about shutting down existing public information accounts at Government Agencies ( like the National Park Service ) the moment they see something they simply don’t like…
…what are the chances we will ever see the actual ‘investigation report’ that is now ‘in the works’ at the National Park Service with regards to the tragic ( and fatal ) ‘Chimney Tops 2’ fire?…
>> On January 19, 2017 at 5:52 pm, calvin said…
>>
>> Investigation of the Chimny tops 2 fire coming.
http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/2017/01/16/multi-agency-panel-review-chimney-tops-fire/96547690/
Why were federal employees of the federal agency known as the NPS ‘tweeting’ this type of content using the federal accounts? If that’s info deemed relevant or interesting & someone wants to share it, why not use your personal account to do so? A ‘comparison photo’ sounds like it would be possible to be interpreted as controversial so why take the chance of causing a problem for yourself? Bone headed move. Someone just lost their chances for the brainiac of the year award. I hope the person(s) who did that are already ‘retired in place’ or they just put their livelihood ie: pension at risk…and for what? Folks should take a deep breath! Haha
Woodsman
Just watched a video of the Pagami Fire. It was mentioned there that the rangers did not have radio reception once they were under the shelters. Made me wonder if Granite Mountain could communicate by radio once they were under their shelters?
Diane, probably not, but it would not have mattered. It would have done them no good at all by then. They failed to use them to communicate with AA and/or OPS to advise them what they were intending to do BEFORE they left their perfectly good Safety Zone.
And the GMHS knew or should have known radios don’t usually work well inside fire shelters from their basic training.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on
January 22, 2017 at 1:54 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> And the GMHS knew or should have known radios don’t usually
>> work well inside fire shelters from their basic training.
Does the ‘basic training’ you speak of even ‘go there’?
Because it certainly seems like Type 1 Hotshot Crew Superintendent Eric Marsh himself was totally unaware that his low-power handheld radio would probably not work well ( or at all ) once he covered himself with his metal-foil-lined fire shelter. ( sic: A Faraday Cage ).
One of the last statements of his life ( to John Burfiend in ‘Bravo 33’ ) was…
“We’ll give you a call when we are UNDER the sh– shelters”.
WTKTT,
Here is a short, 2003 USDA USFS Technology and development Program ‘Equip Tip’ titled “Fire Shelters Weaken Radio Transmissions From Hand-Held Radios.”
https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf03512342/pdf03512342dpi72.pdf
It found that WFF within 50 feet of each other could talk to others.
No mention of the Faraday Effect but plenty on the titled subject.
WTKTT,
Here is the 2014 Beaver Fire Entrapment Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA) that also address weakened radio transmissions.
http://wildfiretoday.com/documents/Beaver_Fire_Entrapment_FLA.pdf
On page 26, “G. Using a Radio Inside Your Fire Shelter DIVS C had the presence of mind to slide the radio antenna out of the shelter for better radio transmissions.”
“Firefighters should review the 2003 MTDC Fire Tech Tip – Fire
Shelters Weaken Radio Transmissions from Hand-Held Radios:
“In addition, on all incidents, all command channels should be inserted at the beginning of the radio com plan. This enabled DIVS C to successfully operate his radio in the darkness of the fire shelter.”
Thank you for the links… but what I am still wondering is whether or not there is ANY mention of this chance that handhelds won’t work when ‘in shelter’ in the actual ‘basic training’ you already referred to.
What you posted above are links to FLAs and obscure online ‘Equip Tips’.
That’s fine… at least the ‘problem’ is ‘acknowledged’.
But when you say ‘basic training’… I am assuming CLASSES.
In other words… in whatever CLASS you have to take that teaches you how to deploy a fire shelter… is it absolutely PART of that CURRICULUM to ALSO mention the potential ‘radio malfunctions’ when fully ‘in shelter’?
Or are WFFS being allowed to ‘walk away’ from these ‘basic CLASSES’ thinking their handheld radios can/should work just fine even when fully ‘in shelter’?
WTKTT,
You posted: “…. whether or not there is ANY mention of this chance that handhelds won’t work when ‘in shelter’ in the actual ‘basic training’ you already referred to.”
After researching the subject, I would have to agree that the hand-held radio issue is NOT addressed in any of the basic WFF training.
It was NOT discussed in the NWCG S-130 Basic WFF training course Instructor Guide.
Additionally, the “Large New Generation Fire Shelter Now Available” Fire Tech Tip (June 2005) by MTDC Project Leader Tony Petrillii (1994 South Canyon Fire survivor) makes NO mention of radio transmission troubles from within a deployed fire shelter.
https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/pdfpubs/pdf05512325/pdf05512325dpi72.pdf
Here is the general NIFC link regarding Fire Shelters.
https://www.nifc.gov/fireShelt/fshelt_training.html
Unfortunately, the NFES 2710 2003 “New Generation Fire Shelter Booklet PMS 411” link was not functioning
FLAs and ‘Equip Tips’ should be part of ones training and annual refreshers.
So, hopefully, this is being taught in at least the basic WFF courses.
Reply to Robert the Second post on
January 23, 2017 at 4:03 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> After researching the subject, I would have
>> to agree that the hand-held radio issue is
>> NOT addressed in any of the basic WFF
>> training.
I want to say ‘Thank you for confirming that’… but since that is really, really BAD NEWS… I’m not going to.
‘Copy that’ will have to do ( for now ).
Surprising then that Eric Marsh would say that he would give them a call when they were in their shelters.
RTS,
I read the complaint. Serious respect and debt of gratitude from me to you for your courage and perseverance in the matter. Possessing the brass ones you do to stay on task as you are may end up saving countless wff lives in the future. Thank you.
Wood
Woodsmith,
Thanks for the compliments My Friend. It always is, was, and will be, first about The Truth, and then about WFF safety and saving lives and Lessons Learned.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post on
January 22, 2017 at 2:43 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> It always is, was, and will be, first about The Truth, and then
>> about WFF safety and saving lives and Lessons Learned.
Could not possibly AGREE more.
Diane… the actual METAL FOIL layer/lining of a standard Wildland Fire Shelter will, in and of itself, tend to BLOCK RADIO TRANSMISSIONS ( both transmits and receives ) once you are underneath it.
This is called the ‘Faraday Effect’ ( discovered by Michael Faraday in 1845 ) and it is well documented…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_effect
Getting ‘underneath’ or ‘inside’ a layer of metal foil creates what is known as a ‘Faraday CAGE’, which blocks radio transmissions…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
—————————————————————-
The reception or transmission of radio waves to or from an antenna within a Faraday cage is heavily attenuated or blocked by the cage.
—————————————————————-
Apparently… firefighters are not TAUGHT about this ‘Faraday effect’ in any of the training classes regarding the use of standard foil-based fire shelters.
It is even apparent that Granite Mountain Superintendent Eric Marsh himself was unaware of this ‘effect’ since one of the last statements of his life ( captured in one of Aaron Hulburd’s video recordings ) was something he said over the radio to Air Attack ‘Bravo 33’ ( Thomas French, John Burfiend and Clint Cross )…
“We’ll give you a call when we are UNDER the sh– shelters”.
It still remains highly likely that the various ‘pops’ and ‘clicks’ heard in the same video shortly after that might actually have been Eric Marsh ( or other Hotshots out at the deployment site ) still trying to ‘communicate’ via radio with ‘Bravo 33’… but the fact that they were now UNDER that layer of METAL FOIL was preventing them from actually accomplishing that.
There was absolutely no mention of any of this ( or even the obvious possibility of it ) in the official ‘Special Accident Investigation Report’… and so there was no chance of any of this even becoming a “Lesson to Learn” following the Yarnell tragedy.
Firefighters would seem to remain in blissful ignorance… thinking that they will be able to fully use their radios even after they get UNDER these ‘shelters’.
In the video about the Boundary Water Canoe Area fire I noticed that a firefighter was holding his radio outside his shelter to communicate by radio.
Diane,
GTS and delve into how stressful, near death situations radically affects our thinking and information processing.
Our brains basically shut down and cannot process any new information. We go into Tunnel vision mode and rely on those actions most familiar to us.
Check into Daniel Goleman’s many research papers.
Diane,
Below are two Situational Awareness Matters website SAMatters.com articles, somewhat similar. They both include the same short video clip on SA.
Here is their subtitle: “Helping individuals and teams understand human factors, reduce the impact of situational awareness barriers, and improve decision making under stress.”
http://www.samatters.com/understanding-stress-part-5-tunnel-vision/
http://www.samatters.com/explaining-tunnel-vision/
Hopefully, you will read the above Situational Awareness article.
This was a most fascinating and remarkable finding.
“Researchers at Johns Hopkins University ran a series of audible and visual tests on human subjects, measuring the loss of acuity while engaging them in activities designed to narrow attention.
“The results were a shocker.
“The experiment was designed to [examine] tunnel vision – and it did. But a completely unexpected event occurred. While the vision was being tunneled, the performance of the audible control center decreased. That was not a typo. TUNNELED VISION LED TO DIMINISHED HEARING. Turns out, focusing on something intently led the audio cortex to turn down the volume.
When the researchers performed an experiment to tunnel the hearing, the performance of the visual control center decreased. Again, no typo. TUNNELED HEARING LED TO DIMINISHED VISION. (EMPHASIS ADDED)
“This led the researchers to conclude that A PERSON INTENTLY LISTENING TO AUDIBLE CUES, LIKE A RADIO OR CELL PHONE, COULD HAVE DIMINISHED VISUAL PERFORMANCE. It also led the researchers to conclude A PERSON INTENTLY FOCUSED ON SOMETHING VISUAL COULD HAVE DIMINISHED HEARING.
(EMPHASIS ADDED)
Given these findings, it is likely that this MAY have had some influence on WHY the GMHS did what they did when they left their perfectly good Safety Zone and walked down into a death trap.
I am searching for the original study.
RTS,
Thank you-these articles are interesting and I can see how they can be relevant to the stress that the hotshots were under that day
I hope that this is part of the training for wildland firefighters.
Diane,
I found the original study: “Control of Attention Shifts between Vision and Audition in Human Cortex” by Sarah Shomstein and Steven Yantis. The Journal of Neuroscience, November 24, 2004 • 24(47):10702–10706
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/jneuro/24/47/10702.full.pdf
Diane, here is a more complex, complementary paper:
Transient neural activity in human parietal cortex during spatial attention shifts by Yantis, S. et al Nature Neuroscience; New York Vol. 5 (Oct 2002): 995-1002.
https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.libproxy.db.erau.edu/docview/274721060?pq-origsite=summon
Just a quick note to tell you that after millions of years (or just a few IF you are a fundamentalist Christian) the Oregon Dunes are still here and wet. But I want to take a moment to say, “May God Bless the United States of America, our new President Elect and the peaceful transfer of power without tanks tearing up the streets.” Because if he succeeds…our great nation succeeds. Amen.
A lot of history is about to made at NOON tomorrow.
The moment Trump takes the ‘oath of office’… he will become all of the following…
1. The person with the LOWEST approval rating ( by far ) of anyone to ever take the oath of office as long as such records have been kept.
2. The FIRST person to ever take the oath of office with no prior experience whatsoever in ‘public service’.
3. The FIRST person to ever take the oath of office who will be in direct violation of Article 1, section 9, clause 8 of the United States Constitution ( an impeachable offense ) the moment he finishes taking the oath itself.
4. The OLDEST person to ever take the oath of office. Tomorrow, Donald Trump will be more than 70 and 1/2 years old, with the actual numbers being ‘all sevens’… 70 years, 7 months, 7 days old. At least it’s not ‘all snake-eyes’. He is reported to be averse to any kind of exercise and his favorite foods are rumored to be a toss-up between hamburgers and/or pork chops.
5. The FIRST person to ever take the oath of office who has had MULTIPLE ( more than one ) failed marriages.
6. The FIRST person to have ever LOST the popular vote in a presidential election by the largest margin in history ( he lost by at least 2.09 percent ) and still be able to actually take the oath of office.
7. The ONLY person to ever take the oath of office who is ALREADY being actively ‘investigated’ by BOTH the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee for possible illegal ‘contacts’ and/or ‘collusions’ with foreign governments ( and/or ‘agents’ thereof ) during the course of his presidential campaign, and/or possible direct violations of the ‘Logan Act’.
And that’s just the ‘short’ list.
Thanks for reminding us of one of the obscure and often ignored portions of the US Constitution, Article 1, section 9, clause 8.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-11-21/trump-s-hotel-lodges-a-constitutional-problem
The author does a fairly good job of parsing this out and explaining it.
An impeachable offense? Really. And what of the 8 years of impeachable offense have we had to endure with the imperial BHO in power.
So…we’re going to start adhering to the Constitution now? When did this happen? This is seriously the absolute best fucking news I’ve heard in the 21st century… maybe my entire life!!! I gotta run & tell my friends. Thank you, Jesus. I had just about given up all hope in the restoration of the rule of law in this country! Yessssssss!!!
Woodcraft
Here we have RTS–Fred Shoeffler–26 years a wild land fire fighter and superintendent being refused by the FS the FOIA requests he made. if this is not the ultimate proof of hiding information then what is? These FS people should be quickly producing the information Fred wants. Fred with his credentials deserves to have the information so he can give his valuable input and opinions on what might be done to improve wild land fire fighting techniques. It looks to be a cover up to the nth degree and at all costs in order to hide the truth.
I do hope that Trump has installed a new man to run the Dept. of Agriculture. Someone who is honest and will quickly order the information to Wild Land elite fire fighters and public people interested in what is taking place with their tax dollars. Tax Dollars are secondary to Fred–he wants to know all about why and how those men were sent into a bad spot so that their lives were taken. Good God of Heaven and Hell, what kind of asshole would withhold information from men like RTS, Gary Olson, Bob Powers, Woodsman, Dr. Ted Putnam and other wild land fire fighters trying to improve conditions in wild land fire fighting–especially making it safer so that such killing incidents as the 19 deceased GMHS does not happen again.
When every effort is made to withhold this information we see that the proof of a cover up is made and it is mandatory that whoever withholds this information should be immediately removed from office. These people are public servants, and may the media expose their wrong doing.
WTKTT,
Here’s some thoughts on a very important matter that you have been talking about several times since the most recent election. The author is Karl Denniger of market ticker.org. The truth is Trump won in a landslide. This will take several posts.
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=231656
“That’ll be enough”
“Let me make a few observations.
First, eight years ago, and again four years ago, America elected a President. Fully half, give or take a couple of percent, disagreed with the outcome.
There were exactly zero riots, fires, “mass protests” and similar following that outcome despite the fact that half the population vehemently disagreed with it.
This time around, not so much.
Now I want you think very carefully about the following.
Most of the land mass of this nation is owned and resided upon by people who are in “red” (that is, the winner this time) areas of the country. With the exception of certain urban centers and right along the Mexican/Texas border there are very few “solid” blue areas.
Those urban centers consume roughly 90% of the energy and food in this country yet they comprise 5-10% of the land mass. The “red” areas produce 95% of the food and energy this nation consumes and occupies 90-95% of the land mass.
Do you really think that doing something like eliminating the last pieces of the structure our founding fathers put in place to prevent tyranny of the majority from being able to take hold is a good idea?
A little history lesson: Prior to the 17th Amendment ratified in 1913 it was impossible for the Federal Government to shove any program down the throats of the 50 states. That’s because the state legislatures had effective control of the Senate and could recall their Senators.
The House was elected by the people, the Senate was elected by The State Legislatures (and could be recalled by same) and The President was elected by the Electors, which were voted for in the popular vote.
The latter provides a modest but real increase in the representation of “flyover” states; that is, those with lower population counts. In other words it is a check and balance in the ultimate tyranny of democracy.
Yes, I said democracy is ultimately tyrannical — because it is.
America is not a Democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic. This is very important; in a democracy 50%+1 can render the 50%-1 slaves by mere vote. Those who are in the minority in a democracy have no rights at all. Democracy is best represented by two wolves and a sheep voting on what’s for dinner.
We are all minorities in some form or fashion. If you’re gay, black, yellow, male, female, whatever — all it takes is some other set of groups to get together and decide to oppress you, and in a democracy you’re ****ed.”
“America’s founding fathers put in place two systems to prevent this. The first was the bicameral legislature; a House elected by the people at large and a Senate elected by the State Legislators. This structure guaranteed that a landmass that amassed 50%+1 of the population (not even in the same state or states!) could not band together and shove down the throat of the States any policy measure because you needed the concurrence of more than half the state legislatures, where each were delegated but two votes to their Senators who were accountable to said legislature, to pass anything at all.
This evaporated with the passage of the 17th Amendment. Now you only needed 50%+1 of the people in a given state to pass anything you wanted and they could all live in a tiny percentage of the land mass — such as is the case with Illinois where more than half the population lives in the immediate area of Chicago.
What came right after that? Prohibition, shoved down the throat of the States, less than 7 years later!
What also came after it was an unbridled expansion of the Federal Government into state affairs. Indeed, virtually everything became a “legitimate” federal matter. Why? Because it was impossible for the States to prevent it.
Do you think the founders were wrong to do what they did, and the 17th Amendment corrected that?
If you believe so then please consider this.
Ever drive through small town America?
Hell, how about “not-so-small-town” America?
Many of these towns look like something out of a WWI or WWII European war movie. There was one factory or maybe two, but now it sits empty, weeds growing out of the parking lot as high as your head, all the windows are broken out and the roof has caved in. Over on the outskirts there’s a Walmart that pays $9/hour, but only offers 20 hours/week. The factory paid $30/hour, full-time, plus benefits and food, power, medicine and beer cost half of what it does now. 90% of what formerly were little diners and shops in the “center” of the town, which might have one actual traffic light, are gone — boarded up and often literally falling apart. There might be one bank left, a branch of a big national chain, and maybe an antique store. Maybe. All the factory jobs left for China and Mexico and everything else died when the middle-class incomes to support them disappeared. We did that as a nation with our “progressive” and “global” agenda driven by the 50%+1 that live in the closest big city 200 miles away.
The locals who used to work in the fields within 10 or 20 miles from that town are all unemployed too. Why? Because the illegal Mexicans came and we refused to throw them out. They work for a few bucks a day in cash, no taxes, no unemployment, no nothing. No American can live on that; the embedded cost of just trying to stay alive would leave you with zero. But the Mexicans work hard and then sleep 10 to a single-room apartment, which incidentally is a total ****hole as you’d expect given that density of occupation. They don’t care; it’s better than what they had in Mexico, you see, and they can Western Union home some of the money. This is the face of “immigration”, mostly illegal, that really exists in this country. They brought their third-world ****hole here and while it’s a little bit better than what they had in the process of doing it they dragged us into the gutter with them.
The people who lived in that town did and most who are still there do go to church every weekend, and some go again during the week, usually on Wednesday. There’s usually one, sometimes two churches. Every one of them has the word “God” or “Christ” in the name on the front. They mean it when it comes to their faith and in addition that’s where all the local people shake hands, exchange chit-chat on the last week and, for younger people, it’s where they meet one another. You know, girls and boys. Yeah. Faith is real there, you see, and it’s Christian. But from your point of view that’s deplorable and that “those people” don’t like the idea of making a wedding cake for a gay marriage is deserving of a federal lawsuit and loss of the bakery (which is, as a result, now closed — putting yet more people out of work.) The people who live in these towns don’t see your point of view as a civil rights matter but rather as attacking God.
What was left after the factory was displaced isn’t enough to run a “service economy”, which is why it never showed up there and the old business buildings are all boarded up. Nobody can afford $8 lattes on a $9/hour wage for 20 hours a week and nobody would want them if they could. There’s probably a McDonalds on the outskirts, and a couple of self-serve gas stations with a convenience store. It sells cheap beer and lots of it to the locals who have nothing to do but drink and then go to church and pray for forgiveness for last night’s 12 pack. None of the jobs at any of these places, except maybe the store manager, makes more than $9/hour and Obamacare has forced all the regular workers down to 20 hours a week on top of it. Try living on $180/week gross sometime — before FICA and Medicare is taken out, never mind gas for the car and the rapidly-escalating car insurance bill — and you might understand. Yes, I know the car is 15 years old and runs like crap. What do you expect on under $1,000/month of income?”
“This is what 40 years of sending jobs overseas with “trade deals” did. It’s what Amazon did. It’s what Walmart and its Chinese supply line did. It’s what “progressive America” did, and then to add insult to injury the teachers in the public schools tell all the kids that Mommy and Daddy are bad people and hate both the planet and their own kids because they don’t drive a $30,000 Prius or a $60,000 Tesla.
This is everywhere in rural America. Get in your car and out of your comfort zone some time and you’ll see it. It’s not far from wherever you are. I’ve driven through dozens of these formerly-alive places in the last six months — every one of them dead today, but full of real people. I never met one such person that was a racist, xenophobic *******, but they’re not very happy, and the people they’re unhappy with are those very same folks you wanted to keep in office in Washington DC.
If you think the destruction of small town America is confined to farms you forget the other half — energy. Would you like your lights to work? Many of those small towns are dead because of the insanity of our energy policy — or lack thereof, tied to left-wing whackjob nonsense.
Now you want to add insult to injury when they show up to vote, exactly as civics tells them we have a right to do, and a large number of you in the cities did not show up.
They bought into the message of bringing American jobs back to America and ejecting those who have no right to be here. You call them xenophobic, racist and small-minded — they call it a shot at decent employment for the first time in 30 years.
They believe in the Henry Ford model of American business, and they’re not wrong to do so. Make the product here, pay the people well enough to be able to afford it, and you’ll do just fine.
They win the election, in short, and you lose.
Then you decide to be a sore loser and loot, burn, beat people, issue threats, cry, whine on social media and try to obstruct everything by any means possible — legal or not. You bus people in to “protest” and riot, you “petition”, you raise hell in short — oh, and all this after you implored the other side to “respect the outcome of the election” and lambasted them for suggesting they might want to merely count the ballots twice!
Note again, as I pointed out above, that eight years ago, and four years ago, these very same people were on the losing end of your stick exactly as they had been for the previous three decades yet they did none of the above. They understand duplicity and your double-standard quite well, seeing as they did the honorable thing and respected the outcome twice in a row despite getting screwed sequentially both times. The only thing your brand of government offered them in the end was Medicaid or worthless “health insurance” through the exchange; the former has no doctors that accept it within 20 miles and the latter has a $5,000 deductible before it pays anything, which is utterly laughable when you consider these folks have a gross wage of under $1,000 a month.
Now the question: Are you prepared for the possibility they might decide en-masse that they’re done with this crap — and with you? That they’re not going to take it any more?
What if the people who live in the “red” areas, that is, those who produce the food and energy that are consumed to the 90th percentile in the “blue” areas, decide they’re not going to do that for the blue areas any more? What if their middle finger goes up, in short?
Remember, we allegedly do not permit slavery in this country any more — which means that which someone owns they have the right to sell – or not sell. They have the right to produce – or, more to the point, not produce.
What if the people who peacefully conceded the result of two elections over the last eight years despite vehemently opposing the outcome decide that if the “blue” folks can riot, loot, beat people who vote the “wrong way” and similar they will not accept any further election result that doesn’t go their way, and instead of rioting or burning things they will simply shut off the flow of food and energy to said “blue” areas? After all, you don’t value them at all — you consider them subhuman, racist, xenophobic, deplorable and irredeemable — all at once.
I’ll tell you what happens if they take that decision: Every major city in the country would go feral within hours.”
“Within days those cities would not be blue, they’d be blackened and reduced to ash as those very same “protesters” you like so much loot, burn and shoot at each other trying to get the last scraps of food and fuel remaining. They would then probably try to come out of the cities and take by force what had been denied them, only to run into a major problem – the “red guys” have more guns, they know the land because they live there, and more importantly they actually hit what they aim at, having had plenty of practice feeding their families with deer, wild boar and similar. Mr. Gang Banger against Mr. Deer Hunter isn’t a very fair fight, when you get down to it.
Oh by the way there’s a phrase for what this would mean, if you haven’t figured it out by now: Civil War.
Is that what you want?
It’s where your actions are headed, if you keep doing what you’re doing — and nobody knows exactly where the tipping point is.
Better think long and hard, those of you in the “blue” places who are running this crap. You do not have a snowball’s chance in Hell of being able to grow enough in the way of crops on the landmass you control to feed a tenth of your population and every squirrel in your trees would be shot dead and eaten within an hour after this began. Silent spring indeed. Never mind the fact that most of you “wonderful snowflakes” couldn’t shoot, skin, butcher and cook a deer — or even a squirrel — if you had to. Never mind that a good 80% of you couldn’t manage to run one mile if you were being chased by someone interested in eating you.
The day that cellophane-wrapped chicken stops showing up in the grocery store is literally the day 90% of Blue America starves.
Nobody in their right mind wants such an outcome. But where do you think this all goes if you keep it up, eh?
Every bit of it has been enabled by the 17th Amendment and tyranny of the majority — a tyranny you wish to increase by doing things such as abolishing the Electoral College.
There’s a very good reason our founding fathers designed a Constitutional Republic instead of a Democracy. They understand the problem with democracy: It doesn’t work. Democracy always ends up leading to riots and civil war, because exactly what the blue folks are doing now escalates until everyone starts shooting everyone.
A Constitutional Republic avoids this outcome because even a very large majority cannot infringe the rights of everyone else — even when the majority lives in big, concentrated places like cities.
That was the magic sauce of the original design in our legislature and Presidency. It’s why we have an Electoral College — to provide a bit of “overweighting” to those places that are utterly crucial to the cohesiveness and survival of the nation as a functional republic — that is, a bit more balance against tyranny of the majority of 50%+1.
We got rid of the biggest check and balance with the 17th Amendment and I have, for decades, maintained that whenever America finally is declared dead and done, and the book is closed, that will be written in as the reason our nation’s political system failed. It’s the only Amendment we cannot reasonably repeal, because to do so would require the sitting Senate to vote itself out of a job. I’m sure you can figure out how likely that is.
But we can avoid doing more violence to our Constitution — and we had better, or the outcome, given the annals of history available to anyone who cares to look, is quite certain. If you want to see how this turns out should you keep pressing the issue go have a look at the map of how many states Trump won .vs. Clinton, or how the county-by-county map looks. You’ll see a lot more red of various shades than you will blue.
The bottom line? Go ahead and be a sore loser. Go ahead and whine. Go ahead and try to change what our representative process led to. Go ahead and decide to loot, burn and beat. Refuse to accept the result of the election, if you insist. Hell, go ahead and try to threaten or even bribe the electors! Make sure you tear down the last little bit of foundation and structure inherent in the design of the legislature and executive of the United States. Who needs it; it’s all in the name of being “progressive”, right — even if when counted by landmass, counties or states the election was a landslide for Trump.
Just don’t be surprised, if you keep it up, that at some point, given that you’re utterly reliant on those you’re abusing for the basics of life — the loaf of bread, the gallon of gasoline, the electricity that powers your lights — they decide they’ve had enough. That day your supply of cellophane-wrapped meat and plastic bag full of bread disappears like a fart in the wind. There comes a time when those who you’ve put the boot to for so long, and then try to deny the ability to change things peacefully through the representative process our founding fathers gave us, decide that despite their religious beliefs and good manners they’re not going to service you on their knees any more.
Don’t be dumb enough to think you can keep doing what you’ve been doing forever because you can’t and if you go too far there will be no warning, no second chances and no saying you’re sorry. It’ll just happen starting with one final stupid act — and then we all lose.”
Wood
Woodsman has it right–and listening to Trump I must say he has said some wonderful things. I did not vote either way since I did not see either as viable candidates. However, Trump appeared to be the one with a significant sense above the liar Hillary.
But when do you know that a politician is lying? The answer is when they open their mouth. So will Trump actually do what he says? We certainly hope so since most of us are saddened to see our jobs moved out of the country–but big business and 99% of billionaire business men are not loyal to any country. Their loyalty is to the dollar and the profit margin.
The loyalty to the constitution and this country is with the Rancher, Farmer, Laborer, and Individuals generally in the middle. Of course this being a Christian based country for the most part it includes most of those people but not exclusive to them. Remember Thomas Paine was an atheist or agnostic, yet great part of developing this Republic. Our great President George Washinton and about 50 others of the signers of the Constitution are masons–ascribe to that society. Donald Trump has a masonic ring on a statue of his–so if so then he would subscribe to the New World Order–and is that on line thing that should be considered. Those that want the New World Order thing are not exactly attached to the American idea as Trump expresses it.
Here is a list of some of the Masons–Joseph Smith, George Bush, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Colin Powell, Storm Thurmond, Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, Barry Goldwater, Jesse Helms, Andrew Jackson, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, James Garfield, William Taft, Ronald Reagan, Al Gore, James Monroe, James Polk, James Buchannan, James Garfield, William McKinley, Warren Harding, Gerald Ford. and this is just a small list of your leaders. These people that rule the world include people in the Illuminati, Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, Free Masons Is their idea of brotherhood bad? Seems the majority are much like the Christian–good fellows that never know what the fuck the boys in charge are doing and how their particular God idea is going to rule the layman. Most laymen have not the time or interest to involve in matters the elite lay out for them.
These people of the elite generally consider themselves as citizens of the world, and their allegiance to solely America in my opinion is quite suspect. Most of them are just as happy living in a French Mansion as they are in a Trump Tower. However they do like to do obeisance to a statue of Abe Lincoln, even though he was not a Freemason–it looks good to the population.
So is Donald Trump simply another person with rhetoric? Watching Bill and Hillary’s facial reactions at the Inauguration and include George Bush with an ugly expression when Trump said the end of the politicians getting fatter at the expense of selling this country out (I am paraphrasing but the expressions insinuations of Trump were real) made me think the man is at least ruffling feathers.
We shall see, but my own opinion is that Trump is in the same class as all the other politicos.
Woodsman is correct in what he says about the Blues and Reds. If Woodsman would run for President, he would get my vote because he is true to form and knows this should be a Republic, not a Demon Cracy. You see there is rarely an honest politician–maybe Honest Abe was the last of a dying breed.
I do feel that if a civil war ensues–and that is likely if the social welfare state comes apart–it may be orchestrated or indeed it may come because the fellows feeding the masses do go on strike as Woodsman believes may happen.
But then those in power already have plans for that type scenario. You can get satellite images of the barbed wire encampments and those are not for illegals. Fema has plans for all the problems this country is destined for–and Joy’s idea that the round a bouts are part of it makes sense. Amazing how little the American people know about the system and how much trust they put into their elected officials.
The thing about change and if Trump is for real (I do not believe his rhetoric), then he is facing some mighty heavy forces willing to block his efforts.
It makes me thing about how many promises Bush, Obama, Reagan, and so on made to get in office, yet they were never fulfilled. A good research on that proves the politician tells the public ears what he believes they want to hear and what will get him or her in office–then after a time we see they become a part of the system as now established. The fire fighting system is along those lines as we can see. And maybe there is no other way it can go until it breaks.
For sure, America was strong when the people had industry. But now we are a service economy. Your job is flipping burgers or stocking shelves of Chinese junk at Wal Mart, or at a bank as a teller and the like. Very little left here to do unless you know how to roll tacos. Not many of the new generation are willing to work as a farm laborer and that has been handed to the illegal for the most part. Farmers and Ranchers are not willing to pay wages the American would want and they say if they did they would not make a profit. So there is much to consider–yet if we let the influx of illegals go unchecked this country would indeed become a third world country–something that it may be destined to in time despite all the good efforts of people like Woodsman.
Which President had a committee of scientists determine what the planet could support population wise without coming to a disastrous end? I believe on Iron Mountain these elite scientists decided that half a billion was about the limit–we are about 6 billion too populated according to that finding.
They might be right since the 6 billion people are doing a great job polluting the planet and with all the plastic, retardants, nuclear plants, Isis Virus, just to name a few, we might just soon have a planet that can only support that many–It is not doing too well with the 6 and a half billion right now.
If Jesus raptures only 144 thousand then he has it figured at a lower figure. Well drop me another bottle of Crown Royal Jesus. I might need it and so may some others if Trump is lying though his teeth.
Thanks, Charlie. I trust no one until they have proven trustworthy. I’m also willing to give just about anyone a chance though. Trump is something a little different than what we have had in the past so time will tell on his dedication to his spoken plans. It’s an uphill battle for certain.
Those who talk solely of the popular vote numbers & imply that the election results thereby are invalid in some way (not even taking into account the evidence of substantial vote fraud,) are really advocating for TYRANNY OF THE MAJORITY. A goal of mine was to illustrate just exactly what that tyranny entails.
A major portion of city people simply have no clue how the rest of the country lives. The are seen as backwoods, redneck hicks (woodsmen?) but the regular folks are mostly producers of things of tangible benefit to society…wood fiber, minerals, the roads you drive, energy produced so we can run our electric-powered luxuries. “Common” folk are the heart and soul of the country & without their hard work the country would grind to a halt. Instead of looking down their noses at them & deciding what’s best for them by telling them how to live their lives in all ways, a simple “thank you for what you do” every once in a while would be a much better way to go. I’m talking about the lineman in the ice-storm at 2:00am freezing his tail off repairing the electric feed to your home so your thermostat makes heat blow out of your floor registers again; the septic/sewer/plumber man so the shit disappears down the pipe instead of over-flowing onto the floor of your bathroom; the logger because the last time I checked most houses & furniture were made from wood (not to mention TOILET PAPER!), etc, ect. etc.
Some have lost touch with the proud regular people and decided they know better on how they should live their lives. I have not…hell, I’m one of them being the lowly forest technician…& I can relate for several reasons:
1. crap flows downhill & I’m the one the has to do the actual work since the new crop of managers didn’t get the memo that forestry is hard work that takes place in the woods not behind a desk.
2. I’m the son of a career sea-going officer in the US military who was raised in a family of automobile factory workers…and…was the first in his family to earn a college degree. Through him I was able to earn my own college education but, I’ve always been one to enjoy the results of hard work because at the end of the day I enjoy seeing accomplishments. I can relate to regular people because I’m not exactly ‘elite’ material myself (thank God!)
From a young age I’ve always been a free thinker. It’s the way I’m wired. I can spot a scam from 80 chains away.
Will the new administration reverse the utter destruction to middle-class America that’s gone on for so long? Time will tell. I do know that people have been programmed against taking responsibility for themselves & their families which make people reliant on Uncle Sugar government to take care of them. The problem is that the others who desire to take care of themselves have to pay for it. This has caused the costs of everything from houses to cars to food to health care etc to skyrocket! I would love a new pickup but it costs double what the first home I lived in! not to mention the taxes & insurance I’d had to pay each year for the priviledge of owning it, would have paid rent in my first place for 10 months!
As you can see, I’m a regular guy doing honest work trying to raise a family…so I get a little irritated when others want to tell me how to live my life and that tyranny of the majority is attempted to be sold as a great idea for everyone!
There’s a reason that one of Gary’s greatest times of his life was as a hotshot…a groundpounder of epic proportions! The camaraderie of men working together like clockwork to meet a common goal with grit, determination, and honest hard work . Celebrating life with a beer around the bonfire in the off-season amongst treasured friends you serve with to make the world a better place by protecting our nations forests & fields from the ravages of wildfire. Sounds really good to me! Will we get back to basics as a nation like this again? Well…YES, WE CAN!!! It’s going to take honesty, hard work, believing in yourself, self reliance & personal responsibility. There is no free lunch.
God bless America!
Woodsman
The Woodsman said, “There’s a reason that one of Gary’s greatest times of his life was as a hotshot…a groundpounder of epic proportions!”
http://ourfiregods.com/reserved2.html
And I say, That’s very true.
Wait a minute…is that a double entendre (I had to look it up to spell it)? “A a groundpounder of EPIC proportions?”
Are you actually saying I would have been a better hotshot (and everything else) IF I hadn’t been so darn FAT?
And as far as President Donald J. Trump goes (just as long as he doesn’t bring on a nuclear winter because I am not as tough as Joy is)…I have decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and hope that he can help my people (Blue Collar Workers, no matter what religion, ethnicity, gender, race, or sexual orientation, etc. they may be).
And IF he CAN’T…or WON’T? I certainly hope we elect somebody next time who will! Because right now…they are ******…and not in a good way!
Like my old friend RTS said a bit downstream, “Only time will tell.” Tick Tock ****** *******!
Oh…and one more thing RTS. I’m pretty sure the photo of me standing in front of the com trailer waiting to “load up” to “hit the line” is from the Murdock Basin Fire in the Wasatch Mountain Range.
Ahhhh…memories of our Glory Days!
I had a friend was a big baseball player
back in high school
He could throw that speedball by you
Make you look like a fool boy
Saw him the other night at this roadside bar
I was walking in, he was walking out
We went back inside sat down had a few drinks
but all he kept talking about was
Chorus:
Glory days well they’ll pass you by
Glory days in the wink of a young girl’s eye
Glory days, glory days
Well there’s a girl that lives up the block
back in school she could turn all the boy’s heads
Sometimes on a Friday I’ll stop by
and have a few drinks after she put her kids to bed
Her and her husband Bobby well they split up
I guess it’s two years gone by now
We just sit around talking about the old times,
she says when she feels like crying
she starts laughing thinking about
Chorus
My old man worked 20 years on the line
and they let him go
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
they just tell him that he’s too old
I was 9 nine years old and he was working at the
Metuchen Ford plant assembly line
Now he just sits on a stool down at the Legion hall
but I can tell what’s on his mind
Glory days yeah goin back
Glory days aw he ain’t never had
Glory days, glory days
Now I think I’m going down to the well tonight
and I’m going to drink till I get my fill
And I hope when I get old I don’t sit around thinking about it
but I probably will
Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days
Chorus (repeat twice)
Bruce Spingsteen
You know…the main reason I posted the photo of me in my first year as a hotshot standing in front of the Twin Otter comin’ back from a fire in the Gila Wilderness Area in southern New Mexico is because my baby face and stupid grin reminds me of so many of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew…Wade Parker and Travis Turbyfill for starters..
http://www.cbs5az.com/story/22770789/yarnell-hill-fire-wade-parker-remembered-for-baseball-passion
https://www.firehero.org/fallen-firefighter/travis-turbyfill/
I wish Wade,Travis and all of the others GMIHS would have had hotshot crew bosses like I did.
Which is a reality check to remind me of why I have been here on this thread for so long and I know that is the reason why YOU people are still here as well.
Whoops, I should have said,
1. Cut hand line and back fire it; or
2. Cut hand line and burn it out; or
3. Cut hand line, back fire it AND burn it out;
4. Repeat as often as is necessary.
5. Mop it up and COLD TRAIL it.
6. Go to the bar with the crew and talk about the last fire, the next fire…or some other fire.
Pretty ******* simple.
Gary,
I love you, man. I meant ‘epic’ as you felt larger than life at the time (and you were right!)…had the world by the balls, so to speak. You ARE huge though, haha!
I’m cautiously optimistic as well, mainly because the regular folks have been screwed for so long that it’s hard to believe it will ever change. We’ll see.
I would like to see more unity of all people. Even though I’m doing OK, it was not long ago at all that I didn’t know how I was going to pay for basic needs. I know what it’s like to not have much food in the cupboard (hones your rifle skills quick.) Iwas different at the time as I had a safety net – I knew my parents wouldn’t let me starve. Many good people do not have that same safety net. I like to believe I never would have gone to that safety net but when a man has nothing to eat, who knows? I do know that there are many good people who are struggling and I hope that situation can be turned around.
I thought of you and your fond memories of your hotshot days. Times were simpler than, no? Bet it was great! Good health and blessings to you friend!!!
Wood
I goin’ with you on President Trump…for the next four years or maybe more, because as you said, we do live in a Constitutional Republic.
So…we can’t talk the talk IF we don’t walk the walk.
Oh and one more thing, you said “Times were simpler than, no?”
And I say, “yes they were.”
1. Cut hand line and back fire it; or
2. Cut hand line and burn it out; or
3. Cut hand line, back fire it AND burn it out;
4 Repeat as often as is necessary.
5. Mop it up.
Pretty ******* simple.
Whoops out of order,
Gary Olson says
JANUARY 21, 2017 AT 11:04 AM
Whoops, I should have said,
1. Cut hand line and back fire it; or
2. Cut hand line and burn it out; or
3. Cut hand line, back fire it AND burn it out;
4. Repeat as often as is necessary.
5. Mop it up and COLD TRAIL it.
6. Go to the bar with the crew and talk about the last fire, the next fire…or some other fire.
Pretty ******* simple.
Gary said:
“I goin’ with you on President Trump…”
My intentions were not so much to be a Trump advocate but more of a Constitutional Republic of our great nation advocate. While I agree the 2 choices we were presented with couldn’t be more bizarre…the wife of a former president that imho is part of a group of individuals and organizations that have brought great harm to our country and the people OR a real estate mogul tv personality. But in my mind we are in need of something different that what we have had for a long, long time. We will see.
I am encouraged by Zinke as head of the Interior dept. There is no way that someone of his credentials will not see the problems in the current national fire policy. It’s blatantly obvious there are real problems with the way we manage wildfire on public lands currently.
Thanks!
Woodsman
The Woodsman said, “My intentions were not so much to be a Trump advocate but more of a Constitutional Republic of our great nation advocate.”
That is what I meant as well. I did say that I expected everyone to accept the results of the elections…and I realized I should follow former President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s and accept the the will of the people who managed to get the complicated election algorithm right.
Although…IMHO, President Trump could make me feel a little bit better if he would stop opening my wounds with a wire brush and pouring salt in them with his apparent inability to deliver anything other than his stump speech which focuses solely on how much better he is than anyone else and the HHHUUGE landslide he won by, neither one of which are true.
It is time IMHO…too stop running for President, because yes…Donald Trump won and too start governing by telling us exactly how he is going to make the working people of this country’s lives better other than vague promises and generalized statements.
Raising the minimum age limits for Medicare eligibility, Social Security, and eliminating the Affordable Care Act without a replacement ready that is going to make medical care to continue to available to so many of his supporters in the rust belt are NOT the best places to start…I think, but then again, he is the expert.
I do find it interesting that so many people hate Obama Care but love the ACA. I have also cringed when so many people who voted for President Trump have said while being interviewed…”I sure hope I don’t lose the health care coverage for my family under the ACA because I took Trump seriously…but not literally. I really didn’t believe he would do most of the things he promised.”
in addition, as a veteran of our failed War on Drugs and after spending so much time on the Mexican Border….I can hardly wait to see The Big Beautiful Magnificent and HHHUUGE WALL on our border with Mexico and the Cashiers Check from el banco central del Estado Mexicano to pay for it.
If I were President Trump, I wouldn’t take a personal check from el Presidente de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos…Enrique Peña Nieto because I bet it will bounce and then our account will be overdrawn which will cost us a lot of overdraft fees we can’t afford.
But then again…he is the HHHHHUUUUGGGLLY businessman who hasn’t declared bankruptcy more than 7 times because he knows how to borrow money PLANNING on paying back less than he owes under renegotiated terms (which sounds good to me because unlike the Bank of China, I don’t own any Treasury Bills) I started with just a small loan from my father. It’s harder for me to imagine a better spokesperson for the disappearing middle class.
However, there is a HHHHUUUGGE difference between being obstructionists and governing
and now the real show begins. I can hardly wait because I am so excited to see all of the wonderful things Donald Trump, Steve Mnuchin
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/steve-mnuchins-controversial-history-foreclosure-crisis/story?id=44840027
and Andrew Puzder
http://money.cnn.com/2016/12/08/news/economy/andrew-puzder-trump-labor-secretary/index.html
are going to do for my people.
Oh…and like I said a ways downstream…I wouldn’t worry if I were a middle aged WF much less a young one just starting out with a family to support who needs the health insurance my job offers.
I am sure all of that talk about privatizing LOTS MORE public sector jobs is just bloviating talk…right? After all…it’s not like our current and last wars were fought with vast private armies of mercs and service providers that generated unimaginable wealth for private companies like former Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton because you know…you can’t trust the lying media. I just heard President Trump assure the people at the CIA his fued with them was never real…it was all manufactured by the dishonest media and NOT him on Twitter talking about him being an asset of the Russian Intelligence Services who has been compromised with personal and business related escapades (awkward) in Russia. I just can’t imagine someone with Donald Trump’s background having personal or professional issues…can you?
No…really, that is NOT a rhetorical question. Can you?
I mean…lying dishonest mainstream media aside, I did read President Trump directly compare our great nations intelligence professionals, who are indeed the best among us, to Nazi’s who were responsible for the deaths of more than 80 million people during WWII.
President Trump did write on his Twitter account,
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
4:48 AM – 11 Jan 2017
That…while I have never heard him say a single bad thing about former KGB Colonel (who was station chief in EAST GERMANY)…Vladimir Putin.
Does any of that give you pause…or am I just an old worry wart who has been listening to too much fake news?
What do you think about that? I really do want to know? You are obviously a very smart, highly educated, deeply patriotic and very articulate forester or…Woodsman.
I’m not well researched on that entire story about the Russian hacking our election which turned out to be made up by our own intel community out of whole cloth. A more immediate & viable threat to our electronic voting equipment is the ctr 4 Am. progress & the corporation which manufactures the machines who both are actual run/funded by a certain individual of Hungarian descent and a prominent party donor.
Managers of major agencies & flag officers in the military as well, seem to be more political figures in order to achieve the respective positions. That being the case, these people are more susceptible to corruption.
I don’t know much of what a ‘tweet’ is but I assume it’s sort of a social media instant messaging type of thing. Trump’s message seems to be in response to a intel agency purposely sowing mis-information in order to benefit certain political establishments over another in the midst of an election & transfer of power. It’s interesting that he used the ‘nazi’ reference because it’s similar to fighting fire with fire. People that use those techniques frequently are not accustomed to being on the receiving end of them & it throws them off-balance.
I stay informed in my way but I gotta tell you, in my estimation there is a veritable shit-ton of mis-information to sift through in today’s world to get to the truth. It’s a lot of ‘white noise.’
As far as Putin goes, we have more than our fair share of skeletons in the closet. We have woven our own tangled web in the past. It’s hard to tell what’s what.
Wood
Reply to Woodsman post on
January 21, 2017 at 8:41 pm
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> I’m not well researched on that entire
>> story about the Russian hacking our
>> election which turned out to be made
>> up by our own intel community out
>> of whole cloth.
Well… that right there is the ‘sign of the times’.
You admit you don’t know enough about something to support the final conclusion you have already made ( and believe ).
Nothing to see.
Move along.
>> Woodsman also said…
>>
>> I can spot a scam from 80 chains away.
Then all you need to do ( in this case ) is to take a few more steps forward from your current ’82 chain’ distance.
Fair enough. Educate me. Did Brennan initially claim the Russians interfered in the election and later said it wasn’t true after all? I’m listening.
I’ll edit my statement:
“I’m not well researched on that entire
>> story about the Russians ALLEGEDLY hacking our
>> election which WAS ADMITTED BY THE SAME AGENCY (CIA UNDER BRENNAN) TO KNOWN TO BE FALSE THE WHOLE TIME.”
What would be your most accurate reflection of the facts in this topic?
Woodsman,
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I don’t know anything about Zinke except that he is a relatively new Congressman and a former Navy SEAL.
I’m not sure what any of that has to do with knowing how wildfire should be managed in the future so you must know something about him I don’t other than he bonded with Donald Trump Jr. over hunting?
I also know that most political observers expected the job to go to Washington State’s Cathy Anne McMorris Rodgers who has been a faithful and loyal Republican political figure in national politics for some time who seemed eminently more qualified for the job than Zinke to me?
I also have written before on this thread that based on my experience, Democratic administrations always meant better budgets and more positive attention than Republican administrations did.
Now…I don’t want anyone to pick a President based on who makes things better for land management agencies and it never made any difference to me personally since I was a soldier in the disastrously failed War on Drugs and that shielded me from budget cuts that hurt normal land management types.
Other than national security…I have said on this thread I am a single issue voter these days. Who will stop transferring almost all of the wealth in this country to just a few individuals? This has been going on for almost 40 years now. If that person is President Trump…I will vote for him in four years.
I just happen to think that someone who very well be the poster boy for the east coast liberal democratic elite establishment up until a couple of years ago…is not that person but I certainly hope he is since he now had the job.
And I don’t know about any of President Trump’s Russian connections other than he and former KGB Colonel who is a mass butcher of civilians (in Grozny and now Syria) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_%281999%E2%80%932000%29 who has journalists and political opponents murdered or put into gulags Vladimir Putin who has invaded almost all of his neighbors in recent years and is poised to invade more of them in the near future really seem to have a bromance going on.
So…this makes me want to see his tax returns in the worst way so I can see IF he has any close business connections in Russia. And given his personal and professional history, it is only too easy for me to believe he may be compromised by the Russian intelligence services.
I don’t think there is any doubt now in anyone’s mind except for his that the Russian Government played a key role in helping him to get elected over Hillary Clinton…is there? Which makes me ask the question…”Why did they do that?”, since I don’t believe in coincidences.
And just for the record…I would have been perfectly satisfied (more or less) with President Jeb! other than he would have cut land management agencies budgets even more and continued the hemorrhaging of what little wealth the disappearing middle class has left to the top 1%.
Oh…and one more thing. I do know President Trump Tweeted the following:
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE.” Very unfair!
4:13 AM – 11 Jan 2017
I’m not sure quoting the Russian Government is all that helpful to him…at least as far as I am concerned.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!
4:31 AM – 11 Jan 2017
Nor do I think that just taking his word for his lack of involvement in Russia is reasonable given his background…or even without his background since President Ronald Reagan so famously said, Trust but verify” when it came to dealing with the Russians.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to “leak” into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
4:48 AM – 11 Jan 2017
And I jsut happen to think that no one should compare anything to Nazi Germany other than Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, Turkey treatment of the Kurdish and Armenian people, Bashar Al-Assad and Putin’s treatment of Sunni Muslims in Syria, Putin’s treatment of Chechen civilians, and last but not least…the great Stalin purges of his own people. I also happen to think that no one should ever compare our intelligence services in any context to Nazi’s in any conceivable way.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The dishonest media likes saying that I am in Agreement with Julian Assange – wrong. I simply state what he states, it is for the people….
5:25 AM – 5 Jan 2017
I don’t think any person who wants to be taken seriously should ever quote Julian Assange.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
to make up their own minds as to the truth. The media lies to make it look like I am against “Intelligence” when in fact I am a big fan!
5:45 AM – 5 Jan 2017
and
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The “Intelligence” briefing on so-called “Russian hacking” was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case. Very strange!
And I think that putting Intelligence in quotes appeared to be Trump mocking the intelligence agencies as in the old reliable…”Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.”
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Julian Assange said “a 14 year old could have hacked Podesta” – why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info!
4:22 AM – 4 Jan 2017
and
Donald J. TrumpVerified account
@realDonaldTrump
WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked mishandled classified info, but no one gets charged? RIGGED!
See previous about quoting Julian Assange as a trustworthy and reliable source, nor would I rely on Wikileaks since our “Intelligence Agencies” agree he has blood on his hands for publishing the leaks by Ms. Manning that had the names and descriptions of Afghanistan “Intelligence” human assets.
The problem with defending President Trump…is Donald Trump himself. IF you are going to an apologist for President Trump…you are going to be mighty busy for the next few years doing nothing but making excuses for President Trump.
Reply to Woodsman post on January 20, 2017 at 10:22 pm
>> Woodsman said…
>>
>> WTKTT,
>>
>> Here’s some thoughts on a very important matter that you have
>> been talking about several times since the most recent election.
>>
>> ( snip )
Thank you for all of that… including your multi-post ‘manifesto’ of sorts.
I have to make this short because I’m on a ‘dumbphone’ and I’m currently out exercising my right as an American to protest and taking part in what is already a historic event.
I have not read *all* of your ‘posts’. ( I actually stopped when I hit the racist parts )… but I will… because if you took all that time to ‘compose’ all of that… the least I can do ( later ) is finish reading it all.
But first I need to finish ( along with millions of others today ) reminding some people that if you are going to pick fights… be sure to show up with the proper sized weaponry.
———————————————–
Well, I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyes
So you can wipe off that grin,
I know where you’ve been
It’s all been a pack of lies.
Phil Collins – “In the Air Tonight”
———————————————–
http://www.knoxnews.com/story/news/local/tennessee/2017/01/16/multi-agency-panel-review-chimney-tops-fire/96547690/
Investigation of the Chimny tops 2 fire coming.
Wtf. Thanks for the follow up to my last post. And for the link you provided. It does appear that officials knew the cause of the fire early on. Too bad they didn’t go ahead and say the juveniles were also the ones to start the first chimney tops fire. Seems like a safe assumption, right?
Wtk not wtf
LMAO. Some would say ‘WTF’ is actually more appropriate.
That’s okay. I’m not a 13 year old trapped in a 70 year old body who would launch a Twitter attack every time I get criticized.
https://youtu.be/vEMPyOMmTtc
I learned how to share a link. Only been about 3 years.
This video was about two days before the fire blew up and escaped the containment lines that were established as THE plan to suppress the chimney tops 2 fire.
BTW
This plan included letting the chimney tops trail burn as it was included in the 400pus acre containment area. Interestingly, the trail had been renovated in 2014 to the cost of approximately $750k.
Reply to calvin post on January 14, 2017 at 10:22 am
>> calvin said…
>>
>> https://youtu.be/vEMPyOMmTtc
>>
>> I learned how to share a link. Only been about 3 years.
>>
>> This video was about two days before the fire blew up and escaped the
>> containment lines that were established as THE plan to suppress the
>> chimney tops 2 fire.
Thank you, calvin. Fascinating video… especially the HIGH-RESOLUTION ‘close-ups’ of that small fire just 48 hours before 13 people would lose their lives because it had not been ‘suppressed’.
This video alone seems to be definitive ‘proof’ that there WERE all kinds of ‘opportunities’ for ‘suppression’ other than GSMNP Fire Management Officer Greg Salansky’s decision to just “let it burn” and ‘hope for the best”.
Given the extreme drought conditions and the extreme fire danger at the time this video was taken… there certainly ARE ‘similarities’ here between this fire and the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.
In BOTH cases… there wasn’t the proper sense of ‘urgency’ on the part of the ‘professionals’ tasked with the initial suppression efforts, and no full recognition that there was a limited ‘window of opportunity’ before something very BAD and very TRAGIC *could/would* happen ( given the conditions and the weather forecasts )… including needless and totally unnecessary loss of life.
What’s also interesting in the video is that the WIND was obviously already becoming a ‘factor’, even 48 hours BEFORE the ‘blowup’… and also the fact that even these supposed ‘containment lines’ were just park roads that were still fully open to the PUBLIC.
Even by your own accounts… and even on the day of the ‘blowup’ itself ( Monday, November 28, 2016 )… there was still such a lack of any sense of ‘urgency’ that there were still ‘hikers’ out there on those GSMNP trails and they, themselves, almost became ‘victims’ of this fire.
>> calvin also said…
>>
>> BTW
>> This plan included letting the chimney tops trail burn as it was included in the 400pus
>> acre containment area. Interestingly, the trail had been renovated in 2014 to the
>> cost of approximately $750k.
What did GSMNP Fire Management Officer ( and Chimney Tops 2 Incident Commander ) Greg Salansky think was going to happen… under those extreme fire conditions, the fuel loads, and the predicted weather?
That it would just slowly burn right up to his ‘containment lines’ ( park roads ) and just ‘go out’?
Speaking of VIDEOS and “The Chimney Tops 2 Fire”…
Even on the night of the blowup… comments were already appearing on various social media sights with people saying they had ALREADY heard that the “Chimney Tops 2 Fire” might have been STARTED by “people playing with matches”.
Some of those comments said they believed it was something that had already been ‘reported’ on the TELEVISION… even BEFORE the ‘blowup’ began.
I finally found the ‘source’ of those early ‘reports’.
There really WAS a ‘TV’ report as early as 5:00 PM on Monday, November 28, 2016, which featured an on-camera ‘interview’ with GSMNP Park Ranger ‘Ed Morin’, who said the ‘suspected’ SOURCE of the fire was already, in fact, “people playing with matches”.
The same interview also said that this same GSMNP Park Ranger ‘Ed Morin’ was the same one who had initially ‘spotted’ the ‘Chimney Tops 2’ Fire when it began the afternoon of November 23, 2016.
** CHANNEL 8 REPORTER KYLE GRAINGER – INTERVIEW WITH ‘ED MORIN’
‘Channel 8’ Reporter Kyle Grainger was there in Gatlinburg all day on Monday, November 28, 2016.
Kyle Grainger was ‘on the air’ and giving a LIVE update at 5:01 PM that Monday, at the very TOP of the ‘Channel 8’ 5:00 PM News broadcast.
Video Title: Hikers warned of wildfires.
Here is a direct link to this PUBLIC video sitting on the ‘Channel 8’ Server…
NOTE: Your browser must be able to play MP4 videos directly ( or have a plugin installed that can ) in order for the following link to work…
https://d2pvyxdw30n8fd.cloudfront.net/WVLT/v583cb8cd16ee7/c1b0fae65aac4964838a8e979969660f-SD.mp4
Reporter Kyle Grainger was at the ‘Gatlinburg Scenic Overlook’ just northwest of Gatlinburg, on the ‘Gatlinburg Bypass’. He was actually standing right here, next to the ‘photograph’ that is there explaining the view in the distance…
35.711369, -83.530065
Just in case that video ‘disappears’… here is a complete Transcript of this ‘Channel 8’ PUBLIC video… including his ‘on camera’ interview with GSMNP Park Ranger ‘Ed Morin’…
————————————————————————————————
( Subtitle showing at bottom of screen: WILDFIRE GROWING IN SMOKIES )
( It is exactly 5:01 PM and it is still ‘daylight’ in Gatlinburg )
+0:00 ( 5:01 PM, Monday, November 28, 2016 )
Anchor reporter: We go LIVE to channel 8 reporter Kyle Grainger now in Gatlinburg… he’s been there all day. Kyle?… How is it now?
+0:05
Kyle Grainger: It’s still windy out here, guys… and it’s still VERY smoky.
We’ve got a lot of leaves that are flying across the parking lot.
We’re actually at one of the overlooks on the Gatlinburg Bypass.
( ? ) is just down the way there… but you can see… VERY difficult to see into downtown Gatlinburg because of all the smoke up here that has been created. A lot of ash in the air… so… you know… it’s kind of flying into your eyes. A lot of people were stopping here to look… you know… they’re covered over with their masks.
Let me show you a different perspective. The picture at the bottom of your screen in the video actually is what it is going to look like on a normal day with this same view were we are standing now. You can see just all of the smoke there.
I am told that the fire… ah… continues to spread.
They continue to have issues with this because of the winds tonight.
They have made contact with about thirty people or so that are hiking in the park, near this area.
Park service trying to get a hold of those folks and let them know what the situation is.
+00:59
( Video now ‘cuts’ to an earlier ( taped ) interview with ‘National Park Service ( NPS ) Spokesperson’ Dana Soehn )
NPS Spokesperson Dana Soehn: Thirty people that we knew were in the back-country that we have evacuated and given
notices to through text messages and also our marking all of the back-country trails…
so we have several trails that have closed.
+1:13
( Video now ‘fades’ to another earlier interview with GSMNP Ranger Ed Morin, an older man with glasses, a GSMNP ‘ball cap’, and a bright yellow overjacket ).
+1:15
GSMNP Ranger Ed Morin: We had reports of… ( pause )… ya know… people throwin’ matches. ( He imitates the ‘striking’ and the ‘throwing of matches’ as he says this ). Uh… Uhm… unsubstantiated… but we had reports of that. The fire IS… WAS ‘human caused’. It’s under investigation.
+1:27
Kyle Grainger: Ed Morin… one of the rangers that you saw there in that… uh… interview… he actually spotted this fire when it started… at only about two acres… and then continually has grown to what we believer is five hundred… if not MORE… but… uh… again… park rangers say they really can’t get a perspective because of just how smoky it is. I do want to give you a perspective of how far this fire has traveled throughout the course of the day today… ‘Chimney Tops’ being over here ( he points to them on the overlook map )… in this area just below Mount Le Conte. We understand that embers flew up to three miles away… near the ‘Twin Creeks’ area, actually causing more spot fires… and NOW the fire has ‘jumped’ parts of the ‘Twin Creek’ road there… in that area. This is also the Bud… Bud Ogle cabin area… and is NOW… uh… creeping up the ridgeline towards the ‘Park Vista’ ( Hotel ). So that’s kinda the idea of how this fire has spread today. The concern continues to be these winds that blow around.
I can tell you… we have LOTS of things flying through the parking lot. We have tree limbs that are coming down as well… so… as you drive overnight tonight… if you have any plans to be driving around in these smoky areas… or where the winds are picking up… that’s also some of the other problems tonight.
Reporting live in Gatlinburg… Kyle Grainger, local eight news.
+2:35
Anchor reporter: Alright. Kyle… thanks a lot.
+2:37
VIDEO ENDS
—————————————————————————————–
Again… the part of that interview that did, in fact, go ‘on the air’ at 5:00 PM Monday, November 28, 2016… a few hours BEFORE the ‘blowup’ and the fatalities…
+1:15
GSMNP Ranger Ed Morin: We had reports of… ( pause )… ya know… people throwin’ matches. ( He imitates the ‘striking’ and the ‘throwing of matches’ as he says this ). Uh… Uhm… unsubstantiated… but we had reports of that. The fire IS… WAS ‘human caused’. It’s under investigation.
Followup…
Again… speaking of ‘videos’ related to the recent fatal ‘Chimney Tops 2’ fire disaster… the following is an interesting ‘compilation’…
** VIDEO FOOTAGE TAKEN DURING THE ‘BLOWUP’ ITSELF
The day after the ‘blowup’… someone did a good job of ‘collecting’ a whole bunch of ‘videos’ taken by various people that were shot DURING the fatal ‘blowup’ the day before.
Most of these video clips were shot from INSIDE the ‘blowup’ at various place like downtown Gatlinburg itself, and places just west of there on Highway 321 where motels and residences were engulfed in flames.
YouTube Video Title: “LIVE FOOTAGE ( Collection ) – Gatlinburg Fire”
Published on November 29, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRRF8IJ3r3k
+0:00
Begins with another ‘escape’ video… similar to the one that hit social media the night of the blowup… but this one has ‘background radio traffic’. There was a radio in the truck that was ‘scanning’ fire and police frequencies during the ‘blowup’ and this ‘escape’ ( also from Chalet Village? )… and you can hear the chaos and the confusion that was happening on the radio at that time. This video *may* have actually been shot by a firefighter riding in the passenger seat of an actual engine ‘on duty’ during the ‘blowup’.
NOTE: LANGUAGE WARNING for this ‘first video segment’.
+5:51
Another Kyle Grainger ‘live’ report from Gatlinburg at 11:00 PM Monday night.
+10:10
Video shot by someone driving right through downtown Gatlinburg at the height of the actual Monday night firestorm. He passes Engines actively battling fires in the downtown area.
+11:34
Citizen video taken in downtown Gatlinburg mid-afternoon on Monday a few hours before the blowup. Smoke in downtown is incredible and the winds are ALREADY picking up in downtown Gatlinburg. She describes the winds as already being in the 15-20 mph range, and she actually says “the wind is coming from the direction of the Chimney Tops”.
+15:28
Citizen video taken from downtown Gatlinburg at the height of the firestorm, after dark, on Monday night. Video is looking in the ‘Park Vista Hotel’ direction and shows that ‘hillside’ engulfed flames.
Some ‘transcripts’ from this video that starts at 15:28…
———————————————————————————-
+15:50
Video author: “This is the fire burning where Park Vista is. I don’t know if you can see it or not… but the whole mountain where the hotel is on fire. It’s all engulfed right now.”
+16:09
Video author: “I can hardly stand still, the wind is blowing so hard, and there’s so much ASH in the air”.
+16:25
Video author says “The whole mountainside where Park Vista is, the big round hotel above Gatlinburg, is completely engulfed in flames.”
+1641
Video author: “I don’t know if you heard that or not but there were huge explosions just now on top of the mountain… the flames shooting up I don’t know what… something just BLEW UP.”
+17:08
Video author: “There’s some of the flames that are shooting up from whatever the explosion just was that went off”.
+17:50
Video author: “There are firetrucks and ambulances from all over Sevier County comin’ up through here.”
+18:00
Video author: “LISTEN!… there’s ANOTHER EXPLOSION! I hope that’s not the Park Vista hotel. That’s a huge hotel with lots of people in there.”
+18:36
Video author: “The wind right now is SO… the wind is probly blowin’ 40 to 50 miles an hour. It’s knocking everything down and it’s making the flames… it’s making the flames SO much worse.”
+19:29
Fire truck pulls into parking lot where he is filming and someone yells out at him from the fire truck “STOP FILMING and GO!”
+19:40
Video author: “Okay guys… the fire department is here now and they’re saying I have to stop filming and go now. The flames are gettin’ too close down here now to all the hotels. I’m OUT.”
————————————————————————-
+1945
Video taken during the firestorm, just west of Gatlinburg at the junction of Highway 321 and ‘West Ogle Drive’, by David Ball and China Green of WVLT. It shows the ‘Sleepy Bear Motel’ now fully engulfed in flames.
Some Dialog from this video…
——————————————————————————–
David Ball: “Hey guys… David Ball and China Green here. We’re outside of Gatlinburg on ( Highway ) 321 at Ogle Drive. There are several structures on fire around us. Right now crews are comin’ in. Several fire departments from all over east Tennessee are comin’ in to help fight this fire. China walk with me over here… You can see here’s one of the structures that’s on fire right now.”
China Green: “So this is the ( Sleepy Bear? ) hotel… or what’s left of it. We’ve been hearing ‘bombing’ sounds. Things are just blowing up at this hotel. It’s literally just about gone. I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s literally every street you turn on… there’s something else engulfed in flames.”
———————————————————————————–
+24:21
Channel 11 field reporter Curtis McLoud.
Video report from near the ‘Gatlinburg Welcome Center’, at the height of the fire storm. He interviews two evacuees from Gatlinburg who saw their houses and business burn down and already know they have lost ‘everything’.
+33:25
More video taken from downtown Gatlinburg during the height of the firestorm. Fire engine seen hauling ass through the smoke in downtown Gatlinburg.
Correction(s) for above.
Got my ‘west’ and ‘east’ mixed up.
Most of the video segments above taken on Highway 321 ( like the one of the ‘Sleepy Bear Motel’ on fire ) are of hotels and buildings burning to the EAST of Gatlinburg… not the WEST.
I have a question about clearing around structures in Yarnell prior to the first fire—from the ADOSH report I read that from 2005-2011 $169,000 was spent in the Yarnell area to clear 375 acres and $27,500 in 2007 to clear 40 acres near Peeples Valley. Wondering why Yarnell was so lacking in defensible space if all that money was spent to remove brush etc. ?
That is a good question Diane-the money came in but where was the work? But here is an interesting video link to You Tube showing Yarnell and the Prison Crew as they worked the Yarnell Hill Fire. You can see the fuses being thrown–just one of the ways that back burns and burn outs are made. Was this on Yarnell Hill and what time would it be if so–I am trying to identify the exact location of the back burn–might be hard since I can’t find the video of the back burn above the Shrine. This might go extinct as well so enjoy while you can.
Pretty sure Joy has photos of the BS ranch three weeks before when there was no defensible space there then again immediately before the fire when it became known as a bomb proof safety destination and had now the wide defensible space. If not the perhaps WTKTT can give us how to get satellite photos on certain dates, for example three weeks before June 30, 2013 and then again on June 30, 2013. Or would those also be redacted?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6aUgP2YSXY
What are the chances that we were in Buckeye Arizona looking at a F-150 4×4 to maybe purchase when right next too it was the GMHS water truck with logo and all on it. We asked if it were for sale, but the Buckeye Jones Ford Dealer said it was there to be serviced. Buckeye is the west side of Phoenix on I-10 toward LA. Strange to see that considering who we are.
Thank you Charlie. The prison firefighters could participate in back burns using hand thrown fuzees?
Reply to Diane lomas post on January 18, 2017 at 10:22 am
>> Diane lomas asked…
>>
>> The prison firefighters could participate in back burns
>> using hand thrown fuzees?
Yes. The ‘Prison Crews’ are ‘supposed’ to be fully qualified ‘Type 2’ handcrews… which means they are also ‘supposed’ to be capable of doing ‘most’ of the things you would expect of a Wildland handcrew.
That includes hiking TO/FROM the fire itself, line work, saw work and manual ignitions ( backburns, burnouts, etc. ).
That being said… there is currently NO evidence in the public record that the DOC ‘Lewis’ Crew itself was ever asked to perform, or ever attempted to perform, any ‘manual burnouts’ ( using fusees or drip-torches or anything else ) on either Saturday, June 29, 2013, or the following day, Sunday, June 30.
According to ALL available testimony about the ‘tactics’ used by Russ Shumate for his ‘Initial Attack’ on Saturday… there were never any ‘planned burnouts’ or ‘backfires’ involved.
He considered the Saturday ‘Initial Attack’ to just be a ‘mop up’ operation ( since there was little to no fire or even ‘smokes’ showing on Saturday morning )… and that’s why he only sent 6 members of the DOC Lewis Crew up there and also decided to let his ICT4 ‘Trainee’ Justin Smith handle things that Saturday.
On Sunday… Darrell Willis was given some ‘DOC’ crews to help with structure protection out at the Double-Bar-A Ranch… but that was primarily the YUMA DOC Crew, and not anyone from the ‘Lewis’ DOC crew.
So the clip in the above linked video showing members of the Lewis DOC Crew happily lighting and tossing ‘fusees’ does NOT appear to have been something they were doing at the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.. It appears to be a video clip from some OTHER fire the Lewis Crew worked in 2013.
But since there is still so much that is NOT known about what really happened on both June 29 and June 30, 2013… and so much that is still NOT in the ‘public evidence record’… I suppose anything is still possible.
It would be interesting to know all the areas the Prison Crew has worked. It is hard to identify the area, although very similar to the Yarnell area–there is in the video clips from various areas, some not near the Yarnell incident.
There seems to be a continuous cover up in the Yarnell Fire Debacle–people that were wanting to talk had been threatened and ordered to keep their mouths shut. We have talked personally with these individuals with impeccable reputations. These individuals want the truth out, but of course they have not and likely will never be interviewed. So, if anything is known, the truth has been covered up by making a debacle into a heroic performance. Truth is that the situation of killing 19 men may never be exposed properly–people prefer the heroism doctrine over the truth. Indeed this deserves a Grand Jury attention and outside investigation.
It can make you sick at the stomach to think of how people operate to protect their reputations and profit margins at the expense of truth and the loss of life and safety of wild land fire fighters –those grunts that risk it all for a small wage.
Joy believes the fusee throw is toward the Peeples Valley area–Since she has hiked that area for years–back with Snake Man, Frankie and some others over a ten or so year span. Snake Man and Frankie were prospectors and hikers with Snake Man a fellow that rounded up Snakes and kept them loose in his house right up behind the Ranch House Cafe, where he also worked as a dish washer for a long period of time.
Both Snake Man (Tommy Megan) and Frankie Serros died of brain tumors–Joy and I visited Snake Man’s ash box at the Prescott Veteran’s Graveyard. My Dad’s grave is there only about 50 feet from where Snake Man’s ash box is. The VA keeps cremation remains in something that looks like postal boxes for a memorial and burial to veterans. Snake Man was a Viet Nam vet and my dad was a WW1 machinegunner at Alsace Lorainne.
They were both entering mines and wading water that was saturated with Arsenic. Joy wanted me to go in that mine but I could smell the Arsenic and told her you best keep out of that mine. So there are some mines around here that contain Arsenic and likely Cyanide solutions with that. If you want to investigate them be sure you have rubber boots high enough to keep the liquid off your skin and it might be a good idea to wear a respirator and carry a canary bird or mouse in a cage. If that bugger keels over then get the hell out–radon, hydrogen sulphide gasses, and carbon monoxide are just a few of the gasses that can kill as quick as a wild fire.
If you wade the water your skin will absorb a fine dose of those chemicals–and those fellows were making numerous trips into that one mine since there are crystals back in there. I believe the many doses they got produced the brain tumors. Joy now has two herself. Add to that the respiratory problems she developed after the many hikes through the retardant, it is a wonder she has not joined Snake Man and Frankie. She is sick in bed today–we visited the doctor yesterday and they prescribed a bunch of medicine–and since it is raining she will be confined to bed at least for a couple days.
Joy by the way had her snake boot bit entering the mine I above referred to and right after both Frankie and Snake Man had entered the audit. The boot held OK but the broken off fang managed to get enough spray on her leg so that the skin absorbed enough venom to put her in the hospital with a swollen leg and a black leg about 11 inches up on the left side. Her hands and arms on both sides swelled up huge so they were no longer recognizable–anyhow the doctor bill ran about 48 grand–Joy is still paying payments on that bill.
They killed that snake so you won’t have to worry about him if you enter that mine–but avoid all the water in it you can.
Now about the photo and whether it is Yarnell. Joy is at this moment contacting the Prison Crew members as to exactly where that video was taken. So we should know the facts there. Joy is pretty confident it is toward Peeples Valley–but no better way than to go to the horses mouth.
The Prison Crew responded to an ad when we needed someone to do defensible space here after the Yarnell Fire. I must say those men don’t mess around and had my place looking good in two days and after hauling off many loads of brush. They were doing lots of good works for people in that area–shows that there are many prisoners that do not need to be there.
About 80 per cent of these crimes now a days are related to dope and alcohol and it works out that about 20 per cent of those fellows doing time need to stay there. The rest should have alternative ways of dealing with the crimes. But the prison system is big business similar to the retardant business. When you have billion dollar industries inculcated into the system it is almost impossible to remove them no mater how faulty they become. Their influence and money buys everything from the medical profession to high political influence to continue their crimes against humanity. The sadness is that they can make criminal activity–such as the killing of the 19 and the many deaths due to retardant dumps look like heroic action. Hell they can even hand out awards for such action when many of those responsible should be prosecuted. But they will say we don’t live in a perfect world and this was God’s will for the men or else it was just an accident and part of the job being a wild land fire fighter.
I wonder what a Grand Jury would decide–I know what many on this site have decided and they are the experts you would find on a Grand Jury. That would change things for the better–A remedy would be found to prevent the type carelessness we saw that killed those men.
Reply to Charlie post on January 17, 2017 at 9:24 pm
>> Charlie said…
>>
>> …here is an interesting video link to You Tube showing Yarnell
>> and the Prison Crew as they worked the Yarnell Hill Fire.
>>
>> You can see the fuses being thrown–just one of the ways that
>> back burns and burn outs are made.
>>
>> Was this on Yarnell Hill and what time would it be if so…
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6aUgP2YSXY
This YouTube video with the title “Lewis Crew 2013” ( which was posted publicly by someone named ‘Kara White’ back on April 14, 2014 ) contains clips from many different ‘locations’ where the Arizona Department of Corrections ( DOC ) ‘Lewis Crew’ was working ( presumably all in 2013 )… including the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire.
The clips ( and photos ) appear to be all ‘mixed’ up’ and not in any kind of
‘sequential’ or ‘location’ order.
The clips of them ‘throwing fusees’ ( to ignite vegetation on purpose ) at +4:40 into the video does NOT appear to be the Yarnell Area… but the terrain IS ‘similar’ and it DOES appear to be ( somewhere? ) in Arizona.
Only the person who put that video together could say for sure exactly WHERE all these ‘video clips’ and ‘photos’ were actually taken.
NOTE: I can find no ‘official’ ( public ) connection between the ‘Kara White’ who posted this video of the ‘Lewis DOC Crew’ and the ‘Arizona Department of Corrections’ ( in general ) and/or the ‘Lewis DOC Crew’ specifically.
She may have been someone who just knew one of the crew members and was posting the video as a ‘favor’ to that person.
The proof of that seems to come from the one-and-only comment that has been made on this video.
After posting the video to YouTube… ‘Kara White’ herself left the only comment on the video and she simply said…
“Here you go, baby”
…as if she was simply posting as a ‘favor’ to someone she calls ‘baby’.
Diane,
Not quite a complete answer to your question. Good article on the beneficial value of creating defensible space around your structures.
http://www.pacificbio.org/initiatives/fire/yarnell_fire.html
RTS,
Informative article that you shared,thank you. It is clear that providing defensible space around structures is essential to protecting homes. Thank you for the data.
Reply to Robert the Second ( RTS ) post
on January 17, 2017 at 9:34 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Not quite a complete answer to your question. Good article
>> on the beneficial value of creating defensible space around
>> your structures.
>>
>> http://www.pacificbio.org/initiatives/fire/yarnell_fire.html
Interesting ( and accurate ) ‘conclusion’ in this Pacific Biodiversity Institute ( PBI ) report…
—————————————————————
The fact that the Yarnell Hill Fire grew out of control was predictable.
The interior chaparral shrublands that it burned through are notorious for
high intensity wildfire. There was extreme fire weather during the fire
coupled with very dry vegetation as a result of long-term drought, high
temperatures, intense sunshine and persistent winds. Unfortunately, it
appears that insufficient attention was placed on the critical warning
signals of extreme fire weather and fuel conditions, leading to an
unfortunate loss of lives.
—————————————————————
Worth repeating…
The fact that the Yarnell Hill Fire grew out of control was PREDICTABLE.
Unfortunately, it appears that insufficient attention was placed
on the CRITICAL WARNING SIGNALS of extreme fire weather and fuel
conditions, leading to an unfortunate loss of lives.
I wonder if the PBI has taken a hard look at the tragic ‘Chimney Tops 2’ fire yet.
They really could just ‘reprint’ most of that same paragraph.
WTKTT,
Here’s a link for January 17, 2017 Wildfire Today article titled: “Chimney Tops 2 Fire discussed at Senate Confirmation Hearing,” with a short
< 3-minute video clip on the discussion with Montana Representative Ryan Zinke to be the Interior Dept. Secretary.
http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/chimney-2-fire/
A second article, dated January 7, 2017 titled: "Former Fire Management Officer fought off the Chimney Tops 2 Fire saving his home."
http://wildfiretoday.com/2017/01/11/former-fire-management-officer-fought-off-the-chimney-tops-2-fire-saving-his-home/
RTS,
Thanks for the links. I hold out hope that Cdr Zinke, if approved as the next head of Interior, will make an honest assessment of the fire policy of all the important federal agencies under his command… and take appropriate measures to make changes as required.
Your second link? I’ll withhold judgement of the retired NPS FMO for now but I will sa