Please begin Chapter XIII here:
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 and Chapter XII.
© Copyright 2015 John Dougherty, All rights Reserved. Written For: Investigative MEDIA
Please begin Chapter XIV that is now available on the site. Thanks everyone!
Thank you, John.
And here is a direct ‘clickable’ link to the new “Chapter XIV” ( Chapter Fourteen ) of
this ongoing discussion…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiv/
Well…it seems I owe Brendan an apology.
“I’m sorry for every thing I have said about you up until now Brendan, we can all learn something from how clever you are, at least I know I can.”
You have played everybody for a fool and now you will get the last laugh on your way to the bank. Isn’t America Great?
Oh, and one more thing. I’m not going to buy any of the books, I am going to wait for the movie to come out. I bet there won’t be a dry eye in the house. I thought the movie about the Maersk Alabama was pretty good, although I did wait for it to come out on DVD. But I won’t do the same for the movie about the Yarnell HIll Fire, I will pay full ticket price with surround sound!
P.S. Marti…you could have written a book, but you can’t sell something you have demonstrated you are willing to give away for free. How much do you want to bet this thread is being used for research by any number of people writing books about the Yarnell Hill Fire and the day the Lone Survivor fought his way through the flames and lived to tell the tale…for a price?
P.S. WTKTT…if the Administrative Law Judge who is hearing this case had any stones, we would have already heard Brendan’s story by now…so don’t hold breath waiting for him to compel Brendan to talk.
Now that’s what I call a tight Brotherhood!
Well… I’m not sure about Judge Michael A. Mosesso. There’s really no telling what a Judge might do once he comes to realize that there’s a good chance the key witness in a case he/she happens to be presiding over is basically just jerking EVERBODY off. Some Judges don’t take kindly to that. We shall see.
As for the’book deal’… your instincts above are spot on. It’s pretty much a given, already, that this is just as much a MOVIE deal as it is a BOOK deal.
That’s how this Steve Fisher ( Brendan’s Beverly Hills agent ) guy operates. He doesn’t even DO deals unless there’s a screenplay and a movie looming ‘on the horizon’.
Ditto for this Stephan Talty ‘ghost writer’.
Ever since he coauthored the ‘Captain Philips’ book and got a taste of the kind of money that shows up when there’s also the chance of a movie deal… those are the projects HE has been focusing on.
One of the troubling aspects of both Fisher and Talty’s involvement is that neither one is dedicated to the TRUTH nearly as much as they are dedicated to just having a successful return on whatever they get involved with.
These guys are NOT biographers or interested in doing a documentary.
They are in the MOVIE business.
I hope you are right about the Judge. I always expect the worst, that way I am never disappointed and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised.
And I love a good ole God, Guts and Glory movie as much as the next guy. Like I said a long time ago, America needs and loves our heroes, that’s one big reason we make so many of them.
**
** NEW AZCENTRAL EDITORIAL DEMANDS THAT BRENDAN MCDONOUGH TESTIFY
This was just published a few hours ago at AZCENTRAL…
TO BRENDAN MCDONOUGH: Well enough to help write a book? Then TESTIFY!
Published by: Editorial board, The Arizona Republic, 6:09 p.m. MST April 22, 2015
From the article….
———————————————————————————–
Could the story of Brendan McDonough get any stranger?
Perhaps we’ll find out when we read the book he’s writing.
Our View: If the surviving hotshot heard something important, then he should testify under oath — not sell the info for $22 plus tax.
If McDonough is well enough to cooperate in writing a book, he is well enough to show up for a deposition.
———————————————————————————–
I also didn’t want to leave this ‘question’ from the AZCENTRAL Editorial Board hanging…
Q: Could the story of Brendan McDonough get any stranger?
A: You damn betcha. I don’t think this ‘Brendan’ guy has even scratched the surface of ‘the crazy town’ that he’s able to come up with if he tries even just a little harder.
In some ways… the “Brendan Show” might just be getting started, here.
Awhile back, someone requested some good video footage of wildland fire burning around a Safety Zone. Here is a link for the August 11, 204 Beaver Fire Entrapment Facilitated Learning Analysis (FLA). There is another link embedded in the FLA for the YouTube video footage of the event. This occurred on the Klamath National Forest in Northern California. This was a very interesting event with a good outcome and many lessons to be learned. Both reading the report and watching the video will benefit and educate you.
http://www.nifc.gov/wfstar/modules/summary/2014season/Beaver_Fire_Entrapment_FLA.pdf
I realize that you all are onto other subjects now but just wanted to close a loop here.
Go to the center of page 13 for the video clip and several fire progression photos.
Very well laid out package had enough area to survive in also open timber.
surprised the cat and truck weren’t both together.
Once the main fire started indrafting from the landing to the fire, I would have been tempted to run a drip torch around the edge of the bare dirt/fuel area. Add a bit more burned fuels versus unburned.
But that’s just me..
ME TOO looks like there was good ground fuel to work with.
**
** PRESCOTT DAILY COURIER ARTICLES ABOUT RECENT DEVELOPMENTS – NOT!
I was going to post some links to the Prescott Daily Courier articles regarding any number of recent important developments in the Yarnell / Granite Mountain story such as…
1) Arizona Forestry Lawyers ask for ANOTHER 30 days to settle ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
2) “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” mediation has totally FAILED and ‘calendar’ is active again.
3) At right around the same time Brendan McDonough’s therapist and lawyer were cancelling his already-scheduled February 26, 2015 deposition because they say it would have been ‘not good’ for Brendan to talk about what he knows’… we learn that Brendan was signing a “tell-all” BOOK DEAL with a famous author in a ‘deal’ arranged by his California ‘agent’.
Practically no other paper has been covering these kinds of ‘stories’ as closely as the Prescott Daily Courier nor is there probably another media outlet which has a ‘readership’ with as much of an ‘interest’ in all these stories…
…but all of sudden it is like the Prescott Daily Courier has decided to STOP covering this story.
There are NO links I can give you to ANY Prescott Daily Courier articles about any of the above ‘new’ developments which are being widely covered by MANY other Arizona ( and National ) NEWS outlets.
The last ‘breaking news’ that the Prescott Daily Courier seemed to cover was when they immediately followed AZCENTRAL’s breaking news story about Brendan McDonough inquiring about the possibilities of him getting a ‘medical disability’ pension via City of Prescott.
They were ‘right there’ with their own version of that ‘story’ within HOURS… but since then… it’s like the PDC has decided to ‘lay off’ the Yarnell/GM/McDonough reporting altogether.
I’ve never seen them NOT covering these important ‘breaking stories’ for their readership the way the are NOT covering them at this particular moment in time.
So I don’t know what that means.
It’s just an OBSERVATION.
But… that being said… am I the only one who is actually still looking SIDEWAYS at ALL of this ‘news’ that has been ‘popping’ lately… and how suddenly AZCENTRAL seems to be taking a leading role in ‘breaking’ all this GM/McDonough related news?…
…AND the fact that all this stuff is ‘popping’ right here at the END of that 30 day ‘negotiation’ period between ‘Arizona Forestry’ lawyers and the ‘wrongful death’ platintiffs?
…AND the fact that the RESULT of that 30 day ‘negotiation’ is that Arizona Forestry says they now want ANOTHER 30 days to try and ‘settle’ with the Hotshot’s families?
Settle WHAT?
What will take ANOTHER 30 days that couldn’t be accomplished in the LAST 30 days?
Does anyone else think this SUDDEN announcement that Brendan does plan to ( and may have already done so ) “TELL ALL” about what he knows just might have something to do with trying to ‘satisfy’ some very angry and determined ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit plaintiffs?
Just like the ‘new fire shelter’ announcements suddenly ‘popping’ out of nowhere in the middle of this last 30 day negotiating period… could ‘Arizona Forestry’ actually trying to be showing the families that Brendan really is going to “tell the truth” at some point… like they want him to?
If the ‘book deal’ announcements we saw ‘popping’ today really do have ANYTHING to do with trying to influence the negotiations with the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs I hope they stick to their guns.
I hope they look the ‘Arizona Forestry’ attorneys in the eye from across the table and say “Brendan is free to make any private, commercial deals he wants with anyone he wants… WE still need him to testify UNDER-OATH and under PENALTY-OF-PERJURY about what is now PERFECTLY obvious he has known all along but was CHOOSING to withhold from all investigators.”
There is just simply a part of me that is still VERY suspicious about what’s been happening lately, given where the ‘negotiations’ actually are for the critical ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
From the moment Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini suddenly ( and inexplicably ) decided to “spill his guts” about the Willis/McDonough meetings and conversations… right on through McDonough’s own agent suddenly ( and inexplicably ) deciding it is AOK to ‘spill HIS guts’ about Brendan’s months-old book deal…
…something isn’t passing the “smell test” here.
– City Attorney Jon Paladini did NOT have to say one word about anything…
– But he DID.
– Someone in Prescott City Human Resources ( Melissa Fousek? ) did NOT have to say anything about Brendan doing nothing but just inquiring about a ‘medical disability pension’…
– But he/she DID.
– McDonough’s agent did NOT have to say anything about any ‘book deal’…
– But he DID.
All of a sudden… a lot of people ( all at once ) are all seeming to decide ( all at once ) that it is now AOK to be ‘spilling their guts’ and ‘talking’ about these things… and things some of them have known for quite some time now.
WHY?
WHY is it OK to be talking now ‘all of a sudden’?
What are we (still) missing here?
As I said when the revelation broke a lot more information was sure to follow.
A member of the families told me two things one they will not settle with out the whole story.
Two they have more information not released about the same stuff that Brendon stated
and more. They can not discuss at this time but there Lawyer is prepared to go forward in the Lawsuit to uncover all the facts.
So I am still betting there is still a lot more still to come as this story unfolds and opens up.
PANDORAS BOX has been opened what will fall out next? Other witnesses with supporting evidence? That mysterious copy of the argument that has not surfaced yet that I was told about last Fall. Stuff we have not herd about yet that are under raps.
I think the pressure is building to a big explosion and the book deal added to it.
We have got a lot of information in the past 30 days compared to the past year.
Our Patience may be starting to pay off in the final story breaking soon. I do not doubt that the news media is out there looking for and digging now for information to break news stories before some one else beats them to it.
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 22, 2015 at 7:37 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> A member of the families told me two things…
>> one they will not settle with out the whole story.
That’s good. They shouldn’t.
But I hope they also realize that the smiling ‘lawyers’ on the other side of the table from them aren’t even near done ‘playing games’ yet.
Just having a ‘story’ that SHOULD have been told from day one suddenly ’emerge’ does NOT automatically mean anyone is finally getting the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.
If these Arizona Forestry lawyers are, in any way, turning to the families and saying “See.. Brendan’s gonna do a book. He’s gonna ‘tell all’ in the book… so whadda ya want from us?”… I hope the plaintiff’s maintain their mirrored smiles right back at them and say “…Sworn depositions. Under oath. Under penalty of perjury. ASAP. Make it happen.”.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Two they have more information not released about the same
>> stuff that Brendon stated and more. They can not discuss at this
>> time but there Lawyer is prepared to go forward in the Lawsuit
>> to uncover all the facts.
Also good. No way they should even consider any ‘offers’ ( which are probably being made ) that suggest whatever evidence THEY have should ‘never see the light of day’ as a condition of any settlement.
WTKTT,
Paladini’s revelations are likely due to the City’s desire to be thrown clear of the slow-motion train wreck which is now occurring (so as to not be accused of having ‘hidden or covered anything up’). It’s also possible they were aware of more of the on-going situation (book deals, etc,) than we think they were.
I believe that the publisher’s motivation for disclosure at this time was, as I have stated previously, their desire to create an early buzz for the project, which I’m sure they try and do for all such projects. With McDonough apparently having been mum on a lot of different things with a lot of different people, it’s entirely possible that the person releasing the information for the publisher wasn’t aware of all of the legal machinations at work, and the subsequent fallout that would occur. Oops.
As for the Daily Courier, you’re giving them too much credit for a news organization. They do an awful lot of regurgitating of other entities stories, along with printing many PR releases verbatim. The reporting staff operates on a shoestring budget while under a tight reign from the editorial staff. While they SHOULD BE the lead news source for stories related to YH, these stories will continue to be broken by Investigative Media, The Arizona Republic, and the Phoenix New Times due to the reasons mentioned above. The DC will continue to gather the scraps and re-work other’s revelations as they have alway done. So, don’t hold your breath on the DC aspect.
TTWARE… thank you. Good observations and I think you are probably right on all counts.
As for the PDC thing… Yes… it’s mostly just ‘ambulance chasing’ journalism on their part but so far… they HAVE managed to stay at least a car length or two behind the news leaders on these Yarnell/GM/McDonough stories.
THIS time… they aren’t even trying to ‘catch up’ and it’s odd that even they have no ‘followup’ now to some of these stories that feature Prescott officials.
Maybe Joanna Dodder Nellans and Cindy Barks are both ‘on vacation’ at the same time… or something… ( or maybe they are purposely deciding not to contribute to these latest stories about their own hometown and officials in it ).
And speaking about books. I found something this past weekend that I was going to post, but I had to do other things and forgot.
Kyle Dickman is publishing a book about the Yarnell Fire. It’s called:
“On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It ”
http://www.amazon.com/On-Burning-Edge-Fateful-Fought/dp/0553392123
It will be released on May 12, 2015.
This Amazon page contains its first chapter. I haven’t read it yet.
Oh, and speaking, again, about BOOKS.
Looks like Fernanda Santos, is working on a book, too!!!
Looking Ahead: Wildfire Season 2015
http://uanews.org/calendar/59121-looking-ahead-wildfire-season-2015
“Join University of Arizona School of Journalism friends, faculty, students and alumni for a special evening in Phoenix spotlighting our science journalism program. It’s an opportunity for Valley friends and alumni to connect, stay up to date on the great things happening in the school, and listen to an informative Earth Day program on a vital ecological issue in Arizona and the Southwest. The centerpiece will be a panel discussion looking ahead to Arizona’s wildfire season featuring three of the top experts in the field.
Fernanda Santos, The New York Times Phoenix bureau chief, is the author of an upcoming book on the deadly Yarnell Hill Fire. Jim Paxon, former Southwest Interagency Management Team spokesman, kept the public informed on the Rodeo Chediski Fire. Donald Falk, a UA professor, is an internationally recognized expert in the ecology and science of wildland fires.
Beer, wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
…..Date: April 22, 2015”
Oh great. We’ve got a wildfire on the east side of the Sandias right now, in Las Huertas Canyon, which is above Placitas, a relatively ancient awesome town whose biggest wildfire/watershed/flooding concern is a wildfire in that canyon.
Apparently, a hotshot crew that was conducting prescribed burning on Mount Taylor is heading to this fire.
Let me guess. Somebody walked off from a campfire that they didn’t put out.
Fortunately, we’re currently having a cold spell, with higher humidity, after we had three red flag warnings during the past three weeks.
Nobody can figure out if we in the Southwest are going to be “saved” or not by the weak El Nino that seems to be forming in the Pacific.
We’re three weeks into the “nail-biting” wildfire season here, after an idiot, who was an accomplice to a murder a number of years back, set at least three, if not more, fires in the Bosque that runs right up through the middle of Albuquerque.
This is what it is like to actually live with wildfire.
Some of it is theory. Some of it isn’t.
OK, back to reading Chapter One of Kyle’s book.
Maybe I/We should write a book.
And, all that said………
I really do believe that Albuquerque/Bernalillo County is more prepared for wildfire than Prescott has, after the Yarnell HIll Fire, “trimmed its budget” to be.
Marti,
Prescott still has a hotshot crew. Basically anything Prescott itself needs in terms of preparedness can be done now and could have been done in the past without a municipally run and supervised hotshot crew. What Prescott as a town won’t have, now, is a “cool thing” in terms of prestige, a potential profit center for the town, and a way for a few senior members of the town’s bureaucracy to potentially stay busy (and paid) after handing the reins of their old jobs over.
Also, frankly, defensible space and fuels reduction aren’t rocket science. It’s kind of like homes in the southeast finding a way for their lawns to stay mowed and reasonably weed-free, you can find a way to do it without expensive municipal lawn-mowing crews. And the same should apply to cutting back a little brush in Prescott, 5 guys from a Home Depot parking lot can get a lot of this done.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 21, 2015 at 12:49 pm
>> Marti Reed said…
>>
>> Kyle Dickman is publishing a book about the Yarnell Fire. It’s called:
>> “On the Burning Edge: A Fateful Fire and the Men Who Fought It ”
>> http://www.amazon.com/On-Burning-Edge-Fateful-Fought/dp/0553392123
>> It will be released on May 12, 2015.
Well, unless I’m mistaken, that photo on the ‘supposed’ cover of the book isn’t
even from the Yarnell Fire. That’s not a good sign.
>> Marti also wrote…
>>
>> This Amazon page contains its first chapter. I haven’t read it yet.
I hope that isn’t the REAL ‘first Chapter’.
It’s all nice to read that disjointed text about ‘the first day back’ on the 2013
GM season and learn how Jesse Steed was so happy to be the acting superintendent
he would design the workouts to make people puke… but it has the same ‘feel’
as the article he wrote way back when. You can never be sure when he’s desrcibing reality and when he’s ‘making it up’ as he goes along.
LOL!!
I guess we’re BOTH going to have to buy the book and DISSECT it!!!!
So I just read Chapter One.
It’s definitely worth reading. The thing about Kyle is that he first started with a Forest Service Engine Crew when he was an 18-year-old college student and then went on to be a member of the Tahoe Hotshots, who he profiled earlier in June of 2013 right before the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Reading this chapter, I think he’s been doing a BUNCH of interviewing. He HAD to, in order to write just that chapter. He lives in Santa Fe, so it wouldn’t be hard or travel-time-consuming to do that.
I think this could be a REALLY interesting book.
Interesting, and TRAGIC, thing about those Tahoe Hotshots is that, in November of 2013, they were all celebrating the end of the season, getting pretty inebriated in the process, and one of their squad leaders walked off out of the party and, somehow, ended up prostrate on the road he was walking on, and, as a bunch of the OTHER Hotshots drove down that road, the driver of that car (who was, apparently also “under the influence”) drove over that Hotshot, who was, then, found dead.
It’s really an interesting thing to Google.
There seems to be some questioning as to whether or not that Hotshot might have been, actually, already dead or not when the Driver-Hotshot drove over him.
(There was another vehicle involved in the whole narrative.)
Kyle hasn’t written about any of this. But I have to imagine he’s gone through some inner conflict about which tragedy to focus his attention on.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 21, 2015 at 5:32 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I think this could be a REALLY interesting book.
Yes. Maybe even truthful.
The bottom line with the ‘book deal’ information that has come out only today is that we have ALWAYS known this was ‘coming’… and certain projects have been in various stages of ‘completion’ there ‘in the background’ for quite some time.
It has simply been assumed that no one doing a ‘book’ about the Yarnell tragedy would dare go to press until the lawsuits all ‘play out’.
The only thing that is is a little weird here is the TIMING… and this little tidbit of news that we are now supposed to accept the fact that Brendan’s therapist was telling attorneys who work for the Arizona Attorney General’s office ( and are tasked with representing Arizona State Forestry ) that it would be ‘too traumatic’ for Brendan to go through with a pre-scheduled behind-closed-doors deposition with THEM… but at the very same time the ink was drying on a “tell-all” book deal between Brendan and some famous author(s).
Have to admit… didn’t see THAT one coming.
So yes… there will be MANY books about Yarnell.
Which ones might actually be TRUE remains to be seen.
If the families really do still want “The Truth”… they will stick to their guns and still try to have Brendan deposed. That’s about the only way that any information coming out because of any backroom ‘book deals’ has a chance of being ‘believed’.
Only some actual ‘under oath testimony’ ( with actual perjury penalties involved ) sands the best chance of convincing the greatest number of people that what someone is saying happened out there that day is, in fact, the TRUTH.
You wrote:
“If the families really do still want “The Truth”… they will stick to their guns and still try to have Brendan deposed. That’s about the only way that any information coming out because of any backroom ‘book deals’ has a chance of being ‘believed’.
Only some actual ‘under oath testimony’ ( with actual perjury penalties involved ) sands the best chance of convincing the greatest number of people that what someone is saying happened out there that day is, in fact, the TRUTH.”
Exactly.
We have labored here for almost two years to dig down through everything that has been published via FOIAs to pin down some kind of FACTS i.e TRUTH.
And even WE haven’t even been able to get at that TRUTH because of the with-holding, on the part of various significantly important agencies, of EVIDENCE.
So, yes, I do wonder how it is that someone like Kyle Dickman (much less Fernanda Santos) is able to, at this time, before Brendan has even been deposed, publish a book on what happened at Yarnell, when even WE, who have labored at every inch of this all this time for free, can’t get at it.
I’m thinking Kyle has been doing a WHOLE LOT of interviewing (which I think HAS to be the basis of that Chapter One).
Did he interview Brendan for this book??? Who knows????
*Buys More Popcorn And Pizza* while pre-ordering the Kindle version of Kyle’s book.
Because who knows?????
I doubt Kyle interviewed Brendan because if he had gotten THAT scoop, there would be no basis for Brendan’s own book.
I’m not excited about this release at all because it’s being described as the ‘definitive’ book on the YHF when the ACTUAL DEFINITIVE INFORMATION has not been released yet.
The thing you have to watch out for with this Kyle Dickman guy is what he kept demonstrating when he wrote that big article way back when. ‘Wind him up’ with just a little bit of information and he ‘takes off’ like one of those friction toys on the floor.
Example: In that original article of his… he was absolutely SURE that Granite Mountain MUST have been only halfway down the slope on their descent into the canyon before they saw he fire ‘appearing’ at the mouth of the box canyon. He also then reported ( as if it was absolute FACT and as if even Brendan might have told him this ) that Granite Mountain then had to run FORWARD and finish ‘descending’ before they even found the site where they deployed.
So forget the fact that if they were halfway UP the descent path, they still MIGHT have had a chance at a ‘full reversal’… and forget the chance that Kyle cites no actual ‘source’ for his theory… he still reported this as absolute FACT and that “that is the way it happened”.
I certainly hope his damn BOOK isn’t like that… or it is going to be just as hard to tell ( as it was in his Outsider Online magazine article ) when he is reporting something as TOLD to him or as SUPPORTED by evidence… and when he is just “making it up” like he’s good at doing.
OOOH BOY—–Just read on AZ Central that McDonough has signed a book deal to tell the whole story of Yarnell hill Fire. Before he even says any thing to the Families and the Public.
ARE YOU FRIQING KIDDING ME MONEY TALKS ???????????
So Brendan said that there was no bad decision etc, it was just an accident, but is now going to write a book about “no bad decisions”??
Sounds weird to me…
Right on–How can he turn tail now with his previous statement of no blame. Does that mean he is willing to make up a new story that pays and had let the loved ones down in their hope to find closure in this incident.
The general public likes tall tales–but those in the firefighting community and the loved ones of those deceased only want the facts.
One thing the bosses on this tragedy enjoy is the fact that all this attention is going to a green-horn firefighter who poo-poos the common sense rules of safety and whose ass was grass had not some well informed and brave blue ridge fireman rised his life to retrieve the look out that did not look out.
The focus needs to be on the whole picture and why those that ran this fire did it the way they did. Those phone records in the hands of certain of the widows and others need to be read and I am certain they are hoping that someone will bother to get them to see who was communicating with Marsh and Steed and when, etc. and why that Willis said they had lost communication immediately after Marsh or Steed said they were safe in the black. What about Hall’s records, Willis’s records and every boss that had any thing to do with the Yarnell fire–who, when and under oath what were they saying. You can bet there will be a lot of 5th amendment testimony.
I would still like to know why investigators never contacted Joy to find out about those photos of quads at the fire on Friday–actual photos that exist. Are these something that will be in one of the books and being skirted at this time for monetary reasons? Sad we do not have the Gary Olsen’, WTKT, Powers, Marti’s, Ted Putnam’s and people of such ilk on this tragedy–right here in Yarnell on the ground looking into these things– Tell me why the sheriff department, the officials of the fire department on this Yarnell fire tragedy would refuse one of the leading fire death investigators from being admitted to the area or shown the way they went. You would think that they would want that man’s opinion and ideas considering he had 11 years of smoke jumping and firefighting experience to go along with his expertise from past investigations in such incidents. What the hell was in their minds to refuse him?\
I understand that you can’t have 20 men working together and have independent thinkers who would disobey orders that might do others harm. But dropping off into a tangled up maze of manzanita had nothing to do with harming anyone but those who dropped off into that steep box canyon. There is where at least someone with a lick of sense would have balked. Something in the human factor has to be considered here–and I believe it has to start at the very top–was that Roy Hall? Who is next and who after all was right above Marsh and Steed? Did they disobey superiors? I think not, in fact — someone was asking Marsh or Steed to drop down to Yarnell and that Helms was the shortest but most dangerous route and a sure killer if that wind changed–something those men had to know since I knew it and am not the least bit educated in fire fighting methods. The old mayor Kuydendall said common sense goes a long ways.
That they knew, yet what human factors caused them to fail? It was hot and they were indeed tired and overworked. But then consider my age at 71 and that Joy and I had struggled through that manzanita, brambles, catclaw and dead brush at the very place they died earlier that morning. It took us about 3 hours to cross only about a mile of that mess. We were often backtracking to find another way around the dense maze of manzanita and often on our bellies crawling under dense brush to get through. Granted, Marsh would have beat our time, maybe by 2/3’s considering how I saw him going up that mountain like a jack rabbit. Whew he was in shape but those fellows he had command of that day looked bushed when we passed them on our way south about 9:30. So they went meekly to their deaths? Why when before them at the very spot they went down Joy and I argued and you could not have gotten me down there for any reason-yet an hour later with the fire even more progressed they did it? There has to be plenty of convincing to get someone to do that. Joy told me later that maybe a bear or mountain lion blocked them. Not 19 men I replied. A flying saucer had unloaded an army perhaps and forced them down or shot them with a mind controlling frequency that confused them–or more likely they were tired and listened to orders without to much attention to their own safety. I have to believe there were some bosses involved here and even above Marsh and Steed and they are hoping Donut will stay in the lime light.
Yes bosses, I saw it once in a mining job that I quit while 6 others stayed on and got caught back in a mine– but the boss said it was safe, still I was the only one to pick up my check– but mine jobs are easy to replace, miners are hard to find and you can always tramp a mine to get another the next day. Maybe those fellows were worried and had permanent homes– the human factor caught them.
Here’s a direct link to the article…
AZCENTRAL
Article Title: Yarnell Fire survivor gets book deal amid controversy
Published: 6:55 a.m. MST April 21, 2015
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/04/21/yarnell-fire-survivor-gets-book-deal-amid-legal-strife/26110225/
From the article….
—————————————————————
A Prescott wildfire lookout who lived through the deadly Yarnell Hill blaze of 2013 signed a book deal at about the same time his sworn testimony was canceled based on concerns from his therapist that a deposition would jeopardize his treatment for post-traumatic stress.
Former Granite Mountain Hotshots member Brendan McDonough has been working with best-selling author Stephan Talty to produce a book that, according to online promotional materials, will reveal “the untold story from the lone survivor of the Yarnell Hill Fire.”
McDonough, who has retained a private attorney and an agent, barely escaped flames that killed 19 fellow hotshots June 30, 2013. Reached by phone Monday, he declined to explain why his treatment precluded sworn testimony but did not prevent participation in a book. He referred calls to his legal representative and his agent.
—————————————————————
Brendan is functioning like a true ‘celebrity’ now.
All calls being referred to his ‘lawyer’ and his ‘agent’.
Something tells me that when ALJ Judge Michael A. Mosesso gets wind of this… he’s going to change his mind about how he doesn’t normally like to issue subpoenas for depositions.
By the way… Stephan Talty happens to be the co-author of the book that was turned into the ‘Captain Philips’ movie starring Tom Hanks.
Interestingly enough, there is now a later version of the same story, published by USAToday. Just a slight bit different.
Yarnell fire survivor gets book deal amid legal strife
Dennis Wagner, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Robert Anglen, The Arizona Republic 10:39 a.m. EDT April 21, 2015
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/21/yarnell-fire-survivor-book-deal/26118665/
It has some links in it, including one to the original AZCentral article and one to the Publishers Marketplace site.
It also leaves out this sentence:
“McDonough’s lawyer in the ADOSH case, David M. Shapiro, said he was not aware of the book deal and could not comment on it.”
Both stories continue the bias that:
“The division The Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health, which is charged with finding the truth about on-the-job accidents, has sought to delay or prevent McDonough’s deposition.”
Which, as you have corrected me on, WTKTT, is “true,” but only by about three molecules.
>> Marti said…
>>
>> Both stories continue the bias that:
>> “The division The Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and
>> Health, which is charged with finding the truth about on-the-job
>> accidents, has sought to delay or prevent McDonough’s deposition.”
>>
>> Which, as you have corrected me on, WTKTT, is “true,” but only by
>> about three molecules.
Yes…. and in case anyone is ‘still scratching their head’ over this stupid statement that keeps popping up like a wine cork in MSM articles… here’s the ‘411 skinny’ on that again.
ADOSH was NEVER ‘objecting’ to or trying to ‘prevent’ Brendan McDonough’s under-oath deposition. The ONLY thing ADOSH did was ask Judge Mosesso to move it from November 26, 2014 to about two weeks later, right after December 13, 2014.
Why?… because December 13, 2014 was already the day that ADOSH and ‘Arizona Forestry’ where scheduled to do a ‘document exchange’ as part of the ongoing ‘discovery’ process in the case.
ADOSH just thought waiting until AFTER that document exchange would increase the chances of a BETTER interview with McDonough and a BETTER cross-examination. Some of the testimony/information in that December 13 ‘exchange’ might actually create even MORE questions that, perhaps, only Brendan can answer… so why not just wat the extra 2 weeks and depose him AFTER that document exchange?
That’s all there was to that… but the MSM ( Mainstream Media ) just LOVES to report about ‘conflict’ and ‘drama’… so they jumped all over this like it was some huge bone of contention between the ‘Arizona Forestry’ and the DOSH lawyers.
It wasn’t. Never was. Isn’t now.
ADOSH basicically couldn’t care less if Brendan is deposed at this point, or not. ADOSH has already told Judge Mosesso they don’t think anything Brendan has to say is going to change or mitigate their original findings and citations in any way.
For Brendan to actually supply even MORE evidence that fire management was making negligent and ill-informed decisions there in Yarnell that weekend is just going to be more ‘piling on’ to the evidence that is ALREADY ‘out there’.
Thank you for writing this.
For the record.
And there is also now an editorial in AZCentral, by EJ Montini.
“Smoldering doubts over Yarnell hotshot’s book deal”
http://www.azcentral.com/story/ejmontini/2015/04/21/yarnell-hill-fire-brendan-mcdonough-stephan-talty-book-deal/26117765/
He’s basically saying it’s OK for Brendan to “make money” off of his story, as people do.
However, he seems to be missing the point that, in context, Brendan could be continuing to get himself into even more trouble than he is already in, it seems to me.
And doesn’t it seem a bit strange that, as this thing seems to have been going on for some time, his lawyer is saying he didn’t know anything about it?
>> Marti said…
>>
>> And doesn’t it seem a bit strange that, as this thing seems
>> to have been going on for some time, his lawyer is saying
>> he didn’t know anything about it?
It’s perfectly possible he ( Mr. David Shapiro ) did NOT know about it.
It’s also perfectly possible we are going to end up discovering that Brendan McDonough has always been ‘playing’ everyone ‘like a violin’.
It is still about HIS agenda… and how HE wants to ‘control’ the narrative, and what HE wants to ‘get out of it’.
You wrote:
“It is still about HIS agenda… and how HE wants to ‘control’ the narrative, and what HE wants to ‘get out of it’.”
I’ve been SO going back and forth about that, as you obviously know, by know.
I keep thinking he’s just being jacked around by all the “other interested parties,” who are exploiting his trauma.
This could still fit in to that context.
(By the way, I still haven’t “contacted” Doug…..it’s the awkwardness thing. This morning before I stumbled on all of this, my thinking was, Doug is smart enough and “experienced” enough (in all this trauma/PTSD/Survivor’s Guilt stuff to be capable of “seeing” what’s going on with Brendan in all this drama, so I’ll just stay out of his relationship to it…..)
On the other hand, maybe you’re right, and it all IS Brendan’s agenda, and ALL his agenda, at play.
It’s still really hard for me to tell whether he’s the VICTIM in this or the PLAYA.
Regardless of whether EJMontini thinks Brendan is justified in making $$$$$ off of his story, at this point NOBODY is going to either BELIEVE him or TRUST him on ANYTHING ever again, imho.
Sorry for my various typos here and there. It’s cold in Burque and my hands are freezing.
>> Marti said…
>>
>> It’s still really hard for me to tell whether he’s the VICTIM
>> in this or the PLAYA.
He actually could STILL be BOTH.
In other words… I don’t think Brendan was alone in NOT wanting the whole truth to come out in the beginning… but when others around him realized that he was ‘onboard’ with that idea already…. they just sat back and let him be both VICTIM and PLAYA.
They KNEW that NOT telling the truth wouldn’t be good for Brendan in the long run… but as long as that was giving them what THEY wanted they ‘kept their mouths shut’.
So in that sense ( of not receiving proper legal advice early on )… Brendan was as much a VICTIM as a PLAYA.
I think he still has some pretty twisted ideas in his head about some need to ‘protect his brothers’, or something.
Protect them from WHAT… we’re not sure.
That’s just part of the whole mental thing going on with Brendan and how he may still be vacillating between VICTIM and PLAYA.
If it was just ‘an accident’… ( as he has always said he is sure it was ) then there has NEVER been an need to protect anyone FROM anything. Period. End of story.
My take is he drifted before GM, was always a sucker for peer pressure both negative and positive, and isn’t consciously manipulating anything. However, openly testifying to conduct that could be perceived as reckless, while it could help the victim’s families get just compensation for their losses, could be felt by him to be a betrayal. At the risk of seeming callous, I would also say that to the extent that he presents as a victim there are a lot of hidden compensations for that status in today’s world. It can be hard to walk away voluntarily from that treatment. So that’s not manipulation but definitely a temptation. The book will sell better if he’s still a victim.
Problem with this game on both VICTIMS/PLAYAS sides, it seems to me, is that I’m having a hard time imagining that book coming out after he has had to testify, either in a closed room with Mossaso, or an open courtroom with TV cameras.
Unless I’m missing something.
Kyle Dickman’s coming out with what I think is the first major book on the Yarnell Fire in May. He’s a major pro, has written a lot already about the fire, was once a hotshot himself, and it took HIM almost two years to get HIS book done.
Yes. Even as ‘confusing’ as all this is… you are absolutely right to remind us that there basically now HAS to be those kind of ‘background considerations’ on the part of an actual ‘publisher’.
In other words… it’s pretty hard to launch a marketing campaign that you’ve worked hard on which advertises a product as a “tell all” tome… when “what all is being told” is already common knowledge before you actually PUBLISH.
Marketing people really hate it when THAT happens. No question.
So there really MUST be an actual ‘monetary incentive’ component involved here now.
Maybe not even on Brendan’s part… but certainly on the Publisher’s part.
If they ‘signed the deal’ months ago ( as today’s information has said )… then were they ( the publishers and this famous author guy ) just as blind-sided by City Attorney Jon Paladini pulling his own little “tell all” preemptive strike?
Where they slamming their fists on their desks when Paladini’s story hit the wires…
…or were they ‘rubbing their hands together’?
Two different things you can do with your hands.
It’s hard to say… but I unless Jon Paladini is ‘on their payroll’ and participating in some kind of bizarre marketing campaign… ( NOT likely ) I have to imagine Brendan’s actual publisher and that famous author were PISSED at the ‘information’ that Paladini suddenly leaked.
When your marketing people are ready to go with the “TELL-ALL-TOME” campaign… it’s hard to have to tell them they might have to dial-it-back to the “CONFIRM-WHAT-EVERYONE-ALREADY KNOWS-TOME”. Not nearly as ‘exciting’ ( or profitable? ).
And, yeah, I agree it’s probably some combination.
But I think a lot of people are getting really tired of this thing, whatever it is.
WTKTT,
Knowing now (that he has known all along) that it really wasn’t an “accident”, I think he is headed for some really rough waters ahead.
I have in the past stated that I thought we should give Brendan the benefit of the doubt for his actions occurring within 1 to 1 1/2 years of the YHF. I listed several reasons such as possible PTSD, Brendan having received potentially suspect advice at a time when he was most vulnerable, along with the desire to protect some, or all of the names of his deceased brothers.
I still think that benefit of the doubt is warranted for THAT SPECIFIC TIME PERIOD, but it ended at the point in time he confided the truth to some, but not the families and the public-at-large.
The book announcement has put him in a huge pickle. He can’t finish the book until the court cases that he might have to testify in under oath are completed (which may take years). Otherwise, his testimony under oath including examination and cross may conflict with statements in the book.
And I doubt we’ll see anything in the book about “accident” or “hillbilly”.
I am positive that Brendan AND his attorney, are both wishing that that ‘announcement’ had not been made at this time, and in fact, had been put off until such time that all this other brouhaha had died down a bit.
There is absolutely nothing about this announcement that benefits Brendan or his attorneys efforts (or his possible disability claim with the City). If anything, it puts Brendan in a much worse light than his was in, even yesterday. It almost seems like it was done without either one’s knowledge, and the article confirms that fact for his attorney.
The ONLY benefit from this announcement is that the publisher has created an early buzz for the project. To me, it seems that it came at the expense of putting much more pressure on Brendan, with possible additional damage to his reputation.
It’s quite possible that the book deal is just another outsiders attempt to make money, using Brendan and the tragedy as the vehicle. What may have sounded like a good thing to Brendan at the time, may be one more thing in that long list that have come back to bite him.
I’m wondering. Did he have some sort of self-reconning way back in October? One that could have presented itself along the lines of, ‘Wait a minute, I can’t tell the truth in my book if I’ve never told anybody else the truth. That won’t play well’.
self-“reckoning”
You wrote:
“I am positive that Brendan AND his attorney, are both wishing that that ‘announcement’ had not been made at this time, and in fact, had been put off until such time that all this other brouhaha had died down a bit.”
I think you might be on to something here.
The possibility that “word got out” without Brendan even knowing about it.
Which would make more sense than if HE had made it public.
I tried to find that announcement on that “Publishers Marketplace” site, but you can’t access it unless you are a paid member.
Because what you wrote made me wonder, how, indeed, did this thing “break.”
I would be willing to bet ArizonaRepublic/AZCentral IS a paid member of Publishers Marketplace.
I’m thinking the way this “broke” was that somebody at AZCentral noticed it and then got one of the three writers of that article to call the “Los Angeles-based agent Steve Fisher.”
The AZCentral article says:
“In an interview last week, Los Angeles-based agent Steve Fisher confirmed that a book is in the offing.
“I suggested to Brendan that he should tell his story in book form, and he agreed and I arranged that for him,” Fisher said Friday. The narrative, he added, will focus on events leading “up to and after the fire and his efforts to help firefighter families.”
Fisher said the contract is with Hachette Book Group, and McDonough’s account will be written by Talty. The agreement was arranged several months ago, Fisher said, and the project is in early stages. Fisher would not discuss payment or any other details about the contract.
Talty said in an e-mail he will not talk about the book until it is published.”
This is in a paragraph BELOW the one which says:
“…Reached by phone Monday, he declined to explain why his treatment precluded sworn testimony but did not prevent participation in a book. He referred calls to his legal representative and his agent.”
I think, all things considered, it might just be the case that the next thing we will read about is that Brendan has fired this agent.
Because this story ain’t buying him any friends. Or time. I think Brendan got broadsided on this one.
Hopefully he’s learning something. I wouldn’t bank on it though.
And, also, yesterday, this was published on “Insurance Journal”:
Settlement Talks Continue in Arizona Wildfire Wrongful Death Case
April 20, 2015
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/west/2015/04/20/365066.htm
“Parties in a wrongful-death lawsuit stemming from the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire say they need more time to discuss a settlement.
Lawyers for the sides told a U.S. District Court judge on Friday that they’re working in good faith to resolve the case. They requested that it be put on hold until May 27.”
“The lawyers say they expect to reconvene settlement talks next month. They say talks have been complicated by a separate but related case that imposed fines and citations on the state Forestry Division.”
Notice that it says NOTHING about HOW ( or in WHAT way ) the ‘wrongful death’ settlements are being ‘complicated’ by the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” proceedings.
The ‘complication’ could actually be nothing more than this attempt to get the TRUTH out of Brendan McDonough.
This plays into/out of that whole thing where ADF is trying to get ADOSH to drop the citation related to Brendan being endangered by/via his Lookout Assignment by saying it would be oh so much less expensive and complicated and oh so much less TRAUMATIC for Brendan to NOT have to testify about that (via citing a STATUTE that has been REPEALED and so nobody is buying that game)……
……While at the SAME TIME pushing and prodding to get the judge to order him to be subpoenaed, even as the judge sees no reason and has no precedent to do so.
But I guess this is just another typical day in what lawyers do……………….
You wrote:
“Something tells me that when ALJ Judge Michael A. Mosesso gets wind of this… he’s going to change his mind about how he doesn’t normally like to issue subpoenas for depositions.”
My first thought was “Agree. *Buys More Popcorn*”
On the other hand, maybe not?
I’m thinking about how, when the “breaking news” about Brendan’s “new revelations” SEEMED to appear to be news in ADF’s favor, as we picked it all apart, we realized it might NOT be, ALL things considered.
This may be also more damaging to ADF than anybody else. THEY’RE the ones that REALLY REALLY want Brendan to “tell all” before they can fully have a strategy for negotiations in the “global mediation.”
It may be that, as has been the case all along, ADOSH and the Judge maybe could care less because it doesn’t really change their findings, especially enough to waste more time and $$$$$ than necessary on it.
I also find it interesting that as you and Bob Powers were perusing the newest filings, the appearance of what you were finding was that the battle was still drawn and blazing between the ADOSH/ADF lawyers and no “good faith” “mediation” looked possible; while the Insurance Journal article I posted above made it sound like both sides (families vis ADF with ADOSH somewhere at the table but we don’t know exactly “where”) were presenting to THAT Judge that the mediation was proceeding quite smoothly and successfully, but they just needed another month to kinda sorta “smooth out” their differences.
Given all of this, I don’t think it’s ALL that inevitable that Mosesso would necessarily decide to jump in and do ADF’s bidding, as he hasn’t all along.
Especially given how, as we have seen, ADF’s lawyers have been operating TOTALLY not “in good faith” all along.
ADOSH/Mosesso, it seems to me, still have NOTHING to lose to just let ADF continue to hang itself.
>> Marti said…
>>
>> ADOSH/Mosesso, it seems to me, still have NOTHING to lose
>> to just let ADF continue to hang itself.
That’s true…. but let me correct something here.
You make it sound like the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case is all about ADOSH/Mosesso against ‘Arizona Forestry’.
That is NOT The case. Judge Michael A. Mosesso is the Arizona Administrative Law Judge that has been assigned to this “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH Citations” case… but he has no “dog in the hunt”.
He is not ‘affiliated’ with EITHER ADOSH or ‘Arizona Forestry’.
He is just the Judge that will be presiding over the eventual HEARING in this case ( and not a TRIAL or anything like that ) and he will making the actual decision ( himself, no jury ) about the validity of the original ADOSH fines and citations.
It is ADOSH alone that really could care less about what Brendan McDonough has to say, at this point.
ADOSH has been telling Judge Mosesso all along that they believe their Citations and fines, as already issued, will stand up to scrutiny as valid regardless of whether Brendan supplies any additional ‘testimony’, at this pont, which he should have done in the first place.
For there to be even MORE evidence that there was ‘negligence’ taking place at the management level that day would really just be ‘piling on’, as far as the ADOSH Citations are concerned.
There was plenty of evidence of that kind of chaos and mis-management and bad decision making going on that ENTIRE weekend without needing any additional ‘testimony’ from Brendan.
ADOSH is only allowed to issue a certain MAXIMUM amount of penalties to any one employer for any one incident… and ADOSH was ‘pegging the meter’ on the ‘Yarnell Hill Fire’ even before they finished their first round of interviews. It really is a miracle that MORE people didn’t die that day.
I totally agree with what you are saying here, and have been interpreting this in that way.
Which is why I am contemplating/asking/wondering if any of THIS act in this play changes anything in Mosseso’s position. And I’m thinking maybe it doesn’t.
It’s just more drama.
Or do you think it does change his thinking?
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 21, 2015 at 10:57 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> Which is why I am contemplating/asking/wondering if
>> any of THIS act in this play changes anything in Mosseso’s
>> position. And I’m thinking maybe it doesn’t.
>>
>> Or do you think it does change his thinking?
It’s always hard to say how any Judge is going to react to discovering that a key witness in a case over which he/she happens to be presiding is discovered to be ‘jerking off’ the attorneys.
Don’t forget… Judges can issues “Orders to Appear” for just about ANY reason… even if they just want to hear something from your own lips and not filtered through therapists or attorneys.
They can also issue ‘contempt of court’ citations for any number of reasons… if they feel there really is blatant ‘contempt’ for the court proceedings taking place on anyone’s part… such as ( perhaps ) lying your way out of scheduled depositions and whatnot.
This whole this is seeming to go to ‘crazy town’ in such a hurry then nothing would surprise me at this point.
Judge Mosesso might feel the need to ‘jump in’ here and start issuing subpoenas… or he might not.
One thing you can be sure of… this isn’t your momma’s ADOSH citation hearing going on. This one is fast going ‘off the reservation’ and I don’t think either the Judge or the Attorneys for either side were quite prepared for the complete array of shenanigans here coming from Mr. Brendan McDonough.
I think it’s already at the point where everyone is just ‘making it up as they go along’ and no one really knows what is going to happen next.
Gotcha!
You wrote:
“I think it’s already at the point where everyone is just ‘making it up as they go along’ and no one really knows what is going to happen next.”
Which might be, all things considered (including all the crappola ADF’s lawyers are handing out), exactly the reason Judge Mosesso might actually be considering calling a halt to all this WASTEFULLY expensive legal/whatever drama and just issuing a friggin subpoena to Brendan to just testify under oath (without cameras).
Even though that isn’t his NORMAL standard operating procedure.
Just get it over with, already.
That won’t preclude Brendan being ALSO subpoenaed to testify again UNDER OATH (and in front of TV cameras) in the wrongful death lawsuits, if and when, because of what we are seeing as ADF’s NOT-IN-GOOD-FAITH manipulations vis-a-vis the ADOSH citations, the “global mediation” process breaks down, and the whole dang thing winds up in court.
Which is, according to what we are seeing, where it seems to be headed.
So what I just wrote above may be the “answer” to the question in what I wrote:
“…..if any of THIS act in this play changes anything in Mosseso’s position.”
And, in case anybody reading/writing here is on Twitter, I’m indebted to WildFireOps @WildFire_Ops for posting all of these stories. They’re following Prescott Wildfire stories closely.
Hah!
Now the story’s on Wildfire Today!
“Yarnell Hill Fire survivor gets book deal”
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/04/21/yarnell-hill-fire-survivor-gets-book-deal/
“The only survivor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots’ tragedy during the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire in Arizona has signed a book deal with a best-selling author. Brendan McDonough was serving as a lookout when the other 19 members of his crew were entrapped by the fire and killed.”
That might elicit some interesting comments!
So let me get this straight, he won’t tell his side of the story to a lawyer or judge, in court, as he suffers from PTSD and it would be too tough on him….but he is willing to sit and relive the whole shootin match with an author, to write a book about it..
I am confused… Isn’t testifying in court, and having a transcript done, in all reality, the same as writing a book???
Oh wait, you don’t get royalties from court testimony.. My bad..
You wrote:
“Isn’t testifying in court, and having a transcript done, in all reality, the same as writing a book???”
Actually, no, it’s not.
LOL! As I”m sure you know.
He’s GUARANTEEING he’s gonna have to testify in some kind of court, imho.
One way, or the other.
In a closed hearing with Mosseso, or an open one in front of TV cameras, if his stalling is the biggest reason they’re having to keep delaying the “settlement” process.
If someone’s telling him this is his “get out of ‘jail’ free” card, they and he may be sorely mistaken, it seems to me.
Oh my.
Where is my Angostura aromatic bitters?
I need some serious settling to my stomache…indeed.
This is very rough news to me.
Be right back…I have to throw up!
Shew, rough news here Bob Powers.
I hope Brendan in this new book is detailed to not just that final hours which with all the busy ways to that final hours he is “crystal clear” what he places out in the world as “his” testimony or account and remembers -GOD HAS THE PLAN- and that this public has been fed enough narratives already…PURITY WELCOMED ONLY!
I hope the realism cores to the beginning of the day on 6-30-13 when changing at the crew buggies off Sesame Street area and Brendan mentions the one man who was having radio concerns from the start and I really hope Brendan speaks about his pure demeanor that very morning and how the other men were interacting with his mood. I hope he talks about “how” he became the lookout for that Yarnell Hill Fire versus another person. I hope he talks about the ridge he was on and the lookout spot— we know what he was doing on the ridge and the lookout. I hope when he writes the book he has it engrained that 2 track ridge moment that aired over the radios and where a lady dispatcher is not in SAIR/OSHA reports nor ever interviewed. I hope Brendan realizes at some point each and every person has to meet our Maker and that I am sickened already over the people who have come to the hikers to share yet have not yet to investigators.
I am very very sad. This world is ridiculous,.
Terrible news for me personally to hear that this young man has decided to make the first account be shown in a book deal versus just coming out when SOOOOOO many lives were lost and SOOOOOO many lives this has affected…what a true shame.
Yet the only thing Sonny said was …Money talks and bullshit walks…
I have to let this media news sink in…is it hearsay or facts?
Where will the book go in the library?????
Fiction or non-fiction?????
Wait to see, I guess
If it ever gets actually published.
All things considered.
Joy:
I have to admit I LOLLED when I read this:
“Where is my Angostura aromatic bitters?”
But seriously.
I’m not quite sure what you mean by this:
“I hope the realism cores to the beginning of the day on 6-30-13 when changing at the crew buggies off Sesame Street area and Brendan mentions the one man who was having radio concerns from the start”
Are you talking about Rance Marquez, who is the only one who seems to have been having trouble with that?
And you say this:
“I hope he talks about “how” he became the lookout for that Yarnell Hill Fire versus another person.”
Absolutely!!!!!
EVERYTHING I have read/watched/heard says that a Lookout needs to be an EXPERIENCED (even to the level of a squad boss) wildland firefighter, completely on top of his/her game, who has enough authority to be able to even, if necessary, challenge decisions that are being contemplated by the Captain/Supervisor.
Sometimes, even, that Lookout is “elevated” to be a Division Lookout.
I totally don’t understand this decision.
To the extent that, it seems to me, a REAL Lookout would have, even if evacuated the way Brendan was, would STILL have understood the importance of continuing to keep track of both the SITUATION (even to the extent of driving to the Ranch House Restaurant, or even the Yarnell Fire Department, where he could have continued to keep his eyes on both the fire and the crew) and the location of the crew.
What is this deal about Granite Mountain choosing to designate their Lookout on the basis, seemingly, of his not really being quite “up to it” on the fireline that day?????
This has ALWAYS bugged me.
You wrote:
“I hope when he writes the book he has it engrained that 2 track ridge moment that aired over the radios and where a lady dispatcher is not in SAIR/OSHA reports nor ever interviewed. ”
I’m not exactly sure what you are referring to here, but I do know that you have periodically mentioned this dispatcher being silenced.
You said:
“Terrible news for me personally to hear that this young man has decided to make the first account be shown in a book deal versus just coming out when SOOOOOO many lives were lost and SOOOOOO many lives this has affected…what a true shame.”
See what we’ve been discussing above along the lines that Brendan (or his publishing “handlers”) may THINK he can just make the first account be in a book deal, but that dog ain’t gonna hunt, all things considered.
You wrote”
“is it hearsay or facts?”
I think it’s facts, at this point.
I thinks it’s a possibility, however, that it won’t stay “facts” for very long.
See what I wrote above about how it appears he may have been recruited into this “book deal,” and the deal was announced on that Publishers Marketplace website, at which point AZCentral decided to interview the agent, and then VOILA we now have what we now have.
The fruit-basket has been seriously upset.
EVENTUALLY, the TRUTH of this fire is going to emerge. It has to.
As you say, In God’s time. I’m not a major believer in what most Americans call “God.” On the other hand, I DO believe the Universe is intelligent, and, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, the arc of it bends toward justice.
As long as we HUMANS (as in all the recent PUSHES in the direction of truth and accountability regarding Police Brutality indicate) keep staying “AWOKE” and unwavering.
Which is EXACTLY what you and Sonny have been doing along.
And so I thank you, in general, and, specifically, for writing this post.
Back to the legal mumbo-jumbo a bunch more papers filed yesterday in the on going ADOSH –STATE legal disputes——-I did not note any thing earth shattering but I got a head ache trying
to read through it last night and gave up.
Still reading those myself and yes… it’s back to ‘mumbo jumbo’ while they try and work out some of these legal ‘issues’ and ‘points of order’ that have been laying on the table since BEFORE the ‘global mediation’ talks.
The key ‘takeaway’ is that they are, in fact, now RETURNING to filing more documents and trying to ‘work out’ some of these previous issues that went ‘on hold’ before the global mediation. ADOSH had said a few months ago that they didn’t feel it was even necessary to get ‘down in the weeds’ and spend any ‘billable hours’ on any of this stuff until after the March 2, 3 ‘global mediation’ sessions took place.
If things looked like they might ‘settle’… then all this ‘mumbo jumbo’ we are seeing now wasn’t even going to be necessary.
So what it appearing now in these documents means it really is “full steam ahead” and there isn’t going to be any kind of “settlement” in at least this “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case.
I also don’t see anything new regarding Brendan McDonough or his (supposed) PTSD diagnosis or anything about his ‘therapist’ and if/when a new deposition might be scheduled.
This last update really is nothing but the ‘mumbo jumbo’ of lawyers in the middle of a ‘discovery’ exchange both trying to force the other side to release more ‘evidence’ and ‘information’ than they really want to.
Gary said
Does anybody have any questions as to why my plan back in the day would have been to drop back to the next drainage and backfire the entire fucking valley?
Why do you think that is NOT what the GMIHC were doing?
It seems that was the plan being implemented by Cordes as he was sending Ball and Hernandez(?) near Glen Isla to scout for a place to push a dozer line?
So, are you you saying that you would have made the same move as GM, just earlier in the day?
Apologies if I am not misinterpreting, or just fail to understand.
I guess I didn’t make myself clear. If I would have been leading the Granite Mountain Hotshots and somebody insisted I do something, I would have opted for pulling back to state highway 89 and backfiring the Weaver Mountains, which would have included Yarnell and the surrounding communities filled with non defensible structures and people who had done little or nothing to save themselves or their property.
But since that idea would have been impractical and is merely a manifestation of my caustic, angry and sarcastic opinion of Yarnell and the Yarnell Hill Fire, in reality, I would have simply kicked back in the black and waited with my HAND CREW for the firestorm to pass before I thought about leaving the black at which time I would have radioed command to ask somebody in charge what they would like our next objective to be. And then given how chaotic the fire was, I would have evaluated those instructions carefully before committing my crew to that course of action.
Which brings up another point I am pretty sure I have made in the past. The Yarnell Hill Fire was an extreme example of chaos but one of the dirty little secrets of wildland firefighting is the first 36 to 48 hours on just about every fire is chaotic and that is where hotshot crews are supposed to excel.
Fire commanders can put hotshots out in that type of environment and have every expectation those crews will adapt and overcome while they remain self sufficient requiring little or no oversight from what is typically a fire team that is stretched thin and faced with multiple problems they need to overcome before they get down in the weeds with specific instructions for a hotshot crew.
Command should be able to give a hotshot crew general guidelines (i.e. anchor the west flank) and have every right to go on about a thousand other tasks while remaining confident that hotshot crew is working hard and safely on the western flank of the fire to stop its spread in that direction.
And I don’t think this is Monday morning armchair quarterbacking on my part. I think that WTKTT’s fade in and out Goggle Earth video made it crystal clear to everyone that standing at the top of that chute looking down into a valley as it was being consumed by a fiercely wind driven fire storm with a very impressive pyroclastic cloud towering over everything and then making a decision to descend into that chute was truly an inexplicable choice. Just ask Sonny, he took one look at the firestorm and he went quickly in the opposite direction and he had never been to any fire training or have any previous experience.
The more I learn about the Yarnell Hill Fire, the more I realize it had nothing in common with the other three hotshot fatality fires. But all three of those other fires (Loop, Battlement Creek, South Canyon) shared all of the important factors as commonalities.
Calvin
I do not know if Cordes really had a plan but it just dose not seem likely.
Nor do I believe that Marsh moved the crew to re-engage.
I can say from a Certified Back Firing specialist which I was on a California team
There are few criteria to meet if you plan such a strategy—–
1. There was no formal strategy.
2. The Timing was to late when the crew moved and would have been to late by 1200.
3. The fire weather forecast was way out side of a successful Back fire.
Not only the forecast but the current weather on the fire low humidity’s, high temp., squarely winds by 1500.
4. No line built and secure to fire from, with out endangering structures.
It would have taken a full 8 hour shift to build a line to backfire from with a cat and crew it was just to late to consider that option.
5. Not enough resources available that were not engaged with other assignments.
Almost all Back Fires are done at night when the weather is favorable the line is built and identified and the wind is in you favor. It take’s a lot of man power Engines and burning equipment. Safety for your firing crews and also no structures can be threatened.
Liability is a bitch when it comes to intentionally burning structures.
A back fire would not have meet the criteria to safely accomplish any objective on the south or east side of the fire.
As for the crew had they made the BSR they would have been stuck there for some time until they could walk out or get vehicles to haul them out.
There was no re-engage for a hand crew from 1600 on……
And we were lucky a Engine crew was not trapped and burned over as well trying to get to BSR.
In my opinion that is exactly why GM made the move from the safe black. Someone was intending a last ditch effort or “hail mary pass” when everything started going south. I know Bob and I differ on this, but I have seen it done a number of times under less than “text book” conditions. Some times it has worked and some times not, but I believe it was felt that was the only option left (I know conditions, timing and resources were not ideal) to divert the fire from non defendable structures . Knowing that the timing was crucial someone (don’t remember if they were identified or not) asked if they could get here faster, that’s when Marsh replied that they were coming from the heel of the fire. In my mind this is the only reason you would want a “Hotshot” crew to hustle down to the interface.
Don’t get me wrong – this in no means justifies the move from the safe black, but in my opinion is the only explanation for the move. Again, not justification by any means!
While only another possible reason to move I look at the time of day the location of the crew and the possibility of being stuck on the mountain for 3 plus hours.
We have no reason or request for the crew to move in any of the testimony so along with an option that they were moving to re-engage
is the also possibility of just getting off the mountain so they could tie into there vehicles.
1. The only thing said was they were moving to a Safety Zone.
2. No mention of moving to a new assignment. at the time Ball and the Cat moved it was already to late to build Cat line. The fire was already into Glen Isla based on WTKTT fade video by or before 1620.
3 The hurry up statement has never been directly tied to GM
and could be some one else talking to another person.
We still have some need for clarification.
And you are right there is no Identity of the person who made that statement. or nothing in the statements to indicate who made it or to who. That if said to GM should have been noted by some one.
My thoughts over the past 2 years. McDonough should have the answer if he herd the discussion there had to be a reason to move to the BSR????????????
What ever the reason they fail to provide for safety.
All good points Bob but I still don’t get it.
1. Moving to a Safe area, they were in the best safe area of anyone. To have an alleged argument about moving to a different safe area doesn’t make any sense.
2. No mention of moving to a new assignment, but really no mention of moving at all other than a safe area. But here I go talking myself out of my theory, if they were really moving to reengage why not have your buggies bumped to BSR to resupply and then transport to the new assignment?
3. Although this is not verified, I don’t know who else would have been coming from the heel of the fire – I think GM was the only one out there.
Yep, as you have said McDonough and others would have the answers. I know we both agree regardless of the reason they should never have left the safest place on the entire incident, until conditions allowed.
I agree with the best safe area out there why move.
What ever Marsh said to get Steed to move must have been acceptable . But wouldn’t Steed have known they were moving if some one asked Marsh to move the crew to re-engage? So just saying some thing dose not fit.
Why move from one Safety Zone to another and expose the crew to real danger. Those have been my questions for 2 years. If there was a plan why hide what you were doing. Talk to AA or OPS get eyes on you and advice at 1600 before committing to the move.
Agree with you on Marsh saying they were moving from the heel of the fire.
Just not sure about the hurry up statement. Was it really part of that discussion??????
Very Frustrating! This whole new wildland firefighting mantra of “being a learning organization/creating a learning culture” blah,blah,blah. People know what transpired on the mountain that day – yet no one is allowed to talk, especially the employees of the organization spouting the “learning culture!” Coming up on two years and the only real investigation has been on this site!
I got stuck in moderation –
So, I know I am not alone here. This is so frustrating! People have the answers but are not allowed to discuss the details of the event. Those employees are from the organization that has adopted the mantra of “a learning organization” yet won’t allow anyone to learn lessons because they won’t allow those involved to speak.. Does not seem like they really buy into their new mantra!
The only real investigation or learning has occurred on this site, although we don’t have all the answers (yet) thank you all for your diligence.
Having worked for the FS I am quite surprised at this new way of stopping employees from talking and redactions of statements. 30 years or even 20 ago that did not happen.
Mainly because the investigation was well done and the failures noted what was violated of the 10 SO and who was involved.
it has turned into a Legal fiasco. Not a learning event.
**
** MORE FROM PROFESSOR DOUG HULMES ABOUT BRENDAN MCDONOUGH
Oddly enough… the ‘Prescott Daily Courier’ has yet to even run even the generic Associated Press article from yesterday about the Lawyers in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits asking for yet ANOTHER 30 days to ‘settle’ the lawsuits…
…but they DID run an article YESTERDAY afternoon that features Brendan McDonough and talks more about that ‘Juniper Tree’ and Prescott College Professor Doug Hulmes again.
So this is actually a ‘followup’ to that discussion down below about Hulmes, McDonough and the Juniper tree.
In THIS article… we suddenly get a lot more DETAIL about that accidental ‘meetup’ that Professor Hulmes had out at the Juniper Tree with Brendan McDonough himself.
We NOW learn…
– Brendan was not ‘by himself’ when Hulmes accidentally ran into him a year ago ( in April of 2014 ) out at the tree. Brendan had hiked out there with TWO others ( unidentified ).
– This ‘accidental meetup’ was the FIRST time Brendan had returned to that Juniper tree since the tragedy.
– It was this same Professor Hulmes who, when the Doce fire broke out, notified Prescott National Forest Wilderness and Trails Manager Jason Williams about the Juniper tree… and Williams, in turn, was the one who had asked the Granite Mountain Hotshots if they could try and protect it.
– The GM Hotshots actually first considered cutting all the lower limbs of the tree OFF… but then decided against that and just cleared around it and did some ‘back burns’.
– The GM Hotshots actually LEFT the tree before the fire approached and had no idea if their efforts had succeeded until later.
– The GM Hotshots returned to the tree the NEXT DAY to find they had only partially succeeded. They found the tree SINGED and some flame actually still burning on one of the branches. That is when some of them climbed the tree and doused those flames with their water bottles.
– That SECOND day ( after returning to the tree and dousing the limb fires ) is when that famous ‘Pyramid Photo’ was taken there at the Juniper tree.
– This same Professor Hulmes has invited Brendan McDonough to attend a special ceremony to honor this ‘Juniper Tree’ that is happening this coming week, on April 23, the day before Arbor Day. It will be a public ceremony at the Arizona State Capitol Museum’s historic Senate chambers. There is no word whether Brendan McDonough actually plans to attend.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Hotshots tree earns Magnificent 7 honor
Published: Friday, April 17, 2015 – 11:54 PM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=144281&TM=68707.55
From the article…
————————————————————————-
At 10 a.m. on April 23, the day before Arbor Day, a public ceremony at the Arizona State Capitol Museum’s historic Senate chambers will honor the Magnificent 7 trees as well as the Citizen Forester of the Year and communities that gain honors for planting trees. The public is welcome.
Professor Hulmes plans to attend with Joan Dukes, who first introduced him to the alligator juniper that she and others call the Grandfather Juniper. He also has invited (Brendan) McDonough.
————————————————————————-
Copy.
Look for an email.
**
** RESULTS OF LAST YARNELL HILL MEMORIAL BOARD MEETING ( APRIL 10, 2015 )
**
** AUCTION DATE SET – SOUTH HALF OF SECTION 9 APPRAISED AT $304,000
Once again… the Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board is violating ‘Arizona Open Meeting’ laws and they have NOT published the ‘Draft Minutes’ of their last meeting within 72 hours.
Their last meeting took place a week ago on April 10, 2015.
But an article did appear a few days ago in the Prescott Daily Courier detailing what went on at this April 10 meeting.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Public will get to submit designs for Hotshots memorial
Published 4/14/2015 6:02 AM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=144158&TM=68707.55
Highlights from the article…
– The Board is about to ask the PUBLIC to submit designs for the memorial.
– They ARE going to try and purchase all 320 acres comprising the entire South half of Section 9 where the deployment took place.
– NONE of the landowners around the site want to grant any kind of ‘access’ or ‘easement’ so that people can access the site.
– Yarnell Fire Chief Ben Palm has developed an ‘access plan’ throught other ‘State Land’ that involves a TWO MILE hike up STEEP terrain from somewhere down on Highway 89. There is only room for 3 vehicles to pull off Highway 89 at the trailhead. The article has a MAP showing where this ‘hiking trail’ would be. It actually ‘arrives’ up on the ridge at the same point where that ‘alternate escape route’ takes that turn heading to the east towards the Boulder Springs Ranch.
– The land has been valued at $950 per acre with total value $304,000.
– The actual ‘auction’ of the land is scheduled for 11:00 AM, Tuesday, June 30, 2015 on the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse in Prescott.
And YES… that will be the actual morning of the THIRD anniversary of the tragedy itself… right in the same spot where they held last year’s ‘memorial’ service and will probably do so again this year.
There is still no word as to whether that small group of widows still plans to buy the land for themselves and be able to control access to it as they stated some months ago they intended to do. The recent article is only saying that (quote) “State officials are assuming no one will try to outbid them”.
What is worth noting, however, is that whoever *else* might end up bidding on the land will KNOW that this Yarnell Memorial Board only has a maximum of $500,000 they can use to buy the land.
That will actually make it easy to ‘outbid’ them on June 30, 2015.
The Yarnell Memorial Board won’t be able to match any bid over $500,000.
The article also says the NEXT meeting of this Yarnell Hill Memorial Board is now scheduled for May 29, 2015. Doesn’t say where. Probably the same place as the April 10 meeting ( Yavapai County Supervisor’s Office located in the County Administration Building at 1015 Fair Street in Prescott ).
By the way… some of the PUBLIC comments that have already appeared at the bottom of the article above are pretty weird.
One of them says it’s all just a ‘money making conspiracy’… and the OTHER one actually goes so far as to suggest that any official ‘memorial’ should be in Prescott itself in order to attract more visitors and more business and more money to the City of Prescott.
I kid you not.
Now that’s the Prescott (Everybody’s Hometown) that I know so well!
I noted the post by “Sharon Burke” in the comments on this story. Upon the conversion of the Courier’s commenting system from one that allowed an anonymous post, to the theoretically more accountable Facebook system, this person has appeared on each and every Yarnell related story, posting the most destructive and hateful “smack” possible about the survivors of the “Hotshots.” Given “Sharon’s” adoring remarks about the Kuykendall/Blair/Lamerson troika , that controls the City Council, most assumed “she” was one of the City Employee’s allegedly compelled to post comments as an employment condition in City Hall. After reading the latest installments noted above, it seems that this tragedy has produced an arguably obsessed serial poster out to wound the survivors. Many well meaning people did not understand or agree with the issues pursuant to the PSDRS benefits. Ms. Burke’s comments on this matter demonstrate that whatever concerns she has aired on Yarnell, is accompanied by a rather disturbing private agenda.
Reply to Noel Breen post on April 19, 2015 at 3:58 am
>> Noel Breen says…
>>
>> After reading the latest installments noted above, it seems
>> that this tragedy has produced an arguably obsessed serial
>> poster out to wound the survivors.
From what I can tell… this person seems to comment ( at length ) on EVERY article that the Prescott Daily Courier publishes… but yes… she seems to be SURE to always have some ‘didactic’ comment at the ready for anything related to the City Council or the Granite Mountain related articles.
Sometimes I can’t event tell, by the end of her comment, what point she is even TRYING to make.
She is also very often “almost right” ( but not quite ) with her “For your information” style posts… which can be very confusing.
That, …. along with routinely spewing misinformation somewhere within the majority of her analyses.
One of the worst social media allowances to ever be foisted upon the rest of us was facebook users who post on other sites being designated as “Top Commenters”.
It would be ok if they accepted it for what it really was (a designation for reaching a certain number of over-all posts), but too many of these people (her especially) seem to think it’s some sort of award for their in-depth, knowledgeable, and Pulitzer-worthy commentary, fostering a vicious cycle which never ends and only gets worse over time.
Yeah, she’s a real …………
I’ve actually increadingly had the feeling she’s been reading us. Just enough to dig up enough “facts” to make herself sound like she knows what she’s talking about.
Hey, Noel!!
I live in Albuquerque and went to Prescott College.
Maybe coffee sometime?
Correction for above.
This June 30, 2015 will only be the SECOND anniversary of the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy, not the THIRD as stated above.
The actual Prescott Daily Courier article has this TYPO as well.
So the paragraph above should have read like this…
And YES… ( the land auction ) will be the actual morning of the SECOND anniversary of the tragedy itself… right in the same spot where they held last year’s ‘memorial’ service and will probably do so again this year.
Oh…and one more thing. Does anybody else see the irony (and that word is SO insufficient in this case) in that ADOSH, who I think we can all agree are the heroes of this story, found that one of primary reasons the Granite Mountain Hotshots died was because the fire team put too much emphasis on protecting property in and around Yarnell and now, those very same landowners will not grant access across their little slices of heaven to enable the public to get to the deployment site? I mean….really???
Does anybody have any questions as to why my plan back in the day would have been to drop back to the next drainage and backfire the entire fucking valley? And failing that…I would have found myself a soft patch of dirt, folded my gloves in half, put them on the top of my hardhat and then placed my head on the gloves and I would have truly enjoyed mother nature’s grand show. I would have watched that entire valley burn and I would never have left the black or broke a sweat.
And I was raised and excelled in a hyper hotshot program on steroids that rewarded those who only followed some of the rules some of the time and our motto was, FIGHT FIRE AGRESSIVELY…but provide for safety first. The actions of the GMHS on the Yarnell Hill Fire would have pegged my “oh…fuck…me…here we go” O’Meter!
I am starting to think the actions of the GMHS were such an anomaly…such an outlier…such a one time only…that the only lesson that can learned from this fire was the one the city of Prescott has already learned…the Granite Mountain Hotshots were a blueprint for disaster…thank God?
But none of that changes how much I grieve for all of them, especially the 18 who didn’t have a vote in what course of action they took. And yes…I am including McDonough on that list. That young man needs some guidance so he can start to turn his life around, I’m afraid this is going to get worse before it get’s better and it’s never going to get much better.
P.S., There is a way to change the system, but the way the GMHS families are going about it will not make any difference or change anything.
And for you old timers out there, the hyper hotshot program on steroids I am talking about was of course…Bill Buck’s Mighty Coconino! You remember HIM don’t you? The Greatest Fire God that ever walked the Earth!
**
** ‘WRONGFUL DEATH’ LAWSUIT ATTORNEYS ASK FOR ANOTHER 30 DAYS
** TO REACH A ‘SETTLEMENT’
Well… sure enough… the “clock ran out” yesterday ( April 17, 2015 ) on that original 30 day extension that was asked for after the March 2 and 3 ‘global mediation’ talks failed in
the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
The attorneys asked the District Court Judge on March 9 for a ’30 day extension’, and he granted that extension on March 17, 2015.
The Arizona Forestry attorneys then had 30 days ( until yesterday ) to reach a ‘settlement’ with the families of the deceased Granite Mountain Hotshots.
Yesterday… they issued the required ‘progress report’ to the Judge… and they are now asking for ANOTHER 30 days to reach a ‘settlement’.
This time, however, they are saying the reason they need more TIME has something to do with the shenanigans going on with the OTHER ‘case’… the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” proceedings.
The original ‘press release’ yesterday was from the “Associated Press” itself… so this story is obviously all over the MSM ( Mainstream Media ) today.
Here is just one place ( in Arizona ) that reprinted the “Associated Press” story…
NEWS 4 – TUCSON – KVOA
Article Title: Settlement talks ongoing in Yarnell wrongful death case
Published: Apr 17, 2015 3:06 PM CDT by The Associate Press
http://www.kvoa.com/story/28832980/settlement-talks-ongoing-in-yarnell-wrongful-death-case
From the article…
———————————————————————————
PHOENIX (AP) – Parties in a wrongful-death lawsuit stemming from the 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire say they need more time to discuss a settlement.
Lawyers for the sides told a U.S. District Court judge on Friday that they’re working in good faith to resolve the case. They requested that it be put on hold until May 27.
The families of a dozen Granite Mountain Hotshots sued Arizona public agencies last year, seeking a definitive answer on what caused the deaths of 19 members of the crew. The lawsuit also seeks damages for funeral costs, pain and suffering, and lost income.
The lawyers say they expect to reconvene settlement talks next month. They say talks have been complicated by a separate but related case that imposed fines and citations on the state Forestry Division.
———————————————————————————
Something I noticed…
Unlike other previous reports ( even from the Associated Press ) about the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits… they are now describing the actual PRIMARY GOAL of the lawsuits with one simple phrase…
“The families of a dozen Granite Mountain Hotshots sued Arizona public agencies last year, seeking a definitive answer on what caused the deaths of 19 members of the crew.”
In other words… even the MSM is now acknowledging what the families have said all along about these lawsuits.
The PRIMARY reason they were filed is because the families WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH.
Given that fact… something tells me the ‘settlement’ issues are now focusing on all the new information that has been published lately and whether or not ( and WHEN and HOW ) Brendan McDonough will be compelled to ‘testify’.
The new 30 day extension could be ALL about whether or not Brendan is going to ever be ‘deposed’… or NOT.
Something also tells me that if Brendan’s therapist continues to assert that he NOT ‘testify’ about what he knows… it’s going to take MORE than just 30 days to ‘work that out’.
Followup…
If the ‘gloves come off’ now and ANY of these lawyers now want to see PROOF that Brendan really does have PTSD… and that his ‘therapist’ alone should be able to continue to ‘control’ the court calendar and the court proceedings in BOTH of the pending ‘cases’…
…that alone could take more than 30 days.
If the (supposed) PTSD diagnosis remains the ‘stumbling block’ to even getting a simple behind-closed-doors under-oath deposition out of Brendan… then someone is going to start requesting that the various Judges involved here ‘subpoena’ Brendan’s medical records… or get some kind of ‘sworn statement’ from the therapist.
Even that won’t all be able to ‘go down’ in less than 30 days.
WTKTT,
A long time ago you described how to search this site for previous comments. I was successful in doing so right after that, but now I seem to have forgotten the process because I am unable complete a search.
Could you please re-describe that process.
Also, does it have to be Chapter specific?
Thanks
** THE TEXT FILE WAY
What I have been doing all along is that every time a certain ‘Chapter’ of this ongoing discussion closes and a new one is started… I call up the one that just closed and I save the entire thing as a TEXT file to my hard drive.
I than ADD that ‘new’ ( finished ) Chapter TEXT file to the bottom of an ongoing HUGE ‘Master’ text file that contains ALL of the ‘finished’ Chapters.
When I want to go find something in a previous Chapter… I am them only dealing with ONE ‘Master’ document and I just use ‘Notepad’ to call it up and search through the whole thing in one swell foop.
** THE GOOGLE WAY
Every single ‘Chapter’ of this forum is now indexed PUBLICLY by Google.
You can tell Google to narrow the search down to only pages at InvestigativeMEDIA, and only pages that have the word ‘Chapter’ in them, which pretty much narrows the search down to ONLY all the ‘Chapters’ of this ongoing discussion.
Just go to http://www.google.com
In Google’s SEARCH input bar… just type this…
site:www.investigativemedia.com Chapter TTWARE
Google will come back with links to every single “Chapter” of this forum where the keyword TTWARE appears.
To narrow down the search… just keep adding ‘words’ to the end like this…
site:www.investigativemedia.com Chapter TTWARE dial it back
Google will then return only the ‘hits’ that have all four of those words in them… such as a link to “Chapter VIII” when you were telling me to “dial it back” some.
If you remember an ‘exact phrase’ that you are looking for… just add it to the end of your query but make sure the whole phrase in in QUOTATION MARKS… like this…
site:www.investigativemedia.com Chapter TTWARE “I do my best to keep up”
Google will then return only ONE hit… and it’s for “Chapter V ( FIVE )” when you actually said that in one of your comments.
NOTE: You COULD leave that first word ‘Chapter’ out of your search query… but then you will also get ‘hits’ to pages at InvestigativeMEDIA that aren’t ‘Chapters’ of this forum.
Way over my head Marti….
Keep up the good work….
Thanks, WTKTT
Forgot to add… don’t forget that ‘Google’ searches are case insensitive.
In other words… you could do a query like this…
site:www.investigativemedia.com Chapter TTWARE “I do my best to keep up”
OR it could be this…
site:www.investigativemedia.com Chapter ttware “I DO my BEST to KEEP up”
…and the result will be the SAME.
Google will return only ONE search ‘hit’… and it will be a link to “Chapter V (FIVE)” of this ongoing discussion where you actually said that in one of your comments.
Also forgot to add…
Obviously the ‘Google’ approach will produce links to the ‘Chapters’ of this discussion where what you are searching for might be on that page… but these will just be ‘jumplinks’ to the ‘Chapter’ pages themselves.
You will still need to click the link… and THEN use the “Find Text in the Page” menu option in your browser to ‘Find’ the comment inside that page itself.
That’s why I still prefer the ‘one ‘Master’ TEXT file option.
Regarding this whole “Motion to Dismiss” thingy.
I don’t really have the time to cite this chapter, verse, and page, and also I’m looking at the pdf downloaded instead of the one on the website, because it’s really too hard to navigate it on the website, but…….
The really INTERESTING stuff is is the BIG file, the “2015_03 Updated 04.03.15.pdf”
I hadn’t fortified myself to download and look at that HUGE file until this afternoon.
—————————————-
The BIG file:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6N47Z5CNR-CUDZqdGhpWndxekE/edit
—————————————–
The only reason it’s so BIG is because it contains each of ASFD’s two “Motions to Dismiss” (the two parts of the citation), along with attaching what looks like ALL of the SAIT Report and a bunch of the ADOSH documentation to EACH one of these Motions.
My terminology might get a bit fuzzy here, because I don’t hold all these legal things in my head. And I’m kind of thinking this out as I go along. But here’s whats interesting.
Included in the middle all of this back and forth (on the pdf’s e-page 29) is an April 16, 2014 letter from Administrative Law Judge Joseph L. Moore, to ASDF’s lawyers stating:
“Recognizing that the Complainant has expressly declined to respond to Respondent’s “Motion for Summary Judgment,” filed April 10, 2014, I hereby deny the motion.
Not only is there no mechanism for summary adjudication of issues in these proceedings, but, even if there were, under any reasonable construct,whether or not there was a “willful” violation would clearly appear to involve a question of fact.”
The bottom of this letter from 2014 is stamped 15MAR25, so I’m assuming it is placed in the middle of all these back-and-forths means it has something to do with them.
This letter is actually included as Exhibit 1 in a letter from ICA Lawyer “ADOSH’S RESPONSE TO STATE FORESTRY’S TWO MOTIONS TO
DISMISS” (on pdf e-page 25), that begins by saying:
“Complainant, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of the Industrial Commission of Arizona (“ADOSH”), hereby responds to Respondent State Forestry’s motions to dismiss Citation 1 Item 1(b) and (c). State Forestry’s motions — unsupported by applicable legal authority and not allowed in this forum — are meritless and should be denied, stricken and returned to the law firm which filed them.
Simply put, the Industrial Commission rules governing this ADOSH proceeding contain no mechanism for summary adjudication of issues. See A.A.C. R20-5-801 et seq. This forum has no equivalent of state or federal court’s Civil Rule 12(b) (motion to dismiss) or Civil Rule (summary judgment). State Forestry fails to point to any authority that would require the ALJ to hear and determine the equivalent of a Civil Rule 12(b) or Civil Rule 56 motion prior to giving the parties the opportunity to develop a factual record at hearing, and as State Forestry’s counsel is aware, none exists. State Forestry’ s legal and factual arguments should be made at the hearing, based on the facts developed and presented there.
The law firm which represents State Forestry and filed these motions to dismiss is well aware that no mechanism exists for summary adjudication in this forum. In the pending ADOSHv. Guthrie General matter (Inspection No. R1538-317023067), in which this same law firm represents Respondent Guthrie General, the ALJ issued an order on April 16, 2014 denying Guthrie General’s motion for summary judgment, noting inter alia that “there is no mechanism for summary adjudication of issues in these proceedings ….” See April 16, 2014 Order (attached as Exhibit 1). Likewise, in ADOSH v. Gehan Homes (Inspection No. H1793-317322709), this same law firm’ s numerous motions for dismissal and summary adjudication were denied in 2014 after ADOSH’ s counsel pointed out the lack of a procedural mechanism for summary adjudication in this forum. See Inspection No. H1793-317322709 (motions and orders in April and May of 2014).
Given the above, no good faith basis exists for the filing of motions to dismiss in this matter as well, wasting not just state taxpayers’ money but also wasting the ALJ’s and ADOSH’ s time by being forced to address and respond to motions which counsel for State Forestry knows this forum does not allow. These massive and improper motions (approximately four inches thick in total) should be denied, stricken and returned to the law firm.”
At which point, in order to follow this narrative, you have to jump to the top of the pdf, to e-page 1. Which is a letter from Cavanagh Law Firm to Judge Mosesso, stating:
“The recent documents filed in the case prompt ASFD to suggest that the most orderly and appropriate way for the Tribunal to deal with this case is for the Tribunal to use the authority and discretion conferred upon it by the Arizona Administrative Code to rule that the Arizona Rules of Civil Procedure should be applied to this matter.
The Arizona Administrative Code fully authorizes this Tribunal to apply the Rules of Civil Procedure. A.A.C. R20-5-644(A)(1) allows the Tribunal to conduct proceedings for “simplification of the issues.” A.A.C. R20-5-644(A)(5) allows the Tribunal to decide “other matters as may tend to expedite the disposition of the proceeding and to assure a just conclusion thereof.””
Along with a bunch of other stuff.
BELOW this letter (sometimes it’s really hard to pick your way through this stuff and make any sense of the timing), on pdf e-page 6, is the following from the ICA lawyer, “ERRATA TO ADOSH’S RESPONSE
TO STATE FORESTRY’S TWO MOTIONS TO DISMISS,” stamped 15March26.
It says:
“Complainant, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of the Industrial
20 Commission of Arizona (“ADOSH”), files this Errata to its March 25, 2015 Response to State Forestry’s Two Motions to Dismiss. This Errata follows receipt of State Forestry’s letter, dated March 26, 2015, in which State Forestry urges the ALJ to rely upon “R20-5-644(A)(1)” and “R20-5-644(A)(5)” as ostensible authority for State Forestry’s motions to dismiss. State Forestry’s reliance upon these rules is misplaced, as these particular rules were repealed in 2001. (See attached.) The current Arizona Administrative Code rules governing this forum are located in A.A.C. R20-5-801 et seq., and do not provide for summary adjudication.”
So, I guess I just cited chapter, verse, and page.
Basically, as it appears to me, the gist of what is going on here is that what ADOSH is saying, and I think the judge agrees with, is that this whole conflict HAS to be disputed, ironed out, picked apart, put back together in the HEARING (according to the law), and not in this thingy that ASDF is repeatedly attempting to concoct, in various and sundry ways.
The good tax-paying citizens of the State of Arizona (whether it’s Great or not) ought to be being fully informed (Hello AZCentral???) of all of their oh-so-precious DOLLARS that the Arizona State Department of Forestry is, relatively uncontrollably, BURNING (while everybody is freaking out about those EXPENSIVE PENSIONS), on their behalf and out of their pockets, for all this (probably ultimately FUTILE, all things considered) legal obfuscation.
Wait, wait, WHERE again was it that ASDF wasted dollars doing various futile things related to a certain fire that they seem to be wasting even more dollars again on, via this whole GAME???
Sigh. I just can’t help but wonder, how it could POSSIBLY be — that this kind of expensive obfuscating is taught in Law School.
What could POSSIBLY make me think of THAT?
So none of this “Motions to Dismiss” thingy actually has, AT THIS TIME, ANYTHING to do with ASDF’s BOGUS claim that Brendan left his lookout location in an orderly PLANNED fashion, or that, because there were no fire-fighters “assigned” to Division Z, there were NO fire-fighters whose LIVES WERE THREATENED by the mismanagement IN Division Z.
It has more to do with them using all of that FICTION in order to get their “Motions to Dismiss” taken seriously by the Judge, on the basis of a statute that NO LONGER EXISTS and in a way that they have already tried doing before and already know is not LEGITIMATE.
Given what I wrote above, I would really like to see an accounting of how much MONEY this LEGAL GAME is racking up, especially since it still has, obviously, a LONG LONG LONG LONG way to go.
And, yeah, compared to THIS RACKET, I’d LOVE to get paid to the same hourly tune, for all the hours that, THANK YOU SONNY I REALLY APPRECIATE WHAT YOU SAID, we have put into this “Campfire” of “Citizen Investigators” with all our acknowledged warts and such.
And, yes, I know some really AWESOME LAWYERS. But these aren’t those. Not even close.
This whole thing is just a FRIGGIN RACKET.
OK, End of rant. This thingy just really p*sses me off.
Correction.
“It has more to do with them using all of that FICTION in order to get their “Motions to Dismiss” taken seriously by the Judge, on the basis of a statute that NO LONGER EXISTS and in a way that they have already tried doing before and already know is not LEGITIMATE.”
Should read:
“It has more to do with them using all of that FICTION in order to get their “Motions to Dismiss” taken seriously by the Judge, on the basis of a statute that NO LONGER EXISTS and in a way that THEIR LAWYERS have already tried doing before and already know is not LEGITIMATE.”
Marti… yes… you pretty much nailed it.
It really chaps the ‘Arizona Forestry’ lawyers’ asses that this is NOT a ‘regular’ civil court case proceeding and so a lot of their ‘bag ‘o tricks’ just won’t work.
It chaps them so much they are actually now ( in even the latest documents ) trying to tell ALJ Judge Michael Mosesso what his JOB is… and how he’s supposed to be doing it.
It would not surprise me at all if a real nasty-gram slap-down comes back from the desk of Judge Michael Mosesso following this latest round of “here’s how we think you should do your job” from these ( arrogant ) Arizona Forestry lawyers.
Keep in mind that these guys/gals are persistent enough in trying to get their way here that they have NOW stooped to mentioning ( in what they KNEW would be a PUBLIC document ) that the key witness in the case has been officially diagnosed with PTSD and is currently undergoing ‘treatment’ for it with an actual ‘therapist’.
The ONLY reason they mentioned that was to try and get Mosseso to go along with their motion to dismiss that ADOSH Citation 1 – Item 1(b) that pertains to Brendan.
They now are specifically telling Judge Mosesso…
—————————————————————-
As discussed in the Motion to Delete Citation 1, Item 1(b), however, ADOSH’S
interviews of Mr. McDonough contradict the allegations in Citation 1, Item 1(b).
In addition, considering the Motion to Delete Citation 1, Item 1(b) will ensure
that Mr. McDonough is not forced to recount the events surrounding the Fire
more than necessary.
—————————————————————-
Sounds like a THREAT, doesn’t it?
That’s because it IS.
They have just finished telling the Judge that poor, poor Brendan has PTSD and that’s why his therapist thought that having to testify to anything back on February 26, 2015 would have been “not good for poor, poor Brendan’… and now just paragraphs later they are flat-out threatening the Judge that if he doesn’t rule in THEIR favor on this… they are going to FORCE him to the stand to go over and over all of this AGAIN… and if that means the worsening of poor, poor Brendan’s medical condition… it will all be because Judge Mosesso was the ‘bastard’ who wouldn’t give THEM what they wanted.
I knew this wasn’t going to be ‘pretty’… but the arrogance and thoughtlessness and carelessness and unprofessionalism of these Arizona Forestry attorneys is even astounding me.
And it’s probably going to get WORSE.
I actually do believe that this recent ‘ploy’ on the part of the Arizona Forestry lawyers to try and FORCE Judge Mosesso to grant at least one of the their ‘motions to dismiss’ regarding Item 1(b) might even be a serious violation of the HIPPA laws… and they may be subject to some serious sanctions because of it.
Revealing the details of someone’s private medical condition in a public document just to try and use that as a ‘card’ you are playing in some stupid lawyer-poker-game is ‘off the reservation’.
Since I have been writing this whole thing, I haven’t had time to read what you wrote just down below, but I’ve been, otherwise, following all that you have been writing.
THIS:
“Revealing the details of someone’s private medical condition in a public document just to try and use that as a ‘card’ you are playing in some stupid lawyer-poker-game is ‘off the reservation’.”
Exactly. It seems to me that EVERYTHING they are doing is some version of “off the reservation.”
(And not to mention it, but, all things considered, it appears that the Southwest may be heading into a worse than last year to the point of SERIOUS wildfire season, with all that THAT could entail)
One thing that caught my curiosity, also, in all of this (including that this whole “revelation” by ASDF is a HIPPA violation), was that there is no EVIDENCE submitted (as long as they were, in violation of HIPPA, doing this anyway) supplied as to any documentation of what this therapist supposedly indicated.
It’s all just something Counsel is positing. Via WHAT? Who knows?????
One of the things I thought about as I read some of the things you wrote downstream, when you were wondering WHO might this “therapist” be, and why would any therapist be going along to get along, or whatever.
I was just sitting back, thinking about some of my own experiences.
Once upon a time, awhile ago, for five years, I was the “Outreach Minister” for the New Mexico Conference of Churches Affordable Housing Program.
It was my job to counsel people living in the apartments that the Conference owned. Sometimes I did that work between a serious rock and a serious hard place.
I was hired to do that job because, in the eyes of my mentor/boss, I was a “survivor.”
In order to do that job, I had to really work, and listen, and be, relatively speaking, non-judgemental, and gain the trust of people who were often dealing with all kinds of PSTD and other kinds of pressures. I worked very hard, and sensitively, in order to do that.
On the other side of the coin, I was also interacting with (and, to some extent, representing) the MANAGEMENT of that whole operation. Who wasn’t always all that happy with residents who were having all kinds of problems that created HASSLES for the management.
That’s what I mean by the rocks and the hard places.
I decided, in the course of doing what I was doing, that the well-being of my clients (the residents) was more important to my work than the well-being of the Management. It wasn’t by a HUGE ratio, but it was by a significant one. That ratio eventually got me fired.
Rocks and hard places.
I sat back a little bit earlier today and thought about the possibility that a therapist COULD, actually, based on my experience, determine (without being aligned with anything having to do with all the shenanigans we see via the ASFD and their lawyers) that it could be a seriously destructive thing for Brendan to, at this time, be deposed, even in a “private” deposition, GIVEN……..
…….ALL the obvious VULTURES that are flying around all of this thingy.
I could easily imagine myself realizing that, given all the PTSD and Surviver Guilt and High Profile Nature of all of this, I would want to help Brendan recover and re-re-cover and re-re-re-cover what he had inside his mind, given all the trauma and post-experience-publicized narratives that were/are flying all around his consciousness.
And that that could, actually, take some TiME.
I could SERIOUSLY imagine myself thinking that having, at this time, my client, be interrogated by a lawyer/lawyers, especially given these AGENDAS they are SERVING (as witnessed by the shenanigans above), could definitely be destructive to both my client’s ability to actually accurately re-member the deep and conflicted and delicate truth that is residing inside his mind and, thus, be able to present that truth to the families and fire-fighters who are in need of it.
So, yes, I can understand how a legitimate independent therapist could advise his Counsel that, all things considered, deposing Brendan at this time, and in this context, could be more harmful to him than useful for getting at the necessary truth.
I’m not saying that’s what’s going on.
I’m just saying I can see how it could be possible that that could be, at least in part, what’s going on.
>> Marti said…
>>
>> So, yes, I can understand how a legitimate independent
>> therapist could advise his Counsel that, all things
>> considered, deposing Brendan at this time, and in this
>> context, could be more harmful to him than useful for
>> getting at the necessary truth.
>>
>> I’m not saying that’s what’s going on.
>>
>> I’m just saying I can see how it could be possible that
>> that could be, at least in part, what’s going on.
Yes. It could.
I actually HOPE ( with all my fingers and toes crossed ) that this ‘therapist’ really is ‘independent’ and not ‘affiliated’ with any agency that has the word ‘Forestry’ or ‘Fire’ in its title… and that Brendan’s well-being and welfare is the ONLY consideration as to what treatment or courses of action are taken.
But at the same time… this is a unique set of circumstances in which Brendan has allowed himself to become ‘entangled’.
There are COURT cases that are ACTIVE and the ‘calendars’ are rolling.
He is the KEY WITNESS in those ‘cases’.
I don’t know if his ‘therapist’ has any experience his/herself with something like this… but part of his ‘treatment’ IS going to have to include handling any number of legitimate legal attempts to get him to ‘testify’ to things that he seems to know.
And yes… at some point here… one of the things that also MUST happen is that this ‘therapist’ ( or someone ) IS going to have to PROVE that the PTSD diagnosis is ‘for real’ and not just someone’s OPINION.
If it CONTINUES to seriously influence the court proceedings ( like it already has ) then at some point it can’t just be a lot of “taking someone’s word for it”. It will have to be PROVEN.
Brendan himself can/should be ‘shielded’ from that process…
but it is going to have to happen if this supposed ‘diagnosis’ continues to seriously influence the court proceedings.
Bottom line here is that since the Arizona Forestry lawyers just basically THREATENED Judge Mosesso with putting Brendan ‘on the stand’ if they don’t ‘get what they want’ from the Judge… even just over the Citation 1 – Item 1(b) thing… and there is already evidence that the ‘therapist’ didn’t even like the idea of a closed-door controlled ‘despostion’…
…then that therapist REALLY isn’t going to like it when all this starts to go to trial and Arizona Forestry makes good on its THREAT and wants to bring Brendan to the ‘stand’ in a PUBLIC hearing… complete with ( you can be sure ) CNN News Cameras.
It’s a mess.
Whatever it takes… I think the ‘therapist’ should realize that a closed-door, controlled deposition with no TV Cameras ( like what was supposed to happen back on February 26 ) is by far the ‘better option’ for his/her client.
Bottom line… I really do seriously hope this is all being handled by REAL professionals who DO know what they are doing.
It would be absolutely beyond tragic if this stupid Yarnell Hill Fire claims yet another victim… and I think you know what I mean.
By the way… see the SIDENOTE below with the ‘411 skinny’ in it regarding a possible HIPPA violation on the part of the Arizona Forestry lawyers.
As it turns out… since Brendan’s lawyer himself chose to SHARE that information with the Arizona Forestry lawyers… then it is ( legally speaking ) considered ‘fair game’.
Since it was being offered as the actual REASON why he and his client were ‘backing away’ from a non-subpoenaed deposition… then that information immediately entered the ‘relevant to the proceedings’ category.
Brendan’s lawyer did NOT have to share that kind of SPECIFIC medical information with anyone ( AZF and ADOSH Lawyers included ) in order to just ‘back away’ from that non-subpoena based deposition…
…but he DID.
Since he didn’t really have to ( but DID )… it would almost appear that it was a conscious CHOICE on his part to do so… at that time… and felt it was ‘in the best interests of his client’ to get that information ‘on the table’.
Sympathy? Leverage? Some other tactical advantage?
Who knows.
I just sincerely hope Brendan himself was consenting to this, and AWARE, that the minute that information left his Lawyers mouth it WOULD then become ‘Public information’.
I would hate to think Brendan himself has been ‘blind-sided’ by his actual specific medical information ‘going PUBLIC’ if he didn’t really want it to.
I’m agreeing with what you are saying.
And, as I am imagining myself being Brendan’s “therapist/counselor” — which is stretching it, but I was involved in some seriously SENSITIVE things — I would know, as a professional, that this couldn’t be delayed forever and that Brendan would, eventually, have to take some kind of witness stand and be deposed under oath.
My goal would be to help him REMEMBER. Both for his own sake and for what was eventually facing him. And for his responsibility, as an adult, to face that.
And I would, RIGHT NOW, be seriously engaged in trying to do that, even as I may have told his counsel that he was not quite in a mind-frame to do that RIGHT NOW.
As someone who has been involved in somewhat similar situations, I’m seeing this as a fairly intense one.
More extreme behavior WILDFIRE still burning.
You wrote:
“Since he didn’t really have to ( but DID )… it would almost appear that it was a conscious CHOICE on his part to do so… at that time… and felt it was ‘in the best interests of his client’ to get that information ‘on the table’.
Sympathy? Leverage? Some other tactical advantage?
Who knows.”
I think it could have been in consultation with his “therapist” who thought that that February deposition was not in the best interest of either Brendan or the truth.
There are two options.
A “private” deposition that, already, the “vulture” lawyers representing ASDF are trying to use repealed statutes to defend NOT deposing him vis-a-vis his having been at mortal risk in his lookout situation — and, so how trustworthy is THAT????
versus
A public deposition in what looks to be, at this point, all things considered, an actual public trial — given the apparent collapse of the Mediation.
To me, as a therapist/counselor, all things considered, I’d say LET’S BUY TIME, therefore go for the public deposition, even with the cameras rolling.
I don’t think Brendan’s afraid of the cameras, at this point, all things considered.
I know you have said that the evidence we have demonstrates that Brendan at least wanted to GET THIS TRUTH off his chest.
And I agree with that.
But I think some of that may be CONFLICTED, vis a vis the whole issue of Survivor Guilt, which can be a HUGE struggle.
My own Survival Guilt complex took me decades to even recognize, much less deal with. But I’m guessing whoever is counseling Brendan (I hope) is more up on that in 2015.
But I really think that’s a factor, and a difficult one.
So what I’m seeing (and I could be way inaccurate) at this moment is a BUYING OF TIME, in order to help Brendan work at articulating what he actually heard/experienced, given all the emotional trauma he naturally experienced, compounded by all the media hype, and all the circulating narratives that, understandably, may have shaped (even possibly inaccurately) his understanding of what actually happened.
Which leads me to my next thought.
Not only would I really like to know what is happening regarding the cash register attached to this whole legal racket thingy…..
I would also like to really know WHO EXACTLY in the Arizona State Department of Forestry is ORCHESTRATING this whole RACKET.
Through all of this, I haven’t been one to say that anybody involved in this fire should have been fired. Because I have, all along tried to LOOK UP. I think this fire was, mostly, mismanaged from the TOP. And everything else is a consequence of that.
Including, in the context of that total mismanagement, the fatal decisions of a crew left out on a ridge to do WHATEVER, while a fire was (as forecasted) picking itself up and turning itself around and causing its FORECASTED chaos, while nobody was much paying attention to that crew, given all the CHAOS that they were all, at the last minute, dealing with.
I recently watched a set of videos from a recent symposium in Albuquerque dealing with how to deal with SMOKE, especially on prescribed fires. SMOKE is a HUGE issue that has to be dealt with when doing the prescribed burns that really really need to be done.
One of the presenters was Roy Hall. It became clear to me that he is regarded with massive respect here in the Southwest. A lot of other presenters who were describing how they deal with the very real issues involved in bringing fire back into the landscape were trained by him and really honor his mentorship.
He spoke, with palpable pain, both in his voice and demeanor, of FAILURE. And everybody, I’m sure, knew what he was talking about. He was relating that to the FEAR that EVERYBODY who is doing the hard. but necessary, work of bringing fire back into the southwestern landscape, has to deal with.
There’s always that possibility that………..
I actually don’t blame what happened on Roy Hall.
Given this “Motion to Dismiss” game-racket thingy, and my ongoing questions about how, and by whom, it was determined (without doing the REQUIRED Escaped Fire Analysis) that deploying a Type 2 Short Team (scattered around Arizona), instead of the Type 2 Full Team (most of whose members including its IC were right there an hour away in Prescott) was, all things considered, an appropriate decision to make, given the potential consequences of what this fire could do.
I really think someone UP THE CHAIN in Phoenix is desperately, no matter what the cost, attempting to cover their personal rear end for all of this.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 17, 2015 at 9:13 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I would also like to really know WHO EXACTLY in the
>> Arizona State Department of Forestry is ORCHESTRATING
>> this whole RACKET.
It’s a good question.
Forgetting the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits for a moment… just the ‘billable hours’ that have gone down for the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” thing alone have probably ALREADY exceeded the actual total amounts of the Citations themselves ( only $559,000 dollars… including all 19 lump sum payments of a lousy $23,000 to each of the 19 families ).
And they aren’t even near halfway done with this.
By the time even just the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” thing is over… the “billable hours’ could be in excess of 4 or 5 times the actual FULL amounts of the ADOSH ‘fines’ themselves.
So for SOMEONE there in ‘Arizona Forestry’… it ain’t about the stupid ‘fines’. That’s fer sure.
It’s more about admitting any ‘guilt’ and how that’s gonna swing the cash register into the stratosphere in the OTHER ‘cases’ if they don’t find a way to ‘settle’ the wrongful death suits.
If the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits go to a jury… the actual amounts awarded COULD make the lousy $559,000 in ADOSH fines look like lunch money.
We are simply watching a team of attorneys who work for the State of Arizona doing what they HAVE to do, here.
They HAVE to try and defeat the ADOSH findings and somehow mitigate Arizona Forestry’s negligence and responsibility in this incident… or they are going to get KILLED in the wrongful death lawsuits monetary awards phase of that proceeding.
They KNOW that.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I really think someone UP THE CHAIN in Phoenix is
>> desperately, no matter what the cost, attempting to
>> cover their personal rear end for all of this.
There was never any real reason given why State Forester Scott Hunt was ‘replaced’. Was it really his own choosing?… or was HE just someone else that needed to be ‘thrown under the bus’?
If he was ‘forced out’… it’s a pretty short list as to WHO would have been able to perform THAT ‘hit’ at that level of governance.
This fire “continues to burn”… and yes… some people might still be making sure they have their Nomex on and their sleeves rolled up.
** REGARDING HIPPA
SIDENOTE: The 411 ‘skinny’ on whether or not the Arizona Forestry lawyers just committed any HIPPA violations by plastering Brendan’s medical status and condition all over a stupid ‘motion to dismiss’ filing is pretty much as follows…
If the medical information that came ‘into their possession’ was freely supplied by the source and it DOES pertain to ‘the case’… there really is no HIPPA violation.
In this instance… I’m afraid it looks more like Brendan’s lawyer David Shapiro that ‘dropped the ball’.
It was Brendan’s lawyer who had the responsibility here to make sure Brendan’s medical status and information remained ‘private’ and OUT of the case files… if that is what Brendan wished.
By freely admitting to the lawyers ( for either side ) in the case that Brendan has PTSD and that is why they were ‘backing out’ of a pre-scheduled deposition… that pretty much made that information ‘fair game’ at that point.
Backing out of a pre-scheduled deposition is definitely ‘relevant to the case proceedings’ and so ( therefore ) is the REASON why that was done.
Brendan’s lawyer did NOT have to share his client’s actual ( specific ) medical condition or information in order to just ‘back away’ from a non-subpoenaed deposition…
…but he DID.
It’s still pretty despicable that the Arizona Forestry lawyers would now be consciously plastering that obviously private information all over their PUBLICLY available silly ‘motions to dismiss’ crap just to try and convince the Judge to give them what they want… but there it is.
Regardless of choices that Brendan’s lawyer has made about what to ‘share’ about his client’s medical condition without even a subpoena in place… there were/are other ‘graceful’ ways for the lawyers to inform the Judge in the case about how this is affecting a ‘key witness’ in the case and is ability to grant a non-subpoenaed deposition.
You have to wonder.
Since there was no reason that Mr. David Shapiro really HAD to share his own client’s PTSD diagnosis and treatment in order to just ‘back away’ from that non-subpoenaed deposition…
…you almost have to believe it was a conscious CHOICE on his part to put that medical information ‘on the table’ at this point in the proceedings and that it really was ( in his mind ) in the ‘best interests of his client’ to do so.
Leverage? Sympathy? Some other tactical advantage?
Who knows.
I surely hope that Brendan himself knew that information was going to ‘go public’ the minute it left Shapiro’s mouth… and that Brendan himself isn’t now ‘blind-sided’ by it appearing in PUBLIC documents.
Whoops… typo up above.
Should have been…
This fire “continues to burn”… and yes… some people might still be making sure they have their Nomex on and their sleeves rolled ALL THE WAY DOWN.
OK. So I’m sitting here thinking about this, given how I might have been trying to handle this regarding my client, as a therapist/counselor/minister/whatever.
I’m “thinking out loud” here. It may be a complete failure.
I have determined that, all things considered, my client is not ready to be “deposed” by a bunch of lawyers-with-agendas-with-millions-of-dollars-at-stake.
(Who are representing a State Agency who really really really want that deposition so they can use it to bolster their case that something Brendan heard may indicate that that State Agency really is not at fault because some combination of Eric/Jesse made the decision, against all odds, to order/lead the crew into a situation that was non-survivable. Even though, all things considered, legally speaking, that narrative could actually turn around and bite them in the butt, because Eric was, as a Division Superintendent, part of the Incident Management Team, thus representing Arizona Department of Forestry).
Whether or not I know all of the above permutations, I communicate to my client’s lawyer. that I don’t believe my client is ready to be deposed in this way, given the circumstances.
My client’s lawyer communicates that to the lawyers representing ASDF. Without any supporting documentation from me (or even maybe with, but that documentation isn’t included in these files. Maybe because of HIPPA?)
My client’s lawyer doesn’t actually have to say that to the lawyers representing ASDF, but he does. He’s merely trying to communicate why his client is backing out of his scheduled deposition (which may have been a supreme mistake, given what happens next).
The lawyers representing ASDF then decide (in the midst of bits and pieces of this story going viral, via a media hit orchestrated by those same ASDF lawyers in order to make public that Brendan has some stuff to say that may implicate Eric/Jesse in the deaths of the GMHS)………..
……to use Brendan’s PTSD/Whatever status to try to hardcore PRESSURE the Judge on the ADOSH vs ASDF case to drop the citation against them regarding Brendan’s having been put at mortal risk on that fire (via a totally BOGUS narrative), citing a statute that was repealed in 2001 (which they know about).
So now I’m contemplating the fact that they have, at least up to now, REALLY wanted Brendan’s deposition, but NOW they really DON’T want whatever he might say about his OWN LIFE being put in mortal danger, so far so as to claiming that under a statute that they know has been repealed, THAT part of his story should be dealt with……DIFFERENTLY, i.e, being dismissed, because right now they are claiming that that wasn’t the case.
So that’s what I’m seeing right now. i could be mistaken, and I am, as I have always said I am, open to being corrected.
Yikes. Is all I have to say.
OK. After writing all of that I have to end my night by posting this. In honor of all the wildland fire-fighters who go out there and actually do the job, even tho some of the agencies that are their Overhead may not be all that committed to their actual safety while doing so.
Navajo Hotshots 2012 Fire Season
https://youtu.be/njk_uHhRmgQ?list=PLTErVrHH6uJgGEPDQR8QgrwM8D9gth1c6
Last night I wandered over to my local Blakes LottaBurger to get one of the best green chile cheeseburgers crafted in these United States.
It just so happened there was an Albuquerque Fire Department crew gathered there, also.
As I sat down and waited for my green chile cheeseburger to get made, I eavesdropped on their conversation.
They were talking about an up-coming wildland fire-fighting training event regarding fighting fires in our endangered Cottonwood Bosque that runs right up through the middle of Albuquerque..
They were talking about the sand-table part of it, about the plastic engines and the ribbons that would be draped around it representing the fire. There was some joking around about that. And then they were talking about where various bunches of brush needed to be cleared/burned out.
I was sitting there trying to listen in while trying not to be obvious.
After my number got called, I went up and got my green chile cheeseburger, and then, as I walked out, I just said “Thank You” to them.
They said, “Thank you” back to me. Even though they had no friggin idea how much time I have invested in trying to understand what they do.
I just wish the lawyers involved in this game-racket we are discussing, and the who-ever in the ASDF is involved in this “Thingy”, cared as much for the actual fire-fighters as I decided to try to communicate to my fire-fighters, that I did last night.
Here’s Roy Hall’s talk:
Roy Hall – Fire, Smoke Repeat: Managing Smoke on the Edge of Tomorrow
“Published on Mar 3, 2015
On November 6-8, 2014, multiple stakeholders gathered to learn about, share and discuss smoke management issues related to wildland fire. The following video is a presentation that occurred during the event, “Wildland fire smoke in the air- What does it mean to ME?””
https://youtu.be/s1yK7Orq9Ws?list=PLTErVrHH6uJgGEPDQR8QgrwM8D9gth1c6
**
** ARIZONA FORESTRY’S ‘MOTIONS TO DISMISS’
** CERTAIN PARTS OF ADOSH CITATION 1
These ‘motions’ have been been discussed below already… but here’s sort of a ‘recap’ of what they are all about, according to the latest documents appearing on the PUBLIC ALJ Hearing File web page.
There are FOUR ‘sub-items’ listed under ADOSH’s ‘Citation 1’ that ( in total ) amount to a maximum $70,000 fine for a ‘Willful / Serious’ workplace violation.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office lawyers who have been assigned to defend Arizona Forestry while they ‘contest’ the ADOSH findings are asking ALJ Judge Michael Mosseso to ‘Dismiss’ TWO of those FOUR sub-items under ‘Citation 1’.
Those TWO sub-items are…
Citation 1 – Item 1(b) – Regarding the near-entrapment of Brendan McDonough.
Citation 1 – Item 1(c) – Regarding near-entrapments in Harper Canyon / Youth Camp area(s).
The attorneys for Arizona Forestry say these particular ‘Citations’ are groundless, baseless, and that there is no evidence to support them, so they want the Judge to basically ‘throw them away’ before this legal proceeding even reaches the evidentiary hearing stage.
Just for the sake of completeness… here is the complete ADOSH ‘Citation 1’ text including sub-items (a), (b), (c) and (d)…
ADOSH Citation 1
———————————————————————————————-
Citation 1 – Item 1 – Type of Violation: Willful Serious
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 of 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 – Standard Operation Guide 701 Fire Suppression and Prescribed Fire Policy (2008). When the employer knew that suppresssion 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, burns and death:
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 Muse be Abated: 12/11/2013
Assessed Penalty: $70,000 ( Maximum allowed for a Willful / Serious violation ).
———————————————————————————————–
** CITATION 1 – ITEM 1(b) – Regarding the near-entrapment of McDonough
Again… ADOSH Citation 1 – Item 1(b) says…
——————————————————————————————-
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.
——————————————————————————————–
Now here is the ‘argument’ the Arizona Forestry lawyers are making to Judge Mosesso to support their request that he DISMISS this “Item 1(b)” of the citations right away…
——————————————————————————————–
A. The Statements Made By Mr. McDonough in His Two Interviews with ADOSH and the Photographs Mr. McDonough took After He Left His Lookout Position, Which ADOSH Ignored, Contradict the Allegations in Citation 1, Item 1(b)
Mr. McDonough was interviewed, at length, by ADOSH twice During the interviews, Mr. McDonough explained the circumstances surrounding his involvement with the Fire and his departure from his lookout position. Mr. McDonough’s account of the events surrounding the Fire does not support the allegations in to Citation 1, Item 1(b).
ADOSH was in possession of Mr. McDonough’s statements while it conducted its investigation and when it made its recommendations to the ICA. Furthermore, ADOSH was in possession of photographs taken by Mr. McDonough which clearly establish that he was not subject to the conditions alleged in Citation 1, Item 1(b). The photographs show that Mr. McDonough was not where ADOSH alleges he was at the time ADOSH alleges he was, as set forth in the Citations. ADOSH, however, elected to not discuss Mr. McDonough’s photographs during its two interviews with him.
As a whole, ADOSH either failed to comprehend the information it had or chose to ignore it.
Regardless of the reasons why ADOSH made the allegations that it made, it is undeniable that justice and efficiency require that when the very statements made by the individual who was purportedly exposed to a dangerous condition contradict the allegation that he was exposed to such a condition, that portion of the Citation must be deleted. Failure to do so will require Mr. McDonough, the parties, and the Tribunal to go through the unnecessary process of having Mr. McDonough testify about information that is already in the record and unequivocally supports deletion of Citation 1, Item 1(b).
——————————————————————————————–
First and foremost… the Arizona Forestry lawyers are MISTAKEN in assuming that ADOSH reached its conclusions for the Item 1(b) Citation solely on the basis of anything Brendan McDonough HIMSELF may ( or may NOT ) have said to them.
In his FIRST ADOSH interview on August 20, 2013, Brendan McDonough was obviously not aware of all the facts surrounding his own situation and he was confused ( and mistaken ) about even the very reason Blue Ridge Superintendent Brian Frisby had suddenly ‘appeared’ to rescue him.
August 20, 2013 was almost a MONTH before the actual SAIR report would be published.
That SAIR report is when we first learned that Eric Marsh had asked Brian Frisby to come up to meet HIM for a second ‘face-to-face’ meeting that day and THAT is the only reason Brian Frisby was headed WEST on that two-track that day ( at that time ) and then ‘accidentally’ came across Brendan abandoning his lookout position.
During his first ADOSH interview on August 20, 2013, Brendan himself seemed completely unaware that was the reason Frisby had ‘accidentally’ come across him to ‘rescue’ him that day, and completely unaware that Marsh had requested that second face-to-face with Frisby.
On August 20, 2013, Brendan actually told investigators that Brian Frisby had ‘seen’ the situation developing where he was and had already decided to ‘come and get him’. That is what Brendan seemed to actually believe.
Here is the part from Brendan’s FIRST ADOSH interview where he explains what HE believed to be the ‘reason’ why Frisby was there to get him before he even had to chance to call him…
NOTE: The published transcription for some parts of Brendan’s August 20, 2013 interview are wrong. The following is taken directly from the AUDIO recording of that interview and is more accurate than the published version…
Q1 = Barry Hicks, ADOSH investigator
A = Brendan McDonough
———————————————————————————————
1856 Q1: Right. And so, um, does Blue Ridge hear that you’re gonna depart and…
1857
1858 They could see what was going on and they are already headed there when I
1859 was leaving my knob to go down. Before I even called them on the
1860 radio he was already there.
1861
1862 Q1: He was comin’ to…
1863
1864 A: Yeah.
1865
1866 Q1: Comin’ to that point…
1866
1866 A: Yeah
1866
1866 Q1… so that – that came together really well. You didn’t…
1867
1868 A: Yeah.
1869
1870 Q1: …have to… with a lotta…
1871
1872 A: And… I mean, he told me.
1873
1874 Q1: Yeah.
1875
1876 A: I – I trust him.
1877
1878 Q1: Yeah. Okay.
——————————————————————————————–
So on August 20, 2013, Brendan was NOT aware that Brian Frisby had only ‘accidentally’ come across him there on the two-track. He was still under the mistaken impression that Frisby had traveled in his direction because he was already ‘aware’ of Brendan’s circumstances and had already ‘decided’ to ‘come and get him’.
Even on October 10, 2013, during his SECOND ADOSH interview, Brendan told ADOSH investigators that he still had not even READ the SAIR report that was published the morning of September 28, 2013.
So it is still not clear if even in Brendan’s SECOND ADOSH interview whether Brendan was fully aware that the circumstances of his ‘rescue’ were more ‘accidental’ than any kind of ‘plan’.
From Brendan’s SECOND ADOSH interview on October 10, 2013.
This is where he tells ADOSH he had STILL not even ‘read’ the SAIR report.
Q2 = Marshall Krotenberg – ADOSH lead investigator
A = Brendan McDonough
——————————————————————————————-
374 Q2: Do you have – have you – ha- have you had a chance to look at this Serious
375 Accident Investigation Report?
376
377 A: Um…
378
379 Q2: Or parts of it anyway?
380
381 A: I – I guess…
382
383 Q2: I’m not gonna ask you anything specific.
384
385 A: I mean, honestly, no, I haven’t looked at it yet.
——————————————————————————————-
So even though Brendan did NOT seem to be fully aware during EITHER of his ADOSH interviews how ‘chancy’ his ‘accidental rescue’ really was that day… he STILL acknowledged to ADOSH investigators ( in BOTH interviews ) that he was ‘aware’ that the ‘timing’ was TIGHT and that he had been ‘deciding where he could deploy’ and had, in fact, been actually physically pressing the TRANSMIT button on his radio to call for someone in Blue Ridge to ‘come and get him’ at the very moment Brian Frisby accidentally appeared where he was.
He also repeated ( to ADOSH ) his testimony that he gave to the SAIT investigators that he HAD been evaluating his ‘deployment’ options at that time, and that he even considered ‘alternatives’ other than that old-grader location that he said had already been ‘assigned’ to him ( by either Jesse Steed or Eric Marsh or BOTH ) as his ‘designated safety zone’.
In their own ‘Investigation Report’… ADOSH summarized these (multiple) conversations with Brendan like this…
Page 19 of the ADOSH Inspection Narrative
——————————————————————————————–
During the interview with McDonough, McDonough stated that he believes that had his escape been delayed for any number of reasons, he would have been faced with shelter deployment and burn-over.
——————————————————————————————–
As to whether or not it is TRUE that Brian Frisby had really only ‘accidentally’ stumbled across Brendan at that exact right moment that day in order to effect his ‘rescue’… the PROOF of that comes directly from the mouth of Brian Frisby himself.
And I mean ‘directly’ from Frisby’s mouth.
The entire section in Brian Frisby’s officially submitted handwritten Unit Log concerning this ‘accidental meetup’ with Brendan was BLACKED OUT ( REDACTED ) by the U.S. Forestry Service… but in the recently released ‘additional’ VIDEOS taken in Yarnell by Prescott National Forest employee Aaron Hulburd… we actually HEAR Brian Frisby himself explaining what happened regarding Brendan to the other PNF Employee KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.
From Aaron Hulburd VIDEO with filename M2U00271
NOTE: This video is 59 seconds long but was filmed out at the end of the Shrine Road area just before Blue Ridge Captain Trueheart Brown said “Fuck it… let’s go for it” and then Blue Ridge Hotshots Brian Frisby, Trueheart Brown and Prescott National Forest employees Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell all decided to ‘break through’ the fireline and head WEST on the ‘ground rescue mission’.
——————————————————————————————-
+0:00
(Jason Clawson?): Ask them if the black plume is where they are.
+0:02
( OPS2 Paul Musser ): …point just… uh… (down) here in Yarnell.
+0:13
(Unknown – Aaron Hulburd?): How many were in there?
+0:21
(Brian Frisby): They were sittin’ in cold black.
+0:23
(Trueheart Brown): They were in black.
+0:25
(Aaron Hulburd?): (So) THAT’S what they were talking about? (The) Lookout?
+0:28
(Brian Frisby): No. No. (He’s) in black…
+0:30
(KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell?): ( Overlapping with Frisby ) I heard that (one).
+0:31
(Brian Frisby): …and Eric decided that the trail that kinda follows that ridge… green… goes around. That lookout was down below. I went in to go tie in with Eric… and that’s when it picked up. I just happened to stumble upon the lookout… without the… uh… I grabbed him. ( He’s out ).
———————————————————————————————–
So there is Brian Frisby himself describing the moment he encountered Brendan McDonough and he cleary says…
Brian Frisby: “I just happened to stumble upon the lookout”.
There was no PLAN in effect to ‘rescue’ Brendan. Not at the time that it happened, anyway. It was a complete ‘accident’ that Brian Frisby came across Brendan McDonough when he did that day and was then able to ‘rescue’ him from the approaching fireline.
The following ‘evidence’ that Brendan was, indeed, in grave DANGER that afternoon has also already been mentioned down below… but it is important and it is worth repeating here in this ‘summary’.
When filing their ‘motion’ to dismiss Citation 1 – Item 1(b), the Arizona Forestry lawyers also apparently forgot to check with their ‘own man’… the actual Co-Lead of Arizona Forestry’s own sub-contracted SAIT investigation. ( Mike Dudley ).
SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley never had ANY doubts that if Brian Frisby hadn’t ‘accidentally’ stumbled across Brendan when he did… that Brendan would have most likely been the ‘first fatality’ that day.
Mike Dudley even used the word “Guaranteed”.
From SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley’s PUBLIC statements made
on June 20, 2014, during a PUBLIC presentation in Utah…
———————————————————————————
The Blue Ridge superintendent… he was drivin’ the UTV… he’s picking up the lookout… he’s getting his crew ready to bail out… he’s gathering them up… and he knows he’s gotta move his buggies and Granite Mountain’s buggies… so he’s multi-tasking through this process as he’s tryin’ to have this communication.
I will also say… that if he had not come around the corner at the time that he did… the lookout woulda been the first fatality.
Guaranteed.
There was NO place for that lookout to have safely deployed… and he was WAY too close when he decided to bail out from where the fire was.
———————————————————————————-
As for the strange references to Brendan’s photographs in the Arizona Forestry motion… the Arizona Forestry lawyers seem to have forgotten that according to even the UNREDACTED parts of Brian Frisby’s own handwritten Unit Log… the MOMENT he and Brendan reached that area where the GM Supt and Chase trucks were parked… Brian Frisby himself was so concerned about how CLOSE the fireline was and how FAST it was moving that he decided there was “no time to lose” and no time to just WAIT for the other Blue Ridge ‘drivers’ to reach that location.
Brian Frisby dropped Brendan off at the GM trucks and then IMMEDIATELY continued SOUTH in the Sesame area to expedite getting ‘drivers’ up there to the trucks… since because of the fire behavior… there really was “no time to lose”.
It was WHILE Brian Frisby was acting on these concerns of his about how CLOSE the fire was and how FAST it was approaching that Brendan took some of those iPhone ‘photographs’ of his… which the Arizona Forestry lawyers now seem to want to say represent some kind of PROOF that Brendan was never in ‘any danger’ that day. Quite the opposite, really… including the fact that some of Brendan’s photos are showing a ‘smoke whirl’ right there near the GM vehicles which is just one more indication of ‘extreme fire behavior’ rapidly approaching his location.
In SUMMARY…
Arizona Forestry’s claim to ALJ Judge Michael Mossesso that there is no ‘evidence’ that Brendan McDonough was ever in any ‘danger’ that afternoon is beyond ABSURD.
**
** CITATION 1 – ITEM 1(c) – Regarding near-entrapments in the Harper Canyon and Shrine Road Youth Camp area(s)…
Again… ADOSH Citation 1 – Item 1(c) says…
——————————————————————–
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.
——————————————————————–
That is the actual ‘Item 1(c)’ that the Arizona Forestry lawyers want Judge Mosesso to ‘dismiss’ outright… and HERE is their ( twisted ) reasoning at to WHY…
—————————————————————————————
IV. GRANTING THE MOTION TO DELETE CITATION 1, ITEM 1(C) WILL SIMPLIFY
THE ISSUES, EXPEDITE THE PROCEEDINGS, AND ACHIEVE JUSTICE.
In the same way ADOSH’s own investigation and records are devoid of any evidence that supports Citation 1, Item 1(b) ( that Brendan McDonough was in any danger ), ADOSH’s investigation and records also include zero evidence to support Citation 1, Item 1(c). Citation 1, Item 1(c) states that “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” ( Citation 1, Item 1(c) ). But, as discussed in the Motion to Delete Citation 1, Item 1(c), at the time of the alleged exposure, there were zero firefighters assigned to Division Z. So Citation 1, Item 1(c) is completely baseless.
—————————————————————————————-
Arizona Forestry is NOT asking Judge Mosesso to DISMISS Item 1(c) because there is no EVIDENCE that the firefighters in the Harper Canyon and Shrine Road Youth Camp areas were never in any real danger or that accounts and testimony from some of them about how they almost became entrapped are FALSE.
Arizona Forestry is asking Judge Mosesso to DISMISS Item 1(c) simply because the AZF attorneys say there is no proof that ‘thirty firefighters’ were ever officially ASSIGNED to ‘Division Zulu’.
The actual ADOSH Citation never says they were.
There is no mention of the word ‘assigned’ in the actual ADOSH Citation.
It only says these firefighters ‘continued indirect attack activities’ INSIDE of a geographic area of the fire that could be construed to be “Division Zulu”, based on what certain ‘fire management’ officials said in THEIR testimony.
The ADOSH citation doesn’t say they ( the thirty firefighters themselves ) ever even really KNEW they could be considered to be working INSIDE of this ‘Division Zulu’… much less had full knowledge as to whether they were officially ‘assigned’ to this ‘Division’.
But they were THERE… and they WERE ‘working in that area’ when ( according to their own testimony ) some of their lives became endangered that afternoon.
In SUMMARY…
Arizona Forestry’s claim to ALJ Judge Michael Mossesso that ‘Item 1(c)’ is ‘completely baseless’ just based on whether the firefighters whose lives were in REAL danger ever even KNEW they were ‘assigned to Division Z’ that day is beyond ABSURD.
It is the Arizona Forestry lawyer’s claims themselves that are “completely baseless”.
It will be interesting to see what Judge Mosesso’s response is to this nonsense.
The Disappeared DIV Z according to AZ Fire there was no DIV Z and all the close calls attributed to it
do not exist because DIV Z did not exist or have any manpower assigned.
This is an interesting twist in the ALJ Hearing File.
If the BR Hot shots and Cat were not working DIV Z then Were they DIV A or were they assigned to the house protection unit. There was a DIV Z with a DIVS that then left the DIVS position but BR Frisby was working on line to tie into GM line DIV A. There was a division line worked out.
The State is somehow trying to say that there were no crews that were in harms way in DIV Z because it did not exist. They want to drop the Fines for those crews.
Might have to dig a little deeper on this one. ADOSH Clamed a DIV Z and crews assigned.
The ADOSH report stated in ( 1.C ) that Approximately 30 Fire Fighters where exposed to Hazards in Division Z,
Looks like some serious game playing here, by Lawyers.
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 17, 2015 at 8:18 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> The ADOSH report stated in ( 1.C ) that Approximately 30 Fire
>> Fighters where exposed to Hazards in Division Z,
>>
>> Looks like some serious game playing here, by Lawyers.
‘Game playing’, fer sure… but I wouldn’t even call it ‘serious’ for the sole reason that this ‘motion’ trying to get ADOSH Citation 1 – Item 1(c) dismissed is a ‘joke’… and whoever drafted it for the Arizona Attorney General’s office has/had their head up their ass.
They didn’t even get the actual WORDING and/or INTENT of the ADOSH citation right.
ADOSH Citation 1 – Item 1(c) ACTUALLY says…
——————————————————————–
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.
——————————————————————–
Notice that the ADOSH Citation NEVER says ( one way or the other ) whether ANYONE was actually ‘assigned’ to ‘Division Z’.
It only says that ( according to other testimony from lots of other people )… it could simply be construed that they were ‘WORKING IN’ a geographical area of the fire that others in fire command were already calling ‘Division Z’.
So now here comes this ridiculous claim from Arizona Forestry…
——————————————————————————–
IV. GRANTING THE MOTION TO DELETE CITATION 1, ITEM 1(C)
WILL SIMPLIFY THE ISSUES, EXPEDITE THE PROCEEDINGS,
AND ACHIEVE JUSTICE.
In the same way ADOSH’s own investigation and records are
devoid of any evidence that supports Citation 1, Item 1(b) ( that
Brendan McDonough was in any danger ), ADOSH’s investigation
and records also include zero evidence to support Citation 1,
Item 1(c). Citation 1, Item 1(c) states that “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” ( Citation 1,
Item 1(c) ). But, as discussed in the Motion to Delete Citation
1, Item 1(c), at the time of the alleged exposure, there were
zero firefighters assigned to Division Z. So Citation 1, Item 1(c)
is completely baseless.
——————————————————————————–
Again… AT NO TIME does the ADOSH citation actually claim that the firefighters in question were either ‘officially’ ( or themselves had knowledge they were ) ASSIGNED to something called ‘Division Z’.
The ADOSH citation just says that happens to be the geographic location where they were actually working when they were unnecessarily exposed to hazards that day.
Arizona Forestry’s motion is NOT asking Judge Mosesso to DISMISS Item 1(c) because there is no EVIDENCE that the firefighters in the Shrine Youth Camp and Harper Canyon areas were never in any real danger or that accounts and testimony from some of them about how they almost became entrapped are FALSE.
Arizona Forestry is asking Judge Mosesso to DISMISS Item 1(c) simply because the AZF attorneys want to ‘play games’ here and say there is no proof that ‘thirty firefighters’ were ever officially ASSIGNED to ‘Division Zulu’.
It’s nonsense. What is ‘baseless’ here is THEIR argument.
As if that isn’t enough… ‘Arizona Forestry’ isn’t even contesting the OTHER ( separate ) ADOSH citation which found that the establishment of ‘Division Z’ that day… but then WITHOUT making sure the assigned ‘Division Z Supervisor’ ever even really ‘took charge’ of that Division and fulfilled his responsibilities that day was another cause for the ‘chaos’ in the geographic area of the fire… where fatalities almost ( and also did ) take place that day.
The whole thing with Rance Marquez being officially ‘assigned’ to be ‘DIVSZ SUP’ that day but then just ‘bailing out’ and ‘disappearing’ back to Peeples Valley for the rest of the day is a SEPARATE Citation issued by ADOSH.
Arizona Forestry is NOT contesting that one at all. Not yet, anyway.
So Arizona Forestry is then basically STIPULATING that there really WAS a ‘Division Z’ that day… and it had an assigned supervisor.
WHO actually did ( or didn’t ) know they were now WORKING in that Division and FOR that ‘Division Supervisor[‘ is now permanently part of the total screw-ups and the mis-management that was going down in Yarnell that day… which is why ADOSH issued the Citations.
This really is ‘amateur hour’ on the part of whoever drafted that motion on behalf of “Arizona Forestry”.
Correction for above…
When I said ( regarding the separate Citation about Rance Marquez )…
“Arizona Forestry is NOT contesting that one at all. Not yet, anyway.”
That isn’t true. Arizona Forestry IS ‘contesting’ that citation regarding Rance Marquez never fulfilling his assigned duties and responsibilities as DIVSZ.
Arizona Forestry is, in fact, contesting ALL the ADOSH Citations.
Every single one of them.
That’s the whole reason for this “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” proceeding.
“No one did anything wrong that day. Move along. Move along”.
What Arizona Forestry is NOT doing ( yet ) is asking Judge Mosesso for a ‘dispositive motion’ regarding the separate ‘DIVSZ’ citation.
dispositive motion = DISPOSE of the Citation even before they get to the evidentiary hearings in the case like they are asking for Citation 1, Items 1(b) and 1(c).
“In the same way ADOSH’s own investigation and records are
devoid of any evidence that supports Citation 1, Item 1(b) ( that
Brendan McDonough was in any danger ),”
BOTH HIKERS HERE BUT JOY REPLYING BELOW ABOUT OUR TIME:
I GUESS THEY FORGOT THE WEAVER MOUNTAIN EYEWITNESS HIKERS SAW THIS FIREFIGHTER THAT MORNING IN HIS LOCATION SO WE ARE “LIVING” EVIDENCE THAT THE FIREFIGHTERS IN THE AREA NOT JUST DONUT WERE IN DANGEROUS SPOT ESPECIALLY WHEN WE EYEWITNESS AND FILMED AND PHOTOGRAPHED HARPER CANYON GO UP IN 14 MINUTES. THAT IS WHEN I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND WHY SONNY SAID TO ME IF THE WIND CHANGES IT COULD KILL US. I DID NOT UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN HE SAID IT AND LEFT ME. I JUST SAT THERE BECAUSE I WAS SPENT AND HOT NOT BECAUSE I WAS MESMERIZED AS HE THINKS—I JUST DID NOT NOTE THE DANGER AS HE DID SO EARLY ON
Reply to The Hikers post on April 17, 2015 at 11:55 am
>> The Hikers said…
>>
>> “In the same way ADOSH’s own investigation and records are
>> devoid of any evidence that supports Citation 1, Item 1(b) ( that
>> Brendan McDonough was in any danger ),”
>>
>> BOTH HIKERS HERE BUT JOY REPLYING
>> WE ARE “LIVING” EVIDENCE THAT THE FIREFIGHTERS IN
>> THE AREA NOT JUST DONUT WERE IN DANGEROUS SPOT
This ‘motion’ that the Arizona Forestry lawyers have filed which is trying to establish that Brendan was ‘in no danger’ that day is patently ridiculous and represents nothing but ‘desperation’ and ‘amateur hour’ lawyering on their part.
They didn’t even read the frickin’ ADOSH Investigation report.
Page 19 of the ADOSH Inspection Narrative
———————————————————————
During the interview with McDonough, McDonough stated that he believes that had his escape been delayed for any number of reasons, he would have been faced with shelter deployment and burn-over.
———————————————————————
BOTH of Brendan’s ADOSH interview transcripts support this… but regardless of even that fact… the ADOSH Citation regarding Brendan’s potential entrapment situation was NOT solely based on what Brendan himself did or didn’t tell them. It was based on ALL the evidence regarding what actually happened ( and almost happened ) that day.
Brendan KNEW the danger he was in… which is WHY he was in the process of calling Blue Ridge to come and GET him at that same moment when Brian Frisby ACCIDENTALLY stumbled across him.
As if that wasn’t enough… the Arizona Forestry lawyers also apparently forgot to check with their ‘own man’… the actual Co-Lead of Arizona Forestry’s own sub-contracted SAIT investigation. ( Mike Dudley ).
SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley never had ANY doubts that if Brian Frisby hadn’t ‘accidentally’ stumbled across Brendan when he did… that Brendan would have most likely been the ‘first fatality’ that day.
Mike Dudley even used the word “Guaranteed”.
From SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley’s PUBLIC statements made on June 20, 2014, during a PUBLIC presentation in Utah…
———————————————————————–
The Blue Ridge superintendent… he was drivin’ the UTV… he’s picking
up the lookout… he’s getting his crew ready to bail out… he’s gathering
them up… and he knows he’s gotta move his buggies and Granite
Mountain’s buggies… so he’s multi-tasking through this process as
he’s tryin’ to have this communication.
I will also say… that if he had not come around the corner at the
time that he did… the lookout woulda been the first fatality.
Guaranteed.
There was NO place for that lookout to have safely
deployed… and he was WAY too close when he decided to
bail out from where the fire was.
————————————————————————
Arizona Forestry’s claim to ALJ Judge Michael Mossesso that there is no ‘evidence’ that Brendan McDonough was ever in any ‘danger’ that afternoon is ABSURD.
To define; THE HIKERS mean we are both present here.
In the photos and videos on 6-30-13 if any lawyer and investigator sat with us we can even pinpoint in video the area of all the firefighters and people we saw locations
Joy says on video live that day how many she saw if any of you listened
The hikers know exact location of people and vehicles and also the timing of off road vehicles on old grader road yet not any official investigators except OSHA inquired and walked the walk…
State and Forest and anyone else never yet took hike to see what the eyewitness hikers to the YHF saw on the Weavers that day. Prescott Mayor made comment to do it but never did. Same as some lawyers. I would of thought Joanna Dodder Nellans would of took the hike with as much coverage she has done and being the very first media person to have access to the photos and videos. She was the one who told us to go to Prescott fire station when we did not get a welcomed feeling once we arrived there. That was my first red flag but I just coughed it up as they just faced a huge loss and their thoughts are elsewhere but I never felt they even wanted access to the photos and videos.
‘
We did not see the bulldozer actually physically parked below the old mine between the old grader and the old mine on 6-30-13 yet there was a bulldozed area to park that was not there before this fire so that is where DIV Z was suppose to be up at, correct? WHO bulldozed that spot? It is not in reports we saw. Can you lead us to the records of who that person that made those tracks? Joy asked the FOIA for Glen Ilah area for the Hunter family and I guess we should have for all areas.
Reply to The Hikers post on April 17, 2015 at 11:13 am
>> The Hikers said…
>>
>> We did not see the bulldozer actually physically parked below
>> the old mine between the old grader and the old mine
>> on 6-30-13 yet there was a bulldozed area to park that was
>> not there before this fire so that is where DIV Z was suppose to
>> be up at, correct?
Field OPS1 Todd Abel testified that DIVSA Eric Marsh called him ( via cellphone ) and said that while he and DIVSZ Rance Marquez had, in fact, had some initial ‘disagreements’…. they eventually AGREED that the ‘Division boundary’ between ‘Division A’ and ‘Division Z’ would be the ‘old grader’.
So from that moment on ( circa 12:45 PM )… that meant that a ‘north-to-south’ boundary between the Divisions had been agreed upon… and the top level Operations Supervisor on the fire had been fully informed about it.
By north-to-south boundary… that means that all fire units and resources working to the WEST of the ‘old grader’ were to be considered working in ‘Division A’ ( Eric Marsh’s Division )… and all fire units and resources working to the EAST of the ‘old grader’ were to be considered working in ‘Division Z’ ( Rance Marquez’s Division ).
Notice that I say just ‘considered to be WORKING in’.
That doesn’t meant all fire units and resources were ever officially ASSIGNED to this ‘Division Z’ that was suddenly created in the middle of the working day.
Indeed… most of the people working for Structure Protection Group 1 Supervisor Gary Cordes there in and around Yarnell were never aware at all that this ‘Division Z’ had even been created… and that their own ‘Division Supervisor’ was now some guy named Rance Marquez.
That is one of the specific Citations that was issued by ADOSH with regards to that ‘unsafe workplace’ there in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
ADOSH found that this confusion over ‘Division Z’, and DIVSZ supervisor Rance Marquez’s own failure to actually physically remain in Yarnell and PERFORM his ‘DIVSZ’ duties was a contributing factor to the chaos and the resulting potential and actual entrapment situations later in the day.
ADOSH also cited ‘fire management’ ( Incident Commander and Operations Level people ) in general for not making SURE that once this ‘Division Z’ was created/established… that it WAS being properly supervised and managed.
Even Field Operations Manager Todd Abel testified that he had no idea where his own ‘Division Z’ Supervisor was for most of the day… and he never really lifted a finger to even find out.
Field OPS1 Todd Abel’s contacts on the the SOUTH side of the fire were DIVSA Eric Marsh and SPGS1 Gary Cordes… and that was ( apparently ) good enough for him all day long.
Field OPS1 Todd Abel did not CARE that a ‘Division Z’ had actually been established… but no one was actually ‘running’ that established ‘Division’.
>> The Hikers also said…
>>
>> WHO bulldozed that spot? It is not in reports we saw. Can you
>> lead us to the records of who that person that made those tracks?
It is still basically a total mystery WHERE that bulldozer with the 12 foot blade they were using that morning actually CAME from… or WHO the operator was.
It was ‘supposedly’ ordered up the night before from a company called ‘May Machinery’… but it might actually have ended up a ‘County’ dozer loaned out use on the fire.
It was SUPPOSED to have come with a red-card capable manager… but did NOT.
It ONLY came with a ‘dozer operator’ whose NAME is still totally unknown.
He did NOT have a ‘red-card’… OR even have a working handheld radio.
That is why Blue Ridge Hotshot Cory Ball had to be assigned to the dozer ( he had a red-card ) and why Blue Ridge had to loan that operator a radio.
The lo-boy trailer for that bulldozer was parked out there in that clearing at the south end of the ‘Sesame clearing’ area… right past the point where the paved parts of Both Lakewood and Manazanita end and it turns in to that dirt road.
That is also where it is assumed this mysterious dozer operator had to ‘ride out the burnover’ in either the cab of the bulldozer or the cab of the lo-boy trailer.
DPS Ranger 58 Helicopter crew testimony says there were TOLD that they were also supposed to be ‘searching’ for this ‘missing’ dozer operator along with the ‘missing’ Granite Mountain crew.
It is still unknown WHO told the DPS Officers to also be ‘searching’ for the ‘missing’ bulldozer operator following the deployment radio traffic.
It could have been SPGS1 Gary Cordes, or OPS1 Todd Abel, or even OPS2 Paul Musser ( who was now the second active Field OPS on the fire ).
We still don’t know.
This mysterious bulldozer operator was NEVER interviewed by ANY set of investigators… even though he was actively being ‘searched for’ along with Granite Mountain that day.
**
** BRENDAN MCDONOUGH NO LONGER WORKS FOR THE
** WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER FOUNDATION
About 8 hours ago, the following article appeared in the “The Idaho Statesman”.
It looks like that “Wildland Firefighter Foundation” owned and operated by Vicki Minor and her son Burk is going to survive all the latest bad press about how they have been handling all the money that showed up following the Yarnell Tragedy.
But they will be doing it WITHOUT Brendan McDonough remaining ‘on staff’ for them.
The Idaho Statesman
Article Title: Wildland Firefighter Foundation makes changes following financial criticism
Published: April 16, 2015, by Rocky Barker
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/04/16/3753740/wildland-firefighter-foundation.html
From the article…
———————————————————————————–
The harsh words from some of the surviving family members of fallen firefighters about the Wildland Firefighter Foundation weren’t easy to hear for Vicki Minor, the executive director and founder of the group that is dedicated to helping them.
I reported in February that critics and former board members said the foundation has grown too fast and had too few controls in place to ensure proper spending. But it was the view of some family members that they were treated poorly or forgotten that was tough on the Boise woman who has dedicated more than 16 years to help firefighters’ families through their grief.
An independent review conducted by Boise consultant Karyn Wood for the foundation’s board confirmed many of the shortcomings I reported in February. There was a lack of clear policies and there was little oversight on expenses, reporting on how they gave money to firefighter survivors and clarity about how the money they raised was spent.
———————————–
Whoops… I hit ‘send’ too early on the post above.
Forgot to include the part of the article that says Brendan McDonough has (quote) “moved on” and is no longer employed by this ‘Wildland Firefighter Foundation’.
The article doesn’t say WHEN Brendan ‘moved on’… only that he has.
More from the same article…
——————————————————————————–
John Henshaw, a retired Forest Service manager from California and chairman of the board, said it has taken the recommendations seriously and intends to put them in place in the next six months.
Already Minor has hired an additional administrative assistant to help with the increased documentation the board has demanded. She’s in the process of hiring a chief financial officer, as recommended, and she plans to hire another person to help provide services to the survivors and injured firefighters.
That will bring staffing up to seven since Brendan McDonough, the only Granite Mountain Hotshot to survive the 2013 Yarnell Fire, has moved on.
——————————————————————————–
Followup…
As of February 11, 2015 ( about 2 months ago ) the “Wildland Firefighter Foundation” was still claiming that Brendan McDonough worked for them and one of his jobs was to help other victims with post-incident PTSD.
Here is that original “Idaho Statesmen” article about their ‘investigation’ of the “Wildland Firefighter Foundation”…
The Idaho Statesman
Article Title: Western residents have questioned a family-run Boise
foundation, forcing an independent review
Published: February 11, 2015 by Rocky Barker
http://www.idahostatesman.com/2015/02/11/3638949_charity-helps-families-but-also.html?rh=1
From that original February 11, 2015 article…
—————————————————————————–
The Idaho Statesman conducted its own investigation of the foundation, examining tax records for the past 12 years and talking to people who have worked with or been served by the foundation.
The newspaper found that in 2013, fueled by the publicity surrounding the Granite Mountain Hotshot deaths, the foundation raised $2,023,410 while spending $469,305 in benefits and other services to families, according to its filing with the Internal Revenue Service. It spent $339,973 on employee salaries, compensation and benefits. The rest went to other expenses and a big chunk to a reserve that can’t be spent without board approval, said Treasurer Cheryl Molis. She declined to say how much.
Today, the association has five full-time employees, including Brendan McDonough, the only Granite Mountain Hotshot to survive the Yarnell Fire. The $339,973 on employee costs for 2013 was an increase of $194,140 over 2012. Vicki Minor’s pay went from $68,999 in 2012 to $108,609 in 2013.
—————————————————————————-
Correction?
I’m actually now not sure the title of the post above shouldn’t have had a QUESTION MARK on the end of it.
I can find no announcement from the “Wildland Firefighter’s Association” itself to the effect that Brendan McDonough has “moved on” and no longer works for them.
Brendan McDonough is NOT listed as a “Staff Member” on the WFF website… but then again… I don’t believe he ever actually HAS appeared anywhere on their “Staff” page.
I suppose it is actually possible that reporter Rocky Barker for the Idaho Statesman screwed up in the article he published TODAY… and when he said Brendan has “moved on” he might *actually* have been referring to Brendan having “moved on” from being a firefighter way back when ( shortly after the Yarnell trafedy ) and that he is still considered to be “on staff” at the Wildland Firefighter’s Association.
Still checking to see if I can find any verification as to whether McDonough still ‘works’ there… or not.
Followup to followup…
Back in early September of 2014, the following “Brendan McDonough Healing Center” page appeared on Facebook… sponsored by the “Wildland Firefighters Foundation”…
HEALING RETREAT CENTER
For Mr. Brendan McDonough and the Wildland Firefighter Foundation
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Brendan-McDonough-Healing-Center/1444027372536748
That page has now been REMOVED from Facebook.
Not sure what that means.
At the following link… someone is still publishing a ‘screen capture’ of what that “Brendan McDonough Healing Center” page USED to look like on Facebook when the page was still ‘available’.
That screen snapshot is about halfway down the page at the following link.
If you simply use the ‘Find’ option in your Browser and search for “Brendan” your Browser will jump right down to it…
http://stopusdawsabuse.blogspot.com/
This is certainly not a criticism of Brendan, as I have repeatedly in the past been one who has advised that I think we should back-off of him a bit.
I still think that.
Having said that, in regards to his employment with the WFF Foundation to help others who have PTSD, I would think it would be nearly, or totally impossible for one who was awash in his own PTSD to be able to logically help others with their’s. If those were his intentions though, they were honorable.
I think considering all of the factors involved, it was almost a given that he was a very strong candidate for survivor”s guilt, and/or PTSD, and with his recent inquiry to the City, that seems to be the case. The recent court filings indicate that he has someone working with him on these issues.
I can only hope that his departure from both, the City, and the WFF Foundation were at his request and that he isn’t repeatedly getting flushed by those who say they are “on his side”.
We all want the truth put out there, sooner, rather than later. but, I still think that he is working through some HUGE issues, not the least of which, is his likely belief that speaking the truth will betray his allegiance to some of his brothers, perhaps dishonoring them, the fallout from which, could last for years.
Putting that out there would be a tall order, even if one didn’t have PTSD.
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive ( TTWARE ) post
on April 16, 2015 at 8:51 pm
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> I can only hope that his departure from both, the City, and the
>> WFF Foundation were at his request and that he isn’t repeatedly
>> getting flushed by those who say they are “on his side”.
Totally agree… but I have to repeat that I now think I should have put a QUESTION MARK at the end of the title of that post above.
As of this moment… I can’t CONFIRM that Brendan has “moved on” from the WFF job as the article above seems to be saying he has.
Until I can CONFIRM what this Rocky Barker guy with the Idaho Statesman said in his article today… there is still the *possibility* that this guy misspoke and when he said “Brendan has moved on”… he was actually referring to Brendan having “moved on” from Wildland Firefighting shortly after the tragedy.
That being said… I also have to agree with your other comment…
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> In regards to his employment with the WFF Foundation to help
>> others who have PTSD, I would think it would be nearly, or totally
>> impossible for one who was awash in his own PTSD to be able
>> to logically help others with their’s.
Have to agree. I am no therapist, or even a counselor or social worker, but it doesn’t take a degree in psychology to realize it is NOT a good idea to have someone who seems to be officially diagnosed with their own PTSD ( and being actively treated for it ) being the “go to” guy for a Foundation and the one trying to help OTHERS deal with a tragic event in THEIR lives.
>> TTWARE also said…
>>
>> I think considering all of the factors involved, it was almost a given
>> that he was a very strong candidate for survivor”s guilt, and/or
>> PTSD, and with his recent inquiry to the City, that seems to be
>> the case. The recent court filings indicate that he has someone
>> working with him on these issues.
Speaking of the “recent court filings”… it was actually TOTALLY unprofessional ( and a possible violation of actual HIPPA laws ) for those Arizona Forestry lawyers to use Brendan’s ( supposed ) medical condition to just try and bolster their claims in a ‘motion’ filing to try and get what they want out of a Judge.
Those Arizona Forestry attorneys KNOW that, according to Arizona law, these ‘motions’ they are filing with ALJ Judge Michael Mosesso WILL be appearing ( on a timely basis ) in a PUBLIC setting… for anyone to read.
For them to just ‘announce’ that Brendan really does have a diagnosed medical condition, and he is ACTIVELY receiving treatment for it from a therapist… just to try and ‘sway’ a Judge to give them something they want… is really ‘off the reservation’ and they MIGHT be subject to ‘sanctions’ for such (stupid) behavior.
If they really needed to notify the Judge in this proceeding that a possible diagnosed medical condition on the part of a key witness in the case is going to heavily influence the proceedings… they did NOT have to plaster that all over a ‘motion filing’ for all the world to see.
There were/are other ways that information could have been relayed to the Judge in the case more ‘discreetly’… and with more care/concern for Brendan’s situation.
Especially since this ‘dispositive motion’ they are trying to push down the Judge’s throat is already complete and utter bullshit. They want the Judge to dismiss Item 1(b) of ADOSH Citation 1 just because they are trying to claim there is no evidence that Brendan was ever in any actual ‘danger’ that day.
The Co-Lead of Arizona Forestry’s own sub-contracted SAIT investigation ( Mike Dudley ) has ALREADY stated ( in PUBLIC ) that if BR Supt Brian Frisby had not ACCIDENTALLY stumbled across Brendan that afternoon and ‘rescued’ him… that Brendan would have been the (quote) “First fatality that day Guaranteed”.
>> TTWARE also said…
>>
>> We all want the truth put out there, sooner, rather than later. but, I
>> still think that he is working through some HUGE issues, not the
>> least of which, is his likely belief that speaking the truth will betray
>> his allegiance to some of his brothers, perhaps dishonoring them,
>> the fallout from which, could last for years.
Sorry. I just don’t buy that.
For all the following reasons…
1) We KNOW now that Brendan HIMSELF has asked any number of people that he be allowed to ‘get this off his chest’. He, HIMSELF, seems to instinctively KNOW that he needs to get this ‘monkey off his back’ before he can fully heal.
2) Brendan has stated any number of times that HE believes what happened that day was “just an accident”… and that it has “happened before”… and that he has (quote) “Never questioned their decisions before, why should I question them now?” If he REALLY believes those statements HE has (already) made… then there is NO reason for him to even think he is ‘dishonoring’ ANYONE by telling the TRUTH about what really happened that day.
3) MOST of the FAMILIES of ‘his brothers’ have stated over and over and over again that they WANT to know the TRUTH… no matter what it is. They have even filed lawsuits with the expressed intent of accomplishing that. If Brendan can’t see that withholding the information he has always had is hurting the very loved ones of “his brothers”… then he has MORE than just PTSD and he really DOES need professional help.
I am still not convinced ( especially after seeing how easily the Arizona Forestry lawyers will stoop to using someone’s medical condition to try and get what THEY want ) that Brendan isn’t still just involved in too many OTHER people’s damn AGENDAS.
Now that we KNOW there is a ‘therapist’ involved… then WHO is it?
Is it just one MORE person associated with the ‘Fire Service’ who may or may not have their OWN damn agenda here?
Federal WFF Employees are actually ‘entitled’ to have paid-for sessions for PTSD with a ‘therapist’… but it has to be someone ‘contracted’ and/or ‘approved’ by the U.S. Forestry Service.
Brendan wasn’t ‘Federal’… but is it a similar situation?
Whoever his ‘therapist’ is ( right now ) might have some ‘ties’ to the either Arizona State Forestry or the U.S. Forestry Service… and he’s getting his ‘help’ ( cough, cough ) for free THAT way?
WTKTT – This is a very minor detail, but I know you are a stickler for those, so FYI…the word “Forestry” is commonly used is the titles of state forestry departments but it is the U.S. Forest Service. And I know when you say Forestry Service, it is like nails on a chalkboard for Forest Service employees (and even some former FS employees or USDA-Forest Service employees). I never stopped working for the USFS, they just stopped paying me.
Thank you, Gary. Yes. Very confusing… so forgive me now ( and in the future ) if I get confused about what ALL the different people who work for agencies that have the word “Forestry’ in their title actually like to call themselves.
In this case… I really could care less who is or isn’t annoyed.
What I’d like to know NOW is…
Since some stupid, unprofessional lawyers that work for the Arizona Attorney General’s office ( and are ‘tasked’ with representing ‘Arizona Forestry’ against ADOSH ) have unnecessarily broadcasted that a key witness in the case has a diagnosed medical treatment… and his ‘therapist’ is actually influencing the case proceedings…
…then WHO is that ‘therapist’ now ‘influencing the proceedings’?
Is it…
1) A ‘private’ therapist that has no association with any agency that has the word ‘Forestry’ or ‘Fire’ in their title… and he/she is working for Brendan ‘pro bono’ like (apparently) his lawyer ( Shapiro ) is?
2) A ‘therapist’ that has been ASSIGNED and/or CHOSEN for Brendan by some ‘agency’ and that ‘agency’ is footing the bill?
3) A ‘therapist’ who may or may not be associated with any ‘agency’ that has the word ‘Forestry’ or ‘Fire’ in its title… but IS associated with one of the ‘legal teams’… and that ‘legal team’ is ‘footing the bill’ for Brendan’s ‘therapy’?
4) A ‘therapist’ directly associated with Vicki Minor’s “Wildland Firefighter Foundation” and the bill for this ‘therapist’ is being paid through some ’employer/employee’ benefit situation?
5) None of the above?
It is the unprofessional behavior of the Arizona Forestry lawyers that has now made it common knowledge that this ‘therapist’ is the one who caused Brendan’s already-scheduled and arranged deposition to be ‘cancelled’ back on February 26.
Thanks to them… this ‘therapist’ him/herself has now become ‘part of the story’ that is playing out.
So at some point… the actual ‘affiliations’ and/or ‘loyalties’ of this ‘therapist’ him/herself needs to also become ‘part of the story’.
Once again… here is that single sentence from the recently published ALJ Hearing documents which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this mysterious ‘therapist’ is now having a direct influence on the progress of the “Arizona Forestry versus ADOSH” legal proceedings…
————————————————————
The parties had to postpone the deposition because Mr. McDonough’s therapist stated that it would adversely affect the therapist’s work and progress with Mr. McDonough.
————————————————————
Notice that there is NO mention there that ‘the parties’ even bothered to consult with Brendan McDonough himself about this.
It was/is the THERAPIST ‘running the show’.
Okay. Fine. Whatever.
So WHO IS this ‘therapist’ now ‘running the show’?
What are his/her credentials?
What are his/her affiliations and/or loyalties?
Who is PAYING this therapist?
Yes, I did contact OSHA with some additional information that is already in file but pointed it out in regards to recent topics.
Who are OSHA’s lawyers?
They left a fantastic detail message…thank you whoever you were but as many know my cell to retrieve messages come out spaced and choppy. Better to email so I get clear message.
I just pass Sonny as he types away on Brendan.
I saw again my name and he wrote I was excited about the fire storm and I said I watched it and not in excitement like fireworks; ugh.
Not accurate.
Again, long hikes that week.
I was tired and spent.
We had alerted everyone on the hill about the fire.
I was at ease watching the fire.
I did not see the danger like Sonny.
Sonny is really a rugged mountain man and knows storms and lightning and fires by life experiences and I did not see the harm when he took off the longer way because at 1:11pm I felt I had plenty of time to get to the cattle pond than to McCrary’s than to Foothill UNTIL we saw videos and it covers a fire over by McCrary and Paul Silvia’s so nowadays I want more aerial footage from 1-4pm in that area to determine my own danger as Sonny feels we were in danger I stand strong saying I need more fact based information before I share such a detail.
I saw video but I need a time stamp on that video and very very curious HOW that fire began by Paul Silvia, very curious. So curious I hope the person out there reading this understands my curiosity on it. That does not add up. Hearing homeowners accounts do not add up to SAIR. Another odd thing, not one of these lawyers or investigators hiked even the community with us where we can point out where and who we saw these accounts from…I mean if I am investigating it I want every tiny detail…
WTKT covered Donut well. Certainly a counselor would want him to get the truth out there so he could relieve the pressure of knowing he is doing a great disservice to his fellow firefighters by keeping back the truth of what he knows about the fire. Keeping vital information to this investigation hidden in his sub conscious mind will only haunt his psyche and may even evidence itself in other illnesses. I do have a BA in psychology and masters in religion backed by two years of graduate studies in counseling and educational psychology. Whew would I ever advise to get these things off his back–the sooner the better. Yes some will be badly hurt by the facts, especially those who know it and want it hidden; however, the honoralble thing will benefit the majority of the loved ones and even more crucial is the fact it will show the errors that were committed in this atrocity.
Joy’s shirt logo says “Change the ways they fight wildfires” and “remember 6-30-13”. She has that right, and to sweep the truth under the rug here is bound to cost lives, money and resources if future methods alike what we saw in the Yarnell hoot-nanny.
Joy did call OSHA and received thanks from their attorneys. Donut was indeed in dire danger even before we left the fire scene from the location he was planted at during the time we were there on the two track, I think he did not, or someone did not know how much danger he was in but from where he was below the grader on that little hill in Harper Canyon.
What I saw when that fire exploded not far from him should have been a signal to get out of harms way in a hurry, yet he had determined to go to the old grader spot, I suppose because it has some clearing–perhaps 30 ft. at most around it. Well that was not enough since the old dried rubber on that old grader caught fire from the intense heat coming from beyond the 30 foot clearing. Old tin cans that were lead sealed near the clearing had the lead melted from the seal, so if that ATV had not appeared, Donut would have been among the deceased.
Oddly, we witnessed a wildfire that no amount of ground pounders could have stopped, yet neither Donut nor those men seemed to sense the danger they were in. Even Joy had her boots off watching the fire storm when I returned to retrieve her from where I hoped she would still be. Maybe the site was too much like the fireworks you see in big cities–mesmerizing. Add the heat of the day and stress of exhaustion and Dr. Ted Putnam’s expressions of the psychological factors in firefighting come to light. It certainly stands to reason that had those men been of sober thinking that day, no amount of cajoling or strict adherence to the wild fire sign that says to be a hot shot you must “strictly obey orders” have caused them to go down there.
Strictly Obey Orders meant to disobey all safety rules in this case and caused their deaths. Who gave those strict orders remains in question at this time, yet Sonny here believes that Marsh and Steed were lower men on the chain of command. When Nixon denied any order involving the White Water incident, or Obama in the latest episode of passing the buck, it is obvious they were covering their tracks
Hear now:. Dead men don’t talk–yet they do.
Reply to Sonny post on April 17, 2015 at 11:46 am
>> Sonny said…
>>
>> WTKT covered Donut well. Certainly a counselor would
>> want him to get the truth out there so he could relieve
>> the pressure of knowing he is doing a great disservice
>> to his fellow firefighters by keeping back the truth of
>> what he knows about the fire.
Well… what we CERTAINLY know now ( thanks to the unprofessional behavior of the Arizona Forestry lawyers ) is that THIS particular ‘therapist’ ( whoever he or she really is ) definitely did NOT want his/her client ( Brendan ) to “get the truth out” back on February 26, 2015.
We also know for CERTAIN ( due to recent mainstream media articles ), that back in the last part of 2014… Brendan McDonough himself very much DID want to “get the truth out” and he wanted all these people who keep pretending to be his “friends” and “advisers” to help him do that the the RIGHT and PROPER way ( via a sworn deposition ).
So somewhere between November 26 of 2014 and just prior to February 26, 2015 ( just 90 days )… everything changed… and it appears to all be on the advice of just one mysterious ‘therapist’.
>> Sonny also wrote…
>>
>> Keeping vital information to this investigation hidden in
>> his subconscious mind will only haunt his psyche and
>> may even evidence itself in other illnesses. I do have a
>> BA in psychology and masters in religion backed by
>> two years of graduate studies in counseling and
>> educational psychology.
>>
>> Whew would I ever advise to get these things off his
>> back–the sooner the better.
I have none of those ‘degrees’… and I am in no position to tell any ‘therapist’ how they are supposed to do THEIR job… but I, myself, would still like to see the reasoning on the part of any ( supposed ) therapist as to why it would NOT be a good idea for Brendan to tell “the whole TRUTH, and nothing BUT the TRUTH”… as he should have done in the first place… and as he has recently said he WANTS to do.
That is what we are being asked to believe, now.
That some (supposedly?) licensed and trained therapist does NOT think it is a good idea to let his/her client do what they have already SAID they WANT to do.
It begs the questions… WHO is this ‘therapist’ now actually controlling the agenda of an Arizona legal proceeding… and WHAT are his/her ‘affiliations’ and or ‘loyalties’ in this matter?
Is this ‘therapist’ associated, in any way, with either the Prescott Fire Department, Arizona Forestry, or even the U.S. Forestry Service?
Is Brendan McDonough REALLY getting the competent, independent professional help he needs at this point… or is the poor guy still buried up to his neck in OTHER people’s AGENDAS?
>> Sonny also said…
>>
>> Yes some will be badly hurt by the facts, especially those
>> who know it and want it hidden; however, the honorable
>> thing will benefit the majority of the loved ones and even
>> more crucial is the fact it will show the errors that were
>> committed in this atrocity.
There can be no full LEARNING without the TRUTH.
The families of most of ‘the fallen’ know that… and have stated over and over and over again that they want to know the full TRUTH… no matter what it is. They have gone to great trouble to file lawsuits with the specific expressed intent of ‘discovering’ the TRUTH.
To ignore THEIR wishes is to be truly ( and actively ) ‘dishonoring the fallen’.
In a little conversation WTKTT and I were having regarding Native American thinking and physics downstream, WTKTT wrote:
“The ‘physicist’ in me is very aware of all that.
One of the most fundamental beliefs in most Native American religious belief systems is that we ( you, I, every living thing ) are not ‘separate’ from the environment we find ourselves in… we are, indeed, PART of it.”
This little conversation led me back into re-membering where I had my mind turned around regarding the significance of the fact that Native Americans (and possibly most other indigenous people) don’t have nouns (i.e.) THINGS in their vocabulary, thus in their worldview. Which is why they are in dialogue with physicists these days.
For three years I participated in this thing called SEED. It evolved out of conversations that took place in the early 1990s between some physicists and some Native Americans who were really interested/involved in SCIENCE.
SEED eventually located itself in Albuquerque. And, thus I participated in its annual conferences for three years, beginning in 2002. I can’t remember whether it was the 2002 gathering or the 2003 gathering, but one of them was either in the shadow of either 911 or the invasion of Iraq, which became “the question” we applied ourselves to. It was really quite intense.
Anyway, I went wandering off into YouTube today to see if I could find anything related to it. I did.
I am going to post some of the videos I found, in which this whole arena regarding the differences between, and also the dialogue between, Native American thinkers and scientists (especially physicists) are relatively succinctly described.
I’m doing this here for two reasons.
One of them is related to how I have been viewing this fire. As I have been watching these videos and thinking about how my involvement in SEED had a huge impact in my own thinking, I have been realizing how much my process of “modeling” this fire in my own head is influenced by what I learned via SEED.
The other reason is that, as I have been wandering around this whole thing over the past year, I have become more and more aware of how important have been the contributions of Native Americans in both fighting wildfires and working towards mitigating them in advance.
One of the things I really want to do this year is to study that even more. So as I watched some of the SEED videos today, I kept thinking, hmmmmmmm, is it possible that that different way of perceiving the Universe and the way things flux within it, might be worth paying attention to in the realm of handling the role of fire on the landscape and also corralling the ponies when they get out of control?
The first video I’m posting is a 21-minute talk by a man named Leroy Little Bear. He was one of the co-founders of SEED. He is Blackfeet, Canadian. In this talk he relatively consisely describes what I think is at the heart of this conversation that is known as SEED.
Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science: Dr. Leroy Little Bear Talk
“Published on Jan 14, 2015
Indigenous academic Leroy Little Bear compares the foundational base of Blackfoot knowledge to quantum physics to an attentive audience at The Banff Centre as part of the Indigenous Knowledge and Western Science: Contrasts and Similarities event.
Leroy Little Bear is a member of the Blood Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy. He has served as a legal and constitutional advisor to the Assembly of First Nations and has served on many influential committees, commissions, and boards dealing with First Nations issues. He is a faculty member of Indigenous Leadership and Management at The Banff Centre.
Little Bear has written several articles and co-edited three books including Pathways to Self-Determination: Canadian Indians and the Canadian State (1984), Quest for Justice: Aboriginal Peoples and Aboriginal Rights (1985), and Governments in Conflict and Indian Nations in Canada (1988). Little Bear is also contributor to Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision (UBC Press, 2000). He has maintained a lifelong professional interest in the philosophy of science, especially theoretical physics, from a First Nations perspective.”
https://youtu.be/gJSJ28eEUjI
The next video I am posting is an interview with a Native
American scientist by the name of Phillip Duran, who also talks about the differences/similarities in Native-American and European-American thinking and science.
Phillip Duran at the SEED Language of Spirit Conference
“Uploaded on Apr 8, 2011
Video presented by the Foundation for Global Humanity (http://www.f4gh.org/home). Albuquerque based SEED Graduate Institute has hosted a meeting of the minds between quantum physicists, Native American scholars, and linguists to discuss the underlying principles of the Universe, based on a mutual respect for their differences in worldviews. The format followed the late David Bohm’s work “On Dialogue”.
Phillip H. Duran, descendent of the Tigua Indians (not enrolled), earned B.S. and M.S. degrees at the University of Texas at El Paso, where he also conducted physics research, developed computer software, and taught courses in physics, mathematics, computer assembler language, and computer science. He currently resides in Rio Rancho, NM as an independent author, lecturer, and consultant. He is Vice President of the board of directors of Hamaatsa, a Native non-profit organization, assisting in the establishment of an eco-retreat center and indigenous learning model whose purpose is to promote spiritural wholeness and healing systems from traditional cultures and to revive indigenous life-ways and sustainable land stewardship principles for restoring our world.”
https://youtu.be/4W_5u6gRJpI
The next video I am posting is from that of a Non-Native-American by the name of Matthew Bronson, who speaks of how these interactions via SEED have impacted his thinking. There is a longer 2-part video available of this, but I’m posting the shorter, more succinct one.
Matthew Bronson interview at SEED Language of Spirit Conference
“Uploaded on Jun 18, 2010
Video presented by the Foundation for Global Humanity (http://www.f4gh.org). Albuquerque based SEED Graduate Institute has hosted a meeting of the minds between quantum physicists, Native American scholars, and linguists to discuss the underlying principles of the Universe, based on a mutual respect for their differences in worldviews. The format followed the late David Bohm’s work “On Dialogue”.
Matthew C. Bronson, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology and Director of Academic Assessment at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He is also a teacher educator at the University of California, Davis specializing in preparing high school teachers to respond to linguistic and cultural diversity.”
https://youtu.be/aNZThSgDDJE
And, finally, I am posting a much long speech given by Leroy Little Bear, at the Heard Museum in 2011 (published by Arizona State University) in which he goes into MUCH greater detail about the topics he discussed in the video above.
Leroy Little Bear: Native Science and Western Science (Video)
“The Library Channel is pleased to present the seventh installment of The Simon Ortiz and Labriola Center Lecture on Indigenous Land, Culture, and Community. Leroy Little Bear, Head of the SEED Graduate Institute, former Director of the American Indian Program at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus of Native Studies at the University of Lethbridge delivers his lecture Native Science and Western Science: Possibilities for a Powerful Collaboration.
Professor Little Bear believes now is the time for a collaboration between “Western Science” and “Indigenous Knowledge.” In the lecture he discusses the tenants or foundation of Indigenous thought and compares them to the Western paradigm. It is time to tap Indigenous knowledge as native languages can explain things that are paradoxes in English – such as “dynamics without motion” where Indigenous language explains nature without depending on the other language of math.
………
Delving even further he discusses the holistic, Native paradigm where everything is in flux (moving, changing) existing in energy waves. The energy waves are referred to as spirit. Everything is animate – so everything has spirit and is related. In that flux there are regular patterns that humans seek out to renew and sustain themselves.”
https://lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/2011/05/16/ep114_littlebear
There is a Blackfeet Interagency Hotshot Crew based in Browning, Montana, near Glacier National Park.
Fire Warriors. Chief Mountain Hot Shots. Directed by Darren Kipp
“Published on May 13, 2014
Fire Warriors. The film crew from 360 Degree Films spends 21 days on the fire line with the Chief Mountain Hot Shots from the Blackfeet Indian Nation during the most dangerous fire season in recorded history. The Chief Mountain Hot Shots are recognized as one of the best wild land fire fighting crews in the United States. The project brought together filmmakers George Burdeau, Robert DeMarce, Jeff Gritz, Andy George, Greg Ives, Darren Kipp, and Sam Mowry. Instrumental in the development of the project was legendary filmmaker Phil Lucas. Fire Warriors documents the strength and hard work of the Chief Mountain Hot Shots and is dedicated to all the fire fighters who never give up.”
https://youtu.be/Mg2hVB8llcs
Looks like more legal papers have shown up in the ALJ hearing file.
The State and ADOSH legal arguments.
Also the State wants to drop the portion on McDonough so he will not have to testify
some due to his mental state.
Sounds like the tribunal is making no headway in any agreements.
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 15, 2015 at 1:30 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Looks like more legal papers have shown up in the ALJ hearing file.
Direct link to the new document ( posted just a few hours ago )…
Filename: “2015_04 Updated 04.13.15.pdf”
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6N47Z5CNR-CbkFYZ3FlQ1ptNEU/edit?pli=1
The file was created 2 days ago… but only ‘uploaded’ today.
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Also the State wants to drop the portion on McDonough so he will not have
>> to testify some due to his mental state.
Yes… but they are only seeking to ‘minimize’ what he has to testify to.
They are still acknowledging that his testimony is important.
We also now finally learn WHY the already-scheduled February 26, 2015 under-oath deposition was cancelled. ( Actually… the lawyers now just say it has been ‘postponed’,
meaning they still plan on re-scheduling it ).
It was because McDonough’s therapist didn’t want it to happen.
From the document itself…
———————————————————————————-
According to counsel for Mr. McDonough and Mr. McDonough’s therapist,
Mr. McDonough is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”)
arriving out of his involvement and survival of the Fire. Mr. McDonough’s
deposition was scheduled previously, but the parties had to postpone
the deposition because Mr. McDonough’s therapist stated that it would
adversely affect the therapist’s work and progress with Mr. McDonough.
Mr. McDonough’s testimony is important, but the extent to which he
must recount the events surrounding the Fire should be minimized.
———————————————————————————-
So here we see the Arizona Forestry lawyers trying to tell Judge Mosesso that Brendan has been OFFICIALLY diagnosed with “PTSD”… but without providing any letter from any therapist or doctor to back up their claim. That actually makes it “hearsay” on their part.
They are asking Judge Michael A. Mosesso to basically just “take their word for it” and make critical decisions ( in their favor ) in the case proceedings based on just that.
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> Sounds like the tribunal is making no headway in any agreements.
Correct. There is NO SIGN of any ‘settlement’ here.
I haven’t finished reading the whole thing yet… but it’s really seems to just be a continuation of Arizona Forestry’s previously filed motions requesting Judge Mosesso to go ahead and DISMISS some of the ADOSH citations as ‘baseless’.
In particular… they want Judge Mosesso to dismiss the part where ADOSH established that Brendan McDonough himself was put in “danger of injury or death” that day.
Arizona Forestry says this is ‘baseless’ and not supported by any evidence.
Yea, right.
Brendan himself told ADOSH he was ‘looking for a place to deploy’ right around the moment when Brian Frisby ACCIDENTALLY stumbled across him and was then able to basically save his life that day.
Mike Dudley, the Co-Lead of the SAIT investigation… has also stated publicly ( on June 20, 2014 ) that if Brendan had not ACCIDENTALLY been rescued by Frisby that there is (his words) “No doubt Brendan would have been another casualty that day”.
The Arizona Forestry lawyers are also basically trying to tell Judge Mosesso what his JOB is… and that even though this isn’t even a ‘civil court case’… that he has the right to issue ‘dispositive orders’ and drop some/all of the ADOSH citations before even the evidential hearings take place.
NOTE: A ‘dispositive’ motion or order means what you would think. It is intended to DISPOSE of something… like some/all of the ADOSH citations.
This kind of “here’s how we think you should do your job” shit from the Arizona Forestry lawyers probably isn’t going to fly too many kites, here.
It’s pretty arrogant… and Judge Mosesso might even have a BAD reaction to being ‘lectured’ in this manner as to what his duties and responsibilities are.
I’m still reading the rest of this new ALJ Hearing document.
More later.
PS: The ‘recent’ media articles revealing that Brendan McDonough has only recently ‘inquired’ about a possible ‘medical disability pension’ actually fit right into the TIMING of this new back-and-forth between the Arizona Forestry lawyers and Judge Mosesso.
Even if Brendan KNEW he didn’t have a chance in hell of obtaining this ‘medical disablility’… the act of ‘inquiring about it’ itself became a piece of NEWS which now SUPPORTS the claims the Arizona Forestry lawyers are making to Judge Mosesso.
Simply ‘inquiring about’ or even actually ‘applying’ for a ‘medical disability’ is by no means proof you actually HAVE one… but it does make it look like you MIGHT.
It would not surprise me at all that if Arizona Forestry now just expects Judge Mosesso to “take their word for it” that Brendan has full-blown PTSD… and they want the Judge to make rulings in THEIR favor because of it…
…that Judge Mosesso could shoot right back and ask them to PROVE what they are just asking him to (simply) believe.
Followup…
The Arizona Forestry lawyers seem to have totally forgotten that it wasn’t just the ADOSH investigators that concluded that Brendan McDonough came VERY close to losing his life that day.
SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley had already come to the same conclusion months before that.
There had never been any doubt in Dudley’s mind that if Brian Frisby hadn’t ACCIDENTALLY stumbled across Brendan when he did… and was then able to ‘rescue’ Brendan… that Brendan would have been the ‘first fatality’ that day.
Here is exactly what SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley told that roomful of firefighters in Utah on June 20, 2014…
SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley…
———————————————————————–
The Blue Ridge superintendent… he was drivin’ the UTV… he’s picking
up the lookout… he’s getting his crew ready to bail out… he’s gathering
them up… and he knows he’s gotta move his buggies and Granite
Mountain’s buggies… so he’s multi-tasking through this process as
he’s tryin’ to have this communication.
I will also say… that if he had not come around the corner at the
time that he did… the lookout woulda been the first fatality.
Guaranteed.
There was NO place for that lookout to have safely
deployed… and he was WAY too close when he decided to
bail out from where the fire was.
———————————————————————-
I don’t know what to say.
I don’t like the looks of this at all. Everybody is just jerking out their own agendas on him. It makes my stomach turn.
OF COURSE he has PTSD. Nobody in their right mind wouldn’t.
You wrote a little ways down below:
“That just increases my concerns at to whether anyone is REALLY ‘watching’ him closely and is REALLY concerned about HIS welfare… and not their OWN agendas.”
I’ve felt that way since about day one, As you know. That’s why I’ve had a hard time coming down as hard as some others have come down upon him.
And that’s why I mentioned the “surviver guilt” thing down below that Doug helped me recognize and begin to deal with because he went through his own hell with that. LIke seriously. This is really serious stuff.
Like I said, that might have saved my life. As in “been there, done that.”
I even just looked at Twitter, and he hasn’t posted anything since he said “Hello Twitter!” 37 days ago.
And, yeah, I’m seriously wondering about the whole thing regarding WFF. Maybe they’re aware and doing something to support Brendan besides paying him and………maybe they’re not.
My next thought is that if my daughter were in something like Brendan’s shoes, I just don’t know. But I think she would come to me. I would hope so.
We’ve always had our ups and downs, but I’ve always been there on the other end of the phone for her no matter what.
Which leads me to what kind of relationship does he have with his parents, the mother of his child, is he floating around in space without any kind of genuine support from them????
Between this crappola and that of the USFS, whatever any of them say about lah dee dah SAFETY is just oh SO IMPORTANT…..
I just might be at a place where I may never believe one iota of that apparent BS ever again.
Which also is connected to my totally cynical feelings about those oooh-la-la shelters. Which is a whole NUTHER deal.
I don’t pray much. But I have, I think, a whole lot of, all things considered, a pretty good collection of angels. I’m sending them out in the direction of Prescott.
Federal WFFs are ‘entitled’ to have ‘paid-for’ sessions with a ‘therapist’ if there is evidence of work-related PTSD… but that ‘therapist’ has to be ‘approved’ and/or ‘selected’ by the U.S. Forestry Service.
Now that we KNOW Brendan is seeing a ‘therapist’ ( thanks to the unprofessional Arizona State Forestry lawyers )… could it be a similar situation for Brendan.
Brendan was not ‘Federal’…. but could his ‘arrangement’ be similar?
He is getting his ‘therapy’ paid-for by either Prescott Fire Department and/or Arizona Forestry ( or maybe even U.S. Forestry anyway )… but the ‘therapist’ is of THEIR choosing… and not HIS?
In other words… is it possible even this ‘therapist’ might have ‘ties’ to the Fire Service and might even have his/her OWN damn ‘agenda’ and/or ‘loyalties’?
Gary Olson-
the person who comments on article…
Gaelyn Olmsted, the Geogypsy
Here is her blog and her story is on there on Yarnell Hill Fire.
geogypsytraveler.c o m /category/places-ive-been/united-states/arizona/yarnell/
She stayed on widowed/retired Roberta Era’s property that burned down (Lakewood Dr)
I will never stop encouraging people who were AT the YHF or resided there in that community to share your accounts no matter how tiny it is…
I may not pop on here much and I may be out caving and doing other things but indeed every moment I even try to think I am away from the YHF and its aftermath God tells me WHO has the plan as once stated somewhere in regards to the YHF that God has the plan.
Now, I am in the library trying to get Sonny’s laptop to work and I noticed him typing away and a I passed by I did not want to disturb him but saw my name mentioned…ugh. I truly have stayed away to avoid my name used here directly or by another so no more further tangles can be made (recently only for 2015 commented/thanked Mr. Winston for his purity and sharing on here; we need much more like him on here)…it seems he is typing about the back burns. We are hiking pals. We saw that fire from different perceptions. I am going to directly state if you GO BACK to October 2013 archives where my journey first began on here…re-read the many rambles than you will see as time unfolded from October 2013 through December 2014 that I indeed wrote everything as it happened and my view on that topic is already journaled on here . Someone thinks I have been on Investigative Media since the start and not true. We were sent a link to the article after we did a hike with John Dougherty in the Fall 2013 and I left the site at the start of this year. We made inquiries and as well answered people’s questions October 2013 article and just popped on here and there after that. This site is not viewed by some as a good thing yet I have never denied hikes and always been upfront and available to the world in regards to the YHF and who the hikers are and why we were on the Weavers…I am sorry this site is not viewed as I view it- A PLACE OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH- (to an extent)…I know FROM THIS SITE, I learned a valuable lesson. I also think of this site as Marti Reed calls—campfire discussions—a place to go when you want to know what is new on the YHF. It has had its ups and downs…and before the fire you would only find me on hike Arizona or zazzle and I am not an internet gal so I learned this discussion on fire and all its details mainly from here and the people God led to us. We learned what division was even from people we hiked to people even on here. My hardest lesson was learning agendas and angles and also people telling hikers stuff but not investigators because they are afraid to lose their jobs, etc…Sad.
In direct to what Sonny is writing about. Yes, last Summer I did see photos and video that made it appear to be a back burn and YES I heard locals accounts yet their accounts have never been further investigated. Yes, I hiked with many but a few who “knew” the GMHS dearly and now for the woozy that has Sonny thinking of this right now most likely… We have not been on this site in recent months yet behind the scenes it is obvious God has the plan and in due time we will share all the people God LED TO US since 2015 to now to OSHA/John Dougherty and some on here/Dr. Ted Putnam. We have discussed this as eyewitness hikers on the YHF and because John Dougherty has kept this thread alive and strong he will be first than the others I just mentioned. If John decides he wants to do an article on the news we will not tell anyone else and let him have his story.
I hope everyone is doing well—
Enjoy your Spring!
I have to go see what Sonny wrote…I have to state this that a lot of the historical moments on this site I kept coming back just for that to see what he wrote because I do correct areas needed as WHO WANTS TO KNOW THE TRUTH knows that about me from back to the beginnings that was all I was doing…smiles.
Thank you Joy.
I’m so glad you posted this here, Joy!! So glad you are up and about and doing your thing!!
I really loved reading Gaelyn Olmsted, the Geogypsy’s blog, one part of which I actually tweeted out last night. (Even though she uses a Nikon for her AWESOME photography, my FAVORITE being that one of the Weaver Mountains shrouded in clouds as that February storm covered the southwest — I DO remember that storm!!)
You wrote:
“In direct to what Sonny is writing about. Yes, last Summer I did see photos and video that made it appear to be a back burn and YES I heard locals accounts yet their accounts have never been further investigated.”
I have to admit two things regarding what both you and Sonny are writing about.
1). I haven’t seen any visual evidence of this, as WTKTT is also saying he hasn’t, either. But then, as you say, we haven’t seen everything.
2). I have been harboring, on a shelf in a closet with only the door slightly cracked. something of what might be considered a “conspiracy theory” about this.
I spent some time, periodically, contemplating the fact that, as I “looked at,” in various ways, where the crews were during that crucial 3:30ish to 4:30ish time period, I mostly couldn’t come up with anybody that’s on the official rosters (or even the unofficial ones i.e. the “Prescotteers”), who would/could have been on the ground in a place where they could/would have been doing any back-burning.
Except, as I have been really hesitant to say this, the two fire-fighters by the name of Rance Marquez and Cougan Carothers, which is WHY I have, periodically, written that it really bothers me that their testimony to ADOSH doesn’t match the EVIDENCE that I have been able to discern via the visual files.
Those are the only people in the corral of people involved in this fire whose locations at that time are, in my humble opinion, questionable.
I’m not saying they decided to go somewhere and light a back-fire. I’m just saying that, since their testimony doesn’t match the visual records we have at this point. I’ve been, all along, wondering about that.
And who knows??????
As I have studied a whole lot of wildfires this past year, I’ve seen that a LOT of CIVILIANS who may or may not KNOW BETTER have periodically decided to take matters into their own hands and done back-burns themselves.
That happened quite a bit in Washington last summer/fall during the conflagration known as the Carlton Complex.
So, yeah, I think this is an important question. And I agree with WTKTT that where we are currently at remains shrouded in mystery.
I would say having seen other fires close to towns and homes that people without knowledge will some times set back fires. Having said that I would also clarify that those fires are usually in close proximity to houses and property.
While not normally well planed or of any danger to others they would blind in with the main fire and smoke column.
Fire Fighters on the other hand would not set large back fires with out some coordination or in a dire emergency. To my knowledge no back firing was reported by Fire fighters when the fire blew up they were all moving out to safety.
on the north and east sides of the fire. There was no time to fire the cat line.
My personal opinion is if there were seperiate smoke columns they were coming from spot fires that quickly were engulfed by the main fire.
The Humidity, Temperatures, fuel moisture and wind were highly probable for spot fires when the fire started making runs. In peoples Valley and Yarnell as well as Glen Isla spot fire were probably causing havoc in the residential areas where there was brush and grass and flammable materials on homes.
Again I doubt that any back fires would have threatened Fire Fighters but were last minuet ditch efforts for some people trying to save homes and they would have stayed to long at that point to have survived the fire. So highly unlikely.
I need to make a correction. I wrote:
“I mostly couldn’t come up with anybody that’s on the official rosters (or even the unofficial ones i.e. the “Prescotteers”), who would/could have been on the ground in a place where they could/would have been doing any back-burning.”
That’s not quite true. Darrell Willis’ Structure Protection Group DID do a backfire off of Model Creek Road starting around 3:30ish PM. And, yes, as Bob Powers wrote, that was all coordinated by Willis and “signed off” by Paul Musser, who was there personally on the ground at the start of it.
That might be what Sonny is referring to when he noted back-firing near Peeples Valley.
And thanks, Bob, for the reminder that what people could have been seeing was spot fires. That makes a lot of sense.
It makes way more sense than my “conspiracy theory,” so I’ll scratch Marquez and Cougan off the list, even though I STILL wonder why their narrative doesn’t match the evidence.
Especially, given all the detail Rance went into via his “notes” and his interview.
I confess I have had something of a hard time distinguishing “back-burn” from “burn-out,” as a newbie.
Back Burn/Burnout—-They are the same depends on terminology verses
new safer terminology..
Back Burn—Burning fuel between a line and the fire as the fire approaches
Burn out— Burning fuel to increase safe area before fire approaches but within the fire lines or planed fire area.
They don’t like to say back fire any more.
If you are interested, here is a very powerful short piece written by someone who has followed and written about the Yarnell Hill Fire from the very beginning.
http://www.christinanealson.blogspot.com/
Thanks Gary—
Thank you, Gary. Yes. Very poignant, moving… and very well written.
I agree with the author that that ‘stone monument’ is ‘out of scale’.
It is TOO BIG, too close to the tree, and if it is true that it is just all about Granite Mountain and doesn’t even bother to really talk about the actual historical significance of the tree itself… then that is unfortunate and doesn’t really establish the significance of what they did there.
And the solar-powered plastic angel is just… well… a little weird.
Someone told me “There’s a concrete “monument” in front of the tree now. Waaaaay larger than it needs to be, as if someone is working out their guilt”
I tend to agree with this assessment..
Reply to Gary Olson post on April 14, 2015 at 9:40 pm
>> Gary said…
>>
>> Someone told me “There’s a concrete “monument” in front
>> of the tree now. Waaaaay larger than it needs to be, as if
>> someone is working out their guilt”
>>
>> I tend to agree with this assessment..
So that got me wondering… WHO put this thing there… and WHEN?
Best I can find out… it was sponsored by the U.S. Forestry Service and they started working on it about a week before the first anniversary of the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy.
The following story came out on the very day of the 1 year anniversary of the tragedy.
It details a ‘visit’ that Prescott College Environmental Studies Professor Doug made to the tree along with some of his students and they ‘accidentally’ ran in Brendan McDonough there at the tree.
It was not planned. Apparently… Brendan has simply been THERE at the tree by himself and he had no idea that ‘group’ would find him there.
It also puts a timestamp on when that ‘concrete monument’ was actually being installed… and WHO was doing it.
It was the U.S. Forestry Service… and they had started working on it just about a week before the first anniversary of the tragedy.
It was Bradshaw District Ranger Linda Jackson who is talking about the ‘monument’ in the article and it may have been mostly her idea, perhaps along with Prescott Forest Fire Staff Officer Pete Gordon.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Hotshot tribute: Community memorializes Hotshots in variety of ways
Pulblished 6/30/2014 6:01:00 AM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=133328
From the article…
————————————————————————————
“It’s become kind of a living memorial,” said Hulmes, who recently took a group of visiting Norwegian students to the tree to help document it.
While there, Hulmes’ group ran into surviving Granite Mountain Hotshot Brendan McDonough, who explained to the students the Hotshots’ role in saving the tree.
Hulmes said he heard later from students who referred to their visit to the juniper tree as the most memorable part of their trip.
This past week, a U.S. Forest Service crew was working at the site of the tree to build a concrete plaque that would further memorialize the Hotshots’ history with the mammoth juniper.
Bradshaw District Ranger Linda Jackson said the plaque will explain the Hotshots’ dedication to the tree. “It tells the story of what they did out there, and why,” she said.
“The tree was really important to them, and (saving it) was one of the last things they did with us,” Jackson added. “Knowing how important the saving of that tree was, we wanted to honor them by displaying a plaque there. It will be in memory of them.”
Forest Service Fire Staff Officer Pete Gordon emphasized the emotional attachment the Forest Service has with the tree, and he urges any visitors to “tread lightly.”
“This is more than just a tree,” Gordon said. “We ask people to please, please respect the environmental conditions. We’re worried about the tree being stressed.”
————————————————————————————
Followup…
This has nothing to do with the ‘concrete monument’ at the tree… but while searching around I found this other ‘interesting’ story about people doing visits to the tree… and calling them ‘pilgrimages’…. and then performing ‘ceremonies’ there…
Walt Anderson’s story of a ‘pilgrimage’ ( his word ) he led to the Juniper Tree exactly one year ago on this date ( April 14, 2013 ).
He and about 30 others held some kind of ‘ceremony’ there where they were picking cards out of a deck at random and then reading off the name on the card. The cards alternated between names of Granite Mountain Hotshots and the names of tree species that have become extinct… or something like that.
A little weird… but it’s well written…
http://www.geolobo.com/?p=500
CORRECTION… Typo up above.
Walt Anderson’s self-described ‘pilgrimage’ to the Juniper Tree with about 30 other people happened on April 14, 2014… and not April 14, 2013 as I typed above. It was exactly one year ago from TODAY.
Again… that article is here…
GEOLOBO – The Personal Website of Walt Anderson
Article Title: The Hotshots & the Juniper
http://www.geolobo.com/?p=500
I actually hadn’t noticed this before… but apparently the same Prescott Professor named Doug Hulmes was also on THIS ‘pilgrimage’ to the tree… and he actually ends up telling the SAME story to Doug Hulmes and the others about how when he, himself, led some students to the tree on a previous occasion… they accidentally encountered Brendan McDonough there at the tree already.
From the article…
————————————————————-
When we reach the two trailheads at the end of the fire road, the rules change. We walk the final mile to the ancient juniper in complete silence. There is an air of anticipation.
We reach the revered juniper, pausing in the burned area to the north. Here Doug Hulmes, Prescott College professor and champion of sacred trees, explains how he and a group of students from Norway chanced to encounter the sole surviving member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots at this very tree not long ago.
————————————————————
Crap… another TYPO up above.
I type Professor Doub Hulmes name TWICE and the second time it should have been the name Walt Anderson.
On this ‘pilgrimage’ to the Juniper tree… it was Doug Hulmes himself telling his story TO Walt Anderson and the others about having accidentally met Brendan McDonough there at the tree ( by himself ) on a previous occasion.
Actually, that ceremony is not all that “weird.”
(I do think that angel is weird, though, but then, …… it’s also kind of “Prescott-weird.”)
I have also worked with Michael Dowd and, to a lesser extent, Connie Barlow.
One name for this “field” is “Ecological Spirituality.” It’s about understanding and celebrating the sacredness of nature. It’s not a new thing these days, but……….
In the early 1980’s, when I was the Minister at First Congregational Church in Flagstaff, I was at something of the forefront of this, at that time, “movement.”
I felt like I was almost alone in the Universe. Creation Spirituality was a very very very new thing to “The Church.” Doug was one of the people who supported my work, and Michael was one of my, I guess you could say, long-distance “mentors.”
The Paul Winter Consort (at that time the Artists in Residence at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City), when they were making their awesome recordings on the Colorado River and around the Grand Canyon, would come to my church and we would do services together.
Their “Missa Gaia” (Earth Mass) was both a breakthrough into understanding and freedom and a big massive juniper tree, I guess you could say, for me.
It rooted everything I was doing, from leading “sacred journeys” into the Grand Canyon, to doing outdoor wedding and memorial ceremonies all around Northern Arizona, to trying to stop a uranium mine on the south side of the Grand Canyon.
I had the following of every “environmentalist” (including some of the the pros at NAU — and the river-runners, too!) in the area.
It was only the Trustees who, ahem, weren’t so happy with me, because the “environmentalists” didn’t have the big incomes to fill the meager church coffers.
In those days, doing what the narrative you have pointed describes, with/for/in honor of the Great-Grandmother Juniper and “her boys” would have been second-nature for me, but definitely “weird” in the eyes of many.
These days, in Northern Arizona, as well as a lot of other places, it happens all the time.
And, speaking of “Evolutionary” Creation Spirituality (as opposed to the fundamentalist thing called “Creationism” which fundamentalists think should be taught instead of scientific evolutionary theory)……
I also later wrote for Lowell Observatory, having been hired by someone who had been a member of my church when I was the Minister. I wrote about stuff like cosmic astronomical evolution, something else that most people had/still have a hard time with because it was/is a radical departure from everything they had been taught about the Universe and their place in it.
I know because it even really shook up MY cosmology, and, I had been a student of evolution from probably birth (given who my father was),
I/we also folded that evolutionary cosmology into Creation Spirituality (the other key person in this arena being Matthew Fox) we were “evolving.”
I could go on and on about this. I did that, professionally, for 35 years.
It probably even played a part in that moment when I “saw” that camera sitting there in the middle of that Deployment Site and KNEW it was trying to tell me something important.
Kyrie from the Missa Gaia (Earth Mass):
“The Alaskan tundra wolf whose voice this Kyrie was based on, sings the same four-note howl seven times in an interval known as the tritone – the sax, tenor solo voices and chorus answering. The double-bell rhythm comes from Ghana.”
https://youtu.be/RDOe52U-oXY
Along those same lines, this, done by me while I spent the summer of 2010 citizen-investigating the intervention into the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe:
“Ocean Intervention Rov 2 Swims Through the Fish”
“On her very last day at the Deepwater Horizon Well Site, Ocean Intervention Rov 2 Dives and Surfaces Through Stunning Schools of Fish
With music by the Paul Winter Consort, “Sea Joy,” from the album named “Callings.””
These are my very very favorite robots (speaking of robots, as y’all conversed about downstream) on the entire planet. I experienced the bottom of the one-mile-deep Gulf of Mexico through their eyes for seven and a half months.
The combination of unspeakable joy and unspeakable tragedy is so well accompanied by this music from the Paul Winter Consort.
https://youtu.be/F3BMaEZTTyM
19 people died here, too, almost exactly five years ago.
I just had to share this kind of stuff to ritually counteract “Tax Day.”
LOL. Yes. Speaking of ‘rituals’.
This annual one where massive amounts of money are collected only from people who aren’t rich enough to hire the right people who can HIDE their income is a real doozy.
Bingo!
So it’s really really late, and I may regret writing this but, just to set the record straight.
I almost married Doug, and maybe should have. He’s an amazing guy.
I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like that piece of ugly concrete any better than we do.
And, now that I’ve said that, and am thinking about that……
He should be the one “counseling” Brendan.
Having been through the experience himself, he was the person who taught me about “surviver guilt.”
That probably saved my life.
Marti… thank you for all the comments above.
When I said ‘a little weird’… I was referring to the ‘ceremony’ itself, and not anyone’s ‘beliefs’ or ‘motivations’.
Pulling cards from a deck just sounds like something the Masons would do… and I find the ‘ceremonies’ they do a little ‘weird’, also.
The ‘beliefs’ you are describing all sound very ‘Native American’ ish… and I have no problem with that.
It would do us ALL good to remember that this is the only planet we have.
I think saying/writing it as “pulling cards from a deck” is just kind of an unfortunate way of saying it.
It’s just a common way of doing something in a random order.
And, yes, I/we were heavily “shaped” by both Native American and Buddhist “thinking.”
Regarding the Native American side of that, it got/gets a bit tricky in regards to “exploitive cultural appropriation.”
That was then, and still is, a HUGE issue.
Fortunately, I was VERY CAREFULLY trained by the International Indian Treaty Council, who had a vested interest in me not screwing things up and me teaching other people how to not screw things up, either.
But it can get dicey.
So, yes.
Speaking of which.
Are you aware that Native American “cosmology,” and thus language, includes no things/nouns?
That’s why there’s been a great conversation going on over the last ten years between indigenous folks and physicists.
They understand the same things almost exactly in the same ways.
Well… as long as we are sharing… yes… I am.
The ‘physicist’ in me is very aware of all that.
One of the most fundamental beliefs in most Native American religious belief systems is that we ( you, I, every living thing ) are not ‘separate’ from the environment we find ourselves in… we are, indeed, PART of it.
Most NA cultures believed, for example, that just the fact that we BREATHE ( as in… we INHALE an we EXHALE ) means that everywhere we go while we are alive… we breathe IN a part of the ‘place’ where we are… and we also ‘leave a part of ourselves’ there in that ‘place’ ( because we also EXHALE ).
From a pure ‘physics’ perspective… that is actually TRUE.
So it is no wonder, then, that for a very long time into the future… many will believe that that Juniper tree is a place where some ‘essence’ of the men who saved it still exists there, in that place, when THEY were THERE and alive… and vibrant… and (yes) happy.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 15, 2015 at 1:28 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>>
>> I’m pretty sure he doesn’t like that piece of ugly
>> concrete any better than we do.
Actually… if he respects that tree ( and the surrounding natural environment ) as much as he seems to… he probably thinks it is even WAAAY more ‘inappropriate’ than we do.
I sure as hell hope those Forestry people didn’t disturb the root system when they were digging and pouring that CONCRETE base.
It really is WAAAY too CLOSE to the tree.
If they wanted there to just be a ‘plaque’ out there… they had a lot of other options. They just didn’t think about it enough.
Exactly.
Just another case of not thinking things through enough.
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…….
Where have we seen THAT before???????
The other ‘takeaway’ from these ‘stories’ I found of people doing what they call ‘pilgrimages’ to the tree was that ‘overlapping’ story of Brendan McDonough being ‘accidentally’ found out there at the tree.
The stories seem to suggest he was there all by himself.
That just increases my concerns at to whether anyone is REALLY ‘watching’ him closely and is REALLY concerned about HIS welfare… and not their OWN agendas.
It’s pretty disturbing to think that Brendan has actually been WORKING for what appears to be one of the only organized groups meant to HELP firefighters who might be suffering PTSD… and that he has been closely tied with this organization for OVER A YEAR…
…yet he is still looking into applying for PTSD related medical pension.
What does that tell us about the ability of this organization he, himself, WORKS for to actually get people ( their own employee included ) the RIGHT help they need.
I know this organization Brendan works for has had its problems lately having to answer for their behavior and the way they have been spending all the money they have received since June 30, 2013…
…but if this is the primary GO TO organization for WFFs in need of help recovering from a tragic experience… I think a hard look needs to be taken at their actual ability to actually DO anything for these people as well.
In other words… maybe it’s time the Forestry Service itself had BETTER options here instead of just relying on an organization started by someone who use to run lunch wagons at WFF campsites.
You said:
“maybe it’s time the Forestry Service itself had BETTER options here instead of just relying on an organization started by someone who use to run lunch wagons at WFF campsites.”
I just really don’t believe the USFS actually gives a damn.
I haven’t seen any proof of that at all in any of this. Not at all.
Gary Olson-
the person who comments on article…
Gaelyn Olmsted, the Geogypsy
Here is her blog and her story is on there on Yarnell Hill Fire.
http://geogypsytraveler.com/category/places-ive-been/united-states/arizona/yarnell/
She stayed on widowed/retired Roberta Era’s property that burned down (Lakewood Dr)
I will never stop encouraging people who were AT the YHF or resided there in that community to share your accounts no matter how tiny it is…
I may not pop on here much and I may be out caving and doing other things but indeed every moment I even try to think I am away from the YHF and its aftermath God tells me WHO has the plan as once stated somewhere in regards to the YHF that God has the plan.
Now, I am in the library trying to get Sonny’s laptop to work and I noticed him typing away and a I passed by I did not want to disturb him but saw my name mentioned…ugh. I truly have stayed away to avoid my name used here directly or by another so no more further tangles can be made (recently only for 2015 commented/thanked Mr. Winston for his purity and sharing on here; we need much more like him on here)…it seems he is typing about the back burns. We are hiking pals. We saw that fire from different perceptions. I am going to directly state if you GO BACK to October 2013 archives where my journey first began on here…re-read the many rambles than you will see as time unfolded from October 2013 through December 2014 that I indeed wrote everything as it happened and my view on that topic is already journaled on here . Someone thinks I have been on Investigative Media since the start and not true. We were sent a link to the article after we did a hike with John Dougherty in the Fall 2013 and I left the site at the start of this year. We made inquiries and as well answered people’s questions October 2013 article and just popped on here and there after that. This site is not viewed by some as a good thing yet I have never denied hikes and always been upfront and available to the world in regards to the YHF and who the hikers are and why we were on the Weavers…I am sorry this site is not viewed as I view it- A PLACE OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH- (to an extent)…I know FROM THIS SITE, I learned a valuable lesson. I also think of this site as Marti Reed calls—campfire discussions—a place to go when you want to know what is new on the YHF. It has had its ups and downs…and before the fire you would only find me on hike Arizona or zazzle and I am not an internet gal so I learned this discussion on fire and all its details mainly from here and the people God led to us. We learned what division was even from people we hiked to people even on here. My hardest lesson was learning agendas and angles and also people telling hikers stuff but not investigators because they are afraid to lose their jobs, etc…Sad.
In direct to what Sonny is writing about. Yes, last Summer I did see photos and video that made it appear to be a back burn and YES I heard locals accounts yet their accounts have never been further investigated. Yes, I hiked with many but a few who “knew” the GMHS dearly and now for the woozy that has Sonny thinking of this right now most likely… We have not been on this site in recent months yet behind the scenes it is obvious God has the plan and in due time we will share all the people God LED TO US since 2015 to now to OSHA/John Dougherty and some on here/Dr. Ted Putnam. We have discussed this as eyewitness hikers on the YHF and because John Dougherty has kept this thread alive and strong he will be first than the others I just mentioned. If John decides he wants to do an article on the news we will not tell anyone else and let him have his story.
I hope everyone is doing well—
Enjoy your Spring!
I have to go see what Sonny wrote…I have to state this that a lot of the historical moments on this site I kept coming back just for that to see what he wrote because I do correct areas needed as WHO WANTS TO KNOW THE TRUTH knows that about me from back to the beginnings that was all I was doing…smiles.
**
** MORE ANALYSIS REGARDING THE PRESCOTT ICMA REPORT
On Saturday ( April 11 ), Prescott eNews ran Lynne LaMaster’s latest ‘analysis’ of the differences between Joe Stutler’s original “Wildland’ report for the Prescott ICMA study and what the Prescott City Council saw in the end.
She makes it perfectly clear what was different between the two… but there is no new information about WHO actually made all these obvious changes between Stutler’s original draft and what then appeared in the final ICMA report.
Prescott eNews
Article Title: Changes to the ICMA Report: The Differences are Clear Featured
Published: 11.Apr.2015 Lynne LaMaster
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25268-changes-to-the-icma-report-the-differenc
es-are-clear
While it is true that BOTH the original and the final drafts were obviously presenting a ‘Clear and present DANGER’ of a CATASTROPHIC Widlfire incident in and around Prescott… even the FsPro and FARSITE computer modeling information presented in Stutler’s original draft were ‘edited’ in subtle ways in the final version of the report.
One of the obvious changes that Lynne LaMaster did NOT document in her article was the following entire paragraph from Stutler’s original draft that was TOTALLY EXCLUDED from the final draft.
It’s the part where Stutler was listing what ‘additional consequences’ could be expected in the even of a CATASTROPHIC Wildfire event in and/or around Prescott.
From Joe Stutler’s original draft…
—————————————————————————
2. The political risk for both elected officials and local government
officials/leaders would be significant given the wildland fire risk is both
KNOWN and WELL DOCUMENTED, and sufficient mitigation to reduce
the risk is NOT taken and maintained.
—————————————————————————
It is also true, however, ( and Lynne LaMaster fails to mention this ) that once even Joe Stutler became aware of how much his original report had been ‘edited’… he filed a formal objection with the people that paid him for his work ( the ICMA itself ).
That led to an actual CONFERENCE CALL that included Stutler, ICMA reps, the Prescott Deputy City Manager, and (current) Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light.
During that conference call… both Stutler’s original draft and the final report were compared and discussed… and Joe Stutler himself says he was then ‘satisfied’ that the actual decision makers in Prescott were now FULLY AWARE of everything he had reported and was originally recommending.
That is why Joe Stutler eventually ‘signed off’ on the ICMA report.
He says he was convinced that the people who were actually going to make the actual BUSNESS decisions for Prescott ( The City Managers and the Fire Chief ) had seen “everything there was to see” and could never claim they had not been ‘fully briefed’ and ‘fully informed’ about the real dangers of a CATASTROPHIC Widlfire event happening there in Prescott.
They were now free to ‘make their own business decisions’… and ‘own’ them.
There has still been no comment from the Prescott City Council about all this, even after Jon Paladini submitted his ‘report’ back to them regarding these ‘changes’ that were obviously made ( by WHO? ICMA people? Prescott people? ) to the 3rd party contractor’s original reports and what was in the ‘final’ report.
There MIGHT be more to come on this… but maybe not.
The CHANGES were obvious… but the ‘business decisions’ have also already been made.
Darrell Willis obviously does not LIKE the ‘business decision’ that were made ( he lost his double-dipping job as Prescott Wildland Division Chief because of them )… but it is still unknown what ( if anything ) Darrell Willis plans on doing about it all.
CORRECTION for above… I was wrong.
Lynne LaMaster’s article DOES catch the part where Stutler’s original warning about ‘political consequences’ ended up being TOTALLY EXCLUDED from the final report.
It is actually in her ‘Other Differences’ sections and she reported it this way…
———————————————————————
Stutler:
“The political risk for both elected officials and local government officials/leaders would be significant given the wild land fire risk is both known and well documented, and sufficient mitigation to reduce the risk is not taken and maintained.”
Final:
Omitted.
———————————————————————-
So I’m basically quite late in replying to this, but I owe it to you.
Thank you!!
I really appreciate her description of all of this. As a matter of fact, I was somewhat waiting with baited breath for it. I think she did a good job of it.
When this erupted earlier, I went back and looked at both of the Stutler reports, and sensed several differences, but it was too late and I was too braindead to delve into them, much less post them here. I’m glad she had the time to put them up side-by-side and describe them.
I really believe two things.
1) Stutler saw himself as a person hired to do the task of “analyzing” the risk that Prescott was facing and the resources they had in facing that, and then giving “his” recommendations regarding that. But that’s as far as he believed his task went. Which, all things considered,from his viewpoint, is understandable.
2) The people who decided to hire this company already, at the time they hired it, had an Opinion of what they wanted. They wanted something “less expensive” and “less risky” in terms of the benefits they decided they didn’t want to be held responsible for. Because they already sensed they “couldn’t afford it.”
Since Stutler saw his role the way he saw it, he was comfortable “handing off” the “business” decisions to the people in charge of the “business” decisions.
I still think the people in charge of the “business” decisions may be making a HUMONGOUS mistake. All things considered.
There is a “CoreLogic” Wildfire Risk Report, released early this year, which examines the residential properties potentially exposed to wildfire risk in 13 western states. It is quite interesting.
From what I have seen in it, Prescott is way more at risk from wildfire than most of any of the other cities they looked at, including Albuquerque, which to my eyes, seems to be taking these risks way more seriously than Prescott is, at this time.
Here is the link to the CoreLogic Wildfire Hazard Risk Report:
http://www.corelogic.com/research/wildfire-risk-report/2015-wildfire-hazard-risk-report.pdf
**
** ADOSH LAWYERS WANT TO SEE THE SAIT ‘MANAGEMENT REPORT’
** THAT THEY WERE REQUIRED TO PRODUCE.
Still combing through the latest ALJ Hearing file document(s) that were posted just a week ago ( April 6 ).
In the latest document covering exchanges ( so far ) in April… there are more responses from Arizona Forestry to ADOSH’s requests for things that are SUPPOSED to be in Arizona Forestry’s possession.
This is all still part of the ‘Discovery’ process taking place and that the ‘Exchange of documents/evidence’ that has been taking place since last year.
In this latest ALJ document we now learn that ADOSH wants Arizona Forestry to produce the ‘Management Report’ that was SUPPOSED to be one of the ‘paid for’ deliverables coming out of Jim Karel’s and Mike Dudley’s ‘Special Accident Investigation’.
We also now see the Arizona Forestry lawyers ‘playing STUPID’ on this and pretending they have no idea what ADOSH is even referring to.
The strategy there ( on the part of Arizona Forestry ) is that if they simply ‘PLAY STUPID’ on this… then they don’t have to explain to either ADOSH or Judge Mosesso why Jim Karels and Mike Dudley never even bothered to even DO this ‘Management Report’ that the were contracted to produce.
The latest ALJ Hearing File document ( uploaded on April 6 ) is…
“2015_04 Updated 04.06.15.pdf”
From that document…
—————————————————————————————-
ADOSH: REQUEST FOR PRODCUTION NO. 16:
Produce the “Management Evaluation Report” relating to June 2013 Yarnell Hill Fire
ASFD: RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR PRODCUTION NO. 16:
Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) is unfamiliar with a document entitled “Management Evaluation Report” ( the “Report” ) and therefore cannot produce the Report. If ADOSH is more specific as to tge document to which the Request refers, ASFD is willing to undertake additional steps to respond to the Request. As it stands, ASFD does not possess responsive documents to this this Request.
—————————————————————————————–
NOTE: The ‘tge’ in the paragraph above is the same spelling error seen in the original document filed by the Arizona Forestry lawyers. It was obviously supposed to be the word ‘the’.
The ‘Management Evaluation Report’ that ADOSH is referring to is the one that Jim Karels and Mike Dudley were specifically REQUIRED to produce along with the ‘Factual Report’ as one of the paid-for ‘deliverables’ coming out of their SAIT investigation.
They were specifically ORDERED to produce that ‘Management Evaluation Report’ in the actual ‘Delegation of Authority’ letter that created the SAIT itself.
The official “Delegation of Authority” letter, signed by Arizona State Forester Scott Hunt on July 3, 2013, is the document that allowed the “Special Accident Investigation Team” to start investigating the Yarnell Hill Incident on behalf of Arizona State Forestry.
It is also the document that specifically told the SAIT what their JOB was, and the ‘deliverables’ ( documents ) they were REQUIRED to produce.
Here is the full text of that “Delegation of Authority” document that was reproduced in the actual SAIR report itself as ‘Appendix G’…
—————————————————————————————–
To: Janice K. Brewer – Governor of Arizona
From: Scott Hunt – Arizona State Forester
Arizona State Forestry Division
Office of the State Forester
1110 W. Washington St., Suite 100
Phonenix, AZ 85007
(602) 771-1400
Serious Accident Investigation Team Delegation of Authority
On the afternoon of June 30, 2013, nineteen members of the Granite Mountain Type 1 Hotshot Crew from Prescott, Arizona were killed while fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire.
As the State Forester of Arizona, I authorize Jim Karel’s Serious Accident Investigation Team to conduct the accident review of the Yarnell Hill Fire.
This delegation is to perform the serious accident review of the Yarnell Hill Fire with the final objective of providing a FACTUAL and MANAGEMENT report for accident prevention.
I also authorize Mike Dudley as the Deputy Team Leader.
Your duties INCLUDE but are not limited to:
1. Organizing, conducting, and controlling the accident investigation.
2. Providing for in briefings and out briefings with affected agency officials.
3. Coordinating information exchange between team members, local law enforcement, coroner’s office, and others.
4. Requesting techincal, logistical, or other support as required to conduct the investigation.
5. Assist the State Forester’s information staff with addressing the media on your makeup, purpose, methodology, and estimated timelines, including attending press conferences if necessary.
6. The Forestry Division shall be the final repository for all team paperwork and reports.
7. Provide the following formal briefing reports:
A) Expanded Report ( 72 Hours )
B) Factual AND Management Report.
SIGNED by…
Scott Hunter – 7-3-13
Jim Karels, Team Leader, SAIT – 7-3-13
Mike Dudley, Deuputy Team Leader, SAIT – 7-3-13
—————————————————————————————–
The two relevant parts of this ‘Delegation of Authority’ document are…
—————————————————————————————–
This delegation is to perform the serious accident review of the Yarnell Hill Fire with the final objective of providing a FACTUAL and MANAGEMENT report for accident prevention.
Your duties INCLUDE but are not limited to:
7. Provide the following formal briefing reports:
A) Expanded Report ( 72 Hours )
B) Factual and Management Report.
—————————————————————————————–
So Arizona Forestry knows damn well what ‘Management Report’ ADOSH is referring to.
But as long as the Arizona Forestry lawyers ‘STAY STUPID’ about it and pretend they don’t even know what ADOSH is referring to, then they don’t even have to explain why this ‘Management Report’ that the SAIT was REQUIRED to produce was never actually done.
This MANAGEMENT report was SUPPOSED to NOT be one of these ‘Facilitated Learning Analysis’ (FLA) style reports and was SUPPOSED to be just a detailed report targeted for Fire Service Management about what ACTUALLY happened that day.
Jim Karels, Mike Dudley ( and the SAIT ) CHOSE to NOT produce this report, even though they were being PAID to do so, and Arizona Forestry was OK with that.
If ADOSH comes back and clarifies this request ( easily done )… it’s going to be hard for the Arizona Forestry lawyers to keep ‘PLAYING STUPID’ on this and we might ( finally ) see an explanation as to WHY this critical ‘Management Report’ was never even produced.
**
** AZCENTRAL EDITORIAL SAYS BRENDAN MUST BE DEPOSED
Four days after AZCENTRAL first broke the story about what City Attorney Jon Palladini was told Brendan McDonough knows… AZCENTRAL actually published their own editiorial about this.
It says flat-out that there is NO QUESTION now that Brendan MUST be deposed, under-oath.
AZCENTRAL
Article Title: Force out the truth of the Yarnell Hill inferno
Published 6:25 p.m. MST April 7, 2015 by the AZCENTRAL Editorial Board
http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2015/04/07/force-out-truth-yarnell-hill-inferno/25439121/
From the article…
———————————————————————————–
Brendan McDonough, the lone survivor of the Granite Mountain Hotshots,
MUST be compelled to testify under oath to what he heard over the radio
on the day his 19 friends died.
We need to know…
What happened?
What did McDonough hear?
Why did they leave the black?
———————————————————————————–
Exactly-Donut continues to have a hole in it. There are other questions to be asked of Donut if and when our illustrious investigators become willing to put him under oath. One that bothers me is the fact that there were plenty of backfires being lit–those videos of that rock wall and those men in the shrine area lighting fires is enough to make me believe that was the reason that Joy and I barely escaped ourselves with a margin of only about 11 minutes. That also would have blocked the escape route of the 19 once the wind whipped around. From where I was seeing the fire when we left the two track where the men went down, Joy and I would have had plenty of time to escape the route I took, yet when we got to Foothills Drive where my car was parked, people were fleeing like flies with only about ten minutes since the fire was already entering Yarnell and a few hundred yards from us. The streets there were deterring it some, but had people been in the brush they would have perished along with the 19. Donut could have witnessed what backfires were being lighted at the time and heard as well over communications about others. Dr. Ted Putman stated hat he believed if backfires would have been made, it would more likely be to protect the ranch.. We talked to locals who stated they did see backfires being lighted between the Shrine and Sesame and also on the north end of the fire near Peeples Valley. That definetly is something that needs to be addressed–seems like backfires can be a deadly situation under some conditions.
I did mean to add that some photos and video show two separated smoke columns–That can be explained by backfires being lighted distant from the main fire–perhaps time stamps correlated with photos of those fellows lighting the fires with the smoke columns would confirm this. There is much to learn from this mismanaged fire–much that will undoubtedly come out if investigators do their job properly–And if they do–future ways they do things will undoubtedly prevent needless loss of life that we saw here.
I did mean to add that photos and video show separate smoke columns. One column appears separate to the main fire. Time stamps, could verify whether those back fires were set at a time that would have have spelled disaster for the 19. This whole mess of how this fire was handled needs to be cleaned to the bone so that future fire fighting practices improve–needless loss of life like this is a shame to the profession.
sonny… I just thought I would let you know that as I have been working with all 35 video clips that were taken between 4:00 PM and 4:42 PM that Sunday by the ABC15 News Helicopter… I HAVE been paying particular attention to these locations on the ground where people HAVE reported seeing ‘backfires’ being lit that day.
Unfortunately… I can tell you with a fair degree of certainty now that none of the aerial footage shot by this ABC15 New Helicopter sheds any more real light on that.
The ABC15 News Helicopter never ‘focused’ on the outskirts of either Yarnell or Glen Ilah, and any ‘background’ views of those areas sort of remains hidden and shrouded by the smoke of the main column(s).
I am still not finished analyzing all these ABC15 Helicopter video clips… but it is doubtful any of them are going to show any real evidence of any ‘backburns’ being lit out there ahead of the main firelines that day.
Joy tells me to let you know that we are going by photos and video and testimony that we have seen and heard, yet the people have not gone public with.the evidence. Joy can identify the people with these photos to investigators, something I am sure they would share if approached. Likely some of them have offered the evidence. Perhaps they got the response we got when we offered over 1500 photos that Joy took that day. We were told the photos were not important. Seems they had it all figured out without having to look into much detail. Nineteen men lost and you would have thought they would jump on any related detail. They still seem reluctant and instead of thanking us, we have been harassed to some extent for our efforts to get at what you work so hard at.
I would like to see some billionaire who cares about firefighters lives hire the likes of you, JD, Dr. Ted Putman, Bob Powers, Marti, and others concerned with the cause of the death of those young firefighters. He would have a top notch team of investigators who could and would get to the bottom of this tragedy. I am sure the comrades at arms would attempt to deter such investigation as they have attempted to discredit this web site and its people attempting to unravel those mysterious deaths.
We are out of the area for the most part and back to our desert abode. The donkey we have is better at investigating than most of what we saw in the Sair efforts, if indeed it were ever an investigation. Even after the report there was too much speaking with forked tongue by those involved in the investigations. I did not see it as much in the OSHA report but one has the feeling those fellows were pressured from higher sources to gloss over this thing– It must be like laying in bed with a rattlesnake that is looking you in the eye. You might be afraid to move– only all they have to worry about is their jobs–yet in this world that might mean your life as well. As a tramp miner I never had that worry–I could always have another job in a day or two, sometimes the same day. We always said shifters (bosses) are a dime a dozen, but miners are hard to find. I once asked a shifter why he would take a shitty joy at seven bucks an hour when he could be a miner making twenty six or more. Too bad in a way firefighters are too much like the army–in mining it is the reverse and the miner is more respected than the boss. Well of course that is relevant–some old worn out miners were bosses and well respected–they just couldn’t cut the mustard anymore. The one I liked best was a guy named Bylon. He brought a lunch with a thermos full of whiskey and we didn’t see him but twice a day–once in the morning and when we woke him up to leave at the end of a shift. We by the way were the best producers since he stayed out of the way. Well trained firefighters are definitely tough–but in the case of going down in that death bowl there has to be something that needs to be changed in the way the wildfire fighters operate–well let me say at least in the Yarnell system we saw that day.
Follow the money says the Gunsmith in Yarnell. He says he has watched the last five or six wildfires and he thinks they all could have been quenched early. Well if they are going to let them go like the Yarnell was, then we definitely need to upgrade the bosses efforts in keeping people alive and protecting property. Someone made a ton of money dropping jumbo jet loads of retardant and running large crews of fire fighters. What they did not expect was to see 19 young dead men as a result. If it was greed, the cost was infinite. But I think there are many factors here–safety issues when that thing had gone ballistic to releasing atomic bomb energy– disregard for weather conditions-disregard for overworked men– and maybe even someone trying to get glory for saving houses. Yet some have been arrogant enough to take glory and stupid enough to say that is what they do — drop down in a deadly situation to save houses.
People buy that crap because they do not have the facts–Thank you Joy, Thank you WTKT, Thank you especially JD for this site and the Bob Powers and Marti’s and those willing to give this their best in honor of those young men and their families and other concerned people who like myself do not have the abilities of what I have seen on this web site. We do want the truth–those lives are worth it.
Yes, Sonny… even apart from the information Brendan McDonough is still ( and has always been ) withholding… there are still a number of ‘mysteries’ to be solved about what was going on that weekend… especially on the fateful Sunday.
Example: We still have no idea what the ‘story’ is with the bulldozer and its operator. Did he really have to ‘ride out’ the firestorm himself inside the cab of either the dozer or the loboy trailer somewhere out there at the bottom of the Sesame clearing?
Was that why someone ( WHO? WHEN? ) told DPS Helicopter Ranger 58 that the dozer operator was ‘unaccounted for’ and another person they were supposed to be ‘searching’ for?
What does this dozer operator know about Gary Cordes’ ‘last-ditch-effort’ plans to try and create another ‘firebreak’ there to protect Glen Ilah… and did those ‘plans’ actually have ANYTHING to do with why Granite Mountain was now ( supposedly ) being ‘ordered’ to get the Boulder Springs Ranch?
And all of that ( the mysterious bulldozer and its equally mysterious operator ) is just ONE of the OTHER ongoing ‘mysteries’ that still needs to be solved.
What is worrisome about if/when Brendan will EVER actually reveal what he has ALWAYS known is the following quote directly from his criminal defense attorney ( David Shapiro ) as reported in the following article…
InvestigativeMEDIA
Article Title: McDonough will testify if legally required
Published April 10, 2015 By John Dougherty
http://www.investigativemedia.com/mcdonough-will-testify-if-legally-required/
From the article…
——————————————————————–
Brendan McDonough will testify if legally required about radio conversations between Granite Mountain Hotshots’ senior leaders in the moments immediately leading up to their deaths and 17 other members of the crew, his attorney says.
“Under certain circumstances, Brendan will tell his story to a court of law,” Prescott attorney Dave Shapiro says in an interview with InvestigativeMedia.com.
——————————————————————–
So, right there, we hear McDonough’s attorney pretty much outlining the ONLY way that Brednan will EVER tell what he knows.
His attorney says it will ONLY be to a “court of law”… and even then… it will ONLY happen (quote) “under certain circumstances”.
As for “to a court of law”… that means that if the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits gets ‘settled’ out-of-court… then there will BE no active/sitting ‘court’ that can compel McDonough to testify. That case will be ‘closed’ and will NOT be ‘going to court’ if it is settled out-of-court.
The “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case is not actually a ‘civil court case’. It is simply a set of ‘procedures’ being followed whereby someone accused of workplace violations can CONTEST those citations and ( ultimately ) only results in a HEARING before an ‘Administrative Law Judge’.
This ‘path to a HEARING’ does have some of the same ‘powers’ as the court would in an actual ‘civil court’ case. ALJ Judge Michael A. Mosesso does ‘wear a black robe’ ( as they say ) and he DOES have the power to issue a ‘subpoena’… but he has already stated in previous attempts by Arizona Forestry to get him to subpoena McDonough that he is NOT in the habit of issuing subpoenas for witnesses just to force them to attend depositions.
If the ‘wrongful death’ court suits evaporate ( because of a settlement )… then the only chance left fulfill that part of Mr. David Shapiro’s statement that Brendan will ONLY reveal what he knows to a ‘court of law’… then the only chance that will remain for that to happen is if the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case remains active and Judge Mosesso issues a ‘court order’ for Brendan to testify.
But even if that ‘court order’ happens… Mr. Shapiro is also saying there are other ‘circumstances’ that will govern whether or not Brendan agrees to testify.
Mr. Shapiro didn’t SAY what those ‘certain circumstances’ are.
Could one of those ‘other circumstances’ be that McDonough’s attorney will only allow him to testify if the court also agrees to SEAL that testimony?
In other words… ONLY the Judge and the Lawyers in the case get to ever actually see/hear what Brendan knows… and that information will remained as SEALED EVIDENCE in that court proceeding?
More come about all this, I’m sure.
And as Marti Reed has said any number of times…
“This fire isn’t even remotely done burning yet”.
Seems that Donut does have somewhat of a guilty conscience for withholding information.. He has taken in so much adoration and now it is fading–that must hurt. If he really wanted to be a good man he would feel the harm he is doing to the many lives that are connected to the deaths of those l9 men. They deserve the truth and no more bull shit about this tragedy. The only way Donut will save face and live clean is to come forward with the truth. He does not need a lawyer, Willis or anyone else to speak for him. The people know he did not cause their deaths but they do know his is withholding what he knows and for that he will always be considered a coward and liar. Yet if he comes forward as he should he will regain the respect he would deserve. It is sad Donut when you withhold things that demand to be revealed so people can have closure for the loss of their loved ones. If the likes of you had been involved in the situation where my son died back in 1999, you would definitely be on my shit list until you came clean and revealed the facts I needed to know. All the glory you have taken would mean nothing to me–you would have revealed yourself to be a scoundrel without conscience. Go right be true not a mouse afraid of daylight.
Reply to Sonny post on April 14, 2015 at 3:44 pm
>> Sonny said…
>>
>> The only way Donut will save face and live clean is to come
>> forward with the truth. He does not need a lawyer, Willis
>> or anyone else to speak for him.
No, he doesn’t. Last time I checked… First Amendment rights to “Freedom of Speech” were/are still in full affect.
However… Brendan’s PROBLEM now is that he has dug a deep enough hole for himself at this point that he pretty much HAS to get a little ‘dirty’ just to crawl his way back out of it.
What I mean is… no matter WHAT he does now… there are certain ‘camps’ of opinion that aren’t going to fully believe him no matter HOW he chooses to ‘do the right thing’ and do what he should have done in the first place… tell everything he knows relative to the incident.
He COULD just walk into any TV station, go on camera, and just ‘tell his story’… but many will still simply still be thinking “once a LIAR, always LIAR” and will wonder if he isn’t simply still following his own personal agenda, like he did with the original investigations, and either still isn’t telling everything he knows or is still trying to shape the narrative himself in some way.
He COULD also agree to an ‘under-oath’ deposition with no “conditions” or “certain circumstances” ( as his lawyer seems to be saying are now in place )… but even if he puts his hand on large stacks of books representing the tenets of every religion on the planet… there will STILL be some people who are going to doubt he is telling “the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing BUT the truth”.
So either way… Brendan is going to get a little ‘dirty’ here as he crawls out of this hole he has dug for himself.
Personally… I think it would be a MISTAKE for him to just walk into a TV station at this point.
This nonsense has gone on for so long now… I think he DOES need a “Lawyer” beside him and it DOES need to be officially SWORN testimony ( under penalty of perjury ).
I think that is the ONLY way for him to stay the ‘cleanest’ as he crawls out of this hole and have the best chance of having the greatest number of people ‘accepting’ his testimony as the TRUTH… and putting this all behind him once and for all.
My 2 cents, anyway.
Well said on this WTKT–I am too much of an optimist thinking he might come forward on his own– With coaches we definitely will get a tainted version, however, you are right that he will have a hard time saving face now and maybe a lawyer is his best hope to do that.
For Brendan’s own GOOD now… it is all about having whatever he has to say now being BELIEVED as the TRUTH.
His BEST chance for that is an ‘under-oath’ deposition/session that actually has potential penalties for ‘perjury’ associated with it.
That will give HIM the best chance at being BELIEVED… which is what he ultimately NEEDS for his own peace of mind, here.
And that is really the main goal here.
It’s not going to do this young man any real good to ‘spill his guts’ but still have people looking at him sideways for the rest of his life.
At least an ‘under-oath’ session will give him the best chance of reducing those ‘sideways looks’.
SOME will probably still not ‘believe’ him… or even openly still CHALLENGE what he says… but if he SWEARS to tell the truth like we ALL have to do from time to time… then MOST people WILL believe that whatever he says about what happened that day really is what happened that day.
He has no BEST option at this point… but I believe the ‘deposition’ route is better than just the ‘TV station’ option.
This really is a classic case of “the only real cure is prevention”.
His BEST option was to have never ‘dug this hole’ for himself in the first place.
**
** MORE NEWS ABOUT THE NEW FIRE SHELTER DEVELOPMENT
There are now ( supposedly ) only 5 ( FIVE ) days left before Arizona Forestry runs out of time to reach any kind of ‘settlement’ in the Yarnell Hill Fire ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
The Judge in the case had only agreed to keep the court calendar in this case ‘frozen’ for another 30 days back on March 17, 2015… so that only give Arizona Forestry five more days ( until April 17 ) to reach a ‘settlement’ with the plaintiffs before the whole thing is back on track for the courtroom again.
Sure enough… we mysteriously continue to see even MORE news articles suddenly ‘popping’ up about this ( supposed ) NEW Fire Shelter being worked on by the U.S. Forestry Service.
We NOW learn that David Turbyfill ( father of deceased GM Hotshot Travis Turbyfill ) HAS, in fact, been being allowed to participate in this design process.
David Turbyfill was allowed to submit his research data and list of materials that HE has been testing to the people in charge of this ‘new’ fire shelter project.
The person in charge of it happens to be Tony Pertrilli, who was a member of the original SAIT team that investigated the Yarnell Hill tragedy on behalf of Arizona Forestry.
Here is a NEW article about this ‘New Fire Shelter’ design that appeared only
yesterday in the Prescott Daily Courier…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Development of next-gen fire shelter moves to next stage
Published 4/11/2015 6:01:00 AM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=144044&TM=70375.8
From the article…
———————————————————————————————-
U.S. Forest Service researchers have initially tested approximately 50 materials for the federal government’s next-generation emergency shelter for wildland firefighters.
Federal officials decided to move up their planned 2015 review of fire shelters to 2014, because of the deaths of 19 of Prescott’s Granite Mountain Hotshots on the Yarnell Hill wildfire on June 30, 2013.
New or improved shelters could be in firefighters’ hands as early as 2017, said Tony Petrilli, equipment specialist at the Forest Service’s Missoula Technology and Development Center.
Anyone was welcome to submit materials or designs they thought would work in a fire shelter. The Forest Service has been screening them for strength, durability, flammability, thermal performance and toxicity.
Among those who submitted materials is David Turbyfill of Prescott, father of fallen Granite Mountain Hotshot Travis Turbyfill.
Turbyfill manufactures and welds metal products, so he had no trouble creating a huge burner to blast flames onto the material. He posted the test on You Tube at youtu.be/Ps-OcG70hps.
“To me it was, ‘Prove the idea that there was a material available that would have made the event of June 30, 2013 a survivable event,'” Turbyfill said.
Turbyfill said he found the carbon infused fabric on the Internet. It was designed to shield kilns and industrial furnaces from flames.
———————————————————————————————-
I still can’t help but wonder about the actual TIMING for all these articles suddenly ‘popping’ in the MSM about this ‘new’ fire shelter.
That makes the THIRD major ‘announcement’ ( with increasingly more detail each time ) about these shelters just in the last 3 weeks… all of them right smack in the middle of this ‘mediation’ phase between Arizona Forestry and the ‘plaintiffs’ in the Yarnell Fire ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
One of the DEMANDS of the plaintiffs has always been that the WFF industry PROVE it has “Learned Something” ( anything? ) from Yarnell and will actively make CHANGES to industry standards and protocols to try and make sure nothing like Yarnell ever happens again.
So could all of these ‘press releases’ about the ‘new fire shelter’ actually just be tied to those demands… and the U.S. Forestry service is trying to PROVE ( during the actual mediation ) that they are actively at least working to improve SOMETHING following Yarnell?
NOTE: David Turbyfill and his wife ( the parents of Travis Turbyfill ) are NOT officially ‘plaintiffs’ in the wrongful death suits… but Travis’ wife Stephanie Turbyfill is.
Since almost the day after the tragedy… David Turbyfill ( himself an engineer ) has said he would make it one of his ‘missions in life’ to see to it that a NEW Fire Shelter design emerge as a result of the Yarnell Hill tragedy.
Kudos to John D. for his new commentary which came out this morning. It is well stated and includes many of the things we’ve all been thinking,
On another note, most of the recent information that relates to the radio traffic that Brendan allegedly heard of Marsh and Steed discussing their options, states that the discussion was about whether or not to leave the black.
Let’s not forget though, that at that point in time, Steed had no idea of the stunning visual that was going to be presented as he peered down from the top of the bowl while standing at the descent point.
While some narratives in the court filings allege that Brendan also heard a conversation that occurred when the crew reached the descent point, in any case, it is almost assured that another significant discussion DID ensue as Steed and crew came into view of the brush choked bowl, right before the descent.
Most likely, two distinctly separate conversations, with two distinctly separate disagreements. There might be a lesson somewhere in this.
Agree.
Even SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley’s statement(s) to that roomful of Utah firefighters on June 20, 2014 specifically said that the MULTIPLE ( as in, from more than one person ) ‘allegations’ they ( the SAIT ) received about an ‘argument’ all said it was at the “saddle” and it was about “which way to go”.
Once again… Mike Dudley’s exact quote on June 20, 2014…
————————————————————————–
There were some allegations that there was an argument between
the Captain and the Superintendent about which way to go… from
that saddle. Some people made that allegation.
————————————————————————–
There really is little doubt that even after whatever continued “comfort level” based conversations took place to convince Steed to bring the men south and out of the black… there must have been a HUGE WTF moment for Steed himself when he reached that saddle and saw the pink ribbon Marsh left pointing down into the canyon.
Even the SAIT sort of ‘got that part right’.
The SAIR report always divided the tragic decision making that afternoon into THREE critical ‘decision points’.
1) The decision to leave the black in the first place
2) The decision to try the ‘shortcut’ through the fuel-filled blind box canyon.
3) The decision to deploy versus trying ANY other option.
For all we know… there might even been a FINAL ( intense ) argument amongst the men themselves regarding decision point (3).
If any of you have time go over to Wild Fire Today and check out the Crew Boss training film
Probably late 40″ but was no different in the 50″s and early 60″s.
No Fire shirts, No Fire Pants No Fire Shelters and no Packs on your back.
Note the Shirt sleeves rolled down when on the fire line.
We wore kacky shirts, blue jeans Cotton or green Cotton paints.
So That might explain why I am classed as old school, Safety was priority.
When we got Fire shelters we carried them but we never wanted to use them and followed
the 10 &13/18. You didn’t look for deployment sites you planed safety zones we did not trust the Fire Shelter and treated it accordingly (POTATO BAKERS). We carried them because we were required to not because we thought we would ever use one.
When you fight fire with out one you learn a different way of protecting yourself.
As Canadians, we never thought of them as a safety option. Just a piece of heavy mandatory gear, that we did not have faith in, so would avoid getting into a scenario where that was the only option left.
Just looked at the crew Boss film again and it is actually early 1960’s
There are some 1960’s trucks in fire camp with the late 50’s green and gray paint jobs.
Reply to rocksteady post on April 11, 2015 at 10:54 am
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> As Canadians, we never thought of them as a safety option.
>> Just a piece of heavy mandatory gear, that we did not have faith in.
Interesting point.
I wonder if a SURVEY has ever really been taken here in the USA asking the guys/gals who are ‘required’ to ‘carry’ these things whether THEY actually consider it ‘something they have any faith in’.
The moment I saw that initial press conference from the deployment site and the actual Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Chief ( Darrell Willis ) stood there and could NOT answer a reporter’s question about what the actual ‘upper temperature limit’ was for the fire shelter(s)…
…I said to myself…
“Self… if an actual paid Wildland Division Chief doesn’t even have any frickin’ idea what the upper temperature limit is for these stupid things… then I wonder how many of the people who are supposed to USE them are just as clueless?”
It would be interesting to actually establish that ‘level of ‘cluelessness’.
If there are, in fact, hundreds ( thousands? ) of WFFs out there who don’t even have a clear understanding of what is even SURVIVABLE in these things…
…then ‘back up the bus, sparky’.
“Missoula… we have a PROBLEM”.
WE have had that problem for a long time—-
It is mandentory to go thru the training session on Shelters and yearly refreshers.
in the Federal Gov. Refreshers and every one is told the max heat and space from the fire needed. They also use old shelters or training shelters to deploy in so they understand the use and what to do.
Willis and his lack of knowledge is not an indication of all fire fighters.
While Fire Fighters know the capability of the shelter most practice the safe way to never use them.
The Look for Deployment sites instead of Safety Zones seems to be the new Idea of being able to push the limit and take risks by some who think the 10 and 18 are hillbilly and not modern enough.
My thoughts —- There are really very few deployments vs. numbers of fire fighters which means many are following the safety rules and not putting them selves in a position of ever having to deploy.
How many Fire Fighters do you think after Yarnell are thinking I do not ever want to be in a position to deploy what can I do to never use a fire shelter?
After seeing what happened to Granit Mountain that is a real concern.
Their last resort aint going to get it—-Since the Fire shelter was developed
it has only gone from 500 to 650 degree’s it can withstand. even if it goes to 1500 it is still a potato baker——It will take 4 to 5 years to put a better one on the market in the mean time learn to fight fire so you never have to use one.
I did it many others did it. Canada dose it. Become mental robots with the 10 and 18. Learn every thing you can about Wild Land Fire. Stay alert —-
Fight Fire Aggressively but ALWAYS provide for safety first—-
Amen brother!
I posted this commentary earlier this morning.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-investigations-leave-a-shameful-legacy/
Thank you, John, for writing this and also posting it here.
I especially appreciate this:
“The state has abdicated its responsibility to conduct honest and thorough investigations that discover the truth about the events that led to the deaths of 19 young men and to share the information with the public and the families of the deceased.
Instead, Arizona has cruelly shifted that terrible responsibility to McDonough.
The state’s handling of the Yarnell Hill investigations has been shameful and certainly unworthy of the ultimate sacrifice made by the Granite Mountain Hotshots.”
It seems we may now know what happened, but the why I think remains elusive. Why did Marsh pull rank? Why did they have to get to the BSR? A lot of reasons have been advanced and all have been panned here for one reason or another. What plan did Marsh have in mind? Maybe McDonough knows something about that, maybe not. If Marsh had a plan, did he concoct it on his own? Are people in Arizona Forestry seeking to truncate this story even now, even with the new narrative that has come out?
Reply to mike post on April 11, 2015 at 7:18 am
All good questions, mike.
>> mike said…
>>
>> Maybe McDonough knows something about that, maybe not.
I think the only remaining chance to know the WHY is if it was actually mentioned during the earlier “discussing their options” conversations BEFORE the decision was made to ‘leave the safe black’..
They were on a ‘mission’… and unless Steed had consented to the ‘mission’ itself… they would have never left the black at all.
If Brendan and/or any of the Blue Ridge Hotshots didn’t hear THAT part of the “discussing their options” conversation… we’ll probably never really know WHAT the ‘mission’ that Steed had agreed to really was.
I believe that once they DID leave the black… the radio communications were probably then all just ‘tactical’ and the actual REASON they were doing it in the first place was probably no longer even being ‘discussed’.
All that being said…
Don’t forget that there are STILL indications and evidence that point to OTHER people who are still alive having ‘knowldege’ of WHY this move was being made.
Brendan isn’t the only one who still needs to ‘testify’ again and/or be DEPOSED.
Reply to John Dougherty post on April 11, 2015 at 1:41 am
>> John Dougherty said…
>>
>> I posted this commentary earlier this morning.
>>
>> http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-investigations-leave-a-shameful-legacy/
John… thank you for this.
Yes… it’s time for another “Slowly I turned” moment and and time for EVERYONE to take a hard look at the shenanigans that have gone on with the investigations themselves.
As for the failure to even ask Brendan the right questions… I’m not sure we still have the ‘full story’ on that.
I think I’ve said this before but I believe there is still the distinct possibility that the investigators were being PREVENTED from even asking Brendan McDonough certain ‘questions’ and that that ‘stipulation’ was totally ‘off the record’ and arranged PRIOR to Brendan agreeing to ANY interviews.
At ALL THREE of Brendan’s (supposed) interviews… ( SAIT, 2 ADOSH ), there was (supposedly) an attorney sitting there right next to him.
The way the investigators would pull the car right up to the most crucial moments and then NOT ask Brendan the most obvious “Investigations 101” questions at those moments has always ( to me ) indicated that (perhaps) they were told beforehand that Brendan would REFUSE to answer any of those kinds of questions.
There’s a part of me that just cannot even BELIEVE ( and will probably NEVER believe ) that 3 sets of ‘investigators’ could have POSSIBLY been that ‘incompetent’.
Even when Brendan was finally given permission ( by who? ) to talk to the media following the release of the SAIR report… the same situation seemed to still exist.
The initial Prescott Daily Courier interview even stated flat-out that Brendan ( and/or his attorney ) had told them there would be (quote) “Things that Brendan will refuse to talk about”, but even they seemed to not be allowed to even say WHAT those ‘things’ were.
So to this day… I’m not fully convinced myself that there weren’t some “off the record” STIPULATIONS surrounding anyone’s attempt to interview Brendan McDonough… and that means Brendan’s OWN PRIVATE AGENDA has always been a component here in what the investigators were able to find out about June 30, 2013.
Whether that PRIVATE AGENDA was all Brendan’s idea… or whether he was being advised/coached about “what not to talk about” also remains part of the ‘mystery’.
It remains perfectly obvious that even with the questions the investigators DID think to ask Brendan… his responses reflected an obvious ‘coaching’ along the lines of….
“If they ask you about radio conversations… you ONLY have to talk about ones in which you were a direct, active participant. If they ask you about ANY other radio conversations… even ones you might have just overheard… just say things like ‘That wasn’t directed at me’ or ‘That wasn’t my decision’ or “That’s not something I feel comfortable talking about'”.
All THREE of those ‘example’ response above ARE, in fact, things that Brendan SAID back to investigators and interviewers whenever the conversation got close to things he might have just HEARD over the radio.
So there really did seem to be a PLAN, and an AGENDA and some obvious COACHING going on there on Brendan’s side of the table as he was ‘helped’ through these interviews.
WHO did that obvious COACHING?
Was it only his first attorney Emily Dolan?… or was it OTHER people/officials associated with the City of Prescott?
If Brendan is ever deposed… I think even THESE kinds of questions need to be asked.
WTKTT and Marti,
I read down below in the thread a question from Marti as to why a hotshot crew’s line gear can’t be taken off while constructing hand line and in addition to the detailed answer I gave below, there is another simpler answer. The total line gear from an entire hotshot crew would add up to several hundred pounds and make quite a pile.
And although it is probably hard for to you to visualize it, a hotshot crew can really make some time when constructing hand line in a progressive or bump up method. Since the average hand line is only about 18 inches wide and with every crewmember taking a lick, and with entire crew that’s in a groove and that is in rhythm, they can really cover some ground and before you knew it, a crew would be out of sight and quite a distance from their gear, with that distance growing with every tool stroke.
Then the problem comes when you try to bring the crew back together with their gear, does the entire crew hike back and if not, how many crewmembers would have to be taken out of the line to go back and retrieve it? So no…as a practical matter and for lots of reasons, a crew’s line gear has to stay on them.The key to me is to reduce the amount of weight a crew is carrying, there is not else that can be done in terms of carrying methods, they are light years ahead of where we were back in the day. And to really reduce the weight, you would have to able to guarantee flawless logistical support with regular resupply and well…that is not going to happen according to Murphy’s Law.
And specifically for Marti…the photo you were questioning appears to be a photo of a Type II crew comprised of casual or pick-up firefighters and they are treated differently and much less is expected from them for lots or reasons. And yes, for those guy’s strapping an aluminum and hard plastic gallon canteen around their shoulders with water that alone weighs eight pounds in addition to a 50 gallon track bag stuck in their pockets to cut holes in to make a poncho if it rains,well…that is about as good as it gets probably for THOSE kinds of crews even probably.
Also imagine if you can, how much those thin straps on that heavy canteen would cut into your shoulders and how that heavy canteen would feel banging you in the back of your head as you bend over and cut hand line or do other work bending over like mop up for hours on end.
It’s not a just job…it’s an adventure!
whoops I meant to say, “And yes, for those guy’s strapping an aluminum and hard plastic gallon canteen around their shoulders with water that alone weighs eight pounds in addition to a 50 gallon track bag stuck in their pockets to cut holes in to make a poncho if it rains,well…that is about as good as it gets probably for THOSE kinds of crews even probably TODAY.”
So when did pack animals fall ‘out of fashion’, then?
Mules don’t need pension plans, overtime, or even death benefits.
Any of those $250,000 Crew Carriers could easily haul some mule trailers.
Let the mules haul most of that shit… and just require the ground pounders to ALWAYS carry the shelters?
Just thinking out loud.
Well I do think you are right about cutting down on the gear. I have seen photos of those large blue packs the GMHS were carrying and I have wondered what was in them?
WTKTT
Mules—Pack 150 lbs. each that equates to 5 Mules and at least one handler. Some areas where Fire line is built you could never take a mule.
Just my rendering from working with pack animals.
Not sure what todays cost is on a back pack for Fire Fighters but they have been developed to be comfortable.
It depends on what they pack that makes up the weight.
Fire shelter, 8 to 16 lbs of water, 3 meals of food, coats, gloves, first aid kits, fusee’s , sig bottles of chain saw gas and oil, Head lamp and extra batteries, Radio and extra batteries, File, Flagging, Personal items–Cameras, socks, bandanas, Sawyers extra saw parts, file, saw shapes. and Chain Saw.
Not sure the final weight but some where between 30 and 45 Lbs.
I probably missed something but that is close.
A HS crew is outfitted to function for a 24 Hr. Shift. If they are left on the fire for many reasons.
*chuckles*
Having done both packs and mules, I think, for the purpose, I’d vote to stick with the packs.
More chuckles—-
Pack animals don’t like Fire at close range and Planes and Helicopters would scatter them like flies.
Packs are way more convenient——
The engineer in me is now picturing some fuel-cell powered mini-atv style mechanical MULE.
It can go ANYWHERE a man can go.
It never gets ‘spooked’. Not ever.
It never gets tired.
It doesn’t need pension, overtime, or death benefits.
It can carry all the SHIT that the men shouldn’t have to.
One steep further—–ROBOTS—-(FIREPROOF)
Thanks, Gary. Totally makes sense. Especially after watching this:
“Wildland Fire Go Pro Nevada Initial Attack”
https://youtu.be/GtWQ85q31aM
It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve see that shows the almost zen-like nature of building hand-line. And how quickly it moves.
The beginning of the video is a bit bumpy. But then it gets REALLY interesting.
Actually, one of the thoughts I’VE had is how much more comfortable those low-slung packs look than than the higher-up-on-the-back pack I used to haul all over the Grand Canyon.
Maybe they’re not, actually. But if I were still in my back-packing days, I’d surely be interested in trying that design out.
Gary forgot to mention Leap frog line construction in light fuels.
Done with 2 hot shot crews or with squads in the HS crew. very fast and
efficient line to get the max line construction in a fast movement.
Just adding on Gary did a good job of explaining above………..
Yes, I do think you are right, leap frogging is a faster line construction method. Maybe not as clean, but faster.
Packs have gotten a lot better. But the low slung packs are best if you’re bending over to use tools all day, and have a lot of upper body strength. They kind of suck for most women, because it’s tough to shift the weight to the hips. They also throw the weight out further from the body than a traditional hiking pack (think of 4-5 liters of water in a ring around the edge). Hard on the back and shoulders. I guess they’re pretty good for what they do and who uses them. They run about 35 pounds.
Marti, neat video, it say’s it all, the world has really changed, now almost everything is on YouTube.
Interesting related video:
“Wildland Fire – What’s in your Line Pack?” by Wandering Beast uploaded Nov 15, 2011:
https://youtu.be/aujC7wIs4Ys
Comes with a list.
WantsToKnowTheTruth says
April 10, 2015 at 10:04 pm
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 8, 2015 at 12:35 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> So, in looking around to find out if Prescott eNews had published what Lynne LaMaster
>> promised in her April 2 article………..
>>
>> “CITY ATTORNEY PALADINI COMPLETES INVESTIGATION OF ICMA ‘TAMPERING”…..
>> “Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the differences between the two reports.”
>>
>> ………which they still haven’t done……
>>
>> I discovered, via a facebook post on Prescott Firefighter’s Last Alarm, that
>> yesterday, on KCYA, there was an interview with Joe Stutler, the person who
>> did the wildland segment of the ICMA Report.
>>
>> The link on that facebook post goes to a website that doesn’t
>> have the interview archived.
>>
>> But KCMA does have it archived and it is here…
>>
>> Original MP3 audio file of this interview with Joe Stutler…
>>
>> http://www.kyca.info/audio/news/STUTLER%20WRAP.mp3
Thank you for finding this, Marti.
And here is a complete TRANSCRIPT of that RADIO interview with Joe Stutler.
** KYCA RADIO INTERVIEW WITH JOE STUTLER
Joe Stutler was the 3rd party contractor hired by ICMA to do the ‘Wildland’ evaluation for the report ICMA was hired to do for the City of Prescott.
Here he is being interviewed ( LIVE ) by radio station KYCA following Darrell Willis’ accusations ( in his own resignation letter ) that that part of the ICMA report was ‘tampered with’…
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS RADIO INTERVIEW
————————————————————————————
Announcer: The report ( in question ) is the wildland section of the ICMA analysis of the Prescott Fire Department. Former Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis alleged in his letter of resignation last month that someone had tampered with it.
The man who investigated and wrote the wildland report at the request of the International County Management Association ( ICMA ), which had been retained by the City, was Joe Stutler, senior adviser to the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners in Bend, Oregon.
Mr. Stutler… DID someone tamper with your report?
Joe Stutler:
There’s not a yes or no answer there.
I was asked to work with ICMA on the report for the Prescott Fire Department and my particular area of expertise is wildland fire so I came to Prescott and did the interviews and field trip and looked around and so I put my report together and I sent it in to fellow professionals with ICMA that were dealing with EMS and dispatch and structural and the other aspects of Prescott Fire and I sent that in.
Must have been in February of 2014.
And then, ya know, it was like… ah… did not hear ANYTHING for several months despite several efforts to… ya know… coordinate the overall completion of the report.
And, as I recall, somewhere in June I found out that the ICMA report had been completed and submitted to the City of Prescott… and so I contacted ICMA said “Hey… I understand the report has been released. I’d like a copy of it”.
So when I got the copy of the report it was clear that my submissions to the overall report… the wildland thing… had in fact been changed.
If representatives from ICMA would have contacted me and said “Hey, we’re bringing this report together and let’s talk about these specific recommendations and in the context of the overall report”… I would have had that discussion and perhaps we could have reached common ground on some of the recommendations.
As it turned out… there was NO consultation and my report, that I was given credit for, was, in fact, changed.
And I don’t know WHO did that.
The only thing I know is that when I look at MY report and what I submitted and the final ICMA report… they were different.
The recommendations had been changed without any consultation whatsoever and, in fact, they had hired me to… ya know… do my best to represent the risk assessment. What I saw from a wildland fire perspective for Prescott. And so I did that.
And so I… when I got the report… I made contact with ICMA and I objected.
I said… ya know… that’s not my report and I don’t think it’s accurate in terms of what the risk… or the recommendations.
And so we went back and forth on that some… and finally ICMA says “Hey, we’re going to… uh… and we consent to you… you know… having contact with the City of Prescott and the Fire Chief and the Deputy City Manager to talk about your version of the report”… and I said “That’s great”.
So… within a day or so… I had a conference call with the Fire Chief and the Deputy City Manager… and I had forwarded them MY report… and we talked about the differences and MY assessment… and we had a very good discussion.
And they said thanks… thanked me for that… and then I had a subsequent email from the Chief with an action plan that he had for the report in terms of… you know… what it was going to take for ICMA, or Prescott, to… you know… implement some or all of the report… and I thought… that’s GOOD.
And I… and to… in fairness to the Chief and in fairness to the Deputy City Manager… uh… they listened… they asked good questions… and I… uh… understand that they… uh.. you know… they paid for a report and it’s going to be at that point a BUSINESS decision that the City of Prescott has for… you know… to… ah… implement all or some or none of the report.
That’s entirely up to them.
Announcer: At the request of City Councilman Charlie Arnold, City of Prescott Attorney Jon Paladini conducted and inquiry into Darrell Willis’ accusation of tampering. In a written report to the City Council, Paladini concluded that although there ARE differences in the draft report prepared by Joe Stutler and the final report presented to the City Council by ICMA… he could find NO evidence of tampering.
For the news 1490… I’m Don Steele.
————————————————————————————
END of KYCA RADIO INTERVIEW with Joe Stutler
Thanks for transcribing this.
I’m at the point, now. where, given what TTWARE has said, and various other things various other people have said in their comments on the Daily Courier articles, the proof was in the pudding before the (wink wink nod nod) start of this “independent” analysis and report.
It seems to me that there were, from the standpoint of what some call the “cabal,” i.e. the “good old boys” (which, all things considered, Willis et al might once have been a part of but clearly weren’t by this point), the mayor, the city manager, and various members of the City Council, approximately five issues here. But they’re intertwined, which is part of the complexity here.
1) Whether to keep hosting an IHC (which Fire Chief Dan Fraijo, understandably, needed a decision on ASAP). Or, if not that, what kind of thing to replace them with (which also Fire Chief Dan Fraijo needed a decision on ASAP).
2) What, generally speaking, kind of force configuration was needed, in order to maintain the capacity to respond to wildland fires that might endanger the city.
3) What, generally speaking, kind of crew was needed to do the fuels mitigation that the city needed.
4) Where and how to organize these varying, but still connected, operations within the Fire Department.
5) How to cut the costs of all of this. Which may be the biggest achilles heel in all of this in the long run.
It’s really really late fore me right now and I don’t have the two, but if I recall correctly, the biggest difference between his original report and the one that was then reprojected, was a downplay in the importance of maintaining a Wildland Division and a Crew to go with it.
The “city fathers” took that Division and wrapped it back inside of another Division in the Fire Department, and then, first hired, for, awhile an internal crew to do fuels mitigation, and are now proposing to outsource that function.
We’ve had our various conversations about the various alternatives that are possible, some of which might be less “expensive” than what Prescott was paying for by hosting an IHC crew.
What I have seen, ACTUALLY, in wandering around looking at things, is communities realizing the RISK they are in, putting forth MORE resources, both their own and their dollars (even with the similar financial pressures we are seeing in Prescott), to ramp UP the kind of stuff that Prescott is currently, as a result of this study, ramping DOWN.
So, I’m not sure what was said to Mr. Stutler to get him to go along to get along, so to speak.
I’m still not convinced, all things considered, that the City of Prescott is dong the right thing.
I was looking around, today, at various municipal and county Fire Departments in New Mexico involved in the Interagency Cooperative Wildfire Planning process, and I saw MANY that have Wildland Fire Divisions with significant high-level staffing and dedicated crews.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 11, 2015 at 12:08 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> What I have seen, ACTUALLY, in wandering around looking at
>> things, is communities realizing the RISK they are in, putting
>> forth MORE resources, both their own and their dollars (even
>> with the similar financial pressures we are seeing in Prescott),
>> to ramp UP the kind of stuff that Prescott is currently, as a
>> result of this study, ramping DOWN.
As for the ‘result of this study’ part… I think it’s worth noting that while there is NO QUESTION that final re-typed version of Joe Stutler’s original (raw) ‘Wildland Report’ that he delivered to whom HE was being paid to work for ( the ICMA itself ) was ‘condensed’ and ‘edited’… the original work he did about the potential Wildfire danger to Prescott was NOT changed all that much.
BOTH Joe Stutler’s original report AND the final edited version made it absolutely CLEAR that Prescott was ( and has always been ) in great danger of a CATASTROPHIC Wildfire incident.
Joe Stutler’s original (raw) draft contained TWO different ‘modeling’ studies for a CATASTROPHIC Widlfire even in the Prescott area. He used TWO different industry standard pieces of software to ‘model’ that. FARSITE and FsPro.
He even included ‘images’ and ‘fire spread projections’ from BOTH of those ‘modeling runs’ and he also explained what they meant in detail in the text of his original draft.
ALL of that data and information regarding these ‘modeling runs’ with FARSITE and FsPro survived ‘intact’ all the way to the FINAL report that was presented to the Prescott City Council.
So there really is no question that BOTH Joe Stutler’s original draft AND the final draft were BOTH painting the same picture of the high likelihood of a CATASTROPHIC Widlfire event being ‘highly likely’ in and around the City of Prescott.
Even Stutler’s warnings about how IF the limited Highway access to the area were to be ‘shut down’ by such an event for even a limited amount of time the effect on the local income would be as equally devastating to economic health Prescott as the fire itself.
So I really don’t know where Willis was coming from with regards to this ‘aspect’ of the ICMA report. Yes… the ‘Wildland’ section WAS a ‘condensed version’ of Stutler’s original… but the final draft was the same “pulling no punches” account of how disastrous ( and how likely ) a major Wildfire event could be as was Sutler’s original draft.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> So, I’m not sure what was said to Mr. Stutler to get him to
>> go along to get along, so to speak.
According to Stutler himself… the CONFERENCE that he had just after the final report went to the Prescott City Council was, in fact, a full ‘review’ of both his ORIGINAL findings/recommendations AND a comparison to the published report.
He ( Stutler ) seemed to come out of that CONFERENCE fully convinced that regardless of how/why some of his ‘recommendations’ got changed from the original to the final draft(s)… there was then no doubt that the ‘decision makers’ were now fully aware of EVERYTHING he had said and/or recommended… and they would now take ALL of that into consideration as decisions were made.
So that’s why he eventually ‘signed off’ on the FINAL report.
He had had his OWN personal and direct conference with the decision makers and he walked away from that conference convinced that they had HEARD and UNDERSTOOD all of his original recommendations and why he had made them.
Unlike Darrell Willis, Stutler also apparently FULLY understood that no matter what was in that ‘Wildland’ section of the ICMA report… the City of Prescott was under NO obligation to pay ANY attention to ANY of it if they didn’t feel like it.
The entire purpose of the report was to just try and help the City Managers of Prescott make some hard BUSINESS decisions about what programs could still be supported given the ongoing budget crisis there in the City of Prescott.
And they DO have a TERRIBLE crisis. An estimated 60 million dollar deficit just for the upcoming 2015 budget year alone.
But regardless of what BUSINESS decisions we now see ‘going down’ in Prescott… there can be no doubt that the even the final version of the ‘Wildland’ section of the paid-for ICMA report represents a “You were WARNED” moment fo the City Managers of Prescott.
So what Willis is ‘railing’ against isn’t even so much who saw what version of a 3rd party contracted ‘Wildland’ section in a management report. Joe Stutler himself says that the people that ‘mattered’ definitely ended up seeing “all there is to see” there and he was, himself, SURE that they did.
What is upsetting Willis is the actual BUSINESS decisions that HAVE been made by the City Managers of Prescott.
He simply doesn’t AGREE with those decisions. That’s all.
What he intends to DO about that ( run for Mayor himself? ) remains to be seen.
Followup…
In the “You were WARNED” category… it’s interesting to note that even though MOST of Stutler’s original ‘additional consequences’ text regarding a CATASTROPHIC Widlfire hitting Prescott were left ‘intact’ all the way to the FINAL report… there was ONE thing Stutler mentioned that was TOTALLY REMOVED.
This ENTIRE paragraph from his original draft…
———————————————————
2. The political risk for both elected officials and local government
officials/leaders would be significant given the wildland fire risk is both
KNOWN and WELL DOCUMENTED, and sufficient mitigation to reduce
the risk is NOT taken and maintained.
———————————————————
In other words… even though the ‘rewrite’ was still pointing out all the DANGER… the part where Stutler himself was telling them that one of the ‘consequences’ of not being fully PREPARED for the event would be serious POLITICAL consequences is one of the only things that was FULLY REMOVED in the ‘final draft’.
**
** BRENDAN MCDONOUGH SEEKS PSPRS MEDICAL DISABILITY PENSION
This was published last night by AZCENTRAL…
AZCENTRAL
Article Title: Surviving hotshot from Yarnell Hill Fire seeks pension
Published 10:54 p.m. MST April 9, 2015 by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/10/surviving-granite-mountain-hotshot-seeks-pension-benefits/25563257/
From the article…
—————————————————————————
Brendan McDonough, the sole surviving Granite Mountain hotshot, has inquired about state pension benefits nearly two years after the crew perished in the Yarnell Hill Fire, The Arizona Republic has learned.
McDonough, a former seasonal Prescott employee, did not pay into the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System, but he hopes to file for a “PSPRS medical disability retirement,” according to notes from a Prescott City Council briefing. He is not a member of the system and has not yet filed a claim.
Since McDonough was not a member of PSPRS and did not file for a medical retirement within a year of leaving his position with the city, the records said, “there does not appear to be a basis for his request.”
McDonough did not respond to requests for comment.
—————————————————————————
And ( just like clockwork ) the Prescott Daily Courier has now ‘followed up’ with their own article about Brendan seeking a retirement pension with an article published just a few hours ago….
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: McDonough inquires with city about PSPRS benefits
Published: 4/10/2015 9:28:00 PM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=144033
From the article…
——————————————————————-
PRESCOTT – Surviving Granite Mountain Hotshot Brendan McDonough has yet to make an official claim, but Prescott city officials say he has inquired about the possibility of applying for Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS) benefits.
McDonough reportedly approached the city’s human resources department recently about applying for medical disability through the PSPRS.
In response to that inquiry, Human Resources Analyst Melissa Fousek sent McDonough an email on April 1, noting that the local fire PSPRS board’s attorney Donna Aversa had advised that McDonough would need to provide a copy of his claim to the local board, the City of Prescott, and the PSPRS administrator.
McDonough, who has declined a request for a comment, earlier said he was dealing with post traumatic stress disorder.
——————————————————————-
Am I the only one who is just cynical enough to wonder about the actual TIMING here?
The guy has had almost TWO years to be officially diagnosed with PTSD and get the help he needs… and only NOW some information is coming out that he thinks he still has it so bad that he deserves an actual ‘disablility pension’?
The TIMING *could* be related to all the news that has been ‘popping’ lately.
On ‘official’ diagnosis of PTSD would be a pretty convenient ‘answer’ to the upcoming questions he is going to have to answer about WHY he was basically choosing to ‘obstruct’ two official investigations into the cause of the tragedy.
This *could* even be something that is happening on the advice of his criminal attorney, Mr. David Shapiro.
Just saying you *think* you might have PTSD is one thing.
Actually filling out paperwork that is going to claim you DO have it ( and have always had it ) takes it more into the realm of ‘proof’ that could be admitted as ‘evidence’ when/if you need to ‘explain’ WHY you may or may not have done certain things.
Either way… I believe it’s not possible to achieve a PTSD related retirement pension without there being some kind of OFFICIAL diagnosis.
Maybe filing this paperwork begins the process of accomplishing that and ‘making it official’.
Again. The TIMING just seems a little ‘contrived’ here.
I find this really interesting, all things considered. And totally confusing. And also mystifying.
Retirement? Medical Disability?
OK. He’s probably seriously suffering from PTSD.That I can grant him. I’ve said it all along.
I just don’t know how to even evaluate this whatsoever.
As the AZCENTRAL article points out ( but NOT the PDC article )… records indicate that for a full year following the tragedy… Brendan’s was on some kind of ‘workmen’s comp’ claim that required periodic ‘check ins’ to keep the money flowing.
At NO time did he make a move to apply for any kind of ‘disability’, or mention to the people checking his claim status that he thought he had PTSD.
It is only “recently” ( as reported in BOTH articles ) that he started making inquiries about how to apply for a ‘medial disability’ through the City channels.
BOTH articles state that the response letter from Melissa Fousek of Prescott Human Resources ( Yes… the same Melissa Fousek who was on the GM Crew Boss selection committee in 2013 ) was sent back to Brendan on April 1, 2015.
That was just 10 days ago.
So think about the TIMING here.
That means Brendan made his INITIAL inquiries about obtaining ‘medical disability’ probably no farther back than just about 2 weeks ago.
If He was on workman’s Comp. he was still on the Fire departments employee roster they could not remove him as an employee while on Workman’s Comp I do not believe but I Could be wrong
Well… the following information published in the AZCENTRAL article ( but not in the PDC one ) says that Brendan DID actually ‘resign’ from the Prescott Fire Department… but then in the same ‘breathe’ it also says records show he continued to attend ‘worker-compensation evaluations’ even after that.
So I’m not really sure WHAT that means.
If he was even ‘attending’ any ‘evaluations’ related to ‘workers-compensation’… I assume that means he was still receiving some kind of WC benefits… even though he had ‘resigned’.
From the AZCENTRAL article…
————————————————————-
McDonough resigned from the city last year in the aftermath of the June 2013 fire, which claimed the lives of 19 of his colleagues. McDonough now works for a Boise, Idaho-based wildland firefighting organization.
Since the fire, according to the city records, McDonough has attended periodic worker-compensation evaluations overseen by the city’s risk-management pool.
Since McDonough was not a member of PSPRS and did not file for a medical retirement within a year of leaving his position with the city, the records said, “there does not appear to be a basis for his request.”
———————————————————–
Thanks, WTKTT!
Now it’s making a bit more sense to me. I was getting really tripped up by just all the language.
Having never been a “public employee,” sometimes I get a little bit lost in all this bureaucratic benefits stuff.
Even as one it can be a total jungle to employees as well.
**
** AGENDA FOR TODAY’S MEETING OF THE YARNELL MEMORIAL SITE BOARD
The next scheduled meeting of the PUBLIC Yarnell Hill Fire Memorial Site Board is bascially taking place right now ( 3:00 PM, April 10, 2015 ).
The AGENDA for this meeting was required to be made public weeks ago… but it was only posted on the following site THIS MORNING…
http://azstateparks.com/committees/Yarnell.html
This agenda now has some attachments in it not seen in other agendas which proves that the Board HAS agreed to go ahead and purchase the actual land where the tragedy occurred and we now also see a DATE being set for the required AUCTION of that land.
The land is PUBLIC TRUST land and can’t be ‘given’ to anyone. It has to be sold at PUBLIC AUCTION.
That auction is going to be held on June 30, 2015.
Here is the exact entry from the agenda…
“June 30, 2015 at 11:00AM the ASLD will sell the land at Public Auction to the
highest and best bidder for the purpose of the Yarnell Hill Memorial. The auction
will be held at the Yavapai County Courthouse, Prescott, AZ.”
The document now also answers the question about whether they are going to purchase the ENTIRE 320 acres that constitutes the entire ‘South half of Section 9’… or whether they were going to just purchase the EAST half of that southern half of Section 9 where the deployment site is located.
They are going to try to purchase all 320 acres. The entire south half of Section 9.
There is still no word whether that small group of ‘widows’ who wanted to purchase the same land and be the ones to ‘control’ who has access to the deployment site will be participating in this PUBLIC auction, or not.
The MINUTES for this PUBLIC Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board meeting are supposed to be made public within 72 hours following this meeting… but this Board has also never been paying any attention to that part of the ‘Arizona Open Meetings’ laws so there’s no telling when they minutes from today’s meeting might actually show up.
Followup…
The AGENDA for today’s scheduled Yarnell Memorial Site Board meeting is also accompanied by a ‘PowerPoint’ presentation that is supposed to be used during today’s meeting.
This PowerPoint presentation is right under today’s agenda at the following site…
http://azstateparks.com/committees/Yarnell.html
It shows, for the first time, what the PROPOSED ‘access’ to the site might look like.
Since the Board has been unable to get any of the landowners in Glen Ilah and Yarnell to cooperate with regards to granting ANY ‘rights of way’ or ‘access rights’ through their property and out to that south half of Section 9… the PROPOSED access now appears to be a LONG TRAIL coming in from the SOUTH all the way from Highway 89 at the base
of the Weaver Mountains.
Not only will it be a LONG hike just to even get near the site… it will be an extreme CLIMB up from Highway 89 to the top of the Weavers.
The trail coming in from the SOUTH would actually ‘fetch up’ and arrive at that south half of Section 9 right about at the spot where the high-ridge two-track road takes that sudden
turn EAST and goes towards the Boulder Springs Ranch.
In other words… right about the point where the hikers Joy Collura and Tex (Sonny) Gilligan actually exited the area that day as they were coming off the high ridge.
There would, apparently, be some PARKING area also created way down on Highway 89 where this trail would start, but that is not pictured in the PowerPoint presentation.
They also have the minutes from the February 27th meeting posted now, also.
Yes. Interesting points…
1) NOBODY who owns any land surrounding the proposed memorial site wants to grant any ‘rights of way’ or ‘access rights’…. and they don’t have the money to start forcing the issue with anyone.
2) Mr. King DID ask directly if Lee and DJ Helm might be willing to SELL their property. Yarnell Fire Chief Ben Palm basically said “no way”. Mr. King followed that up with saying they shouldn’t take that as a definite NO… and should still keep pursuing that option. No mention was made of the fact that Lee and DJ Helm are part of the ‘property damage’ lawsuits against Arizona Forestry and are asking for 6+ million dollars in ‘damages’… and maybe that could be used as a ‘negotiating point’ here to try and actually OBTAIN the property itself.
3) No progress at all on a ‘design’ for the site. The only agreement is that it should probably be ‘very simple’ for three reasons. It will keep costs down, it will ‘respect’ what is being described as ‘sacred ground’ AND ( the most practical reason )… if it gets too ‘complicated’ or ‘advanced’ then they MIGHT bump up against State/Federal park requirements for BATHROOMS and ADA ( American Disablities Act ) requirements for handicap access to all aspects of the ‘memorial’.
4) The ‘Donations’ mechanism has been active on the Memorial Board website since February and their have been over 3,000 visits to that part of the site… but only $600 ( SIX HUNDRED ) dollars has been donated so far.
Forgot one ( interesting point from the Feb 27 minutes ).
5) The architect that is ‘donating’ his services to help propose ‘ideas’ for the memorial site itself wants everyone to ‘meet’ out there at the site and they set a tentative date of March 14 for that… but then concerns were expressed that if this Board schedules a ‘meeting’ out there ( and a quorum of Board members ends up in attendance ) then according to ‘Arizona Open Meetings’ laws this is now a ‘regularly scheduled meeting’ of this PUBLIC Board and the PUBLIC itself has to then be notified about it AND also ‘invited to attend’.
NO ONE wants THAT to ever happen… so they are now trying to figure out how to ‘meet’ out at the site WITHOUT it being an actual ‘scheduled meeting’ of this PUBLIC Board.
I guess we will find out in the ‘next’ set of minutes if they ever did ‘figure that out’ and how they accomplished that.
**
** “ARIZONA FORESTRY VERSUS ADOSH” ALJ HEARING FILES CONSOLIDATED
Something really strange just happened with all those “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH”
ALJ Hearing files sitting at the following PUBLIC URL…
https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile
All of a sudden… they ALL show an ‘Update Time’ of April 8, 2015 ( between 11:47 and 11:48 AM ).
That includes the ALJ Hearing File documents going all the way back to July, 2013.
I think what has happened here is that someone (??) just CONSOLIDATED everything so that every single file represents everything that happened in any particular MONTH since they first started posting documents in July of 2013.
I don’t see anything MISSING or REMOVED yet… but I’m still comparing them to the originals.
From what I can tell… this REORG and CONSOLDATION was done to hide the fact that they online ALJ Hearing File page has NOT been being updated on the ‘first business day’ of each week as the home page for the ALJ Hearings says it is supposed to be.
Example: The documents that were only uploaded the other day, but had obviously been written/delivered back in MARCH have now been dumped BACK into the previous MARCH, 2015 filename. This masks the fact that they were 3 weeks late posting these documents.
Since all of the ‘Update’ dates on ALL of the Hearing files are now the SAME DAY ( April 8, 2015 ),
it is impossible to see now that they have never really been updating this online page according to the frequency required. ( First business day of each week ).
The file for April now ONLY contains that MANIFEST of all the documents/photos/videos that the SAIT delivered to ADOSH ( and where they all came from in the first place ) and the notice that the final ALJ Hearing has been moved from July to October 13, 2015.
** THE MANIFEST
Still combing through that extensive MANIFEST of EVIDENCE that Arizona Forestry says represents the totality of what THEY received from Jim Karel’s and Mike Dudley’s SAIT team.
Found another ‘interesting’ entry.
Remember: This MANIFEST is a reproduction of that the SAIT supposedly gave to Arizona Forestry who, in turn, is now supposed to be FULLY supplying to ADOSH.
So that means the ‘ORIGIN OF EVIDENCE’ column in the manifest itself was (supposedly) all filled out by people on the SAIT side of the equation.
This MANIFEST is saying that the SAIT is telling Arizona Forestry it received all of Christopher MacKenzie’s CANON Camera photos and videos from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.
That does NOT match the ‘story’ told by Darrell Willis how HE received a CD back from MacKenzie’s father after he gave him the actual camera… and it was then Darrell Willis who supposedly passed that CD full of photos and videos on to the SAIT.
There is NO EVIDENCE in any of the YCSO documents to indicate that the YCSO ever had Christopher MacKenzie’s camera in their possession at any time or that this CANON Camera was ever examined by them or officially entered into the evidence record.
Check-out John’s new article above.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/mcdonough-will-testify-if-legally-required/
Kudos to John Dougherty for this important article.
He went as close to the ‘source’ as he could. Brendan’s lawyer David Shapiro.
In addition to answers to questions no other reporter seemed to even want to bother to find out… here are some other things we now know because of John’s good work…
1) Brendan’s attorney fees are NOT being paid for by the City of Prescott, or Arizona Forestry, or U. S. Forestry, or any external ‘Firefighter’ support organization. His criminal defense attorney ( David Shapiro ) is representing him ‘pro bono’ ( for free ).
2) The actual Arizona Attorney General was NOT present in that initial face-to-face meeting when Willis disclosed what Brendan told him privately to Arizona ‘officials’. It was simply some subset of staff attorneys from the Arizona Attorney General’s office.
3) It appears now that when SAIT co-leader Mike Dudley shot his mouth off on June 20, 2014 during his speech to that roomful of Utah firefighters and revealed that the SAIT had been told by more than one person there was an ‘argument’ between Marsh and Steed… that that had a lot to do with Brendan deciding to come forward soon after that information became PUBLIC and have that talk with Willis.
It should be noted that the fact remains that whichever ‘multiple persons’ SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley said had told the SAIT they heard an ‘argument’… it still appears that none of THOSE ‘persons’ was Brendan McDonough himself.
That still means the most likely ‘multiple persons’ that Mike Dudley was referring to were one or more of the three Blue Ridge Hotshots that had been driving the other Granite Mountain vehicles, which had the GM intra-net crew frequency automatically set as the PRIORITY radio channel.
The Blue Ridge Hotshots are still under a GAG ORDER from the U.S. Forestry Service and are still not allowed to talk about what any of them heard that day… if they want to keep their jobs.
According to this new article… David Shapiro said…
“The complexities of this situation are sufficient that Brendan isn’t going to make any statement until it is proper for him to do so,” Shapiro says. “When the time comes when it is legally proper for him to tell his side of the story, he will do it.”
Until it is PROPER for him to do so?
When the TIME comes?
Really?
The TIME when it was PROPER for Brendan to have told people tasked with investigating this incident everything he knows has COME and GONE over and over and over ( Yes, at least THREE times. SAIT interview and TWO ADOSH interviews ).
There is still going to have to come a moment for Brendan when he needs to ALSO supply an good EXPLANATION why he was ‘choosing’ to basically ‘obstruct’ official investigation(s).
No… I still don’t think there’s any chance of Brendan actually being CHARGED with that offense ( A Class 2 misdemeanor )… but it’s also still perfectly obvious now that he has actually COMMITTED that offense and he needs to explain WHY he chose to do that.
A lot of people think that the answer to that is ‘easy’ ( That he was scared, that he was trying to protect the ‘reputation’ of his ‘brothers’, yada, yada, yada )…
…but there might have been more to it than that.
Until Brendan himself says WHY he actually decided to ‘obstruct’ those official investigations… or if he was being ‘advised’ to do so… we won’t REALLY know ‘the full story’.
“Oh… what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive”.
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.
Scottish author & novelist (1771 – 1832)
Followup…
Notice ( in this new article ) that not for one second does Brendan’s attorney Daivid Shapiro make any attempt to DENY anything that has just recently been published with regards to ‘the story’ already being reported.
That can be construed to mean it really is all TRUE… but he is just doing his job now as an attorney and trying to control the circumstances when Brendan has to finally CONFIRM the already-released information… and also finally supply the DETAILS that haven’t been published yet.
He knew they were coming off that mountain and yet he never called them to tell them what the fire was doing. Did he not want to interfere with his supervisors? He should have said something to the BR Superintendent when they brought the drivers for the trucks.
This is the other contention I have had for a long time the look out should have been minimum— Strike Team Leader Qualified— Not a 2 year FF who was sick.
There is just so many things a good lookout could have done.?????????
I think its going to take a little time for the new information to actually sink in… including the fact that for all intents and purposes… it all appears to be ‘confirmed’.
In Brendan’s case… the ‘story for public consumption’ for so long has been that he ‘signed off’ with Steed on the radio saying “Call me if you need me” and then he never know what his own Crew was doing after that.
Since that is now most apparently NOT the case… yes… a LOT of ‘new questions’ are now lying right there on the table.
And not just surrounding what Brendan did or didn’t do… or what the others who may have had this knowledge did or didn’t do ( The Blue Ridge Hotshots ).
The new information calls a lot of things into question.
If Brendan KNEW they were ‘on the move’ and where they were headed, and there was even the SLIGHTEST chance they might not have known how fast the fire was ‘blowing up’… why would Brendan even hesitate to just do a ‘reality check’ with them since he was (still?) their ‘designated lookout’ that day?
Absolute proof of a ‘Lesson Learned’ and why someone who doesn’t know how to take initiative should NEVER be assigned as a ‘lookout’?
If Marsh really was either near or already at the BSR at ANY point in time prior to the disaster… did SPGS1 Gary Cordes KNOW that?
Could THAT be why he ‘wasn’t surprised where they were’ and why he was telling Esquibel to send that engine ( or two ) to the BSR?
Somehow… Cordes had NO DOUBT that at least Marsh has made it there and needed a ‘pickup’?
And there is still the YARNELL-GAMBLE video.
Based on the NEW information… when we hear Marsh saying “They’re coming from the heel of the fire” at EXACTLY 4:27 PM… then that does place Marsh way out AHEAD of them ( at or near the BSR ) at 4:27 PM and his “coming from” reference was, indeed, from the perspective of “I’m DOWN HERE already… but THEY are ‘still coming'”.
WHO was Marsh actually talking to there on the public TAC channel?
It is still VERY important to know because, at 4:27 PM, there was still time for an intervention that day.
What does this new information do for the 4:17 PM transmission when we hear Marsh avoid the direct question from ( someone? WHO? ) as to whether he was “with Granite Mountain’ and he dodged that question with “Just checkin’ it out to see where we’re gonna jump out at”.
In the context of the NEW information… what does THAT actually mean now? “Jump out” from WHERE? The Boulder Springs Ranch?
Does that really indicate that getting to the BSR was just ‘phase 1′ of the plan and Marsh was still “Checkin’ it out to see where we gonna jump out at” after the men arrived there… to ‘fulfill the mission’?
What WAS the ‘mission’, really?
Just to get to the BSR… or there was already even more of a ‘plan’ in place?
Does Brendan know what the FULL plan was?
And… of course… the mother of all questions now.
If Marsh was anywhere out AHEAD of those men that day and acting as de-facto ‘Forward Lookout’ for them… then why are they all dead?
**
** WHO WAS REALLY AT THAT FIRST ‘MEETING’ WITH WILLIS AND PALADINI?
**
** HOW ABOUT THE ACTUAL ARIZONA STATE ATTORNEY GENERAL.
In the “I just now picked up on this” category with regards to the most recent Daily Courier article, I just noticed that unlike the AZCENTRAL article, the PDC article actually now tells us EXACTLY WHO was at that initial ‘meeting’ that Willis and Paladini arranged after Willis gave McDonough one full weekend to get his information to investigators… and Brendan failed to do that.
That’s when Willis got with Palladini ( and Arizona Forestry people? ) and told him/them what Brendan told him, and then someone ( Paladini? AZF people? ) arranged a meeting to inform ‘higher ups’ about all of it.
We FIRST heard that this kind of ‘meeting’ took place in the ALJ Hearing file when Arizona Forestry Lawyer David Selden was ‘talking’ directly to ALJ Judge Mosesso.
The actual quote ( from the ALJ Hearing file document ) was…
———————————————————————————-
Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) has received CREDIBLE information from RELIABLE sources, including a Prescott official in the presence of the Prescott City Attorney ( John Paladini ), that Mr. McDonough heard radio transmissions BETWEEN crew members about their tragic actions in leaving the safety of “the black” and heading TOWARDS the location at which they perished.
———————————————————————————–
This always sounded like it might have been just a CONFERENCE CALL with Arizona Forestry lawyers ( David Selden, etc. ) on one end of the phone and Willis and Palladini on the other end.
But now we see this being reported in the latest PDC article…
———————————————————————————-
Willis said he told McDonough that he would give him a few days to take the information forward. When McDonough did not follow that advice, Willis contacted the State Forestry Department, as well as Paladini, about the new information.
That led to a Phoenix meeting, at which Willis was interviewed by officials with State Forestry, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH), and the Arizona Attorney General. Paladini said he sat in as Willis’ attorney.
———————————————————————————-
So that means this ‘moment they learned the information’ being reported by the Arizona Forestry lawyers in one of their letters to Jude Mosesso in the ALJ Hearing file which suggested it was some ‘phone call’ or ‘meeting’ between just THEM and (quote) “a Prescott official in the presence of the Prescott City Attorney” was much MORE than that.
According to the PDC article… there were a LOT more people there, including the Arizona Attorney General himself.
PDC article says everyone got in their cars and went to a ‘special’ face-to-face meeting somewhere in Phoenix and the ‘cast of characters’ PRESENT at that ‘meeting’ now includes…
1) Officials (lawyers? others?) with Arizona State Forestry.
2) Officials (lawyers? others?) with ADOSH.
3) The (actual) Arizona Attorney General himself.
4) Jon Paladini, Prescott City Attorney.
5) Darrell Willis, Former Prescott Wildland Division Chief.
So (apparently) the actual Arizona Attorney General was ‘in on this’ and also one of the first to hear this ‘new information’ being reported by Darrell Willis.
The PDC article ( unlike the AZCENTRAL article ) also now puts an exact DATE / TIMELINE on when all of this went down.
From the PDC article…
———————————————————————-
As Willis tells it, McDonough contacted him in October 2014 with new information, and Willis told him that he needed to “come forward with this” to the people who were investigating the fire.
That was late on a Friday – Oct. 10, 2014 – and Willis said he told McDonough that he would give him a few days to take the information forward. When McDonough did not follow that advice, Willis contacted the State Forestry Department, as well as Paladini, about the new information.
———————————————————————-
So here’s the ‘timeline’…
1) McDonough contacts Willis on Friday, October 10, 2014 and ‘spills his guts’ to Willis.
2) Willis realized the gravity of this, tells him “this can’t just sit with me” ( according to
AZCENTRAL article ) and Willis gives McDonough just the weekend to “do the right thing”
and go to ‘higher ups’ and tell him the same story.
3) Brendan does nothing all weekend.
4) Come Monday, October 12, Willis takes action on his own.
5) Willis goes to Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini ( same day? ) and tells HIM the story.
6) Jon Paladini makes some phone calls and sets up a face-to-face meeting with others.
7) Within ( I imagine ) a day or two… a face-to-face meeting takes place in Phoenix.
Face-to-face meeting included ALL of the following people…
1) Officials (lawyers? others?) with Arizona State Forestry.
2) Officials (lawyers? others?) with ADOSH.
3) The (actual) Arizona Attorney General himself.
4) Jon Paladini, Prescott City Attorney.
5) Darrell Willis, Former Prescott Wildland Division Chief.
What’s blowing my mind here is that if any kind of ‘coverup’ is now going to be ‘alleged’ over this whole thing… it isn’t just some lawyers playing games in the background.
The actual frickin’ ATTORNEY GENERAL for the state of Arizona was (apparently) ‘in on it’.
Followup…
A point I forgot to make up above is that if this ‘face-to-face’ meeting in Phoenix went down like the latest PDC article says it did… then it sounds EXACTLY like it was sort of ‘psuedo-deposition’ with a LOT of lawyers present and it took place in front of the Arizona Attorney General himself.
Again… this part from the PDC article…
———————————————————-
That led to a Phoenix meeting, at which Willis was interviewed by officials with State Forestry, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH), and the Arizona Attorney General. Paladini said he sat in as Willis’ attorney.
———————————————————-
So you can forget about Paladini saying the only time he ‘wrote anything down’ was that memo he sent to the Prescott City Council.
The way the PDC article describes this actual face-to-face meeting… complete with Willis being ‘interviewed’ by lawyers ( and REPRESENTED by one – Paladini ) in front of the Arizona Attorney General himself…
…I find it NOT CREDIBLE that there would not also be a TRANSCRIPT of this original ‘interview’ and EXACTLY what former Prescott Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis was now ‘testifying to’ in front of a chorus of lawyers AND the actual Arizona State Attorney General himself.
To have NOT had a stenographer present at that meeting would almost amount to ‘negligence’ on the part of all those attorneys… the Attorney General included.
I’m breaking the rule I decided upon yesterday (for the third time) to not post because I need to turn my path in the direction of elsewhere, at this time. But. I’m still reading and thank you (and everyone else) for this conversation.
The question I still have at the moment is this:
In the midst of all of this, what do you think of Darrel Willis’ charge that this revelation on the part of Palladini is a violation of his “attorney-client privilege” vis a vis Willis?
I am so seriously fuzzy about most of this whole legal stuff.
Although, I appreciate what you have said about that memo. As I have perused the City Council meetings/minutes, I have found that when they have a “Special” meeting, i.e., one in which they go into Executive Session, the Minutes of that Executive Session include a description of what that Session is in relationship to.
I’m not sure of how that specifically relates to a “Memo,” but I’m sure there’s some relationship to it.
Regarding the comments people are making regarding Brendan’s credibility, at this point, given everything including TIME, there are also comments regarding the credibility of these major players, including the following:
———————-
Stan Wnenta With NO disrespect to the 19, this tragedy is starting to smell bad. It sounds like information has been with held, lawyers hiding facts, and the public, who put out their hearts, are not allowed to know the truth because of legalities. Why would they possibly want to hide anything? Whats going on here?
Reply · Like · 2 · Follow Post · 13 hours ago
Claire Elizabeth Caldwell How do you think the families feel?
Reply · Like · 9 · 11 hours ago
What a circus.
Right now, at this exact moment, I’m sitting here thinking, all things considered,
The best thing Brendan could do right now, if he really cares about people like Claire Elizabeth Caldwell, is go over to the Prescott Daily Courier offices and sit down with Joanna Dodder (who is really good, imho, and just TALK.
Acknowledging that he’s been in shock and PTSD (understandably) and he has no idea what agendas the people that have been “advising” him have had, and that he may not be able to remember everything that happened and that he heard correctly, but this is what he is thinking now about what he heard and experienced, and that this has been the absolutely the most terrifying thing he has ever gone through.
That would move his story completely out of the realm of this whole friggin MACHINE and hand it over to the families, including Claire Elizabeth Caldwell, and the totally confused public,
I think he would be forgiven by mostly all who matter.
Even if what he has to say is a story that is really really really painful for a number of people to hear.
Pain is survivable.
Thanks Marti if you drop off stop by from time to time we enjoy your statements and info at least I do.
Your welcome Bob. And also thank you.
And yes I totally will. I just need to break my addiction to this and turn most of my attention to a mountain of stuff I’d much rather not do.
And I reiterate that, if someone (with credibility and/or experience) wants to correct me on my “rotating column” model/theory, I am really open to that.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 10, 2015 at 1:30 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> Right now, at this exact moment, I’m sitting here thinking,
>> all things considered,
>>
>> The best thing Brendan could do right now, if he really
>> cares about people like Claire Elizabeth Caldwell, is go
>> over to the Prescott Daily Courier offices and sit down
>> with Joanna Dodder (who is really good, imho, and
>> just TALK.
Brendan now has to deal with the old assumption “Once a LIAR… always a LIAR”.
Even if he went ‘on camera’ right now… he will STILL need to be DEPOSED in this matter.
There are just too many people that will be realizing he has ALWAYS had his own AGENDA that won’t be ready to believe he isn’t STILL just following his own mysterious AGENDA unless what they are hearing came out ‘under oath’ and under actual penalty of PERJURY.
Even then… a lot of people won’t be believing it.
He’s dug a pretty deep hole for himself here and he’s gonna get ‘dirty’ as he claws his way out of it.
He should have thought of that ( or been advised it would happen ) before he ever started pursuing this mysterious AGENDA of his.
Dont’ forget… this guy was specially appointed by the Arizona Speaker of the House to serve on the publicly funded ‘Yarnell Hill Site Memorial Board’. Whether he now gets to REMAIN on that publicly funded Board is just one more piece of ‘fallout’ he’s going to have to deal with.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 10, 2015 at 1:01 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> The question I still have at the moment is this:
>>
>> In the midst of all of this, what do you think of Darrel Willis’
>> charge that this revelation on the part of Palladini is a violation
>> of his “attorney-client privilege” vis a vis Willis?
I think Darrell Willis was under the mistaken impresssion that just because Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini might have even been sitting by his side during that interview with AZF and ADOSH lawyers… that he and Paladini automatically had some kind of (private) attorney/client relationship.
That is NOT the case.
Paladini’s CLIENT is the City of Prescott itself, and not any one individual employee.
Willis was still an EMPLOYEE of the City of Prescott when he walked into Paladini’s office with this ‘story’. He is/was also the actual former “Wildland Division Chief” for the City.
That makes whatever happened next simply a City Attorney being concerned about whether information that might be about to go public from a FORMER City of Prescott employee ( Brendan McDonough ) would expose his client ( The City of Prescott ) to ‘new’ LIABILITIES with regards to the death of 19 Prescott City Employees at the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Willis was just a ‘middleman’ and just a ‘piece on the chessboard’ at that point, and not Paladini’s private ‘client’. It was an Employer/Employee thing, and not a regular attorney/client thing that was now taking place.
Willis ALSO contacted State Forestry Scott Hunt at the same time he engaged with Paladini. If Willis had ANY ‘expectations of privacy’ about the information he was imparting… then why did he do THAT?
If he just ASSUMED that what HE had to say would stay in the ‘inner circles’, and remain under any kind of attorney/client implications… then he should have NEVER also contacted non-attorney Scott Hunt. He should have just stuck with Paladini only and also gotten ASSURANCES that the conversations would be considered by Paladini as pure attorney/client stuff.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Although, I appreciate what you have said about that memo.
>> As I have perused the City Council meetings/minutes, I have found
>> that when they have a “Special” meeting, i.e., one in which they go
>> into Executive Session, the Minutes of that Executive Session
>> include a description of what that Session is in relationship to.
That’s because Arizona Law REQUIRES it be done that way.
The ACTUAL nuts-and-bolts CONTENT of the Executive Session still have to be ‘transcribed’ and ‘recorded’ exactly the way the law requires for the PUBLIC parts of the meeting… but those ‘Executive Session’ transcripts are NOT required to be available within 72 hours after the meeting… as the LAW requires for the PUBLIC minutes.
Those ‘Executive Session’ transcripts must ( by Law ) also exist… but they remain exempt from the simple ‘Public’s right to know’ laws regarding Arizona Open Meetings.
That does NOT mean they are ‘automatically’ exempt from an ‘Arizona Open Records’ request or ‘out of reach’ of the Arizona Court system, however.
Those ‘Executive Session’ transcripts are never PERMANENTLY out of the reach of an Arizona Open Records request and/or a FOIA/FOIL request and/or a Court request. It depends on what the ‘Executive Session’ was ABOUT, really, and THAT is required by Law to be PUBLIC information.
It’s complicated… but it’s not like some City Council is the equivalent of the “National Security Agency”, or something.
Example: If there is an allegation that the ‘Executive Session’ itself was not for one of the valid reasons you are even allowed to have one ( and there are, in fact, a limited range of valid reasons )… or that the ‘Executive Session’ itself violated some other rule of the Arizona Open Meetings laws… the Arizona Attorney General’s Office is automatically entitled to see EVERYTHING as they investigate the matter… and if some City Council doesn’t cough up the transcripts from the Executive Session… someone can actually go to JAIL over it.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I’m not sure of how that specifically relates to a “Memo,” but I’m
>> sure there’s some relationship to it.
We still don’t know what Paladini meant by a (quote) “MEMO to the City Council”.
Did he mean just ONE memo… to ONE of the Council members… or did he ‘CC’ (Copy) EVERY member of the council?
Does Paladini consider an EMAIL to be a MEMO… or was this actually typed up and hand-delivered?
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Regarding the comments people are making regarding Brendan’s
>> credibility, at this point, given everything including TIME, there are
>> also comments regarding the credibility of these major players,
>> including the following:
The recent information ‘popping’ in the press certainly isn’t all that huge of a ‘revelation’ to US here on this forum. It’s really just a ‘confirmation’ of things we already knew/suspected.
But for the MSM and the general PUBLIC… this is a huge WTF moment.
I am SURE that once people let this new information ‘sink in’… there is going to be a “Slowly I turned” moment when people start wanting to know why even what MANY Public officials knew has taken so long to ‘come to the light of day’.
Coverups ( or anything that even LOOKS like one ) piss people off.
They just don’t like them… especially not from people on the PUBLIC payroll.
There is a whole new ‘chapter’ of ‘Why was this allowed to happen this way’ that is about to begin, here.
The Attorney General is an office in addition to a person. I doubt the AG for the state overall was there, so until someone confirms who represented the AG’s office, I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on that.
As far as attorney-client privilege between Palladini and Willis, I doubt Palladini ever represented Willis personally. Lots of employees are surprised to find out that the company attorney isn’t THEIR own attorney. I think that is what happened here.
Thanks, SR!
Reply to SR post on April 10, 2015 at 7:29 am
>> SR said…
>>
>> The Attorney General is an office in addition to a person.
>> I doubt the AG for the state overall was there, so until
>> someone confirms who represented the AG’s office,
>> I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on that.
Well… once again… it’s hard to tell whether this is just bad reporting, or poor use of the King’s English, or whether the statement in the PDC is, in fact, being very specific.
It’s actually an unusual set of circumstances here.
The Arizona State Attorney General’s Office ( as in, staff lawyers ) are the ones actually REPRESENTING ‘Arizona Forestry’ in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” citation dispute(s).
So it only stands to reason that “Officials with the Arizona State Attorney General’s office” would have been there at that “meeting”.
But that’s not what the PDC article actually said.
It says (specifically) “the Arizona Attorney General”. ( As in ‘the person’ ).
If what the reporter REALLY meant to say was ‘Officials’ or ‘Attorneys’ simply *associated* with the AZ AG’s office… then the CLEAR way to have made sure that intent was communicated would have been more like this…
“That led to a Phoenix meeting, at which Willis was interviewed by officials with State Forestry, the Arizona Division of Occupational Safety and Health (ADOSH), and OFFICIALS ASSOCIATED WITH the Arizona Attorney General’s OFFICE.”
But that’s not how it was published.
As written… it could be *construed* to mean the actual AZ AG was actually there in that meeting.
It would not SURPRISE me at all if that was the case.
It could actually almost be EXPECTED that he would attend.
This is a BIG DEAL… and he is the HEAD ATTORNEY for a legal team that is, in fact, now charged with defending ‘Arizona Forestry’.
There are MILLIONS and MILLIONS of Arizona taxpayer dollars at stake here.
I could EASILY imagine him deciding to attend if, for no other reason, than to remove any ‘middle men’ on this and to make sure he was hearing for himself exactly what questions his staff lawyers would be asking and to make sure they were ‘getting it right’. He may have even have had some questions of his own.
>> SR also said…
>>
>> As far as attorney-client privilege between Palladini and Willis,
>> I doubt Palladini ever represented Willis personally. Lots of employees
>> are surprised to find out that the company attorney isn’t THEIR own
>> attorney. I think that is what happened here.
I would tend to agree.
Willis was still an EMPLOYEE of the City of Prescott when he approached Paladini with this. So this was simply a current City employee ( and former City Wildland Division Chief ) contacting the City Attorney about a legal matter that might have and impact on the City itself. It was not a private attorney/client relationship at that point. It was an ’employer/employee’ situation.
The article ALSO says that Willis contacted people connected with ‘Arizona Forestry’ at the SAME TIME he contacted Paladini.
If Willis was all that concerned about it all being kept secret… then he goofed.
If he wanted it ‘just between me and the guy I think represents me’ then he should have ONLY contacted Paladini and not anyone else.
But even then…. I believe Willis forgot that Jon Palladini is being paid to represent the entire City of Prescott and look out for the City’s best interests. Palladini’s actual CLIENT is the City itself… and NOT any/all of its individual employees.
SIDENOTE: That is exactly why Brendan decided to get a private attorney.
It was Paladini who was acting as Brendan’s ‘mediator’ to help arrange that first scheduled under-oath deposition back on November 26, 2014.
It was also Paladini who was going to ‘represent’ Brendan DURING the deposition just as he sat beside Willis during that first ‘dump’ of the information to the Arizona AG’s attorneys and ADOSH attorneys.
It looks like Brendan was either advised ( or realized himself ) at the last minute that going into that deposition with an attorney whose REAL job is to simply represent the entire City of Prescott was NOT in Brendan’s own “best interests”.
So he got his OWN attorney… complete with his own ( guaranteed under law ) attorney-client privilege firmly ‘in-place’.
There is nothing wrong with that. That was the SMART thing for him to do.
Correction for above…
I actually should have said…
SIDENOTE: That is PROBABLY why Brendan decided to get a private attorney.
The truth is that we have still not heard jack-shit from Brendan himself about ANY of this… including the why’s and wherefore’s of his actions going all the way back to the cancellation of that first deposition.
We really still do NOT know WHY Brendan decided to get his own CRIMINAL defense attorney instead of just letting Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini ‘represent’ him for that first deposition.
It is EXTREMELY unlikely that the actual Arizona Attorney General (Tom Horne) was involved in this meeting.
Approaching the end of a scandal-ridden term in office, he didn’t personally participate in much of anything except his own damage control.
The PDC article was most likely trying to say “officials of the Arizona Attorney General’s office.
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive (TTWARE) post
on April 10, 2015 at 8:58 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> It is EXTREMELY unlikely that the actual Arizona Attorney General
>> (Tom Horne) was involved in this meeting.
>>
>> Approaching the end of a scandal-ridden term in office, he didn’t
>> personally participate in much of anything except his own
>> damage control.
I didn’t research the guy so I’ll take your word for it that he ‘pegs high’ on the asshole meter.
My ‘objective’ impression would be that if he was still being paid to be the Attorney General for Arizona… then it actually would be LIKELY he would want to be at this meeting. It was a BIG DEAL and he is in CHARGE of his own staff who are actually the ones charged with representing ‘Arizona Forestry’ in an issue that represents the possible loss of MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars to the taxpayers of Arizona.
>> SR also said…
>>
>> The PDC article was most likely trying to say “officials of the
>> Arizona Attorney General’s office.
Yes. It could be just simple inattention to the choice of words on the part of the reporter.
I would think ( since the poor choice of words DOES imply that he was there ) this would be a candidate for an ‘update’ or a published ‘correction’ for the article along the lines of…
ERRATA: The article above implies that the Arizona Attorney General himself attended the interview with Willis and Paldini. That was NOT the case. The meeting was only attended by staff lawyers from the Arizona Attorney General’s office since the Arizona Attorney General’s office is officially representing ‘Arizona Forestry’ in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” legal proceedings.
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive (TTWARE) post
on April 10, 2015 at 8:58 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> It is EXTREMELY unlikely that the actual Arizona Attorney
>> General (Tom Horne) was involved in this meeting.
Scratch my other comments above.
John Dougherty’s new article published TODAY confirms that what the PDC article author should have said was that it was ‘just “Officials from the Arizona Attorney General’s Office” ( as in… staff lawyers ) that attended that face-to-face with Willis and Paladini… and NOT the actual Arizona Attorney General….
http://www.investigativemedia.com/mcdonough-will-testify-if-legally-required/
From the article…
————————————————————-
Willis says he gave McDonough “the weekend to come forth with this.”
The following Monday, Willis says he contacted Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini and state Forester Scott Hunt. Willis and Paladini met with attorneys for the Forestry Division, ADOSH and the Attorney General’s office about two weeks later, he says. Willis says McDonough did not attend his meetings with Paladini or the state’s attorneys.
————————————————————-
I would still say, however, that it would be highly unusual for there to have been this kind of ‘interview’ taking place, with so many attorneys present, without there being some kind of TRANSCRIPT of the proceedings and what Willis was testifying to during this face-to-face meeting.
I made a comment below that went to moderation as I must have badly typed the email address:
To summarize. First, this week is a media watershed. The narrative has changed forever. The Republic editorial page called for McDonough to be deposed ASAP. Next, the media will want to hear from Blue Ridge. Second, unless Jon Palladini is an evil liar, the bit about Marsh saying “I’m sorry” lends veracity to his statement. You do not make that up. The difference between Palladini and Willis seems to be was it an “order” order. Palladini now says essentially ordered – i.e. a heckuva lot of pressure.
Just by reading the ( predictable ) public ‘comments’ that are appearing at the bottoms of these various articles that are now ‘popping’… it’s pretty obvious that even if Brendan is actually DEPOSED now… SOME people are NOT going to believe a single word coming out of his mouth.
Or… they MIGHT believe his ‘situational’ testimony ( Marsh was ahead of them and told/ordered Steed to bring them all down )… but NOT some of the actual ‘conversations’ he says he heard.
Because of the circumstances themselves, with Brendan obviously having his own ‘agenda’ from day one and CHOOSING to ‘withhold’ information to satisfy that ‘early’ agenda… some are already saying this time could be no different and we are still ONLY hearing what Brendan McDonough himself wants the world to think happened ( and was said ) out there.
All of this was inevitable the moment Brendan decided to NOT tell everything he knew ‘up front’.
Even if Brendan puts his hand on a stack of books representing the tenets of every organized religion on the planet… some are still going to say he is a LIAR and can’t be ‘believed’ or ‘trusted’.
So there will end up being ( as there always have been ) different ‘camps’ emerging.
One camp will believe him and believe we now have more ‘facts’.
Other camps will think he’s a pathological LIAR and MANIPULATOR and that nothing
he says can be trusted as ‘the truth’.
As for the “I’m sorry” part… that is going to be a BIG point of consternation.
Not only does it represent the ‘flash point’ for some saying “Look… there’s the admission of fault right there!”… it is also the ‘flash point’ for people who doubt Brendan to say “Look… there he is (again) just trying to shape the narrative the way he wants us to see it.”
What a mess.
Can Blue Ridge corroborate his testimony? Might be crucial.
Did you catch the following little ‘tidbit’ of information which is now ONLY appearing in the PDC article ( and not in the AZCENTRAL one )?
It seems to put an exact TIME on when Brendan started hearing the ‘discussions’.
From the PDC article…
———————————————————————-
The gist of the story, Paladini said, was that as the fire raged, McDonough and several Hotshots from the Blue Ridge crew had moved four Granite Mountain Hotshot vehicles out of the line of the fire.
When McDonough started one of the vehicles, the crew radio came on, and he reportedly overheard an ongoing discussion between Eric Marsh, the superintendent and a founder of the Hotshots, and his captain, Jesse Steed.
———————————————————————
This is actually now just a CONFIRMATION of what has ALWAYS been published in the SAIR and ADOSH reports… that Brendan “Heard them discussing their options”.
Well… as far as Blue Ridge goes… that means that there was this time period BEFORE any of them showed up out in the Sesame Area to help move any vehicles where Brendan would have been the ONLY one hearing THOSE conversations.
Brendan ‘started up the GM vehicles’ as soon as Frisby dropped him off by them ( The GM Supt and Chase trucks. Crew Carriers were farther south in the Sesame area ).
Frisby then took off in the UTV to go ‘get’ the one other driver it would take to move the GM Chase Truck while Brendan drove Marsh’s GM Supt. truck out.
Brendan had to wait right here ( and that’s when he took some of those iPhone photos of that ‘smoke whirl’ near him ) because Brendan had no frickin’ idea how to even get out of that area…. much less over to the Youth Camp.
So if this is confirmation now that the moment Brendan jumped into the GM Supt truck and fired it up and the ‘turned up the radio’ ( as he also testified to doing way back when ) then for at least about 5 minutes he was the only one listening to any conversation on the GM intra-crew in THAT timeframe.
But here is what is still ‘interesting’.
That may be when Brendan first started hearing them “discussing their options”… but there really is NO FRICKIN’ WAY that Marsh could have even been very far south on the two-track ( much less down near the BSR ) at the time when Frisby dropped him off at the GM Supt. Truck.
If there was an actual ARGUMENT… then it VERY LIKELY came sometime AFTER that when the other 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots WOULD have been onboard the other 3 GM vehicles.
More to come… I’m sure.
Note —-In most cases the crew truck radios are probably all on Priority Crew net. So they can communicate back and forth during transient.
so When all the trucks were started they immediately went to Crew net.
Also McDonough time frame may be a little of as to what was said and when. After he started the trucks. Also the BR crew would have herd
the other discussions coming off the ridge and the statements before deployment. They could still as well herd the argument not knowing what they were redacted on.
Copy ( all ) that.
It’s actually hard to say whether what appears to be ‘new’ little of tidbits of information coming out in the PDC article really are ‘new’ quotes from Palladini himself… or even just ’embellishments’ on the part of YAR ( Yet Another Reporter ).
It SOUNDED ( in the PDC article ) like adding this little new tidbit about Brendan first starting to HEAR this crucial stuff the moment he cranked the key on the GM Supt truck was this new YAR reporting more detail from Palladini…
…but it could have just been an ’embellishment’.
That STORY that Brendan “heard them discussing their options” just moments after Frisby dropped him off and then continued south to pick up some drivers has actually been ‘out there’ for quite some time.
The SAIR itself said that is when Brendan first heard them “discussing their options” Right after getting dropped off at the GM Supt and Chase trucks by Frisby.
So maybe the reporter was ‘remembering’ that already-published testimony and was taking the liberty of ADDING it to this new information from Paladini.
Either way… we are still NOT getting the FULL picture (yet) of exactly WHAT Brendan heard… and WHEN.
“Discussing your options” is not “Having an argument”… nor does it describe someone “ordering” someone to do anything.
THAT all has to be LATER than whatever Brendan heard as soon as he cranked the GM Supt Truck up.
People still wonder if we are ever really going to hear the WHY component here.
As in… WHY was it so frickin’ important to Eric Marsh that those men take that risk and get to the BSR that Marsh would even WANT to argue with the wishes of his own trusted Captain about it.
I believe there’s still a chance the answer to that MIGHT be in this actual “discussing their options” conversation that both the SAIR and ADOSH reports have ALWAYS said Brendan fully heard.
I have been going thru the daily courier and picked up additional things.
\
Paladini said the Reporter who contacted him—-already knew mch of the information and was asking for conformation. They already had 70 or 80 percent of the information. HE SAID
Paladini also said—–The only document I did of the conversation (with Willis) was a memo to the City Council,. Which cannot be released to the public due to Attorney–Client Privilege.
_————-The City is his Client any thing discussed between them is Private———-
A few other little odds and ends but those stood out.
If in fact Marsh said Yeah I know I’m sorry———-Then he was admitting to the crew it was his fault and responsibility they were where they were and if we have or when we get that as being said then his admission and apology goes to all of us out here, The Families, Fire Fighters and the public That I hope is worth a lot to us all. It won’t ease the pain but I hope it is a comfort to the sole.
Brendan it is your turn to give your Brothers and there families PEACE———
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 9, 2015 at 2:38 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>> Paladini said the Reporter who contacted him— already knew much of the
>> information and was asking for conformation. They already had 70 or 80
>> percent of the information. HE SAID
I wonder, though, if the reporters really didn’t know any more that what was stated by the Arizona Forestry lawyers to Judge Mosesso in those documents when they were telling the Judge EXACTLY what McDonough was EXPECTED to testify to.
It really was a pretty ‘complete picture’… just lacking critical details.
So maybe Paladini just *thought* they knew ‘almost all of it’ without putting 2 and 2 together and realizing that ‘almost all of it’ was, in fact, already published in those ALJ Hearing documents.
Only the reporters themselves could now say how much of ‘what they knew and/or suspected and/or were trying to CONFIRM with Paladini came solely from the published ALJ documents… or whether the reporters (also) had ‘other sources’.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Paladini also said—–The only document I did of the conversation (with Willis)
>> was a memo to the City Council,. Which cannot be released to the public
>> due to Attorney–Client Privilege.
>> ————-The City is his Client any thing discussed between them is Private———-
No. It is NOT.
That might be the way Paladini ( the lawyer ) is looking at it… but Paladini ( the civil servant and employee of a municipality ) needs to check his paystub and remember who it is ( and WHAT it is ) he actually WORKS for.
Whether or not ‘City Attorneys’ or other ‘Government employed Lawyers’ can invoke ‘attorney-client privilege’ is a long-debated topic and there are all kinds of ‘relevant’ case histories out there.
The argument essentially comes down to whether being an attorney for a Governmental Agency is PRIMARILY like being a ‘private lawyer’ with ‘private clients’ or not… or whether there is a more over-riding ( and fundamental ) responsibility for ‘transparency’ than one would expected between private attorneys and their private clients.
In other words… are ‘government attorneys’ government FIRST… and attorneys SECOND…
or is it the other way around.
Is the ‘attorney-client’ privilege they might claim based more on FUNCTION ( in a job capacity ) or it is based more on actual PRIVILEGE.
We now know there is a PUBLIC DOCUMENT sitting around somewhere.
It just so happens to have been sent by at ‘Government Attorney’ ( on the PUBLIC payroll ) to other ‘Government Officials’ ( also on the PUBLIC payroll ).
The ‘Freedom of Information Act’ (FOIA) has no specific ‘exception’ for ‘attorney-client’ privilege privacy claims.
I don’t think there will be any GREAT revelations ( as far as detail goes ) in seeing that actual ‘memo’ that Paladini says he sent to the City Council. It’s purpose was probably just to advise the City Council about the City’s ‘liabilities’ if this information ‘came out’ ( since Eric Marsh really WAS an employee of the City of Prescott ).
It WOULD be interesting to know, however, WHAT Paldini was ‘advising’ the Prescott City Council about all this.
Did he now think the City *might* be open to ‘other liabilities’ if this information turns out to be TRUE… or did he think it didn’t much matter and they could still invoke the same ‘worker’s compensation protections and exceptions’ that got them dropped from the original ( and ongoing ) ‘wrongful death’ suits?
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> If in fact Marsh said Yeah I know I’m sorry———-Then he was admitting
>> to the crew it was his fault and responsibility they were where they were
Yes. There really wouldn’t be any other way to interpret that if it is true.
That being said… there is still a LOT that we do NOT KNOW regarding the ‘context’.
It really all depends WHEN Steed’s (supposed) “We aren’t going to make it ( to the ranch )” statement and then Marsh’s (supposed) “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry” exchange actually took place.
Was there actually any sense of URGENCY during this exchange?
What I mean is… did the parties involved actually fully realize yet that this was about to lead to an actual DEPLOYMENT… or did they still think it was a ‘survivable screwup’?
If Steed hadn’t seen any fire BEHIND them yet… did his “We’re not going to make it ( to the Ranch )” mean that he still had plans to just “turn around and go back”?
Marsh’s “I’m sorry” could mean an awful lot of different things, depending on exactly WHEN it was said and how much ‘context’ is implied by it.
Was it…
“I’m sorry. Even I can see you can’t make it here now. I hope you have time to retreat.”
OR
“I’m sorry. I guess you’re going to have to deploy out there. I hope you survive.”
OR
“I’m sorry. This looks fatal.”
Subtle differences, maybe… but each one tells a different ‘story’ about what happened NEXT… and WHY Marsh might have then decided to ‘join them’.
If there was actually HOPE that a deployment would be survivable… then Marsh really might have thought he could be of ‘help’ out there.
If there was actually NO HOPE of survival ( and both Marsh and Steed pretty much knew it )… then Marsh’s decision to ‘join them’ represents more of “deciding to fall on his sword” moment than any attempt to ‘help them’.
So the TIMING and the CONTEXT is still very important to know, here, on some of these newly reports ‘statements’ coming out of that box canyon.
WTKTT
My previous experience working for a city and sitting in on meetings also running for City council . I have learned when a city hired lawyer requests a closed meeting to discuss legal information that discussion is confidential and any legal briefs to the Council as well. A memo is a legal brief to the council in this case.
Any in chambers discussion on legal matters is not released to the public went thru a 8 months process at a little town called Filer where I worked concerning a Police officer. The city council had severial closed door sessions with the City Lawyer no Minuets were ever released. The Lawyer was also the City Attorney for Twin Falls and had been for 15 years so he knew his law.
There are some things the City Council can go into private session for.
Yes… but anytime they do… the SUBJECT of that ‘Executive Session’ MUST be clearly described in the PUBLIC minutes of the meeting when that ‘Executive Session’ was called.
This actually has nothing to do with the ‘communication’ that Paladini says he had with the “Prescott City Council”.
Paladini is quoted in the latest article as saying he sent a MEMO.
From the latest PDC article…
—————————————————————-
“The only document I did of the conversation (with Willis) was a MEMO to the City Council,” Paladini said. He maintained that the MEMO could not be released to the public because of the protection of “attorney-client privilege.”
—————————————————————-
What Paladini himself doesn’t seem to realize is that by doing these interviews with the media… and thereby actually revealing the SUBJECT and the CONTENT of what was in his MEMO… it will now be VERY hard for either Paladini or the Prescott City Council to claim ‘attorney-client’ privilege for that original MEMO from Paladini when/if it is requested via “Arizona Open Records” laws.
Here’s something from a site that talks about ‘attorney-client’ privilege in general… and doesn’t even get into the fact that CITY attorneys ( PUBLIC employees ) can’t even claim the same depth of ‘attorney-client’ privilege that private attorneys can…
————————————————————
Communications MUST be kept CONFIDENTIAL for the attorney-client privilege to apply. If the SUBSTANCE of attorney-client communications is DISCLOSED to persons outside the organization – or even to persons within the organization who are not directly involved in the matter – the attorney-client privilege may be extinguished.
————————————————————
The MEDIA counts as ‘persons outside the organization’ with regards to this memo that he sent to the Prescott City Council.
Now that Paladini has talked to the MEDIA about ‘the information’… it’s gonna be hard for him to say that memo is still ‘protected’.
All that being said…
I’ll repeat what I said above.
I don’t think there are any ‘revelations’ to be had in the content of that memo… other than ( perhaps ) finding out exactly whether Paladini now thought that if this NEW information turned out to be TRUE… what that might do to Prescott’s LIABILITY situation.
I’d still like to see that memo, though…. and what he told them about that.
Good Points things are starting to drop like flies——–
Whether that MEMO that Paladini admits he sent to the Prescott City Council ever sees the light of day…
…the vary fact that a City Attorney would be choosing to send a MEMO to the City Council at all regarding something some FORMER City Employee ( Brendan ) was now ‘saying’ is almost automatic proof that the City Attorney DID sense some new LIABILITY involved if the information was correct.
If the City Attorney was now sensing ‘possible new liabilities’ for the City and he did NOT inform the City Council about it right away… then he could be accused later of ‘negligence’ with regards to his own responsibilities to the City.
Wrap that all up… and I think it’s pretty safe to say that no matter what Willis says now… City Attorney Jon Paladini WAS convinced ( following their first meeting/discussion ) that a former employee of the City of Prescott had very likely ORDERED the other Prescott City Employees to take actions that resulted in their deaths… and he damn well better give the City Council a ‘heads-up’ on that.
WTKTT said,
WantsToKnowTheTruth says
April 6, 2015 at 9:15 pm
I think I’m about to ask a crazy question.
Actually… I’m sure of it.
I’m about to ask a crazy question.
WHERE did the REQUIREMENT come from that these guys/gals have to be dressed ( and functioning as ) PACK MULES pretty much EVERY MOMENT while they are actually ‘working’ and ‘cutting line’?
When you are ACTUALLY ‘cutting line’… and there is no immediate danger… why can’t you take your frickin’ pack OFF?
Of course it should be RIGHT THERE near you ( or no more than a few paces away )… but where did the REQUIREMENT come from that you have to WEAR the frickin’ thing EVERY MOMENT?
If something happens SO quickly that you can’t even take a few steps and pull your precious ‘fire shelter’ out of the bottom of your pack… then you probably don’t have the minimum 25 seconds to even use the damn thing, anyway, right?
Why is it absolutely VERBOTEN to take the pack OFF, at ANY time while you are actually just ‘swinging an axe’ or ‘scraping the ground’?
I say,
Well…as luck would have it, I can actually answer that question for you, complete with photographic evidence of a big screw up on my part. I just uploaded the photos to a hobby web site I am building. I think these are the most interesting photos ever taken on a wildfire I was on, because they actually capture a burn over with a few of my guys (Happy Jack Hotshots) and me.
We were the only crew on typical Tonto National Forest desert fire, we were trying to catch it, the crew was fragmented into miscellaneous modules, I usually did not cut fire line with the crew, but I was that day since I could not direct the crew as a unit because we were so broken down into such small units because of the extreme chaos.
So I gathered a few guys and started cutting line on the fire that was blowing out on multiple fronts. So I guess this was a fire we were the initial attack on that I forgot about when I wrote down below I only remembered one fire. So yes, Elizabeth, hotshots DO initial attack, it’s just that it is more common for engines, helitack and smokejumpers to do so. I know there a quite a few others I have also forgotten about.
1. Shows the advance front of a typical Tonto National Forest desert fire.
2. Shows the same fire front a short time later, much closer.
3. This is the key photo, it shows me at the front of a four man unit. The photo was taken just as the fire really blew up and I am caught spinning on my heals to run. The man behind me was the Squad Boss for Squad II, and he was caught recoiling from the intense heat a split second after me, but he has not yet turned to run, and the two crewmen behind him are still heads down cutting line unaware that we are getting ready to di di mau most ricky tick.
We ran into an area that did not have as much fuel while were actually burned over. I had taken my web gear with 4 quart canteens, my radios and my fire shelter in addition to my backpack which contained spare batteries, headlamp, poncho, rations, and another gallon of water, etc. off a few minutes before I started cutting line to make some adjustments when the fire blew out. I started cutting line with the fragmented squad without putting my gear back on, that is how fast the fire blew out. You can see fire shelters and gear on the others in the photo.
4. The last photo is the saddest one of all, it shows me wandering around aimlessly looking for my gear in the black after the fire front passed. Of course everything looked different with the vegetation burned off and I couldn’t find where I had put my gear down for some time. It was very embarrassing.
Here is the link to where I just posted the photos for your information and amusement so you can understand why it is “Why is it absolutely VERBOTEN to take the pack OFF, at ANY time while you are actually just ‘swinging an axe’ or ‘scraping the ground’?” and have a chuckle at my expense, since I can laugh about it now.
http://www.ourfiregods.com/reserved1.html
Unlike wildland firefighters of today, we did not consider the fire shelter a viable option since they were new to us and there had never been any deployments at that time. Even after there were successful deployments, I never considered the fire shelter to be a viable option. Running…yes, deploying a fire shelter…no.
Which is why I still believe my much earlier comments that the Granite Mountain Hotshots should have run, since they were deploying their fire shelters in an area that was not survivable due to the long flame lengths and extreme temperature.
No matter how bad my chances were to survive by running, I would rather die on me feet than lay down in the dirt to be burned alive. I am getting a little off topic here, but I believe the pendulum has swung the other way too far today with wildland firefighters believing in their fire shelters way too much and that is a direct result of the agencies trying to convince firefighters over the past few decades that fire shelters will save them.
The area the GMHS deployed in was obviously way to small to survive in per “How Big Is Big Enough.”
Correction, after looking closer at the last photo, I can see the Coconino National Forest radio around my waist and what would have been the fire net (Tonto National Forest) in my right hand.
The Picture show was like steeping back in time a lot of old memories of the life and times of a HS crew———Thanks Gary
right on
And yes, It really bothers me that one of the lessons learned from the Yarnell Hill Fire seems to be, “Let’s see if we can build a bigger, heavier, bulkier fire shelter and put even more emphasis on training firefighters fire shelters can save them, thereby actually ENCOURGING them take more risks and ignore more of the rules”, which is why I believe that although Mr. Turbyfill’s video is impressive, I strongly believe his passion is misplace and may have unintended consequence for wildland firefighters in the future.
I believe the families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots should be deferred to in every way possible regarding every emotional ( a memorial etc.) aspect of this tragedy, but they should be politely and respectfully ignored when it comes to lessons learned or how the wildland firefighting community should move forward. They lack the experience to make those kinds of recommendations. And I am truly sorry if that comment offends anyone, but I am not sorry for making the comment..
The Granite Mountain Hotshots didn’t die because their fire shelters were inadequate, they died because somebody in a leadership position on the GMHS taught them that, “The 10 Standard Firefighters Orders were hillbilly…old and that they were a lot smarter than that nowadays.”
Gary… thank you for ALL your posting above on this.
You also captured the ‘context’ in which I actually asked that ‘crazy question’.
It was way down below in a thread that was talking about the recent announcement ( right in the middle of these supposed ‘negotiations’ with GM family members ) from the U.S. Forestry Service that they ARE, in fact, going AHEAD with a ‘new shelter design’ as a direct result of the Yarnell incident.
I, myself, don’t have much of an opinion about whether this is a GOOD idea, or a BAD idea.
The question I asked was along the lines of “If it turns out that the NEW design is FAR SUPERIOR to the old one and DOES represent significantly IMPROVED chances of surviving a horrible situation… but there is most definitely a new WEIGHT component involved… will the advantages be enough to justify changing the existing RULE that you have to wear that entire friggin’ pack assembly ( shelter included ) every friggin’ moment… even when you are NOT in situations where it’s possible to get ‘caught off guard’.”
It sounds like you answered that.
The ‘hue and cry’ from the ‘experienced’ WFF folks is going to be NO.
Probably even HELL NO.
The big problem that Gary did not say is the amount of energy burned by packing 40 pounds up to a fire and all day in the 100 degree temps it will totally wear you out burn you out dehydrate you there fore you carry more water and that adds to the weight. When you talk about fatigue that is a very real source no matter how good of shape you are in.
May be Rocksteady can give all of us More info on Canada and how not having Fir Shelters is working with regard to Burn Fatalities?
WTKTT – I do agree with you on one very important point, why is it necessary to load wildland firefighters up like pack mules?
I think the 45 pound pack estimation is an inflated figure that I first heard come out of Chief Fraijo’s mouth in a news conference announcing the fatalities of the GMHS. I assumed that was a figure he picked up from Willis and that dumb ass retired USFS public information officer the Arizona State Game and Fish hired and who was loaned to Arizona State Forestry to Speak God’s Words over the fallen at the deployment site. And none of those 3 men have ever been on the line with a hand crew, except for Willis, who went out once with the GMHS once as a tag-a-long.
Water…is very heavy (about 8 pounds per gallon) and is the heaviest thing a wildland firefighter has to carry, especially on desert fires where it is necessary to carry 2 gallons for a day shift and 1.5 gallons for a night shift because re-supply is always hit and miss. But normally 1 gallon is sufficient for most fires.
And then here is a list of the kinds of things most experienced wildland firefighters carry in their day packs to give you an idea of the weight that is involved. And a great deal our weight used to be the headlamps that contained 4 D batteries, and we carried 4 D replacement batteries. In addition, I usually had to carry 2 heavy handheld radios, crew net and fire net with replacement batteries that were heavy. Today’s firefighters are carrying 1 lighter digital radio and LED headlamps with very small lightweight batteries and they should not have to carry replacement batteries.
Here is the list a well equipped firefighters should carry to survive a “Coyote” camp situation with limited resupply in relative comfort;.
Fire shelter, 4 fusees, 1 gallon of water, headlamp, poncho (for rain or sun protection & to wrap up in with a space blanket) space blanket, nylon cord (to make a hootch) head lamp, ration, reserve food (dried fruit, nuts, granola bars, jerky), spare pair of gloves, extra bandanas, compass and signal mirror.
That should be about 25 pounds of weight…max. I really don’t know where the 45 pound weight estimate is coming from. I couldn’t cut line for up to 16 hours with 45 pounds on my back and banging me in the back of my head.
And that is what the well dressed firefighter is carrying and is what I considered to be a minimum, although some guys tougher than me just went out with just their rat tucked in their shirt and 2 government quart canteens on their fire shelter belt. We also liked to carry miniature bottles of Tabasco sauce to make the old school gag-a-maggot C rations edible.
And here is some additional info why I see new heavier fire shelter as a real problem for future firefighters. Now…this is just one example of a common phenomenon that is similar to why some people (especially at first) quit wearing seat belts when air bags came out.
A few years ago, I attended a seminar regarding risk taking by those in law enforcement but it apples just as well to firefighters, the presenter used this example and he had all of the stats to back it up, which I don’t have, but you will still get the picture.
When the California Highway Patrol switched from Harley Davidson motorcycles to BMW motorcycles for their motor officers, their officer involved accident rate was supposed to drop by X because the new motorcycles handled so much better, where lighter and most importantly had a vastly improved braking system.
But their accident rate stayed about the same or actually went up. Why? Because the motor officers felt so cocky about their new rides, they went faster and took more chances.
That is what I’m afraid could happen with a bigger, heavier, bulkier fire shelter with increased emphasis on training and using them. Wildland firefighters will probably take additional risks they would not have otherwise taken with their old fire shelters because they believe the new magic cocoons will save them if they screw up, it’s just human nature, especially for many of those who are involved in wildland firefighters who are first and foremost…adrenaline junkies.
That is what I mean by “unintended consequences”, I think there should be a renewed emphasis put on following the rules or at least not disregarding them with as much contempt as the Granite Mountain Hotshots did according to Brendan McDonough.
Gary… it is hard to NOT agree with all your points about ‘improvements’ in PPE actually resulting in people just taking even MORE chances… ESPECIALLY if published test results on any new shelter design really are IMPRESSIVE and would tend to make FFs think the damn things will protect them in just about ANY situation.
I, myself, do NOT have the expertise ( or the influence ) to make any real decision about that.
I have two distinct ‘OF COURSE’ alarms in my head about that.
OF COURSE people should follow the hard-wrought rules of their profession and NEVER allow themselves to be put in a situation where they are depending on their PPE to save their lives.
But also…
OF COURSE if that ever ‘accidentally’ happens… I sure as hell would WANT to have the BEST PPE available that would let me come home to my family and then think about how badly I fucked up… ( for the rest of my natural life ).
I totally agree with your last paragraph.
Regardless of any technology improvements… there should have been a COMPLETE FULL STOP and REALITY CHECK in the ‘industry’ to make SURE there aren’t more units out there in the field who think that the RULES of their profession are just weak ‘guidelines’ they can choose to follow ( or not ) as it suits their own personal ambitions.
And it’s still not too late for that to happen.
If a football player just spikes a ball in and end-zone… he/she can be fined and/or ‘taken out of service’ for a number of games.
If ANY field unit is caught treating the WFF rules as just ‘guidelines’… the penalty should be ‘removal from the game’.
There should be CONSEQUENCES for ‘ignoring the rules’… even when it turns into a ‘bad decision with a good outcome’ and nobody died ( yet ).
Tighten up the ship. Do it NOW.
It could prevent this from happening again.
Yes, the issue is certainly complicated. I guess I just would like people to understand that a heavier and bulkier fire shelter is not going to be a magic bullet that will save firefighters the next time they get is a similar situation and there may be unintended consequences,.
With all this deep subterfuge the more and more I feel that there were surveillance cameras at the Boulder Springs Ranch pointing in the direction of the deployment sight. Thus they must have picked up the progression of the fire and ultimately Marsh walking back up to meet his men. This would be crucial evidence and with everything else that has been buried, there is no wonder why the Helm’s kept quiet as well. How chilling are these new revelations concerning the last conversations between Steed and Marsh? If Marsh really were down at the BSR or in the general vicinity, how could he not see the fire approaching as stated a billion times before on this site? These are deep, deep waters and we are only witnessing just a fraction of this whole ordeal.
Reply to John post on April 9, 2015 at 10:29 am
>> John said…
>>
>> With all this deep subterfuge the more and more I feel that there were
>> surveillance cameras at the Boulder Springs Ranch pointing in the
>> direction of the deployment sight. Thus they must have picked up the
>> progression of the fire and ultimately Marsh walking back up to meet
>> his men. This would be crucial evidence
Speaking only for myself… I have researched this as best as I possibly can using the existing body of published photographs taken in/around the Boulder Springs Ranch,
and I can find NO photographic evidence of any actual security cameras mounted anywhere on the WEST side of the BSR compound.
There are still some mysterious little ‘black boxes’ that are mounted right under the corners of the roof of the residence, back by the GARAGE, but there is no PUBLIC photo that I know of with good enough resolution to determine WHAT those ‘little black boxes’ really are.
If they WERE cameras… then it WOULD appear they were facing WEST and covering the driveway to the garage ( foreground ) and probably a view out into the box canyon ( background ).
But I repeat… I ( myself ) have been unable to verify WHAT those ‘little black boxes’ really are.
In addition… there is also NOTHING that actually resembles the same camera-with-floodlights that Lee Helm was using on the front gate anywhere on the WEST side of the compound.
There are actual CLOSEUP photos of that front-gate security camera, and it’s pretty LARGE. I definitely don’t see anything like it anywhere else on the compound.
Here is a post from back in Chapter Eleven detailing where those ‘closeup’ photos are in the public evidence record…
** CHAPTER XI ( ELEVEN )
On January 8, 2015 at 9:49 pm, WTKTT said…
** SAIT INVESTIGATOR WACHTER SITE VISIT PHOTOS CONTAIN
** ALL OF THE FOLLOWING…
**
** ACTUAL CLOSEUPS OF BSR FRONT GATE SECURITY CAMERA
** ACTUAL PHOTOS SHOWING SAIT INVESTIGATORS COPYING CAMERA DATA
** ACTUAL PHOTOS OF THE PUMPKIN THAT WAS SET UP AT BSR
In THIS folder in InvestigativeMEDIA’s SAIT online Dropbox…
SAIT-FOIA\Photos and Video\Wachter Site Visit Photos\July 7 visit
Actual CLOSEUPS of the Helm’s front gate security camera…
IMG_1012
IMG_1013 ( Best closeup view of Helm’s front gate security camera )
IMG_1014
What SAIT investigator Wachter actually seemed to be doing here was taking closeups of parts of the Boulder Springs Ranch that were showing how the EMBERS and ASH got all over everything. He was particularly fascinated with this as he was walking around the compound photographing windows, sides of buildings… and the actual front gate SECURITY camera itself ( covered with ASH ).
IMG_1015 through IMG_1019 also show the camera mounted on the corner of the building and pointed at the main gate.
If you zoom in on the camera lens… it says ‘spec technologies’ in an oval around the camera lens.
* SPECO TECHNOLGIES
This is the ‘product info’ page for the exact camera used at the Helm’s Ranch…
http://www.specotech.com/index.php/products/video/cameras/analog/item/106-ht7048irvf
Product information…
————————————————————————-
Analog Camera: HT7048IRVF
Day/Night Weather Resistant Bullet Cameras
with Digital Noise Reduction, 2.8-12mm Lens, Dark Grey Housing
Oval shape – Two spotlights attached.
————————————————————————-
>> John also said…
>>
>> and with everything else that has been buried, there is no wonder why
>> the Helm’s kept quiet as well.
There are no actual ‘transcripts’ or ‘recordings’ of any of the ‘interviews’ that both the SAIT and ADOSH investigation teams had with Lee and D.J. Helm.
The best we get are just some references to them ( and what they were doing around the time of the burnover ) in the SAIR document itself… and then some short notes in the ADOSH file from their on-site interview with them.
There is only one short note in the ADOSH notes about them saying they never saw ANY firefighter at or near the compound that afternoon… even while they were out there just before the fire reached the area and putting all their animals in the barn(s).
There is NO evidence ( or notes ) about any investigator ever even thinking to ASK them if they had Security Cameras on the WEST side of the compound in addition to the one fixed on the EAST ( main ) gate.
>> John also said…
>>
>> How chilling are these new revelations concerning the last conversations
>> between Steed and Marsh? If Marsh really were down at the BSR or in
>> the general vicinity, how could he not see the fire approaching as stated
>> a billion times before on this site? These are deep, deep waters and
>> we are only witnessing just a fraction of this whole ordeal.
Yes. All along… as the “pull” theory had been being discussed here on this forum ( that Marsh was out AHEAD of the others and not BEHIND them )… it has been a given that the moment that theory could be proved… the most IMPORTANT question would then be HOW could Eric Marsh have actually been out AHEAD of the men and not have seen the impending danger with enough time to have ( perhaps ) averted the tragedy.
TIME was critical. Even few minutes either way MIGHT have made the difference between life of death that afternoon.
The EXACT details about how Marsh could have been in a position to be their “Forward Lookout”… but everyone ended up dying anyway… will then be the ongoing ‘mystery’ until a good explanation is found.
Not much new in today’s Courier article that adds to what the Republic published last weekend. Paladini does relate what the reported response was after Steed radioed to Marsh the “we’re not going to make it” transmission.
Also, it doesn’t sound like Brendan’s lawyer is in a big hurry to let the facts see the light of day.
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=143964
As I read the Article I noted some new information.
When Steed called Marsh and said were not going to make it—-
—–Marsh said Yeah I know I’m sorry—-
More on Willis and Paladini ——-
They both went to the State Fire Attorneys and ADOSH Attorneys with the story and Willis retold it there Paladini was Willis Attorney at that discussion on what McDonough had told Willis.
It was also discussed with the city council.
With all this repeat it seems that Paladini would have the story down pat by now which means what was released is probable what was said to Willis By McDonough.
Very interesting information———–..
Willis testimony is admissible in court. It is not second hand.
What ever McDonough told Willis is direct testimony the same as telling an investigator. Thus Willis could well be called to testify now or latter at the scheduled hearing
Paladini was told by Willis which is hear say in a court of law.
Willis can testify on what he was told—- but Paladini can not testify on what Willis told him. he also could have heard the same from McDonough—. Being his attorney at the time he is exempt from being called as a witness to any thing McDonough said to him.
Out side a court of Law as the City Attorney he can now speak for the City.
My guess he dose not want himself or the City pulled into the secret web of not disclosing the information. He is I believe Protecting the City as there Lawyer.
Once the information was given to the State and ADOSH. The City and Paladini were free to do what ever.
There is another Story here with Willis and maybe why he quickly retired.
He also may have a Lawyer for all the backlash that will come his way.
As I said there is more to come from this chess game being played by Paladini, Willis and McDonough.
My same thoughts exactly, regarding your comments on the city attorney.
He does not operate in a vacuum. Any statements he made were with the knowledge and approval of his superiors.
The city is not being accused of any wrongdoing in any of the current lawsuits, and with the council, city manager (probably), city attorney, and whoever else in the fire department that knew about this information since last October, there was certainly a nearing point in time when the City could be accused of sitting on and covering this up.
This info release has removed the city from THAT huge potential mess.
And now, finally this:
4/9/2015 6:01:00 AM
Chronology of recent filings in State Forestry appeal of hefty fines
Joanna Dodder Nellans
The Daily Courier
“Here is a condensed chronology of some of the case filings in State Forestry’s appeal of fines related to the deaths of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots in the Yarnell Hill wildfire, along with background information from previous Daily Courier articles.”
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1086&articleID=143963
There are an unusual number of fragmented threads and conversations going on just below… but given everything that has been ‘popping’ lately in the media… that is to be expected.
I’m on airplanes all day again today so apologies for not placing some of the following short responses to things people were asking me to comment on down exactly where they should be.
I will try to do that when I get back near my desktop but for now I just wanted to let some now that I DID see the comments below and I will respond better when I can.
Bob Powers, down below, regarding information from his sources that is now ( and always has been? ) ADOSH trying to block any under-oath deposition of McDonough.
ME: No reason not to trust your sources. They could be right. I was only referring below to statements ADOSH lawyers have, in fact made, in various ALJ Hearing Files. Some of those statements have always SEEMED to indicate that ADOSH really doesn’t give a flying crap WHAT Brendan McDonough is trying to now ‘get off his chest’ and they don’t think it could possibly affect or mitigate any of the already issued citations.
Below… John Dougherty posted that known part of Brendan’s ADOSH interview where he SEEMS to be suggesting that everyone out on that ridge knew THAT MORNING that the two-track headed to the Boulder Springs Ranch.
ME: This statement from Brendan has always been so disjointed and contains so much ‘hemming and hawing’ it’s hard to tell what Brendan was really tetifying to. Did he really mean they were all fully aware that the two-track would eventually take a hellacious left hand turn and then go east? Hard to say… and the investigators really were so generally BAD at ‘ cutting through the crap’ in ALL these interviews the chance was lost to get Brendan to clarify what the hell he was actually testifying to.
More later…
Another thing we have mentioned, regarding how the Yarnell Hill Fire might have positioned itself to burn down the large bowl and then up the fuel-filled bowl in which the Granite Mountain Hotshots deployed, has been spotting.
On March 12, 2015, Wildland Fire Lessons Lessons pusblished a video of a webinar called “Spot Fires.”
“Brian Potter, a research meteorologist with the USDA Forest Service, presented a summary of the state of science behind spot fires. Spotting is one characteristic of “extreme fire behavior,” capable of short range acceleration of fires as well as producing long-distance spot fires that complicate management efforts. The presentation will summarize current knowledge and tools, as well as knowledge gaps.”
https://youtu.be/G8N6A8lN6ew?list=PLTErVrHH6uJja-ljtn7z9Q5Sz9WtCPGw1
A new Yarnell Hill ALJ hearing file addition to day. If I read it right it is pushing a hearing out to OCTOBER from AUGEST.
No SETTLEMENTS more requests between the State and ADOSH.
I did note a request for all of BR statements.
As I said yesterday it aint over by a long shot—-
The Tribunal from what I read was postponed from the 7th do to Personal Lawyer Problems.
WTKTT I am sure will post the info I don’t have his magic wand, To old to understand MAGIC.
The ALJ Hearing file page is here…
https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile
The TWO new documents just filed TODAY ( at the bottom of the page ) are…
2015_03 Updated 04.03.15.pdf – Filed March 2015 – 5 hours ago
2015_04 Updated 04.06.15.pdf – Filed March 2015 – 5 hours ago
I’ve been on airplanes all day today ( and will be tomorrow ) and these documents barely fit on this stupidphone I have… so I can’t ‘cut and paste’ any of the VERY interesting things revealed in these documents… but I will do so as soon as I can.
I also have OTHER ABC15 Helicopter footage ‘crossfades’ to post when I get back near my desktop computer.
My VERY quick ‘evaluation’ of these two new documents ( that I still haven’t even finished reading yet )…
* SUMMARY
There is absolutely NO SIGN of any ‘settlement’ being reached or even any chance of that happening.
It looks like the ‘court calendar’ is about to become ‘unfrozen’ again and then it is FULL SPEED AHEAD to a full-blown HEARING.
And YES… because of the ‘pause’ in the calendar for ‘negotiations’ ( which have apparently totally FAILED ) and some very sad personal issues regarding some of the attorneys involved ( mother of one just had a heart attack, another suffered a bad fall injury, etc. ) the DATE for the actual HEARING in this “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case now seems to have been pushed ahead ( again ) from July 8, 2015 to October 13, 2015.
That’s a THREE MONTH increase.
* 2015_03 Updated 04.03.15.pdf – Filed March 2015 – 5 hours ago
This document is HUGE and contains TONS of ‘lawyer blah-blah’.
From what I can tell… it’s really mostly just all about Arizona Forestry now filing individual motions of dismissal requests for some/all of the actual ADOSH ‘citations’… and they also want that process to follow more closely the actual ‘Civil Case’ procedures than the ‘ALJ procedures’.
I have NOT finished reading this document.
It’s a testament to “lawyer blah-blah” and the number of trees they can kill.
Bottom line here is just more proof that the ‘court calendar’ is coming ‘unfrozen’ again shortly and there has been NO ‘settlement’ reached in this case.
* 2015_04 Updated 04.06.15.pdf – Filed March 2015 – 5 hours ago
Contains request(s) for the COMPLETE SAIT Interview notes and/or transcriptions of the SAIT’s interviews with any/all Blue Ridge Hotshots.
Even ADOSH can’t believe the bullshit notes the SAIT actually published from those interviews is really all they have…. given that Mike Dudley stated several previously UNKNOWN statements coming from members of Blue Ridge that he seemed to be recalling from those interviews but none of that was in the published SAIT Blue Ridge interview notes.
Arizona Forestry responds by saying that the SAIT people were NOT ’employees’ of Arizona Forestry and they don’t even know what the SAIT really had or didn’t have. They say all THEY ever got was the same obtuse and dis-jointed crap that was released in the “SAIT Interview Notes” document.
Interestingly enough… in order to ‘press their point’ and prove to Judge Mosesso that they DID supply everything the SAIT gave them to ADOSH already… they reprint their complete MANIFEST of the SAIT documents they received.
That MANIFEST shows some documents that I don’t think have ever actually been seen before, and it also has a ‘column’ that indicates exactly HOW ( As in… from WHO ) those documents/photos/videos entered into the SAIT’s possession.
Just TWO of the MANY interesting things to note in THAT manifest would be…
1) The SAIT has NO IDEA where the CD with Brendan’s iPhone photos and videos came from. They also have no idea if it contains ALL of the photos and videos that Brendan might have shot that day ( with accompanying audio ).
It is STILL possible that Brendan McDonough himself not only HEARD GM intra-crew conversations that has never reported to investigators… but that he, himself, might have also recorded some video/audio of one or more of these conversations which has also never seen the light of day.
2) The says they had the ‘Helmet Camera’ video early on… but they listed the SOURCE as simply “Unknown Firefighter”. So even the SAIT didn’t really want anyone to know that PNF off-the-radar hire Aaron Hulburd was ever at the Yarnell Fire and was the one actually shooting that video.
There’s more… but I am ‘outta time’.
Plane is ‘on approach’ to landing and gotta turn this puppy off.
After reading through a bit of the 850 page file and then giving up after a hundred or so pages, I only found one thing of note.
One of the citations that ADF is contesting is in regards to the “danger” that the resources in Div Z were placed in.
All of the interviews and documents cited concur with Marquez’s assertion that NO resources were ever assigned to Div Z. This includes interviews with both OPS and Marquez, himself. Add to that, that fact that no resource has ever stated that they were assigned by OPS to Zulu.
Even though there were plenty of resources east of the grader who were in great peril that afternoon, I think ADF has a good chance of getting this citation tossed on this technicality.
On another note, Marquez asserts no Div break was ever established, even though, as I recall, I believe Marsh told Able via phone that the grader was the “new” break, or that they had “worked it out”.
Anyone can choose to “release the hounds” and flood a case with motions… but that doesn’t mean you will get “dogs that will hunt”.
Personally… I think there is all the evidence in the world that there WAS a ‘Division Z’ established on the Yarnell Hill Fire on Sunday, June 30, 2013… and I believe ADOSH has already proved it.
Whether or not the actual ‘boundaries’ were ever fully defined and/or communicated to anyone… and whether or not the resources ‘working’ that now-established geographical ‘Division’ of the fire were ever fully informed they were ‘Division Z’ resources is just part of the astounding ‘screw-ups’ that were taking place that afternoon.
You have a guy ( Marquez ) testifying that he was TOLD he was ‘Division Z’, and he ends up in an ‘argument’ with the other ‘Division A’ about the exact boundaries of ‘Z’. OPS1 Todd Abel himself ( the man running the actual fire ) testified to ADOSH that he recalled ‘Division A’ phoning him and telling him that yes, he and ‘Division Z’ had ‘worked out a boundary’ eventually and it was the old-grader location.
That means that all resources WEST of a north-south line cut through the old-grader location were in ‘Division A’ ( At that time just Granite Mountain ) and all resources EAST of that same north-south Division line were all ( technically ) in “Division Z”.
It will be a hard road to go for the attorneys to actually PROVE that this was NOT the case that day.
They may be able to prove that no one who was now ( technically ) IN Division Z had any friggin’ idea they even WERE… but that is neither here nor there, legally speaking.
If the designated ‘Division Z’ Supervisor had actually REMAINED in the geographic Division he was now assigned ( and being paid ) to ‘Supervise’… maybe they would have.
But he didn’t. ‘Division Z’ went back north and was never ‘down there’ to actually RUN / SUPERVISE the ‘Division’ he had been assigned.
As ADOSH has ( I believe ) already shown… that most likely contributed to ALL of the chaos in ‘Division Z’ and the potential / actual entrapment situations that afternoon.
So, in looking around to find out if Prescott eNews had published what Lynne LaMaster promised in her April 2 article, “CITY ATTORNEY PALADINI COMPLETES INVESTIGATION OF ICMA ‘TAMPERING”
………_Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the differences between the two reports.”
………which they still haven’t done……
I discovered, via a facebook post on Prescott Firefighter’s Last Alarm, that yesterday, on KCYA, there was an interview with Joe Stutler, the person who did the wildland segment of the ICMA Report.
The link on that facebook post goes to a website that doesn’t have the intervew archived.
But KCMA does have it archived and it is here:
It’s the third report down on the page. I don’t know how long it will stay there.
“The report continues to make news. The man who wrote the report says what was released was different than what he wrote.”
http://www.kyca.info
OK here’s a link to the actual mp3:
http://www.kyca.info/audio/news/STUTLER%20WRAP.mp3
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 8, 2015 at 12:35 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> So, in looking around to find out if Prescott eNews had published
>> what Lynne LaMaster promised in her April 2 article,
>> “CITY ATTORNEY PALADINI COMPLETES INVESTIGATION
>> OF ICMA ‘TAMPERING”…..
>>
>> “Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the differences between the two reports.”
>>
>> ………which they still haven’t done……
>>
>> I discovered, via a facebook post on Prescott Firefighter’s Last
>> Alarm, that yesterday, on KCYA, there was an interview with
>> Joe Stutler, the person who did the wildland segment of
>> the ICMA Report.
>>
>> The link on that facebook post goes to a website that doesn’t
>> have the intervew archived.
>>
>> But KCMA does have it archived and it is here…
>>
>> Original MP3 audio file of this interview with Joe Stutler…
>>
>> http://www.kyca.info/audio/news/STUTLER%20WRAP.mp3
Thank you for finding this, Marti.
And here is a complete TRANSCRIPT of that RADIO interview with Joe Stutler.
** KYCA RADIO INTERVIEW WITH JOE STUTLER
Joe Stutler was the 3rd party contractor hired by ICMA to do the ‘Wildland’ evaluation for the report ICMA was hired to do for the City of Prescott.
Here he is being interviewed ( LIVE ) by radio station KYCA following Darrell Willis’ accusations ( in his own resignation letter ) that that part of the ICMA report was ‘tampered with’…
COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF THIS RADIO INTERVIEW
————————————————————————————
Announcer: The report ( in question ) is the wildland section of the ICMA analysis of the Prescott Fire Department. Former Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis alleged in his letter of resignation last month that someone had tampered with it.
The man who investigated and wrote the wildland report at the request of the International County Management Association ( ICMA ), which had been retained by the City, was Joe Stutler, senior advisor to the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners in Bend, Oregon.
DID someone tamper with your report?
Joe Stutler:
There’s not a yes or no answer there.
I was asked to work with ICMA on the report for the Prescott Fire Department and my particular area of expertise is wildland fire so I came to Prescott and did the interviews and field trip and looked around and so I put my report together and I sent it in to fellow professionals with ICMA that were dealing with EMS and dispatch and structural and the other aspects of Prescott Fire and I sent that in.
Must have been in February of 2014.
And then, ya know, it was like… ah… did not hear ANYTHING for several months despite several efforts to… ya know… coordinate the overall completion of the report.
And, as I recall, somewhere in June I found out that the ICMA report had been completed and submitted to the City of Prescott… and so I contacted ICMA said “Hey… I understand the report has been released. I’d like a copy of it”.
So when I got the copy of the report it was clear that my submissions to the overall report… the wildland thing… had in fact been changed.
If representatives from ICMA would have contacted me and said “Hey, we’re bringing this report together and let’s talk about these specific recommendations and in the context of the overall report”… I would have had that discussion and perhaps we could have reached common ground on some of the recommendations.
As it turned out… there was NO consultation and my report, that I was given credit for, was, in fact, changed.
And I don’t know WHO did that.
The only thing I know is that when I look at MY report and what I submitted and the final ICMA report… they were different.
The recommendations had been changed without any consultation whatsoever and, in fact, they had hired me to… ya know… do my best to represent the risk assessment. What I saw from a wildland fire perspective for Prescott. And so I did that.
And so I… when I got the report… I made contact with ICMA and I objected.
I said… ya know… that’s not my report and I don’t think it’s accurate in terms of what the risk… or the recommendations.
And so we went back and forth on that some… and finally ICMA says “Hey, we’re going to… uh… and we consent to you… you know… having contact with the City of Prescott and the Fire Chief and the Deputy City Manager to talk about your version of the report”… and I said “That’s great”.
So… within a day or so… I had a conference call with the Fire Chief and the Deputy City Manager… and I had forwarded them MY report… and we talked about the differences and MY assessment… and we had a very good discussion.
And they said thanks… thanked me for that… and then I had a subsequent email from the Chief with an action plan that he had for the report in terms of… you know… what it was going to take for ICMA, or Prescott, to… you know… implement some or all of the report… and I thought… that’s GOOD.
And I… and to… in fairness to the Chief and in fairness to the Deputy City Manager… uh… they listened… they asked good questions… and I… uh… understand that they… uh.. you know… they paid for a report and it’s going to be at that point a BUSINESS decision that the City of Prescott has for… you know… to… ah… implement all or some or none of the report.
That’s entirely up to them.
Announcer: At the request of City Councilman Charlie Arnold, City of Prescott Attorney Jon Paladini conducted and inquiry into Darrell Willis’ accusation of tampering. In a written report to the City Council, Paladini concluded that although there ARE differences in the draft report prepared by Joe Stutler and the final report presented to the City Council by ICMA… he could find NO evidence of tampering.
For the news 1490… I’m Don Steele.
————————————————————————————
END of KYCA RADIO INTERVIEW with Joe Stutler
Bob Powers says APRIL 7, 2015 AT 2:00 PM
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288677
This might have got lost to EN and all.
WantsToKnowTheTruth says APRIL 7, 2015 AT 3:26 PM
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 7, 2015 at 2:00 pm
>> Bob Powers said… >> >> This might have got lost to EN and all. >> >> http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288677
And just in case someone’s mouse is on the fritz today…
On April 6, 2015 at 9:35 pm, Mike Schinstock said…
————————————————————–
Elizabeth said that on the Clear Creek Fire Fred Schoeffler wanted his assistant or Squad Bosses to keep fighting fire after they were no longer comfortable doing so and the assistant or squad bosses basically gave Schoeffler the metaphorical middle finger and moved to the black regardless of Freds view. I was the foreman of the PHS at the time (Friday 14 July 2000 at 1430hrs) That never happened. Period. ————————————————————-
KEY Phrase: THAT NEVER HAPPENED, PERIOD.
Bob Powers says APRIL 7, 2015 AT 4:11 PM
Elizabeth you have no comment on the above statement ???????? It just debunked every thing you have promoted about Fred. and even your sources??????
Elizabeth says APRIL 8, 2015 AT 3:29 AM
Bob, I’m not sure what you are linking to, so I will just say this: I stand by what I said regarding Fred Schoeffler. I sincerely do.
No comment.
Just for the record:
Elizabeth says
APRIL 5, 2015 AT 4:46 PM
On the Clear Creek Fire, your pal Fred Schoeffler wanted his assistant or squad bosses to keep fighting fire AFTER they had decided they were no longer comfortable doing so, and the assistant or squad bosses basically gave Fred the metaphorical middle finger and moved to the black regardless of Fred’s view. That didn’t harm the careers of any of them. For example, Mike Shinstock (who was one of the senior guys under Fred on the Clear Creek Fire, if I recall correctly) ultimately became the Supt. of the Payson Hotshots after Fred was finally out. So senior guys on hotshot crews will absolutely disobey orders or push back if they feel like a Supt. is making unsafe demands. (On the Clear Creek Fire, based on what I was told, I believe Fred ranted while the guys were in or moving to the black, saying something on their crew net like “AM I GOING TO BE THE ONLY ONE OUT HERE FIGHTING FIRE????” Yes, Fred, you are. 🙂 )
I’m going to re-post this way up here at the top so EVERYBODY will see it and understand it, and so I don’t have to keep repeating myself, either in part or in whole.
And then I’m going to completely walk away from it, unless someone has something INTELLIGENT and ACCURATE to say that I feel interested in responding to.
This:
“In this presentation, a more accurate timeline and relevant photos will be presented, to assess how they line up with the presumed wind event, and relevant operational take-aways (such as the need to acknowledge that even the best, most accurate weather forecast might not be able to be linearly used in predicting in detail short term wildland fire behavior) will be discussed.”
I have NEVER assumed that that 3:30 PM forecast should have been “linearly” used in predicting anything “in detail.”
As a matter of fact, THAT has been one of my major points all along. And it’s one of the points that, essentially EN has, exasperatingly, not been able to get through HER head.
And her saying that she knows the “wind event” that was forecasted didn’t happen because she doesn’t seen lawn chairs blowing around in pictures………..
I’ve never talked about “a wind event.” I’m pretty sure most of us have tried to counter that idea over and over again, but “our counselor” has been the one ALL ALONG who’s kept PUSHING it.
I’ve talked about a the thunderstorm with an outflow boundary with winds up to 50 mph, which was actually what was forecasted. Which pushed the fire into a dynamic clockwise (as they do in the northern hemisphere) rotating column.
That is about the CAUSE of the changing prevailing wind (which, by the time 4:30 rolled around, was NOT coming out of the NW, as EN is still scratching her fingernails on the chalkboard while repeatedly trying to convince the universe.
The micro-effects of that thunderstorm outflow boundary are, as I have REPEATEDLY said, basically unpredictable, depending on a multitude of parameters, one of the biggest and most important being TOPOGRAPHY.
None of this is anything NEW to any of us, as has been demonstrated ad nauseum here, who have actually lived and worked in the southwest.
In some ways it’s totally rocket science and, in some other ways it’s totally not rocket science.
THE POINT BEING that when you have a fire like that, in explosive fuels, with that kind of weather heading toward it,
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to listen to the friggin meteorologist via the friggin FBAN (both of whom ARE probably more of a “rocket scientist” than you are), and QUICKLY find yourself the nicest, clearest, safest place you possibly can (which CAN be VERY DIFFICULT to do IN THE LAST MINUTE) and
HUNKER DOWN.
Somebody DIDN’T DO THAT on the Yarnell Hill Fire. And they’re DEAD.
Fire Weather Behavior 101.
I’m VERY interested in what Fire Weather Behavior Experts have to say (and argue about, because that’s what they do) regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire. I find it absolutely fascinating. I find that rotating column REALLY absolutely fascinating.
That being said, EN is NOT a Fire Weather Behavior Expert.
Not even close.
Marti, says: “I’ve talked about a the thunderstorm with an outflow boundary with winds up to 50 mph, which was actually what was forecasted. Which pushed the fire into a dynamic clockwise (as they do in the northern hemisphere) rotating column.”
Marti, what is your specific support for the last part of your above statement, in which you assert that the alleged outflow boundary winds “pushed the [Yarnell Hill Fire] fire into a dynamic clockwise… rotating column”? That is one of the most interesting theories I have heard in a very long time, and it runs counter to my understand about how a column forms. You saying that outflow boundary winds PUSHED the YHF fire “into a dynamic … rotating column” is something that I have never seen posited by any scientist anywhere (regarding the YHF column or any other column). Maybe you picked it up from your dad, who clearly seems like he was an expert regarding weather. Regardless, I will happily take any citations or intel you are willing to share. Thank you in advance.
I am sure Marty will answer you—
But as usual you do not read this Blog very well or you would see and read about this rotating smoke cloud from WTKTT who also posted pictures.
The heat and wind together can create a fast rising and some times rotating smoke.
its not a tornado as it stays in one place but is highly visible and actually shows rotation.
In the LA Basin when a fire punches thru an inversion layer it is much the same but will pull the Fire with it some times that fast rising smoke column will show rotation
biased on the wind hitting it once above the smog layer or Inversion.
I have see this only a few times but it is quite amazing to watch.
Marti Thanks for your narrative above
Bob, it is you who did not read. Go back and re-read Marti’s comment.
Marti states that “thunderstorm with an outflow boundary with winds up to 50 mph actually PUSHED “the fire into a dynamic clockwise… rotating column.” Marti is saying that the column itself was caused by the “thunderstorm with an outflow boundary.” I have never heard of such a thing, but obviously Marti knows more since her father was a meteorologist, and I am hoping that she will expand on her understanding of the cause of the actual column!
Since you have never been on a real wild land fire and never seen a rotating column or even a fire swirl live you need to look at PICTURES.
As discussed down stream by WTKTT with pictures from Yarnell.
The thunder storm noted Winds did create a rotating column and I have seen it on a few occasions it is not a normal every day thing the conditions
have to be right.
You do not go back and read any thing so do not lecture me.
Bob, I have SEEN pictures of them.
But Marti indicated that the column of the YHF (presumably BOTH columns) was CAUSED by the outflow boundary, which is totally different than what I had been learning elsewhere about HOW columns form. I am trying to figure out where Marti got her intel teaching her that an outflow boundary can cause a column to form, so that I myself can try to learn more about such an interesting theory.
You said:
“Marti indicated that the column of the YHF (presumably BOTH columns) was CAUSED by the outflow boundary,”
EXCUSE ME, but I did not indicate that AT ALL.
The friggin FIRE caused the frigging column.
The outflow boundary wind caused the column to ROTATE.
THAT is what I said.
“I’ve talked about a the thunderstorm with an outflow boundary with winds up to 50 mph, which was actually what was forecasted. Which pushed the fire into a dynamic clockwise (as they do in the northern hemisphere) rotating column.”
Marti—Deep Breathing and again.
Namaste.
Amazing.
Marti, you are now saying that the alleged outflow boundary winds made the column rotate? (You actually said “The outflow boundary wind caused the column to ROTATE”?)
Hm. That’s interesting. Where are you getting that from? I have never heard such a thing, but obviously you know more than I do, because your dad was a meteorologist, so any help you can give on this would be stellar. Thank you! 🙂
And I should have added “I apologize if I am missing some obvious point!”
First off, there were no “alleged” outflow boundary winds.
There has been nothing in the past year and a half, at least so far as I know, that has contested the existence of those outflow boundary winds.
So, all things considered, given what I have seen, I’m willing to accept them as being beyond the definition of alleged.
Regarding what you said:
“Marti, you are now saying that the alleged outflow boundary winds made the column rotate?”
See this, which is inside of this thread, so I guess you think your time is too “valuable” to actually spend about five minutes of your precious time reading this actual thread.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-289299
Not to mention ALL of the posts, most of which I wrote this morning, below this one.
You say:
“I have never heard such a thing.”
Apparently, you haven’t been paying attention.
Which doesn’t surprise me, all things considered.
I’ve been saying that the thunderstorm outflow winds cause the fire, and thus, its column, to rotate for MONTHS.
PS.
Please DO your OWN homework.
Marti, you are saying that the COLUMN was rotating because the FIRE was rotating? The FIRE was rotating – that is your contention?
With all due respect, I am pretty sure that that is not how it works….
I already said, in great detail, how and why I might be mistaken.
I am perfectly willing for anybody, who has the creds and the experience to know better, to correct me.
That’s, honestly, why I wrote that post.
I have been writing about a “rotating column” for MONTHS.
Nobody has EVER CHALLENGED me on that.
If the model inside my head is wrong, I would LOVE to know about that.
I watched the Air Study Videos. I haz eyes.
We had an EXTENSIVE conversation about this in Chapter XII.
It is NOT NEW.
There is also THIS:
“Yarnell Hill Fire Geographical Analysis by Tom Dolan.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP_2wWqTisU&feature=youtu.be
Which is connected to this:
Yarnell Hill Fire by Tom Dolan
http://www.outdoorstorms.com/yarnellhillfire.htm
And further described in this:
Yarnell Revisited
http://www.geolobo.com/?p=483
Good stuff same thing we talked about down a chapter or 2.
For some one who is going to talk about Fire weather EN is totally lost.
She al ready admitted she has never even hiked in a western forest,
but knows all about weather in the mountains and the effects of weather and fire on a smoke column and the fire line.
Oh well some times people are impressed with them self’s and don’t need to have any real back ground.
Thanks Bob!
I’ve just gotten finished rewatching, several times over, WTKTT’s sped up videos from the Air 2 Air videos (which I shouldn’t being spending my time on right now but I wanted to check myself). And I hadn’t watched those for awhile cuz……time.
I don’t know if I’m seeing things. Sometimes it looks like part of the smoke is going one way and the other part of the smoke is going the other way. So it “looks” like it is rotating.
It looks that way more at some times than it does at other times.
Actually, in the first one, 1510, it actually looks like the smoke is moving counter-clockwise. And then it just all stands up and starts pushing the opposite directions.
I’ve always “seen” that/those smoke column/columns as “rotating.” But maybe that’s an optical illusion….
….based on the model in my head based on the FACT that, as the outflow boundary winds gradually started over-powering the prevailing southwesterly winds, the head of the fire “rotated” in direction clock-wise, heading first a bit more ene, then east then ese then sse then south then ssw then possibly wsw, when it hit the bottom of the deployment bow.
And then the whole column bent over and all the smoke engulfed yarnell.
So that’s the model I have in my head. The head of the fire didn’t just “switch.” It “turned.”
And those prevailing southwest winds didn’t just vanish from the face of the earth. Prevailing winds don’t do that.
At 15-20 mph, they were increasingly overpowered by the outflow winds moving in and blowing, from the northeast at “up to 50 mph.”
So that’s what pushed the direction of the fire to move clockwise around that compass.
So maybe knowing THAT is making me “see” it in the smoke column.
I guess that’s where/why Tom Dolan’s stuff really made an impression on me. And reinforced my “model” of a “rotating” column.
I can’t, in my head, imagine that model, based on those facts, without it inferring something of a “rotating” column.
I don’t know.
That’s why I would really really really like to read/see a true professional modeling of this fire and whether it was a rotating column, or, for that matter, a double rotating column, or whether it wasn’t even rotating at all.
It really is very complicated. But lots of these fires are, and that doesn’t mean they can’t be modeled and, relatively speaking, understood better by doing so.
But that’s WAY above my pay grade.
But, then, that’s why I’m not out there publicly selling …………..
(I could use another word for that but I won’t cuz JD wouldn’t like me for doing that but believe me those words DO get used in the profession for doing that sort of thing) …….
…..my “skills” as some kind of trustworthy “professional” interpreter of the fire weather behavior on this fire and the “Lessons To Be Learned” from it.
WTKTT’s YouTube channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChknok8ZdSi8mPJ9nAK2L7A
You have to scroll quite a ways down to get to the collection of sped-up Panebaker Air-To-Air videos.
I wrote:
“And then the whole column bent over and all the smoke engulfed yarnell.”
I’m thinking THAT might be a consequence of the prevailing southwesterlies dying down, as they often do later in the afternoon.
That’s possibly a factor in the fact that, after about midnight, a prevailing wind from the southeastish (from all the way down near Tucson) moved in and started blowing smoke and dust and call kinds of crud around, causing everybody who was sleeping out that night to get woked up and have to drive to the ICP in order to get out of it and get back to sleep.
I have never been able to see into the Colum’s but I would bet the Flames are in a swirl motion under the smoke column. which causes the heat and smoke to rise in a swirl or twisting motion.
Just my thoughts but the on film with the display in green and red seemed to show an almost tornado type effect from the ground up..
Copy.
Which is why I would LOVE IT if someone at the level of Doug Campbell et al would do a SERIOUS (I think Tom Dolan’s thing is REALLY important but possibly inaccurate in many points, but that was in 2013) friggin PROFESSIONAL ANALYSIS of the fire behavior weather on this fire.
It doesn’t change the fact that, in my humble opinion, given the forecast/s and FBAN’s warnings, which were accurate, all the “overhead” on that fire should have paid attention and told their crews to disengage and HUNKER DOWN RIGHT NOW (or ASAP) at approximately something like 2;00 PM, or, if that didn’t seem serious enough,
SERIOUSLY after that 3;30 PM NWS report that was captured by FBAN Byron Kimball (WTF was AZFire paying him to be there for, anyway????) and then sent out by him.
Unfortunately, I’ve written about this so much that I’m fried.
If EN was TRULY SERIOUS about understanding and communicating WTF happened on this fire, (like I have been all along,) this whole thing about how the VAST MAJORITY of the overhead on this fire were not seriously paying attention to the forecasts — (including the possibility that the ACTUAL Supervisor 0f the Granite Mountain Hotshots wasn’t either), that should be the MAJOR FOCUS of her (possibly last-minute) focus, as she heads to deliver a paper to the collection of much more experienced people than she is, who will hear it
PS I have, agonizingly, made a decision to not post any comments for the next 48 hours, because I REALLY need to focus on other things.
Elizabeth says
APRIL 9, 2015 AT 3:50 AM
Marti, you are saying that the COLUMN was rotating because the FIRE was rotating? The FIRE was rotating – that is your contention?
With all due respect, I am pretty sure that that is not how it works….
————————————
Marti Reed says
APRIL 9, 2015 AT 9:14 AM
I already said, in great detail, how and why I might be mistaken. [And, then again, I might not. I don’t know.]
[That’s why] I am perfectly willing for anybody, who has the creds and the experience to know better, to correct me.
That’s, honestly, why I wrote that post.
I have been writing about a “rotating column” for MONTHS.
Nobody has EVER CHALLENGED me on that.
If the model inside my head is wrong, I would LOVE to know about that.
Yeah, I missed a chunk of the conversation that I know is at the bottom of this chapter.
Part of why I decided to go look again.
Here’s a related on of his videos, in which he describes what he’s seeing in his Doppler Radar analysis:
Granite Mountain Hotshots Last Stand At Yarnell Hill
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drQZSfZmjbE&feature=youtu.be
One thing that keeps invading my thoughts as I sit here watching the “Spot Fires” webinar, is that Tom Dolan, based on his modeling, says that he thinks a 2000 degree temperature in the bowl would have been a result of the collapse of the column (I see, in the Air2Air video a bending over of the column, but not, neccessarily collapse of the column, but then I haven’t ever watched anything that shows a column collapse so I don’t know) and all of the burning stuff (including, as I have read elsewhere that happens, burning smoke and other chemicals) that that column had within itself.
And he made that video in August 2013, before the SAIR came out.
I remember reading that his conclusions were disputed, but I have no idea where or when or by whom.
But what he is saying here makes sense to me. But then, I am no expert on fire weather behavior. And I don’t pretend to be. I consider myself, first and foremost, just a lowly student of wildfire.
One of the things in evaluating fire activity that is common to us and I just never mentioned it.
When you are expecting wind and squirrely winds from weather forecasts
when GM Moved they should have anticipated possible Spot fires in the valley below them where they were headed in that highly volatile fuel type
a spot fire could grow fast and block their route.
When you do a check list it is another consideration what is the fire going to do if it turns South and burns in my direction– increased wind predicted–Spot Fires– large fuel bed–no fire break–What’s the possibility of that happening– is the possibility big enough to make a change in the plan to move to the BSR.
So yes you always consider spot fires in that fuel type. with the weather.
If so what other options do I have????????
If any what ifs stand out stay in the black. there are no other options..
You might sit there for an hour or you might sit there for 5 or more hours.
but your going home to see your family. As a Division Boss I had no problem telling crews to sit it out in the black till the fire made its full run.
Its no shame to be safe and sit it out it happens a lot on a lot of fires.
Bring the BLACK with you its a lot better than a fire shelter.
And, speaking of this:
“I’m VERY interested in what Fire Weather Behavior Experts have to say (and argue about, because that’s what they do) regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire. I find it absolutely fascinating. I find that rotating column REALLY absolutely fascinating.
On April 30 Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center will host a Webinar called “Vortices and Wildland Fire” from 1:00 pm – 2:;00 PM MDT.
They usually post these webinars to their YouTube channel within about two hours after the webinar ends.
“Scott Goodrick, a research meteorologist with the USDA Forest Service, and Jason Forthofer, a mechanical engineer with the USDA Forest Service, will present a summary of vortices and wildland fire. Vortices are almost always present in the wildland fire environment and can sometimes interact with the fire in unpredictable ways, causing extreme fire behavior and safety concerns. In this presentation, the current state of knowledge of the interaction of wildland fire and vortices is examined and reviewed. A basic introduction to vorticity is given, and the two common vortex forms in wildland fire are analyzed: fire whirls and horizontal roll vortices. Attention is given to mechanisms of formation and growth and how this information can be used by firefighters.”
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6350584912361558018
Their YouTube channel is here:
WildlandFireLLC
https://www.youtube.com/user/WildlandFireLLC
Elizabeth ask me a couple of days ago about case files on supervisors that were sued for wrongful death liability in burn overs.
I haven’t looked up the files but here are 2 of the Fires.
30 MILE FIRE—
CRAMER FIRE—Salmon/Challis
Exactly.
“Exactly” what, Marti? 🙂
Bob, thanks for sharing this, but I still have found NO civil lawsuits in which a supervisor such as Eric Marsh was held personally liable for something akin to gross negligence. You suggest that the Thirtymile Fire was one such case, but, as best I can tell, on the Thirtymile Fire, Ellreese Daniels was *NOT* pursued successfully in a civil lawsuit. Here’s a link:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/dismissal-of-parents-lawsuit-marks-end-of-thirtymile-fire-litigation/
Who was sued personally in a civil lawsuit on the Cramer Fire, Bob?
A crew Boss I cant remember his name and do to personal thing that have come up have not had time to research that.
The Daniels case is to show that you can be sued I at no time have said that any one succeeded but the law suits them selves have successful.
I only said there are cases where supervisors have been sued. over the past 15 years it is becoming more prevalent. That is why the feds changed the fatality fire investigations so they were not causing undue law suits on there employees.
Don’t assign any responsibility which they did in the past and caused severial
Liability Law Suits to the direct supervisor who violated the 10 and 18 as assigned by the investigation.
The sentence Law suits them selves have successful.
SHOULD HAVE BEEN
The law suits them selves have successfully been filed.
Marti posted a link to Kelly Close’s paper about exponentially increasing fire behavior, which I think is well worth reading. (I had referenced it a long time ago, but Marti actually links to it, which is super.) There had been some discussion about steady-state ROS, but Close talks about the difficulty that arises with exponentially-increasing fire behavior (because it is hard to perceive and process, at least initially).
In addition, it is worth cutting and pasting an exchange Marti and I had regarding Kenny Jordan, a former hotshot superintendent who had to deploy his shelter even though a subsequent investigation found that he had followed the wildland firefighting “rules” (e.g. the Ten Standard Orders or whatever version of them existed at the time):
Marti Reed says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 2:52 PM
Le sigh.
Ken Jordan discusses the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Apparently he disagrees with EN’s assessment.
“Ken Jordan, retired Hotshot Superintendent, talks about how his shelter deployment changed how he approached firefighting and running the crew, including placing emphasis on training and physical agility, changing the culture of after-hours drinking, and “breaking the cool barrier.”
https://vimeo.com/channels/791569/102780014
Reply
Elizabeth says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 5:28 PM
Le sigh right back atcha. He agrees with me, Marti – I *GOT* the intel from his video. Perhaps you should watch it a bit more carefully, friend (and also watch Bret Butler’s webinar). (In an unrelated vein, Marti, it is good to see up above that you are finally getting on the bandwagon with fire behavior. I believe I quoted Kelly Close’s paper (or at least cited it) a long time ago. The paper you are so excited about finally finding…. says the same thing, in essence. 🙂 )
http://www.wlfalwaysremember.org/images/incidents/documents/2003-07-22-cramer-close-20min-at-h2.pdf
Above is the link to one iteration of Kelly’s paper. (There is another one – if I find it, I will post it.)
You. Have. Completely. Missed.
THE POINT.
Been there, done that.
Marti, in your above response to me in which you indicate that one of us misses the other’s point, are you referring to my comments about Kelly Close’s paper or are you referring to what Kenny Jordan himself says in the video about his fire shelter deployment?
Specifically, at roughly 8:46 into the video, Kenny Jordan (one of the multiple hotshot superintendents over the years who have ended up in tight situations on fires) states that his deployment was investigated by a fire and fire behavior guru who was the “best of the best,” who ultimately concluded that Kenny was trapped by the fire and had to deploy his shelter EVEN THOUGH Kenny had complied with all of the “fire orders” (meaning that Kenny did not break “the rules,” as guys like Fred and Bob Powers like to refer to them, yet Kenny STILL ended up in a tight position in which he had to deploy his fire shelter).
That’s not The Point Ken Jordan is making in that video.
And I’ve been “on the bandwagon” about fire/weather behavior for months and months.
Just not YOUR bandwagon.
Trolling and as always in denial—-
I explained down below to the discussion she had on this with Rocksteady.
She accepts no explanation but hers.
Marti, it doesn’t matter if that is the point that Ken Jordan was intending to make or not. It is the TRUTH, according to Kenny Jordan.
The TRUTH is that it is possible to end up having to deploy your shelter even though you (at least according to an FBAN and fire expert who is the “best of the best”) FOLLOWED all of “the rules.”
That might not have been Kenny Jordan’s overall point, but it was mine, and Kenny Jordan graciously in his video provided the FACTS to prove the point (and the facts have been provided from other fires by other wildland firefighters who prefer to remain anonymous).
And I will repeat——
On severial fires in safety zones or safe areas Fire fighters have deployed Shelters to get away from the heat not the direct Flame.
Case example—–Salmon NF 3 Type 2 crews deployed in a Safety Zone
Which was Identified and 5 Acers in size with no burnable fuel.
It was found they had no reason to deploy but one supervisor ordered them to. This was a timber stand.
Forgot to add this is listed in the Fire Shelter deployment info.
**
** REGARDING THE UPCOMING AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY
** SYMPOSIUM ON FIRE AND FOREST METEOROLOGY ( MAY 4-7, 2015 ).
**
** YARNELL HILL FIRE WEATHER PRESENTATION WILL BE MADE
** BY ELIZABETH NOWICKI
I shit you not.
And YES… the already published SUMMARY of this presentation that Elizabeth Nowicki will be making in front of actual scientists and weather experts at this American Meteorological Society Symposium is the EXACT same hot, runny bullshit that has been refuted over and over ( by ACTUAL experts ) here in this ongoing discussion
SIDENOTE to Marti: I sort of hated to post this right above that WONDERFUL post of yours just below regarding your amazing father… and I know THIS posting might actually make you throw up in your mouth a little… but I felt it was important to get this ‘out in the open’.
Also… Elizabeth Nowicki’s presentation about the Weather at the Yarnell Hill Fire will come AFTER another presentation by…
( drum roll, please )
Fred J. Schoeffler, Sheff LLC, Pine, AZ
Again, I shit you not.. No one could even ‘make this stuff up’.
Here are the gory details…
On Monday, May 4, 2015 through Thursday, May 7, 2015, The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is having its 11th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology.
This one is in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
I will be at the Great Lakes Ballroom (Crowne Plaza Minneapolis Northstar).
Some of the TOP Fire Behavior and Fire Weather Analysts in the U.S. Forestry Service, the USDA, and other Fire Agencies around the world ( Australia, etc. ) will be ‘presenting’ at this Symposium.
The schedule of ‘presentations’ for this conference is as follows…
————————————————————————————–
Monday, May 4, 2015
05:00 PM – 07:00 PM – Registration Opens
Tuesday, May 5, 2015
07:30 AM – 05:30 PM – Registration Continues Throughout the Conference
09:00 AM – 09:15 AM – Opening
09:15 AM – 10:15 AM – Meteorological Information in Fire Management Planning
10:15 AM – 10:45 AM – Coffee Break
10:45 AM – 12:00 PM – Fire Weather Index Development
12:00 PM – 01:30 PM – Lunch Break
01:30 PM – 03:00 PM – Smoke I ( 1 of 2 )
03:30 PM – 04:45 PM – Field Studies of Fire-Atmosphere Interactions
05:00 PM – 07:00 PM – Formal Poster Viewing and Reception / Poster Session
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
09:00 AM – 10:00 AM – Use of Weather and Climate Information I (1 of 3)
10:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Coffee Break
10:30 AM – 12:15 PM – Model Studies I (1 of 2)
12:15 PM – 01:45 PM – Conference Luncheon
01:45 PM – 02:45 PM – Smoke II ( 2 of 2 )
02:45 PM – 03:15 PM – Coffee Break
03:15 PM – 05:00 PM – Operational Forecasting (short to long-term) of Fire Weather
Thursday, May 7, 2015
09:00 AM – 10:30 AM – Model Studies II (2 of 2)
10:30 AM – 11:00 AM – Coffee Break
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM – Use of Weather and Climate Information II (2 of 3)
12:00 PM – 01:30 PM – Lunch Break
01:30 PM – 02:30 PM – Use of Weather and Climate Information III (3 of 3)
02:30 PM – 03:00 PM – Closing
03:00 PM – 03:05 PM – Conference Adjourns
——————————————————————————————
During the FIRST ( of THREE ) “Use of Weather and Climate Information” presentation sessions on Wednesday, May 6, 2015 from 09:00 AM – 10:00 AM, FOUR different ‘Papers’ will be presented by their respective authors.
The FIRST paper to be presented ( in the 9:00 AM timeslot ) is as follows…
————————————————————————————–
Wednesday, 6 May 2015: 9:00 AM-10:00 AM
9:00 AM – Paper 5.1
Fire Weather and Atmospheric Condition Commonalities Affecting June 2002
to 2013 Colorado (USA) Wildfires
By Fred J. Schoeffler, Sheff LLC, Pine, AZ
————————————————————————————-
During the SECOND ( of THREE ) “Use of Weather and Climate Information” presentation sessions on Thursday, May 7, 2015 from 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM, another FOUR ‘Papers’ will be presented by their respective authors.
The LAST paper to be presented ( in the 11:45 AM timeslot ) is as follows…
————————————————————————————-
11:45 AM – Paper 10.4
Weather Forecasts and The Yarnell Hill Fire: Modest Reflections on Knowing
What We Know and Acknowledging What We Don’t
By Elizabeth Nowicki, Albany Law School, Albany, NY
————————————————————————————-
A complete SUMMARY of this ‘Paper’ that is going to be presented to this American Meteorological Society (AMS) Symposium by Elizabeth Nowicki can be found at the following online page sub-page of this AMS Conference Website…
https://ams.confex.com/ams/11FIRE/webprogram/Paper273187.html
In case it ‘disappears’ suddenly… here is that entire SUMMARY of
the Paper Elizabeth Nowicki pans to present to the AMS…
————————————————————————————-
American Meteoroligical Society – 2015 Symposium – Paper 10.4
Title: Weather Forecasts and The Yarnell Hill Fire: Modest Reflections
on Knowing What We Know and Acknowledging What We Don’t
Presentation Date/Time: Thursday, 7 May 2015: 11:45 AM
Great Lakes Ballroom (Crowne Plaza Minneapolis Northstar)
Presentation By: Elizabeth Nowicki, Albany Law School, Albany, NY
Working on wildland fires is inherently risky. Fire is dangerous, it can kill, and it is as unpredictable as a captive orca, particularly as the size of the fire increases and the relevant terrain becomes more uneven. Therefore, it is important to learn as much as possible from each and every mass tragedy involving wildland fire, so that future generations of wildland firefighters can better protect themselves.
Part of learning from tragedies on wildland fires involves figuring out – in as much detail and with as much precision as possible – what went wrong or occurred leading up to the tragedy, so that similar factual scenarios in the future can be made safer. If a wildland fire tragedy is blamed on a predicted weather event – such a forecasted wind shift – when that predicted weather event was not actually the direct causal factor of the tragedy (or it wasn’t the causal factor in the way the prevailing narratives suggest), the fireline is actually made even more dangerous, because wildland firefighters will inappropriately take comfort in remedial measures such as more frequent forecasts or an IMET on every fire over a certain size. Phrased differently, inaccurately blaming a wildland fire tragedy on a predicted weather event is dangerous, because it diverts focus – and safety measures – from wherever they should be focused instead.
In the wake of both the South Canyon Fire and the Yarnell Hill Fire, seasoned wildland fire investigators and expert wildland firefighters pointed their fingers at a forecast weather event (an “outflow boundary,” arriving from the N/NE, with winds up to 40 mph, in the case of the Yarnell Hill Fire) as the direct causal factor in the fire blow-up, direction change, and exponential increase in rate of spread that then entrapped and killed dozens of wildland firefighters. The “eruptive fire behavior” (or blow-up) in the South Canyon Fire or the Yarnell Hill Fire that ultimately entrapped and killed dozens of wildland firefighters was assumed to be the product of high-speed winds that were pushing the fire on top of the wildland firefighters faster than they could outrun it.
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.
The same case can be made regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire. In the wake of the tragic fire on June 30, 2013, multiple expert investigation teams and multiple meteorology academics and professionals indicated that 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots died at the Yarnell Hill Fire because of a predicted weather event (winds from an outflow boundary, arriving from the N/NE at speeds of up to 40 mph) that pushed the fire on top of the hotshots.
But the time-stamped photos and videos do not support this narrative. There is no evidence in the local communities of outflow boundary winds from the N/NE of up to 40 mph. Lawn furniture was not strewn, camera tripods were not knocked over by 40 mph winds, people did not have trouble walking into the alleged wind. Moreover, the fire eruption that ultimately entrapped and killed the Granite Mountain Hotshots appears to have come from the west/NW. If there were direct outflow boundary winds of up to 40 mph from the N/NE, the fire would have been pushed to the South/SW and away from the Granite Mountain Hotshots. But that is not what happened.
In this presentation, a more accurate timeline and relevant photos will be presented, to assess how they line up with the presumed wind event, and relevant operational take-aways (such as the need to acknowledge that even the best, most accurate weather forecast might not be able to be linearly used in predicting in detail short term wildland fire behavior) will be discussed.
Elizabeth Nowicki, Albany Law School, Albany, NY
————————————————————————————-
I wonder… are there any FINES or PENALTIES for getting up in front of the ACTUAL American Meteorological Society (AMS) and filling them with the kind of BULLSHIT that Elizabeth Nowicki is scheduled to do this coming May 7, 2015?
If not… then there ought to be.
At the very least… I just hope someone is actually THERE to stand up and tell her how delirious and full of shit she is.
Well I am not sure what to say right now I can not believe the both of them could get in the same room together with out killing each other. Although Fred’s 6’5/ 280.
More Later
Thanks so much for making me laugh, Bob!!!
I really needed that.
OK right now I’m gonna just say
Copy.
I’m way too beyond bedtime and too braindead to say anything else.
I’m trying to eat my pizza without regurgitating.
Elizabeth Nowicki is, as we all have discovered via the hard way ……
…. probably the LEAST qualified person in the Universe to say anything even REMOTELY accurate about the weather and the fire on the Yarnell HIll Fire on June 30, 2013.
She has made it perfectly clear that she knows absolutely NOTHING about WEATHER, much less SOUTHWEST weather, much less southwest THUNDERSTORM weather, much less how southwest thunderstorm weather interacts with WILDFIRE behavior, much less how the southwest June 30, 2013 thunderstorm weather interacted with the Yarnell Hill Fire.
I’m glad the pizza I’m eating right not is really good.
Otherwise WTF??????????
But hey, there’s still that thingy called peer review.
This is, for somebody like me, all things considered, actually worse than all the crapola related to the ICMA thingy and the Brendan thingy.
I hope she makes a complete a$$ out of herself. Which could, all things considered, still be possible.
I guess I said more than Copy.
And even though I hate to read this,
I have to say,
Thank You WTKTT
for posting this.
I know that, via JD’s recent reminder, I shouldn’t say this but ……..
Even though this could get me banned from here, via his recent reminder…..
All I can see in this is
A Columbia Law Professor (WTF????) free-lancing as a friggin’
Gold-Digger.
Sue me.
Disgusting.
I just “woke up.” (Still drinking coffee).
(Listening to KUNM. Re-iterating our Red Flag Warning. Plus wind and dust)
I had a dream last night about my dad. The symbolism in it was unrelated to this conversation.
When I woke up from it the words “Just let her hang her own self” went rapidly through my head.
I think I agree with that advice.
Is this for real?
I’m afraid so.
Did you actually READ what this nimrod is going to actually SAY to a roomful of some of the best FBANS and WFF Meterologists in the world?
It’s truly astounding.
I guess everyone deserves their own “15 minutes of shame”?
The MYSTERY would be how this person even got accepted to even MAKE such a presentation at an event like this in the first place.
This isn’t just some TROLL hanging around on a web forum and annoying everyone. This is actually ‘another level’ of ‘crazy’.
There is a serious ‘credibility’ issue here for the American Meteorological Society (AMS).
If they let this kind of nonsense actually happen… it calls the entire organization’s credibility into question.
The lecture circuit seems to like new and some times controversial lectures
but this is way out on a limb——
I know Fred dose Several different Lectures on different parts of Wild land Fire and has in the past. Kind of a extra retirement income. It dose not surprise me he is there when he applied and was accepted I will lay money hid not know Elizabeth was going to be one of the speakers.
>> WTKTT said…
>>
>> The MYSTERY would be how this person even got accepted
>> to even MAKE such a presentation at an event like this in
>> the first place.
Scratch that. It’s no MYSTERY at all.
They will basically let anyone get up and bullshit them if you simply pay them the correct REGISTRATION fees.
See this link about REGISTERING to be a SPEAKER…
http://www.ametsoc.org/Meet/fainst/201511fireforest.html
I no longer have any kind of high opinion about the “American Meteorological Society”. This is just a ‘money making’ scheme for THEM.
Peer Review.
It’s the scientific method.
That’s why, when I woke up, the words “Just let her hang her own self went through my mind.”
Reply to rocksteady post on April 7, 2015 at 11:46 pm
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> Is this for real?
Here is the link to the HOME page itself for this upcoming
American Meteorological Society ( AMS )
11th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology.
May 4 through May 7, 2015
In Minneapolis, Minnesota.
at the Great Lakes Ballroom (Crowne Plaza Minneapolis Northstar).
https://ams.confex.com/ams/11FIRE/webprogram/start.html
Actually… here’s an even BETTER link to the ‘details’ for this Symposium..
http://www.ametsoc.org/Meet/fainst/201511fireforest.html
This ‘appears’ to be just some deal where “they will let anyone in”… as long as you pay THEM the right registration fees to be an actual “speaker”.
From the page above…
——————————————————————
11th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology
5–7 May 2015, Minneapolis, MN
ORGANIZERS
The 11th Symposium on Fire and Forest Meteorology, sponsored by the American Meteorological Society and organized by the AMS Committee on Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, will be held 5-7 May 2015 at the Crowne Plaza Northstar Hotel, Minneapolis, MN.
REGISTRATION (Please note all SPEAKERS must register)
All attendees must register to attend the conference. Registration may be completed online, via fax-in form, or onsite. Everyone presenting (both oral and poster) and/or attending must register and wear a badge. Be sure to register by 03/24/15 in order to receive the lower registration rate. Registrations received at AMS from 03/25/15 and through the conference dates will be processed at the higher rate (see rates below). After 04/07/15 please register at the meeting or online. Payment may be made with check, purchase order (hard copy required) or credit card (MasterCard/VISA/American Express). FAXED registration forms must be accompanied by payment (PO or credit card # only).
RATES for…
Non-Member SPEAKERS, AMS Associate Member, or Exhibitor Attendee
FULL-WEEK PACKAGE
Admittance to the conference, all conference materials, all coffee breaks, formal poster viewing and Wednesday’s Luncheon.
Early Registration: $520
Registration: $560
Late Registration: $580
ONE-DAY PACKAGE
Admittance to all conferences and coffee breaks for one day (except the luncheon ticket).
Early Registration: $270
Registration: $310
Late Registration: $330
——————————————————————–
My dad presented to the AMS probably almost annually. It was a great way for him and my mom to travel around, meet and greet buddies and friends, eat well, and ARGUE about weather.
My dad LOVED to argue. About ANYTHING, but PARTICULARLY about WEATHER. That’s what meteorologists do.
Sometimes he presented stuff that was WAY WAY WAY OUT THERE.
Just to start the argument.
Thing was, he had the CREDS to get away with that. And the CONNECTIONS. And the RESPECT.
If EN says what she says she’s going to say in her abstract…….
………….
all things considered,
given to whom she’s probably going to say that…………
She’s gonna get laughed all the way out of the room.
This:
“In this presentation, a more accurate timeline and relevant photos will be presented, to assess how they line up with the presumed wind event, and relevant operational take-aways (such as the need to acknowledge that even the best, most accurate weather forecast might not be able to be linearly used in predicting in detail short term wildland fire behavior) will be discussed.”
I have NEVER assumed that that 3:30 PM forecast should have been “linearly” used in predicting anything “in detail.”
As a matter of fact, THAT has been one of my major points all along. And it’s one of the points that, essentially EN has, exasperatingly, not been able to get through HER head.
And her saying that she knows the “wind event” that was forecasted didn’t happen because she doesn’t seen lawn chairs blowing around in pictures………..
I’ve never talked about “a wind event.” I’m pretty sure most of us have tried to counter that idea over and over again, but “our counselor” has been the one ALL ALONG who’s kept PUSHING it.
I’ve talked about a the thunderstorm with an outflow boundary with winds up to 50 mph, which was actually what was forecasted. Which pushed the fire into a dynamic clockwise (as they do in the northern hemisphere) rotating column.
That is about the CAUSE of the changing prevailing wind (which, by the time 4:30 rolled around, was NOT coming out of the NW, as EN is still scratching her fingernails on the chalkboard while repeatedly trying to convince the universe.
The micro-effects of that thunderstorm outflow boundary are, as I have REPEATEDLY said, basically unpredictable, depending on a multitude of parameters, one of the biggest and most important being TOPOGRAPHY.
None of this is anything NEW to any of us, as has been demonstrated ad nauseum here, who have actually lived and worked in the southwest.
In some ways it’s totally rocket science and, in some other ways it’s totally not rocket science.
THE POINT BEING that when you have a fire like that, in explosive fuels, with that kind of weather heading toward it,
You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to listen to the friggin meteorologist via the friggin FBAN (both of whom ARE probably more of a “rocket scientist” than you are), and QUICKLY find yourself the nicest, clearest, safest place you possibly can (which CAN be VERY DIFFICULT to do IN THE LAST MINUTE) and
HUNKER DOWN.
Somebody DIDN’T DO THAT on the Yarnell Hill Fire. And they’re DEAD.
Fire Weather Behavior 101.
I’m VERY interested in what Fire Weather Behavior Experts have to say (and argue about, because that’s what they do) regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire. I find it absolutely fascinating. I find that rotating column REALLY absolutely fascinating.
That being said, EN is NOT a Fire Weather Behavior Expert.
Not even close.
I have an interesting correction for you.
Fred Schoeffler’s presentation has been MOVED to Session 5, Wednesday, 6 May 2015.
So there’s that. May have absolutely NOTHING to do with ANYTHING.
Most of those presentations are so far above my payscale that I can’t even understand their abstracts.
Just EN’s complete misunderstanding of the terminology she is throwing around is gonna get her laughed out of the room, ignored, or some combination of both, imho. Unless she cleans it all up a whole bunch between now and then.
But I could be wrong!!!!!!!!
I’m gonna repost something I posted way down below, in a little conversation Gary Olson and I were having about life in Santa Fe, Flagstaff, Farmington, Albuquerque, that reminiscing kind of stuff.
I had never written this story, although I had thought about doing it but I didn’t because, as you will understand when you read it, I reckoned there might be too much tedious difficulty that might attach itself to this story. But I think, after the recent day’s history, we may, hopefully. be a little bit inoculated against that danger, at least for the moment.
And because I think it narrates this kind of stuff about weather, thunderstorm, etc. So here goes:
“Oh, and another (ahem related) story I haven’t written about here, bcuz well you know (at least by now)……
I have a photo of my dad sitting on a log in horsethief meadow (where the jarosa fire burned) in the Pecos in about 1966, staring at a thunderstorm anvil over a pass we were planning to cross on horseback.
We didn’t cross the pass. Instead we went back around it the way we had come.
The next day we DID cross the pass, and there were trees next to the trail that had been exploded by lightning.
He told me that was the exact moment when, after 35 years of forecasting New Mexico weather, he couldn’t forecast a southwestern thunderstorm because they were WAY TOO COMPLICATED. He maintained that stance til the day he died.
And he flew typhoons in the Pacific in order to figure out the math to use to fly airplanes through hurricanes.
According to him, what you do with a southwestern thunderstorm is stay away from it and HUNKER DOWN!
Now you know why I haven’t told that story, except down here in a reply to you in a buried thread.”
It took us A LOT longer to go around that pass instead of over it.
But at least we came home alive, along with our horses.
I made a typo.
Instead of writing:
“He told me that was the exact moment when, after 35 years of forecasting New Mexico weather, he couldn’t forecast a southwestern thunderstorm because they were WAY TOO COMPLICATED. He maintained that stance til the day he died.”
I meant to write:
“He told me that was the exact moment when, after 35 years of forecasting New Mexico weather, he DECIDED he couldn’t REALLY forecast a southwestern thunderstorm because they were WAY TOO COMPLICATED. He maintained that stance til the day he died.”
I think by now you get the point. Which is the point.
And THE POINT is intimately connected to the
HUNKER DOWN.
Oh, and I forgot to say that he was also the chief meteorologist for entire atmospheric nuclear weapons testing program so there’s that…..
Which says something about his credibility in the arena of complex weather forecasting in relationship to high-risk operations.
And, in case there are those who would take this too literally, and ask, well this is not about wlldfire and that thunderstorm wasn’t right over the Yarnell Hill Fire, much less Granite Mountain IHC, and so this is not really relevant when “we” say Granite Mountain was situationally aware and just (after observing that fire for something like a half an hour, thus figuring out where that fire was going to go in the time they somehow had managed to determine it was going to take them to get to the Boulder Springs Ranch) was completely rational in heading toward that ranch, and so that obviously proves my point that there was NO WAY Granite Mountain (especially the leadership) could have perceived ahead of time that fire was gonna beat them to the ranch (OMG think about the FAMBILIES)………
………..I am sitting here, tapping my foot
If my dad, an EXTREMELY gifted and experienced and major math wizard meteorologist says southwestern thunderstorms are way too complicated to forecast in any kind of specific manner in order to determine if it might be safe to ride horses over a ridge when a thunderstorm is there and so the safest thing is to not get entangled in it…….
How can that possibly mean that adding a by-now-out-of-control wildfire to that mix, thus adding a whole nuther exponentially complicated layer to that mix. thus, essentially shouting out to everybody who is a stakeholder in its consequences…..
I”M A WHOLE LOT BIGGER THAN YOU SO HUNKER DOWN AND ACTUALLY THINK SAFETY FIRST!!!
……doesn’t mean taking that kind of thing seriously?
Namaste
I’m currently thinking I should try to turn all of that into a poem.
Or something.
Whatever it might take to make all of that simpler.
In order to make sure people get it.
So now KUNM plays:
“it looks like heartache……
……..and the winner loses all.”
Maybe that’s my poem.
Of course none of this factors into the possibility that, at the moment that Granite Mountain Hotshots™ acting supervisor Jesse Steed led his crew (under currently alleged pressure from Eric Marsh — and we still are uncertain what pressure Eric Marsh might have been under at that specific time) from that saddle into that bowl of explosives and across that fire’s head, and, under what now appears to us to have been some conflicted ideas/feelings on his part…………….
…..given WTKTT’s YouTube video, he and all of the rest of the crew might have been experiencing some possibly MAJOR effects of, not only fatigue, but also smoke inhalation???
To me, after all of my ruminations regarding all of this, I find that the really important Lessons Learned lesson is that, when you are on a fire that is increasingly under the influence of a southwestern thunderstorm, what you really really need to do is what Todd Abel told DivASup Eric Marsh (which I am assuming also included the crew under his command)
to just friggin “HUNKER DOWN.”
Even if it takes you (as it took my dad and me) a few hours more to get back to where ever you would REALLY LIKE to get.
We came home alive, along with our extremely freak-outable horses.
Granite Mountain IHC didn’t.
I really with I could put this into something more simple and easy to comprehend.
Typo. It’s getting late.
“I really with I could put this into something more simple and easy to comprehend.”
Should read:
“I really wish I could put this into something more simple and easy to comprehend.”
I really believe that when that 2:00 forecast came in, and then, additionally to that, the 3:30 forecast, the Incident Commander of that fire should have ordered ALL of the crews on that fire to PULL OFF of that fire.
There was absolutely no way, given the 10 and 18, to continue to “fight fire aggressively providing for safety first.”
If that Incident Commander had, instead of being overwhelmed by the fact that he didn’t have enough of his team onsite and was still being outflanked by the fire and was trying to catch up by whatever means without a radio (he just didn’t do that). been actually paying attention to the fire that he was contracted to actually fight……
……actually taken those forecasts seriously and ordered a stand-down of the crews that were on that fire at that time…..
Granite Mountain IHC would have been ordered to sit themselves down in the black that they were already in ……..
…….and the crews that were up in the area above the Youth Camp would have toggled off their chainsaws ASAP and REALLY headed toward safety instead of continuing what they were doing, thus getting themselves into a situation that nearly claimed their lives.
And who knows what else.
Regarding the conversation downstream regarding the fire behavior, the winds, the crew, their situational awareness, and their decision-making (a conversation we have had repeatedly and around which I have already wasted enough time to not even go there again………
However, skimming through it reminded me of something I re-encounter periodically and every time I do I think, hmmmmmmm I should post it because it’s so interesting and relevant and something we haven’t actually discussed all that much.
So here’s what I posted downstream in the weeds and roots somwhere:
20 Minutes at H-2 – Linear Decision Making in an Exponential Fire Environment
K.R. Close Poudre Fire Authority, Fort Collins, CO
Abstract
“In volatile burning conditions, the fire environment changes rapidly, and the fire itself often seems to spread at an ever-increasing pace and intensity. In fact, under extreme burning conditions in steep terrain, there is strong evidence the rate of spread is not linear and steady-state, but actually becomes exponential during the fire’s final run – intensifying far more rapidly than people’s perceptions and cognitions can readily reconcile. This appears to have been a significant factor on Cramer and other recent fatality fires.
Humans on the fireline tend to be linear thinkers, not readily adapted to assess processes that are accelerating exponentially – particularly in a volatile, rapidly-changing fire environment. Something doesn’t seem right… your “gut feeling” tells you this, but you just can’t quite put your finger on many specifics. As conditions deteriorate and fire spread accelerates, perceptions appear to also deteriorate. Perceptions, cognitions, emotional reactions, and judgments that would be entirely appropriate under normal circumstances fall short. Peripheral facts and evidence, suggest an intricate interaction of firefighters’cognitions and resulting actions/reactions, and the rapidlychanging fire environment is a key factor in the tragic outcome on the Cramer Fire.” …
http://www.wlfalwaysremember.org/images/incidents/documents/2003-07-22-cramer-close-20min-at-h2.pdf
The combined words were not combined in my original post, so I guess that happened when I copied/pasted it up to here.
Sorry bout that!
Just the ABC15 Helicopter footage alone verifies everything being quoted above.
There MAY have been an ‘identifiable fireline’ ( keyword = LINE ) circa 3:50 to 3:55 PM, but as each minute passed, more spotting kept taking place, and more explosive fuel was introduced… it became a ‘fire storm’ and not a ‘fire line’.
You could ALREADY see it beginning to ‘spot ahead’ there on that SOUTH-moving western edge of the ‘fireline’ in Christopher MacKenzie’s photos and videos.
Anyone who calls themselves a professional Wildland Firefighter ( and is carrying the equivalent ‘certification’ as such ) should have been able to envision what was GOING to happen ‘out there’…. and, indeed, was ALREADY starting to happen.
The big head-scratcher in the scenario we now have to consider ( folllowing the AZCENTRAL information ) would be WHY Eric Marsh himself could not also ‘see’ what was happening.
If the information being reported is true… then Eric Marsh really must have ‘taken off’ heading south ( by himself ) just after receiving that radio call from Blue Ridge Superintendent Brian Frisby informing Marsh that he was now NOT heading up for that requested ‘face-to-face’ with Marsh and was, instead, going to save Brendan McDonough’s life and get him the hell out of where he found him just walking along the two-track.
Whatever reason Marsh even had for REQUESTING that face-to-face and whatever additional ‘plans’ Marsh had for remaining up on that ridge must have instantly evaporated when he got that radio call from Frisby.
So Marsh MUST have almost IMMEDIATELY taken off on his own ‘scouting mission’ to the south… or there simply isn’t time for what is now being reported to all be true.
That begs the question… WHERE was Marsh, really, when he had those final critical ‘conversations/discussions/arguments’ with Captain Jesse Steed?
If he was anywhere EAST of the mouth of that box canyon…. he should have had ‘eyes on the fire’ and been able to judge as well ( if not BETTER ) than Steed what the fire was doing at THAT time ( ??? ) and how ‘risky’ the move would actually be.
THAT is really the NEW ‘conundrum’.
WHERE was Marsh, WHEN, and WHY would he even be suggesting for one second that they had the TIME to make that risky move?
It’s important to remember that Operations Planning Chief Paul Musser states that he asked either Steed or Marsh whether they could spare resources in Yarnell at approximately 4 p.m.
Mandatory evacuations were in place and it was clear that more resources were needed to get elderly people out of harms way.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/granite-mountain-hotshots-were-asked-if-they-could-protect-yarnell/
Musser claims he doesn’t know who he was talking to.
But for a moment consider this:
According to the ADOSH report, Marsh or Steed told Musser that they were committed to the black and to ask Blue Ridge if they could provide assistance.
https://www.dropbox.com/home/ADOSH%20Investigation/ADOSH%20Web%20Documents?preview=ASFD+Worksheets.pdf
Page 15
But it is known that by 4:01 p.m., Marsh was no longer with the crew and apparently couldn’t see the fire because the MacKenzie videos show Steed talking to him on the radio and providing him a description of the fire’s location.
Marsh, however, MAY have radioed Steed immediately after Musser’s request to discuss whether the crew should move. Hence the 4:01 p.m. MacKenzie video showing the “comfort level” discussion.
It’s also plausible that Marsh began his descent to BSR from his location that already was separate from GM after Musser made his request for more help.
Under this scenario, Marsh could have been scouting a descent route and timing how long it would take the crew to get to BSR.
Once at BSR, the crew would have been in a better position to assist evacuations or conduct mop-up operations after the fire swept through.
The penultimate argument between Marsh and Steed described by Palladini based on Willis’ account (from McDonough) may have happened closer to 4:20 p.m. when the crew reached the saddle “descent point” off the two-track.
The crew could have continued to the south along the two-track and taken the long route back to Yarnell, while keeping on eye on the fire.
Of course this would have eliminated the possibility of re-engagement, which is what Willis says they crew would have tried to do.
Hence the reported argument between Steed and Marsh that led to Marsh issuing the fateful order to take the short cut through the box canyon.
As the crew was coming down, Marsh was already moving back to meet the crew.
The fire had not yet entered the mouth of the canyon between BSR and the deployment site. The ridge to the north would have blocked Marsh’s direct view of the fire approaching from the north.
But when the fire turned the corner and swept over the ridge to the north, it was too late. The fire covered the last 100 yards in 19 seconds.
Marsh was with the crew within 90 seconds of its first mayday call.
Thoughts?
Sounds Very Plausible to me although it is some guessing with out evidence
its as good as we have based on what we know.
They were headed to a Safety zone then from there what????
Even if they would have got there they would have been burned over and had a wait to get out after the fire laid down.
If the fire had not moved south they would have still had to find a way out with it burning Glen Isla. That blocked the road in to BSR.
There may have been a plan but that’s pretty shaky. Or no body really thought the fire was going to do what it did which seems to be the reality here.
I am going to have to think on this awhile.
Reply to John Dougherty (JD) post April 7, 2015 at 7:04 pm
>> JD said…
>>
>> It’s important to remember that Operations Planning Chief
>> Paul Musser states that he asked either Steed or Marsh
>> whether they could spare resources in Yarnell at
>> approximately 4 p.m.
Yes… but as far as has been able to be determined given the existing PUBLIC evidence… I believe the TIME for that radio call was 3:42 PM.
Musser said this was the ONLY time he ‘called out’ to “Division Alpha” that day… and that radio callout was clearly captured in one of the Panebaker videos at 3:42 PM.
There is no RESPONSE from DIVSA Marsh for the remaining 60 seconds or so of that Panebaker video… but it’s also been determined that was probably because that is EXACTLY when Marsh was hearing ( and participating in ) the radio conversations regarding Brian Frisby’s evacuation of Brendan McDonough, and responding to Frisby’s question about whether Blue Ridge should go ahead and ‘move’ all the GM vehicles.
DIVSA Marsh must have ‘answered’ OPS2 Musser’s radio callout to him right after he finished talking to Frisby… which would put Marsh’s response to Musser in the 3:43 to 3:44 PM timeframe.
SIDENOTE: Musser never said he ‘asked for resources’. Musser only testified he asked (quote) “Are you still committed to the ridge?”. Subtle difference, perhaps, but that is exactly what Musser testified to.
So even though OPS2 Paul Musser is reporting that the ANSWER to his question “Are you still committed to the ridge?” was “Yes, we are still committed to the ridge”… the recent AZCENTRAL information would still indicate that almost in the same breath that Marsh was telling Musser they were “Still committed to the ridge”… he must have been ‘taking off’ to the south to scout the route to the BSR.
It looks like Marsh’s decision to ‘take off’ right away was influenced by at least BOTH of the following things happening at almost the same exact moment ( 3:42 to 3:44 PM )…
1) Frisby called and cancelled the scheduled face-to-face and was now going to save Brendan’s life instead.
2) OPS2 Paul Musser called asking “Are you still committed to the ridge?”
The EXACT timing ( down to the second ) is still not known here, and is also still important to know.
It is still POSSIBLE that DIVSA Marsh responded to OPS2 Paul Musser FIRST in that tight timeframe… and Marsh really did still think Frisby was headed up to the ridge and that there might be still some chance of talking about a ‘plan’… and only SECONDS after telling Musser “Yes, we are still committed to the ridge” did he then get that call from Frisby saying “I’m not coming up there”.
So since SECONDS matter… then in those SECONDS before Marsh learned Frisby wasn’t coming up he might have been being actually truthful with OPS2 Paul Musser. He WAS standing there waiting for Frisby to arrive and he really did think there might be ‘another plan’ they could figure out.
The moment Frisby called and said he was going to save Brendan’s life instead… Musser’s radio request might have still been ‘ringing’ in Marsh’s ears and the then decided THAT is what he needed to do.
Try to get to town and help poor OPS2 Musser.
Big question there, of course, would be why would Marsh have not called OPS2 Musser right back and said “Plans have changed. We are NOT committed to the ridge anymore. We are coming down.”
He (Marsh) didn’t do that.
He also violated the clearly stated rule in the “Division Supervisor” taskbook that says you MUST notify your OPS level Supervisor when resources are being MOVED… especially if that move entails LEAVING their assigned ‘Division’.
Marsh just ‘took off’ heading south to ‘scout’ the route to the BSR without notifying ANYONE in fire command that is what he was now doing… and that he INTENDED to remove the GMHS resource OUT of their assigned ‘Division’.
>> JD also wrote…
>>
>> Mandatory evacuations were in place and it was clear that
>> more resources were needed to get elderly people out of harms way.
Granite Mountain knew evacuations had started. Even the Crew knew it and that message appeared in some text messages from the men at the ‘rest spot’ around that time. So yes… they heard this activity over the radios and were aware it was happening.
HOWEVER… it is NOT KNOWN if they knew, specifically, that ‘more resources were needed to get elderly people out of harm’s way’?
Not only is that NOT the job of a Hotshot Crew, and without their vehicles they really wouldn’t even have been any help but just 19 more bodies that would have to then ‘get out of harms way’ themselves… OPS2 Paul Musser did NOT testify to saying anything of the kind to DIVSA Marsh.
All OPS2 Musser has testified to asking/telling Marsh is one simple question…
“Are you still committed to the ridge”.
Musser says the answer was “Yes, we are. Try Blue Ridge”.
END of conversation ( according to Musser ).
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Musser claims he doesn’t know who he was talking to.
He later testified to ADOSH that he was SURE he made his radio call to “Division Alpha” and that he would have never gone outside the ‘chain of command’ and called “Granite Mountain” directly. That is actually verified by the radio capture in the Panebaker video at 3:42 PM. Musser’s actual ‘callout” was…
“Division Alpha, OPS Musser, on TAC 1”
GM Captain Jesse Steed would NOT have answered that callout, so we really MUST assume that Musser actually spoke to DIVSA Eric Marsh, not Jesse Steed.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> But for a moment consider this:
>>
>> According to the ADOSH report, Marsh or Steed told Musser
>> that they were committed to the black and to ask Blue Ridge
>> if they could provide assistance.
>>
>> But it is known that by 4:01 p.m., Marsh was no longer with
>> the crew and apparently couldn’t see the fire because the
>> MacKenzie videos show Steed talking to him on the radio
>> and providing him a description of the fire’s location.
Yes… but just a quick review of the TIMES here.
Musser’s radio callout to Marsh came in the 3:42 PM timeframe, at about the exact same time Brendan McDonough was ‘evacuating’ and all of THOSE radio conversations were also taking place.
The MacKenzie VIDEOS ( showing Steed describing the fire location to Marsh over the radio ) were in the 3:55 PM timeframe… not 4:01.
If Marsh had ‘taken off’ going SOUTH to scout the route to the BSR immediately after hearing Frisby wasn’t going to make the face-to-face, then at 3:55 PM ( When we hear ‘comfort level’ discussions AND we hear Steed reporting fireline location to Marsh )… Marsh could ONLY have gotten about as far as what would later become known as the ‘Descent Point’ at the saddle at the top of the WEST end of the canyon.
There would only have been 10 to 12 minutes between him LEAVING the ‘rest spot’ area and when we hear him talking to Steed in the MacKenzie videos.
So it’s possible the REASON that Steed was telling Marsh at that time ( 3:55 PM ) where the fireline now was with (quote) “It’s almost made it to that two-track road that we walked in on” is because by 3:55 PM ( MacKenzie VIDEO time ) Marsh had made good progress SOUTH and really had already started his own ‘descent’ into the box canyon ( and was tying pink ribbons and marking the route ) and was, therefore, now TOTALLY BLIND himself at that moment and was relying on Steed to tell him where the fireline was at that moment.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Marsh, however, MAY have radioed Steed immediately after
>> Musser’s request to discuss whether the crew should move.
>> Hence the 4:01 p.m. MacKenzie video showing the “comfort
>> level” discussion.
Totally possible… but again… I think you have the TIMES a little off in your ‘visual’ on this.
Musser’s call came circa 3:42 PM.
The MacKenzie videos were shot at 3:55 PM ( not 4:01 PM ).
>> JD also said…
>>
>> It’s also plausible that Marsh began his descent to BSR
>> from his location that already was separate from GM after
>> Musser made his request for more help.
Yes. Also possible… but the only ‘limiting event’ that HAS to be factored in at all times here is that until Frisby called Marsh and told him he was NOT going to make that face-to-face… Marsh MUST have been assuming he needed to be there in that ‘anchor point’ area to MEET him.
We are still assuming that Marsh would NOT have taken off to the south for his scouting mission until that moment he learned Frisby wasn’t coming up for the face-to-face ( at the same place they met before around NOON ).
If he had… and Frisby had ‘missed’ Brendan standing there on that two-track and Frisby had ‘blown right by him’ and continued on up for the face-to-face, then when Frisby arrived up there and said “Okay… I’m HERE now… where’s Marsh?”… Jesse Steed would have had to tell Frisby… “Sorry Brian… you missed him. He just took off to the south to scout something out”.
Frisby would have been MAJOR PISSED if that is what happened.
It didn’t.
It’s simply (still) logical to still assume (unless new evidence proves otherwise) that Marsh WAS there waiting for Frisby until the very moment Marsh was informed (by Frisby himself) that he didn’t need to anymore.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Under this scenario, Marsh could have been scouting a descent
>> route and timing how long it would take the crew to get to BSR.
The ‘pull’ theory ( Marsh was out AHEAD of the crew and not behind them ) has always also had this assumption attached to it.
It also fully explains the ‘burned up roll of pink tape’ that Tex (Sonny) Gilligan found.
What we still do NOT know is if he ever really did make it all the way to the BSR before calling Steed to say “Bring ’em down”.
Lee and DJ Helm have already testified they NEVER saw ANY firefighters there at the compound ( or on the western edge of it ) during this whole timeframe. Not one. Not ever… and they were even OUTSIDE on the compound in this timeframe putting all their animals in the barn(s).
It’s possible Marsh only got close enough to the BSR to verify it didn’t have a 10 foot high barbed-wire fence on that western side OR a whole pack of nasty guard dogs… and once he was sure of that he started calling back to Jesse and thus began the “Bring ’em down” conversations/arguments.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Once at BSR, the crew would have been in a better position
>> to assist evacuations or conduct mop-up operations after
>> the fire swept through.
No. Not true.
If that is what Marsh thought… then he was lacking even MORE ‘situational awareness’ that day.
The BSR was still quite some distance even from the western edge of any structures in Glen Ilah. It would have been yet ANOTHER ‘hike’ from the BSR to even get anywhere where they could have been doing anything at all for anyone.
UNLESS… that radio capture where we hear Gary Cordes telling Tyson Esquibel to send at least one ‘Engine’ over the BSR to make sure that Granite Mountain gets (quote) “out of there safely” was actually a continuation of an earlier conversation that Cordes had been having with Eric Marsh himself.
It is still possible that Gary Cordes had communicated with Marsh at some point here and actually made him a PROMISE.
“Eric… you just get them to that BSR and I’ll make sure someone is there to pick you up”.
Apparently SOMETHING made even Eric Marsh SURE that if he could just get GM to BSR… that they WOULD get “picked up” by someone in time to be of any help to anyone at all down there.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> The penultimate argument between Marsh and Steed described
>> by Palladini based on Willis’ account (from McDonough) may have
>> happened closer to 4:20 p.m. when the crew reached the saddle “
>> descent point” off the two-track.
Yes… and may have had a lot to do with Steed initially ‘agreeing’ to take the men ‘out of the black’.
Jesse Steed may have had NO IDEA that the second leg of the ‘mission he was even arguing with Marsh about involved a walk through unburned explosive fuel in a box canyon and right across the path of the SOUTH moving fire.
Jesse Steed may have had his own WTF moment when they reached the ‘Descent Point’ and realized that WAS what Marsh was now asking them to do.
THIS is just one of MANY things Brendan McDonough can probably ‘clear up’.
WHEN did what he hear actually happen… and what was the CONTEXT of the timeframe ( Steed still back at the anchor point? or at the Saddle? or even somewhere ELSE at that point? ).
>> JD also said…
>>
>> The crew could have continued to the south along the two-track
>> and taken the long route back to Yarnell, while keeping on eye
>> on the fire.
Jesse Steed had no frickin’ idea that two-track ( which from his viewpoint at the ‘Descent Point’ looked like it did nothing but head SOUTH to Mexico ) would get anywhere NEAR the ‘objective’ ( The BSR ).
Jesse Steed did NOT even have his OWN sufficient ‘situational awareness’ that day to even suggest that as an alternative.
There is NO evidence that Steed even had a MAP of the area.
That is what has to be factored into the conversations.
In order for Captain Jesse Steed to do a successful TDWAO ( Turn Down With Alternate Option ) with his supervisor Eric Marsh… Steed would have to have known that two-track was going to soon head EAST and right towards the BSR and Candy-Cane Lane area.
I don’t believe he did. Not even a frickin’ clue.
So that didn’t help Jesse do a successful TDWAO with Marsh. He couldn’t offer ‘alternate routes’ because Steed had no idea there WERE any ‘alternate routes’ ( except down off the mountain to the west and out towards more boondock ).
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Of course this would have eliminated the possibility of
>> re-engagement, which is what Willis says they crew
>> would have tried to do.
Exactly. If Jesse was actually trying to do a TDWAO and Marsh was being some kind of bastard and trying to say “whatever alternative you give me still has to achieve the objective of you getting your ass DOWN here to this Ranch”… then Jesse didn’t HAVE any ‘good alternatives’.
He did not have the topographical situational awareness to even DO that and still achieve Marsh’s ‘objective’.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Hence the reported argument between Steed and Marsh that
>> led to Marsh issuing the fateful order to take the short cut
>> through the box canyon.
Yes. If Jesse had no ‘good alternatives’ ( Sic: alternate routes ) and Marsh was still holding him to ‘achieving my objective’… then Marsh could have just said… “Objections noted… but I am hearing no valid alternative to achieve my objective… so checkmate. Bring them DOWN the way I marked with the pink ribbons… and do it NOW. End of conversation”.
At that point… the next ‘dissenting’ words out of Jesse Steed’s mouth would have been career changing… and he knew it.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> As the crew was coming down, Marsh was already moving
>> back to meet the crew.
Possibly. Marsh knew what a ‘maze’ that was he had just (supposedly) ORDERED them to traverse ( because he just came down that way himself ) and the moment he knew they were coming he might have felt he better ‘get out there’ to SHOW them were all his pink ribbons were so they didn’t get LOST.
This move on Marsh’s part ( if that’s the way it went down ) would actually just be more PROOF that Marsh KNEW this was ‘risky’ and that TIME was of the essence.
He may have been so nervous that they WOULD get ‘lost’ or ‘bogged down’ out there that he BETTER head back WEST to help them…. because TIME was the enemy now. No question.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> The fire had not yet entered the mouth of the canyon between
>> BSR and the deployment site. The ridge to the north would have
>> blocked Marsh’s direct view of the fire approaching from the north.
Possibly. Depending on when Marsh decided to head back WEST to meet them then Yes… he could HIMSELF have gotten far enough back WEST that he couldn’t see the ‘train coming’.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> But when the fire turned the corner and swept over the ridge
>> to the north, it was too late. The fire covered the last
>> 100 yards in 19 seconds.
>>
>> Marsh was with the crew within 90 seconds of its first mayday call.
Actually… I believe the time from the start of Jesse’s first (recorded) “We are in front of the flaming front” MAYDAY call to the moment we hear Eric appearing on the radio talking to “Bravo 33” himself and saying he is now “with” Granite Mountain is 1 minute and 59 seconds.
But don’t forget that according to Darrell Willis, Jon Paladini and THREE AZCENTRAL reporters… there was ALSO a radio call from Jesse Steed direct to Eric Marsh ( on the intra-crew frequency ) when Steed informed Marsh “We’re not going to make it”.
When THAT radio call took place ( if it did ) will be crucial to know.
>> JD also said…
>>
>> Thoughts?
See above. That’s my 2 cents.
McDonough Inteview 10-10-13
617 Q3: Oh, I think when you were doing that assignment, where did they tell you
618 your, uh, safety zone was and your escape route when you were doing that?
619
620 A: We had cold black. And then we could go out the road. We could go out the
621 ridge down to that ranch.
622
623 Q3: They – they talked to you about that as an opportunity then when you first
624 started, going out to the ranch if you had to?
625
626 A: Mm, I can’t really seem to remember. But in, I mean, I remember being told
627 about the ridge. So I – it would make sense that the ranch – you just not gonna
628 take a road going nowhere.
629
A: My escape route 675 and safety zone was, at that time, to stay in the black or to
676 either go back to the vehicles or to go out that two-track road to the ranch or
677 on the other side of the mountain where it burned to. So, I mean, I had pretty
678 – there was multiple options. It’s just which one you wanted to do, which
679 ones can be progressive towards…
It still comes back to this question – if there was an order, why was Marsh so insistent, especially with the pushback from Steed? Did he just want them at the ranch, or need them there? We have speculated at length, but no one so far knows for sure why. Does McDonough know – maybe, but it is far from certain. And if he knows, maybe one reason he has been reluctant to speak up is what he knows CANNOT BE CORROBORATED. He may think no one will believe him, he can’t prove his knowledge, so he has kept silent. That may well not be the case, but could be a reason to clam up.
John, you asked for thoughts, so I will offer some.
You said “The crew could have continued to the south along the two-track and taken the long route back to Yarnell, while keeping on eye on the fire.” My impression is that that would not have helped them, nor would it have been possible to beat the fire that way. As to the first point, my impression from the hiker’s pictures is that that route would have only kept them high for a short bit more, and then their view would have been blocked again. In addition, that area ultimately burned, and we can see from the Matt Oss videos how quickly it burned. My understanding from those who have hiked that area and are expert in these matters is that the crew likely would have ended up trapped, but just in a different area.
You also said: “As the crew was coming down, Marsh was already moving back to meet the crew.” My thought in response to that is that it ignores the fact that it presumably would not have made sense for Marsh to go BACK to meet the crew if everything was fine with the crew. Meaning: if Marsh as Division Supervisor had actually already made it to the Boulder Springs Ranch or close thereto as some folks allege, presumably he would stay there to get ready for the crew to arrive, and he would do things like check out the pumpkin, radio Brendan to bring the trucks, radio for a bigger pump if needed (so that they could use the pumpkin with a bigger pump, if one was not already there, which it might have been). He wouldn’t go BACK to meet them (unless or until it was clear that they were in trouble), would he?
**
** ACTUAL ACADEMIC RESEARCH HAS BEEN DONE ABOUT
** WHY A LOT OF WILDLAND FIREFIGHTERS ARE ‘AFRAID’
** TO SPEAK UP AND/OR TURN DOWN DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENTS
This is a continuation of the thread down below ( beneath the new round of ‘noise’ ) about the TDWAO protocol and the reasons WHY Captain Jesse Steed still (apparently) agreed to make that ‘risky move’ even AFTER he knew it was ‘dangerous’, and had (apparently) been voicing his objections to his supervisor.
I’m going to reprint the most recent comment on that particular thread that came from ‘Method’ that proves it is common knowledge amongst WFF that even exercising your (supposed) “turn down” rights even ONCE can potentially “end your career”…
>> On April 6, 2015 at 3:51 pm, Method said…
>>
>> Gary is 100% correct AGAIN! The one time I turned down an assignment
>> while on a wildland fire, my engine and crew were sent home that same day
>> (I was with a federal agency at the time).. Luckily, my supervisor at home
>> gave me the opportunity to explain my situation and took my side. If he
>> hadn’t, my career in fire would have been over 10 years ago.
I came across the following AMAZING Academic ‘Paper’ that was done on WHY Wildland Firefighters (specifically) are often afraid or reluctant to turn down dangerous assignments or voice their concerns.
If what has now been PUBLICLY reported turns out to be the way it really went down ‘out there’ on June 30, 2013… then we are looking at a situation where a WFF Crew Supervisor was NOT ‘afraid’ ( in the least ) to ‘speak up’ and voice his concerns ( REPEATEDLY )… but ultimately WAS ‘afraid’ to actually do a “turn down” when ORDERED to carry out the ‘assignment’.
Even this WFF ‘scenario’ was covered extensively in this AMAZING Academic Research paper.
It’s not that long of a paper… and I have only included a ‘smattering’ of text from it down below… but it is COMPREHENSIVE and REVEALING.
Even the Academics who launched this study didn’t expect that the RESULTS were going to line up in fascinating ways based on the followinig CAREER STAGE ‘categories’ of WFF Firefighters…
Rookies, Experienced, Expert Veterans.
In a nutshell… the study seems to find that those WFF Firefighters who perceive THEMSELVES to be in the MIDDLE CAREER STAGE category are the ones who are most likely to be observing ALL the known ‘rules of the profession’ and turn down dangerous/risky assignments and not give a flying crap what anyone thinks about it.
THEY are the ones ‘most likely’ ( not always, but study finds ‘most likely’ ) to have the safety of the men under their charge uppermost in their minds and are able to put their own personal ambitions and/or agendas aside when it comes to safety.
It is the OTHER two CAREER STAGE categories ( Rookies, and Expert Veterans ) that feel they have the ‘most to lose’ by refusing assignments and THEY are the ones to really ‘watch out’ for.
This is a FASCINATING STUDY ( Done with REAL Wildland Firefighters ) and it deserves a good read.
It’s not all that long, really.
It actually would not surprise me if this Academic Research Paper comes into play when/if the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits go to trial.
It’s THAT well done, and RELEVANT.
From the…
International Journal of Wildland Fire 2011, 20, 115–124
Report Title: Career stages in wildland firefighting: implications
for voice in risky situations
Alexis Lewis, Troy E. Hall, and Anne Black
University of Idaho, Department of Conservation Social Sciences,
PO Box 441139, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844, USA.
BUSDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station,
790 E Beckwith Avenue, Missoula, MT 59801, USA.
Corresponding author. Email: troyh (at) uidaho.edu
http://www.fs.fed.us/rm/pubs_other/rmrs_2011_lewis_a001.pdf
————————————————————————–
** Abstract.
Avoidance of injury and death on the fireline may depend on firefighters voicing their concerns, but often this does not occur. Reasons for employee reticence identified in the literature include a perception of various personal costs or a belief that raising concerns is futile. Additionally, the social context may play a significant role.
In a qualitative study using in-depth interviews with 36 wildland firefighters in the US, we explored reasons firefighters do or do not voice concerns. Findings revealed two primary themes related to initiating voice (limits to environmental perception and social influence) that vary considerably depending on a firefighter’s CAREER STAGE.
** Introduction
The risks of wildland firefighting are many, and suboptimal decision-making can lead to tragic consequences. Successfully managing risk, particularly in group situations, involves building a rich situational assessment – about the hazard, its associated risk, and about possible actions (Klein et al. 2005) – by drawing on multiple perspectives (Edmondson 1999; Klein et al.2005). If information from all group members is not considered, poor decisions may be reached (Jones and Kelly 2007). Group access to multiple perspectives requires that each individual member be willing and able to speak up (Edmondson 1999).
Here we explore factors influencing speaking up (‘voice’) in the wildland fire arena. Specifically, we seek to understand reasons firefighters (we use ‘firefighters’ and ‘firefighting’ to refer specifically to wildland fire) give for voicing or not voicing their opinions when they feel uncomfortable or unsafe about going into a RISKY situation.
Several themes emerged, which manifest differently based on firefighters’ CAREER STAGE, and hence the findings are organized accordingly.
Personal costs are negative outcomes that an individual believes will arise as a result of bringing up concerns (Edmondson 1999; Detert and Burris 2007). Employees may perceive that, if they openly speak their minds, they will face retaliation from supervisors, such as loss of a job or unfair treatment in the future (Milliken et al. 2003; Detert and Edmondson 2007). Costs can be subtle or indirect, such as teasing from coworkers, a damaged reputation, or otherwise impaired working relationships (Ashford et al. 1998; Desmond 2006).
Additionally, if employees feel their effort will be futile, they will most likely choose not to say anything (Milliken et al. 2003; Detert and Edmondson 2007). Mentioning problems may appear pointless when employees believe, or have concrete evidence, that supervisors are not interested in subordinates’ point of view (Milliken et al. 2003). The power structure of hierarchical organizations ( like Widlland Firefighting ) can emphasize this perception.
Understanding of a fire is highly dependent on communication channels (TriData Corporation 1996), and success of the operation dependent on units following specific orders (Thackaberry 2004). Fire conditions can be dynamic, changing rapidly and dramatically, so it is critical for employees at all levels to alert others to dangerous conditions they detect.
Yet, even when there might seem to be risks involved, firefighters do not always speak up, even though the agency has official ‘turn down’ policies (procedures for refusing orders).
The wildland firefighting culture inculcates strong values, notably ambition and competence (Desmond 2006). Young firefighters experience strong social pressure to carry out tasks capably, efficiently and without complaint. Thus, even though their training emphasises the need to speak up if they have concerns, the culture may lead to a fear of retribution (TriData Corporation 1996) or ridicule (Desmond 2007).
————————————————————————–
Those are just ‘excerpts’ from the paper.
There is a LOT more to this paper and it’s definitely worth a ‘good read’ now that it is highly likely that exactly what this Research Paper is talking about is exactly what happened in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
Word I am getting this afternoon is that a settlement regarding the YHF has been reached, but I actually find that shocking. That said, it came from a decent source, so maybe it is true. I’d be curious to know what folks in Arizona are hearing.
First answer is no—-
Second comment the Families and there LAWYER will not settle without full disclosure
which they have additional information, above and beyond McDonough .
From my closest source Directly associated with the Family Law suet—
ALSO it is ADOSH who is blocking the Deposition not McDonough—-Interesting?????
I do not understand your post. Are you saying that there is no settlement reached, even in part?
YES I AM SAYING THAT
Let me rephrase that slightly.
There— may be— a settlement between ADOSH and the STATE Fire???
Again there is none concerning the Families as I was told.
Two points…
1) Anything is possible… but just reading from the ALJ Hearing documents posted so far it would be hard to believe that ADOSH has suddenly ‘changed its mind’ after the second ‘blown’ deposition attempt and now does not WANT it to happen.
2) I thought you might also include a comment along the lines of “Now its YOU coming on here and spreading TOTAL RUMORS based on ‘unamed sources’ and yourself just saying ‘maybe its true’. How DARE you and aren’t you ashamed what you’re doing to the poor, poor families and by the way… are YOU Fred?”
You know… stuff like that.
LMFAO
WTKTT
My very good source attached to the Families Law suit said and I double checked them to make sure—- ADOSH is blocking McDonough’s Deposition.
They did not know why— But I think we can all agree that there is one hell of a fight going on behind the Scenes.
Based on what I got today. Also the Families are up and determined to insure Disclosure to them and the public about what happened.
They will not settle for any nothing else and they are prepared to go to full trial if necessary. There Lawyer seems confident after winning against the city.
Bob… THANK YOU.
I believe you.
When ADOSH first requested a ‘delay’ ( but never a cancellation ) of Brendan’s FIRST scheduled depostion back on November 26, 2014… it was simply because they were only 17 days away from the December 13, 2014 deadline for “full document disclosure exchange” with Arizona Forestry.
ADOSH simply thought ( and told Judge Mosesso so ) that a BETTER deposition of McDonough could be had if they simply scheduled it AFTER that December 13 ‘information exchange’ with Arizona Forestry.
That ‘information exchange’ might produce and even better chance at knowing what all the right QUESTIONS to ask McDonough would be for that one ( and possibly ONLY ) chance to ask him questions ‘under-oath’.
ADOSH didn’t get what they asked for.
Judge Mosesso got a ‘verbal promise’ from the AZF attorney’s that Brendan would AGREE to be deposed ( under-oath ) a SECOND time… if it turned out that the December 13 document exchange raised even more questions that he needed to answer.
So ADOSH basically said “Fine… whatever. We’ll just have to trust this McDonough guy that he won’t balk on the second deposition, if needed.”
ALL of this ‘wrangling’ became moot when Brendan informed everyone ( the very day before the deposition ) that he wouldn’t be there.
He told them he had just hired a new ‘criminal’ defense attorney ( David Shapiro ) and that it was Shapiro who was unable to appear on such short notice so neither would he.
As far as the SECOND deposition goes… we still have NO IDEA why that one was cancelled.
There was NO REQUEST from ADOSH to CANCEL that second deposition. If there had been… we SHOULD be seeing that request and the subsequent responses from Judge Mosesso in the ALJ Hearing File.
There is no reason to ‘doubt’ your sources.
But there is also no evidence it was ADOSH that had anything to do with ‘cancelling’ or ‘blocking’ that second scheduled deposition that didn’t take place on February 26, 2015.
It is perfectly POSSIBLE that ADOSH might now be failing to cooperate in setting up even a THIRD date to depose McDonough.
That all depends on WHY the second one was cancelled, what TRUST level they now have of McDonough and Shapiro, and what other things might have happened during March to ( perhaps ) cause ADOSH to change their own strategy for the upcoming “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” Hearing.
ADOSH has already stated ( in the ALJ Hearing File documents ) that they believe whatever Brendan has to say makes NO DIFFERENCE to their own case and the citations that have already been issued.
ADOSH has already found more-than-ample evidence of ‘gross negligence’ all over that fire that day to justify all the citations they issued even just based on their previous investigation.
Discovering even MORE evidence of ‘gross negligence’ leading up to the deaths of the GM Hotshots would just be ‘piling on’, as far as ADOSH is concerned.
So who knows.
Yes… ADOSH could now be ‘not cooperating’ with attempts to set up another day to depose Brendan… but your guess would be as good as mine as to WHY they would now be choosing to do that.
It actually COULD be that now that the ‘global mediation’ has ( according to documents ADOSH sent to Judge Mosesso ) FAILED and it looks like the whole deal IS going to go to a full ‘Hearing’… that ADOSH now really DOES want to put McDonough ‘on the stand’ rather than just go with a private ‘deposition’.
Arizona Forestry, of course, would NOT want that to happen.
They would MUCH rather stick to the original plan of just having a private, controlled ‘deposition’ taking place off in some room somewhere.
We shall see what happens here.
We are now only 10 days away from the ‘deadline’ ( April 17 ) when Arizona Forestry runs out of time to settle this ‘out of court’.
I did not request the ADOSH information it was just handed to me that
We were not getting the facts right here and that ADOSH was the one
not cooperating on the Deposition of Brendan.
I slightly disagree with your analogy of this.
ADOSH would have the most to lose and the State the most to gain on McDonough’s testimony.
If the State can reduce the Fines levied by ADOSH by showing that
Some or all of the decisions made were not the fault of the State Team assigned. As in the crew decision to move on there own.
This is not criminal or a law suit just a work place violation.
If the state can get that changed then they have a chance to Change the out come of the Family Law Suit.
It may or may not be possible but would move the state forward
from there position now.
Just my evaluation of what’s going on right now. It would be hard for the State to win if the work place fines stand’ as issued by ADOSH.
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288954
WTKTT
This is a statement I made that I messed up when I typed my name in case it dose not come up.
Thanks for this,WTKTT.
Very helpful thinking out loud.
LMFAO
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288677
This might have got lost to EN and all.
Thanks! I hadn’t even seen that.
Go figure down on a response to me on 4/5 @ 4:46 she actually used Mikes name
to support her story.
IMAGINE THAT?????????
Elizabeth you have no comment on the above statement ????????
It just debunked every thing you have promoted about Fred.
and even your sources??????
Why am I not surprised……………
Bob, I’m not sure what you are linking to, so I will just say this: I stand by what I said regarding Fred Schoeffler. I sincerely do.
Did you read the link?
Did you read the posting by WTKTT?
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 7, 2015 at 2:00 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> This might have got lost to EN and all.
>>
>> http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288677
And just in case someone’s mouse is on the fritz today…
On April 6, 2015 at 9:35 pm, Mike Schinstock said…
————————————————————–
Elizabeth said that on the Clear Creek Fire Fred Schoeffler wanted his assistant or Squad Bosses to keep fighting fire after they were no longer comfortable doing so and the assistant or squad bosses basically gave Schoeffler the metaphorical middle finger and moved to the black regardless of Freds view. I was the foreman of the PHS at the time (Friday 14 July 2000 at 1430hrs) That never happened. Period.
————————————————————-
KEY Phrase: THAT NEVER HAPPENED, PERIOD.
I am not to happy with her but john won’t pull here now and a while back she is stocking me calling people in the FS I know and trying to find information to attack me.
So any one out there who gave her there name do not be surprised if she is not checking on you especially if you are a Wild land Fire Fighter.
On top of every thing else she is totally unethical as in reference to Fred and the attacks on him______________
Bob, yet again, you are not telling the truth! You try to lie about me, but the reality is that I have been far more accurate on here than you have ever been. Remember, you and Fred were the folks circulating the untruths months ago that Brendan had ALREADY been deposed. But he had not!
The Lawyers and Brendan canceled the Deposition we did not know that
so if you want to say we were wrong about it that’s a slim assertion.
We were not in the loop of Lawyer’s only second hand info.
No untruths the deposition was planed no one had that info.
I stand behind every thing I said NO LIES there just fact.
Elizabeth says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 12:29 PM
Here is the thing on which I continue to chew:
As I have looked at this tragedy and spoken with incredibly experienced WFFs – including those who were on the YHF or who had worked with Eric/Jesse or both – who have worked on line on big fires over the past five years or so, they *ALL* have had a story of a close call that they, personally, experienced to tell. One supt. told of having to deploy a shelter, one supt. told of having to turn and run due to being caught at a drop-off that was not expected (such that he had to unexpectedly back-track), another hotshot told of getting gear burned up, another told of losing red bags, another told of simply getting lucky in being slow to finish a particular assignment such that his crew did not happen to be in the line of fire on a huge blow-up.
This does not suggest to me that these guys were reckless or dangerous. Rather, it suggests to me that FIRE IS INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE, in terms of WHEN (exactly) it is going to blow up and how badly the blow up is going to be and how fast that blow up will move when it hits its top speed.
Again, Kenny Jordan (former hotshot superintendent) had to endure a long investigation after he had to deploy his shelter on a fire, and the investigator – who was well respected – ultimately concluded that Kenny did NOT violate the 10 & 18 (or whatever they were back then). Yet Kenny STILL got caught and had to deploy his shelter. Why? Because fire is inherently unpredictable. SOMETIMES even really solid folks incorrectly anticipate exactly WHAT a fire is going to do and when, EXACTLY, it is going to do it.
The difference with respect to GM is that they got unlucky, whereas other folks who have incorrectly anticipated fire behavior have often gotten lucky.
Rocksteady – you mentioned the 10 and the 18, but the reality is that you can follow the Ten Standard Orders and *still* get caught. That is what Kenny Jordan – who has been a Hotshot Supt. on a SW fire far more recently than any person posting on this website – indicated in his shelter deployment video. I think Marti provided the link to it below.
Okay, lets talk Kenny Jordans incident…
He deployed, it took 400+ days to clear him. It said he did not violate the 10 and 18, HOWEVER, if you look at situational awareness… he was on a fire on steep slopes, canyons etc and peered over the edge to see fire crossing his line where he did not expect it to be…(his words, not mine)
THEREFORE, he did not take into account of both present fire (his line) AND forecast (over his line)…..
If he had done everything by the book, carte blanche, it would not have taken 400+ days to clear him…. RIGHT??
10 and 18 will keep you safe, but under extreme/aggressive fire behaviour based on fuels, weather and topography, you have to make your decisions with a wider buffer…As long as you follow them and make APPROPRIATE decisions (buffers) they will work…
Here’s the rub, Rocksteady – and obviously feel free to point out what I am missing: If Kenny did NOT go to the edge to look over, how would he have been able to serve as the scout/lookout for his crew and “know what your fire is doing”? I mean that sincerely – he was sending his crew back to their safety zone, and he went out as the scout/lookout to see what the fire was doing. *THAT* is when he got caught. But if he hadn’t gone out, how would his guys have been able to follow the 10 – “know what your fire is doing”?
I am not familiar with the whole incident and all of the details…
Was there someone on the other side of the valley (division) that had eyes on it?
Was there waybe an aircraft (fixed wing or rotary wind) that could have done a recce for him?
Should Kenny have requested a heli for the start of the day to do a recce of his sector of fire, prior to the crew even hiking in?
By looking at the previous days IAP map, did he account for potential growth? If so, what direction and how much?
If he would have gone back with his crew to the Safety Zone (they are called that for a reason), he would not have been trapped on the ledge.
He did nothing there by himself, only armed with a hand tool, to stop the fire from running up the hill, so why go there to start with.??
I said it way back when we talked about his videos, IN MY OPINION, based on the information he states, that both he and his crew were very FATIGUED from all of the hours worked in the previous deployment. Mental as well as physical.
Clarify —–Kenny moved down to a lower shelf from where he was thus putting himself in a greater position for more heat.
How ever he was on a rock out cropping and had to deploy rather than move back to the crew. While he was safe where he was he moved and exposed himself to the rising heat column not flames. He made the division to better see his crew and actually trapped himself on the ledge. did he follow the 10 SO ? Yes
Many Fire Fighters have gone to safe areas and deployed because of heat not direct flames.
I still have no clue why it took 400 days maybe Kenny can tell us……
We are still beating the same dead horse that we have on severial times in the past same question just different people she keeps asking who all are giving her the same replies.
That’s what TROLLS do.
TROLL behavior is well documented.
You can even ‘Google it.
WTKTT Glad to see your still here
Le sigh.
Ken Jordan discusses the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Apparently he disagrees with EN’s assessment.
“Ken Jordan, retired Hotshot Superintendent, talks about how his shelter deployment changed how he approached firefighting and running the crew, including placing emphasis on training and physical agility, changing the culture of after-hours drinking, and “breaking the cool barrier.”
https://vimeo.com/channels/791569/102780014
Le sigh right back atcha. He agrees with me, Marti – I *GOT* the intel from his video. Perhaps you should watch it a bit more carefully, friend (and also watch Bret Butler’s webinar). (In an unrelated vein, Marti, it is good to see up above that you are finally getting on the bandwagon with fire behavior. I believe I quoted Kelly Close’s paper (or at least cited it) a long time ago. The paper you are so excited about finally finding…. says the same thing, in essence. 🙂 )
I brought my previous post up before I noticed that John had responded further down below with:
John Dougherty says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 12:07 PM
Greetings all, My apologies for the confusion. I was searching the database for the acronym TTWARE and could not find any information. I wrongfully assumed that person had withdrawn their comments.
It did not occur to me that this was “short” for the Truth Will Always Remain Elusive. My apologies to the latter.
Given this information, I can now say there is no duplication of any of the IP addresses that Elizabeth has claimed to all be related to “Fred”.
Thanks to everyone and keep up the great work.
John
NOW MAYBE WE CAN MOVE ON TO A REAL Conversation——
John,
No apology needed! I was just looking for some clarification which you have provided. Continued thanks for hosting all of these chapters.
And after this little skirmish, I find it humorous that EN has placed her same comment at the top three times. I guess that helps to bury her whole Fred debacle further down in the doldrums.
Indeed. Something else which II find notable, TTWARE, is that it only took EN a full 28 minutes from John Dougherty’s original post to disregard everything he said and accuse you AGAIN.
Ha Ha Ha Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!!!!
Thanks, John, and TTWARE!!!
You both rock!!!!!
Here is the thing on which I continue to chew:
As I have looked at this tragedy and spoken with incredibly experienced WFFs – including those who were on the YHF or who had worked with Eric/Jesse or both – who have worked on line on big fires over the past five years or so, they *ALL* have had a story of a close call that they, personally, experienced to tell. One supt. told of having to deploy a shelter, one supt. told of having to turn and run due to being caught at a drop-off that was not expected (such that he had to unexpectedly back-track), another hotshot told of getting gear burned up, another told of losing red bags, another told of simply getting lucky in being slow to finish a particular assignment such that his crew did not happen to be in the line of fire on a huge blow-up.
This does not suggest to me that these guys were reckless or dangerous. Rather, it suggests to me that FIRE IS INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE, in terms of WHEN (exactly) it is going to blow up and how badly the blow up is going to be and how fast that blow up will move when it hits its top speed.
Again, Kenny Jordan (former hotshot superintendent) had to endure a long investigation after he had to deploy his shelter on a fire, and the investigator – who was well respected – ultimately concluded that Kenny did NOT violate the 10 & 18 (or whatever they were back then). Yet Kenny STILL got caught and had to deploy his shelter. Why? Because fire is inherently unpredictable. SOMETIMES even really solid folks incorrectly anticipate exactly WHAT a fire is going to do and when, EXACTLY, it is going to do it.
The difference with respect to GM is that they got unlucky, whereas other folks who have incorrectly anticipated fire behavior have often gotten lucky.
My apologies to the other posters here, but I’m going to keep bringing this up until John sees it and responds.
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 10:57 AM
John D.,
You must have been hacked!
I have NEVER contacted you about withdrawing any posts from this site.
IT DID NOT OCCUR!
I AM NOT FRED!!!!!!
You NEED TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK at the so-called information related to the so-called voluntary withdrawal of my posts from this site, After you do, you will see that somehow, you were mistaken.
Then, please let the other folks on here know that you were wrong!!!!
TTWARE NOT FRED!!!
IT DID NOT OCCUR!
Reply
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 11:01 AM
If you will notice, all of my posts still appear on this site, and I hope they continue to do so.
John needs to take a real close look at how, what he is alleging about me transpired, and then make amends ASAP.
TTWARE
Reply
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive says
APRIL 7, 2015 AT 11:11 AM
And the sooner the better.
As is noted in the comments down below, Elizabeth is still running with this falsehood, even after her other false claims have been debunked!!
Reply
Bob Powers says
Here is the thing on which I continue to chew:
As I have looked at this tragedy and spoken with incredibly experienced WFFs – including those who were on the YHF or who had worked with Eric/Jesse or both – who have worked on line on big fires over the past five years or so, they *ALL* have had a story of a close call that they, personally, experienced to tell. One supt. told of having to deploy a shelter, one supt. told of having to turn and run due to being caught at a drop-off that was not expected (such that he had to unexpectedly back-track), another hotshot told of getting gear burned up, another told of losing red bags, another told of simply getting lucky in being slow to finish a particular assignment such that his crew did not happen to be in the line of fire on a huge blow-up.
This does not suggest to me that these guys were reckless or dangerous. Rather, it suggests to me that FIRE IS INHERENTLY UNPREDICTABLE, in terms of WHEN (exactly) it is going to blow up and how badly the blow up is going to be and how fast that blow up will move when it hits its top speed.
Again, Kenny Jordan (former hotshot superintendent) had to endure a long investigation after he had to deploy his shelter on a fire, and the investigator – who was well respected – ultimately concluded that Kenny did NOT violate the 10 & 18 (or whatever they were back then). Yet Kenny STILL got caught and had to deploy his shelter. Why? Because fire is inherently unpredictable. SOMETIMES even really solid folks incorrectly anticipate exactly WHAT a fire is going to do and when, EXACTLY, it is going to do it.
The difference with respect to GM is that they got unlucky, whereas other folks who have incorrectly anticipated fire behavior have often gotten lucky.
Quite frankly, I don’t give a damn about anything you have to say.
NOTE to all
Elizabeth’s close calls are from 2 fires—–
and 2 people—–
The clear creek fire—and Kenny Jordan’s fire
Just embellished by EN
AND ONCE AGAIN Elizabeth, thus there is the …….
10 and 18…
John D.,
You must have been hacked!
I have NEVER contacted you about withdrawing any posts from this site.
IT DID NOT OCCUR!
I AM NOT FRED!!!!!!
You NEED TO TAKE A CLOSER LOOK at the so-called information related to the so-called voluntary withdrawal of my posts from this site, After you do, you will see that somehow, you were mistaken.
Then, please let the other folks on here know that you were wrong!!!!
TTWARE NOT FRED!!!
IT DID NOT OCCUR!
If you will notice, all of my posts still appear on this site, and I hope they continue to do so.
John needs to take a real close look at how, what he is alleging about me transpired, and then make amends ASAP.
TTWARE
And the sooner the better.
As is noted in the comments down below, Elizabeth is still running with this falsehood, even after her other false claims have been debunked!!
And I totally agree you are not Fred—–
Greetings all, My apologies for the confusion. I was searching the database for the acronym TTWARE and could not find any information. I wrongfully assumed that person had withdrawn their comments.
It did not occur to me that this was “short” for the Truth Will Always Remain Elusive. My apologies to the latter.
Given this information, I can now say there is no duplication of any of the IP addresses that Elizabeth has claimed to all be related to “Fred”.
Thanks to everyone and keep up the great work.
John
ATTENTION:
There have been repeated accusations by Elizabeth that a person she identifies as Fred Schoeffler is posting under various names including Seymour, J. Stout, Mike, Robert-the-Second, TTWARE and SR.
I have reviewed the IP addresses of all these names except for TTWARE, who voluntarily withdrew all postings from this site.
All of these names have unique IP addresses and different email accounts. While it is possible that “Fred Schoeffler” is using six different machines under multiple email addresses, I believe that is very unlikely.
I urge all commenters on this site to remain focused on the issue and refrain from personal attacks and unfounded and unsupported accusations designed to discredit the personal integrity of commenters.
If any commenter continues to make unsubstantiated accusations about the integrity of other posters, they will be permanently banned from this site.
This site has made a huge contribution to discovering what happened during the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Keep up the great work.
Thank you,
John Dougherty
Thanks John….
A myth is “BUSTED” 🙂
Rocksteady, the “myth” was confirmed! Why do you think TTWARE withdrew all of his posts as John states! 🙂
OR IT COULD MEAN THAT ANY NUMBER OF OTHER POSTERS HERE WERE
USINING TTWARE
OR NOTHING AT ALL—–
Bob, obviously nobody believes that. 😉
Bob, obviously nobody believes that – TTWARE withdrew his posts for a REASON. 😉 No hard feelings. I knew I was right, and I was. Now let’s all move on…. 🙂
Read above IDIOT—
Counselor,
As John has noted in his comment above:
“I urge all commenters on this site to remain focused on the issue and refrain from personal attacks and unfounded and unsupported accusations designed to discredit the personal integrity of commenters.
If any commenter continues to make unsubstantiated accusations about the integrity of other posters, they will be permanently banned from this site.”
SO, counselor, as far as your being right about me being Fred, you are as full of shit about that as you were about all the other people you so falsely accused!
It would behoove you to pay close attention to those portions of John’s comments that I have reposted here.
Seymour is Fred as is Robert-the-Second – they accidentally posted the exact same comment on Investigative Media. That’s how you can piece together who is who (in addition to tracking the IP addresses).
To that end, please watch what you are saying to me and about me, because John Dougherty just posted a comment instructing folks like you and Bob Powers to tone down your venom. 🙂 You really are distracting this website at this point. If you are not careful, J.D. might ban you! 🙂
There you go again
Saying you are full of shit—
Is the truth—How else can we comment on your posts
that have no meaning or facts???????
By the way note JD’s post —–
Seymour is not Fred.
and he never mentioned RTS????????
Nor did he remove him.
Thank you, John.
I do not know who TTWARE is or why that person elected to withdraw from the site. The fact that person withdrew from the site doesn’t necessarily mean it was an alias for another poster.
There could be a number of reasons why TTWARE elected to withdraw from this site, including the possibility he/she is a Forest Service employee and was ordered to remove comments from the site.
John, as I have clearly stated at the top of this page, you must have been hacked in some way, shape, or form. The request you say came from me NEVER HAPPENED!
The request may have come from someone who said they were me, but with a minimal amount of investigation, you will be able to figure out the truth.
When you do, please share it with the others on here ASAP, because until you do, you have made me into a pariah on this site.
TTWARE
Send him a Email his email is at the top totally private and secure.
Thank you John.
Thank you, John!!!
and THOSE DANG ACRONYMS!!!
Rocksteady said: “They knew the train was [there?], but underestimated it’s speed… .So, in response to Liz, they did not consider it irrational, as they did not have all of the data to process. Fire behaviour, rate of spread, distance thru the green, speed they could travel, etc.”
Rocksteady, they did have ROS, b/c Jesse Steed had sat there and watched the fire move for the past forty minutes (or so) AFTER the wind started really pushing it. They knew the distance through the green because, at least according to Bob Powers and Fred Schoeffler, Eric Marsh had JUST traveled that exact distance through the green to the Boulder Springs Ranch. They knew the speed they could travel, because Eric had just traveled it and could report back to them how long it took HIM, and they could therefore estimate how long it would take them by adding on some time to Eric’s time to account for the fact that it takes longer for a group to travel a route than for a guy moving solo (like Eric Marsh).
What should have been their clue, Rocksteady, that the ambient wind was allegedly going to push hard again and it was going to allegedly change direction again, if the shear on the column was not revealing such, and the incoming clouds were not revealing such? At some point, GM was going to conclude that the wind changes were done – how long did you want them to wait? (I am not trying to defend them – I just want to understand the calculus you personally use as an FBAN in Canada.)
First an FBAN living in Canada uses the same calculation as every one else across the world
What ever the remark about Canada meant?????
For the past almost 2 years have you even been following this Blog???
I for one have repeated over and over GM did not follow the 10 & 18, LCES.
The fire activity was right there in front of them the erratic behavior of the fire the picture that WTKTT released recently of the fade and location of the flaming fronts. Those did not jest appear out of no where at 1620. They were building to that over a 20 min. period.
The real story here is Marsh wanted the crew to take a risk to move to the Ranch pure and simple they used no preplanned move they used no safety they tried to beat the train.
Steed knew it was risky but did as he was told.
Read the last 2 years and lets discuss reality and not what you want the story to be.
Bob, why do you keep responding to me even though you keep promising that you are going to ignore me? Compulsion? Trauma? What is it?
As to my comment about Rocksteady being an FBAN, I made the comment to make clear to Rocksteady that I was asking him as an EXPERT, as opposed to me trying to challenge him. Because he is an FBAN, he has training and expertise that folks who are not FBANs (like me! 😉 ) obviously do not have.
I respond for 2 reasons first you reference me in your above statement.
Second when you make totally poor and uncorrected BS I will always attempt to correct your lack of evident knowledge.——
Knowing the problems between you and Rocksteady who I communicate a lot with off of here I can read your snide remarks as what they are.
You have played that game waaaaay to many times————
Using the train analogy here Elizabeth, just because they were watching the train (fire) does not mean you ASSUME that the train or fire is always going to go that speed. Both accelerate and decelerate for different reasons.
What calculus would I have used to validate a decision? The Fire Behaviour Advisory, that was given at the morning briefing, predicting winds of 40 mph, 100 + temps, single digit rh, drought conditions, scrub chaparral fuel type….. Under those conditions, it is not the time to try to beat any train… Safety MUST be always first…… The briefing in the morning said it had the potential to be a Bullet Train, when they watched it, it was the choo-choo at the state fair.
I take no offense to the Canada comment… all of us Canucks are passive…
Rocksteady, thanks for the reply, and thanks for not taking offense. (I’m a big fan of Canada – travel there every few years, would not have minded being born and living there.)
Here’s where I am getting stuck, Rocksteady: Some weather advisories advise of weather that never comes to pass (which you and I discussed previously), and some weather advisories advise of weather that will show up, pass, impact the fire behavior, and move on. So it seems to me that guys in Marsh’s or Steed’s position are sometimes required to assess whether either of the two prior options (weather that never came despite being predicted or weather that has already passed and whose impact on the fire is essentially “done”) have come to pass. How do they DO that – what is the calculus? Are they supposed to phone or radio the IMET? Are they supposed to sit in the black up on the hill (as they did) and make their own judgment about when the impact of the predicted weather event is “done,” and they can now conclude that the fire has picked its direction for the next short period of time? I mean, GM couldn’t have sat on the hill in the DIRTY black forever…. So what is the calculus to use, in your professional opinion?
Again we are back to the same answers you have been given over and over.
You do not go down in a brush filled canyon in front of the flames less than 3/4 of a mile from you no matter what the weather.
The information on the fire was already there they did not heed it or basically Marsh did not heed it when he made the statement before 1600 that the winds were getting squarely on top. Not to mention the serious things that were already happening.
Trucks about to be burned needed moved.
McDonough moved out of his LO spot due to the fire burning at him.
The note by Marsh that the fire had burned through the Retardant line and to the old grader spot..
All of that was going on before the crew moved—–
Not to mention the problems they were having on the north and east side of the fire.
THEY WERE SUPOSED TO SIT IN THE BLACK UNTILL IT WAS SAFE—–
30 min. would have convinced them to stay right there———–
We have been here over and over you are the only one not getting the implications.
People who put them selves in those situations Unburned fuel between you and the flaming front are taking a huge risk the fire direction wont change.
Even if it was determined to be a 20% RISK THAT IS ENOUGH TO SAY NO
Lets find another route.————
Thanks Bob… You got it…
There was an article the other day on Wildfire today where a fire crew (county, I believe) were out fighting a grass fire, teh engine got stuck, the wind changed, the truck got burned up, thankfully no persons injured.
IF the people there were paying attention they would have thought about:
1) Where is the fire?
2) Where can it go if the wind shifts?
3) Where should our vehicle be if the wind shifts?
Same premise as being on a hand crew, 1 foot (or tire, in the black, where possible). Driving thru unburned fuel when the flames turn are just as dangerous as being on foot.
No calculus involved (which I hated in high school) just SITUATIONAL AWARENESS.and forethought to the “What IF’s….”
Rocksteady, but Bob didn’t answer my questions. Do you have time to do so? (I agree with you on the “what ifs”….) Thank you in advance if you do.
So, they sat and watched the fire burn for 45 minutes…Burning very aggressively (I won’t call it extreme at this time)… So they KNEW what the section of fire nearest them was doing (not predicting to do but actually doing)…. And yes, at that point it may have been going away from where they expected it to be.
However, I am sure that during their lunch break and alleged converstaion between Marsh and Steed, they overheard how the infernos of hell were erupting onto the community of Yarnell/Glen Ihla etc over the tac channel….
So, lets see… The fire is burning agressive, the other side is blowing up, the boss has asked you to ditty bop from the safe black to the Ranch…Would you say “Let’s go for it” and hope the wind and fire behaviour stay status quo?
same fire
same fuel type
same temperature
same relative humidity
same drought conditions
Does this assessment not tell you that the only difference they were counting on was that the winds would stay as observed and NOT change directions, before they made it to the BSR, even though the weather advisory had said thunder cells…. Thunder cells = “squirelly winds” (Where have we heard that before???
In this situation, once the fire blew up, I don’t believe there would have been a time when the specific wind “event” would be considered over… MAybe different, but not over. Now you have lost all winds from teh thunder cell activity, but the winds are now replaced with convective column(s) generating winds.. Not something to be taken lightly, as any experienced Hotshot crew would realize…
Same answers we have made over and over from the same questions. Elizabeth has wanted a different answer for at least a year and a half.
Time to stop the nonsense———
Absolutely classic TROLL behavior.
Totally DOCUMENTED ( Google ‘Internet TROLL ).
Among other ‘troll behaviors’…
Keep asking the SAME questions over and over and over. TROLLS are NOT looking for ‘answers’… they are just keep ‘trolling’ for someone to agree with them.
I have never participated in a forum where this kind of obvious TROLL behavior has gone on so consistently and for so long without that poster being BLOCKED from the site.
WTKTT, I read what you said here and did as you suggested and looked up TROLL. Read the part about the sadism. Read the part about “websites that welcome trolls”. Appears to me such websites are places where it is not just the TROLL visiting the website who has some affinity for sadism.
I know now that such a combo as that is clearly something I am not able to watch being played out. Particularly HERE at this website where so many of the WFF’s have been — and continue to be — some of my favorite people, that I care a lot about. I know their dedication to learning the truth about what happened to the GM crew means that these decent people will stay here to continue the search for answers while attempting to cope with the sadistic games that are so unnecessarily being inflicted upon them and their efforts. I wish these WFF’s well . . . more than they’ll ever know.
Rocksteady, thank you for sharing your thoughts – I will give you a better response later.
For now, though, remember that there seems to be some confusion about whether there was a column collapse or a downburst. Neither thing is predictable, in terms of narrowing it down to a five minute window, for example.
Relevant, I think, and also extremely interesting:
20 Minutes at H-2 – Linear Decision Making in an Exponential Fire Environment
K.R. Close Poudre Fire Authority, Fort Collins, CO
Abstract
“In volatile burning conditions, the fire environment changes rapidly, and the fire itself often
seems to spread at an ever-increasing pace and intensity. In fact, under extreme burning conditions
in steep terrain, there is strong evidence the rate of spread is not linear and steady-state, but
actually becomes exponential during the fire’s final run – intensifying far more rapidly than
people’s perceptions and cognitions can readily reconcile. This appears to have been a significant
factor on Cramer and other recent fatality fires.
Humans on the fireline tend to be linear thinkers, not readily adapted to assess processes
that are accelerating exponentially – particularly in a volatile, rapidly-changing fire environment.
Something doesn’t seem right… your “gut feeling” tells you this, but you just can’t quite put your
finger on many specifics. As conditions deteriorate and fire spread accelerates, perceptions appear
to also deteriorate. Perceptions, cognitions, emotional reactions, and judgments that would be
entirely appropriate under normal circumstances fall short. Peripheral facts and evidence, suggest
an intricate interaction of firefighters’cognitions and resulting actions/reactions, and the rapidlychanging
fire environment is a key factor in the tragic outcome on the Cramer Fire.” …
http://www.wlfalwaysremember.org/images/incidents/documents/2003-07-22-cramer-close-20min-at-h2.pdf
I would like to take a moment, as I continually remind myself, to ask everyone to remember those who responded to the deployment site that terrible day in the hope of helping the Granite Mountain Hotshots starting with DPS Paramedic Eric Tarr.
And if any of you who responded to the Granite Mountain Hotshot deployment site are reading this thread, thank you for your service and your courage. I could never have done what you did on June 30, 2013. I would not have been able to continue to function in the middle of all that horror.
I hope the passage of time has healed some of the scars from the trauma you suffered that day. And I pray that someday…you will be able make it through at least one entire day without thinking about the Yarnell Hill Fire and what happened there.
Thanks Gary for those not use to death from any and all causes especially those you know it is not an easy thing to witness.
It seems my time in the Forest service I was introduced early to Death by accident in my patrol units on the Sequoia, and especially the Angeles, After a while you expect it and build a resistance to it. People I do not believe understand what First responders deal with EMT’s, Police and firemen have to create a mental shield or there system would over load with grief.
After the FS my time in the Sheriffs department added to the horrific death accidents I was on. Having built that mental barrier helped. I will admit Children always bothered me though.
I can not imagine how Frisby and Brown along with the others that went there in 4 wheelers
dealt with the shock. I hope they have been able to heel for the images will follow them for a long time.
The passage of time always heals——
Reply to Gary Olson post on April 7, 2015 at 4:20 am
>>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> I would like to take a moment, as I continually remind myself, to ask
>> everyone to remember those who responded to the deployment site
>> that terrible day in the hope of helping the Granite Mountain Hotshots
>> starting with DPS Paramedic Eric Tarr.
THREE of those people have never even been interviewed and ( even though no one even TRIED to talk to them and let them ‘tell their story’ ) they are all assumed to be under GAG orders from the U.S. Forestry Service since they all work for Prescott National Forest.
That’s not helpful to THEM.
They put their one lives on the line that day and witnessed some terrible things.
They at least deserve the chance ( for their own well-being ) to be allowed to
TALK about it all.
I am, of course, talking about Jason Clawson, Aaron Hulburd, and KC ‘Bucky’ Yowell.
Jason Clawson was the one heard speaking in the those additional Hulburd video clips that both Arizona Forestry and the U.S. Forestry Service always knew existed but HID from two different official ‘investigations’.
Jason is the one informing OPS1 Todd Abel over the radio that there were “18 confirmed… no medical attention needed at this time”.
I will still bet a dollar to a donut that all THREE of those men ( as well as Brian Frisby and Trueheart Brown ) have, to this day, been wanting a better explanation of what the hell those men were even DOING there dead on the floor of that box canyon… and WHY they had to witness what they did that afternoon.
At least Brendan McDonough gets to run around and play games with lawyers AND the media.
All of THESE men have to sit back and just WAIT for someone to give them a better explanation about why they have to now carry those horrible images around in their heads for the rest of THEIR lives.
Elizabeth said that on the Clear Creek Fire Fred Schoeffler wanted his assistant or Squad Bosses to keep fighting fire after they were no longer comfortable doing so and the assistant or squad bosses basically gave Schoeffler the metaphorical middle finger and moved to the black regardless of Freds view. I was the foreman of the PHS at the time (Friday 14 July 2000 at 1430hrs) That never happened. Period.
Thank you Mike its been flowing BS for some time.
From one Hot Shot to another.
She never gives up will clame we protect each other.
and her sources have more info than any one else.
Elizabeth wrote
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 6, 2015 at 9:25 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I’m still scratching my head about the timing.
>> The Daily Courier still hasn’t broken this story, even though
>> Wildfire Today has. Maybe there is a reason for that.
One can ONLY hope the ‘reason’ is that they are trying to turn the ‘hack job’ that was released last Friday into a better piece of reporting.
What it NEEDS ( at a minimum ) is…
1) Clarification on whether the ‘story’ that Paladini is telling is SOLELY based on conversations with Darrell Willis… OR whether Paladini might have heard a few more significant details from Brendan himself ( or even others ) as he was acting as the official ‘mediator’ between Brendan and Arizona Forestry ( prior to Brendan retaining his own criminal counsel, Mr. David Shapiro ).
It is ‘not credible’ that Attorney Jon Paladini wouldn’t have had ANY direct conversations with Brendan himself in the course of acting as the official ‘mediator’ between Brendan and the Arizona State Attorney General’s office as that first under-oath deposition was being ‘arranged’.
That would EXPLAIN why Precott City Attorney Jon Paladini ( a VERY accomplished and respected LAWYER ) says he is “standing by his story” even though Darrell Willis ended up hemming and hawing and saying he doesn’t ‘recall’ saying some of the things that Paladini now says he ‘knows’.
Paladini could have been including details that really did NOT come from Darrell Willis’ initial conversation with him… but Paladini heard them later from either Brendan himself… or some other person who had ‘talked’ with Brendan.
2) WHO are the ‘other witnesses’ openly referred to in the article who were ALSO ( apparently ) interviewed for that article? If they are specifically CHOOSING to remain ‘anonymous’ and spoke only on a guarantee of that… then it needs to say that as well.
3) A COHERENT response from the person who is actually at the epi-center of the article… Brendan McDonough himself.
4) Even WITHOUT Brendan’s cooperation or comment… a good reporting on the attempts to depose him, what really happened with BOTH attempts, and where that stands NOW. Will there be another attempt at an ‘under-oath’ deposition… or not? Will it ONLY happen if the mediation fails and the ‘wrongful death’ cases are then going to TRIAL… but the last thing Brendan wants is to ever have to be on a ‘witness stand’… so they will ‘negotiate’ for another ‘private deposition’?
ALL of the above are now PARTS OF THE STORY that was NOT reported on Friday.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I’m skeptical that the Fire Shelter thing is ALL THAT related
>> to this recent revelation.
So am I, actually… but I felt I needed to include in the list of “things that have POPPED” just in the last 10 days… DURING this whole secret ‘mediation’ thing.
Because it MIGHT be related. Might NOT.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> The Turbyfills aren’t part of the suits.
You are right. The PARENTS aren’t… but Travis’ WIFE is.
Thank you for correcting me.
It is Stephanie Turbyfill ( Travis’ wife ) who is one of the listed plaintiff’s in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits… and NOT David Turbyfill ( Travis’ father ).
AZREPUBLIC
Article Title: Yarnell Hill Fire: 12 hotshot families sue state
Published 4:51 p.m. MST June 27, 2014
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/06/27/yarnell-hill-fire-12-hotshot-families-sue-state/11525623/
From the article…
——————————————————————————-
The listed plaintiffs in the case are: Juliann Ashcraft, wife of Andrew Ashcraft; Claire Caldwell, wife of Robert Caldwell; Krista Carter, wife of Travis Carter; Michael MacKenzie, father of Christopher MacKenzie; Grant McKee, father of Grant McKee Jr.; Daniel Parker, father of Wade Parker; John Percin, father of John Percin; Desiree Steed, wife of Jesse Steed; Stephanie Turbyfill, wife of Travis Turbyfill; Roxanne Warneke, wife of William Warneke; Carl Whitted, father of Clayton Whitted; and Joseph Woyjeck, father of Kevin.
——————————————————————————–
Something tells me, though, that given the hard work Travis’ FATHER has been doing for over a year on the ‘improved fire shelter’… Stephanie Turbyfill probably has that on HER list of ‘INDUSTRY CHANGES’ being demanded by the ‘plaintiffs’.
Any number of the other ‘plaintiffs’ are probably firmly on board with that as well.
Copy.
And thanks for that correction about the Turbyfills regarding Travis’s wife. So that adds more substance to your hypothesis.
And I agree with every thing you are saying here.
That being said, I have been contemplating all day your idea that what is ACTUALLY going on here is some kind of “whatever it takes” “corralling” of Donut, by AZFire, via the media via AZCentral (which is the statewide “journal of record” for Arizona, even tho this article sucks, for whatever reasons, including some of the things I have hinted at downstream).
Regarding the Daily Courier. It’s a different animal, as I’m sure you are aware of. It’s vastly more intimately rooted in the community of Prescott, for better or worse, and where, mostly, the most people intimately related to the Granite Mountain Hotshots live.
And also most intimately rooted in the whole relatively “conservative”, and, thus not-particularly-scientific-method-or-anything-else-criticaly-analytically-minded majority of the local population.
Which translates into the fact that they are probably walking something more of a tight-rope here than AZCentral/Arizona Republic is.
To be honest, I’ve gradually come to be more impressed with Lynne LaMaster’s relatively clean prescottenews.com coverage of some of this stuff lately than that of the Daily Courier.
So it will be really interesting what comes up in the next few days.
I’m guessing, all things considered, there’s quite a bit of scurrying around going on on both of their parts regarding this breaking story.
Brendan’s most likely got a whole lot of HEAT being applied to him right now from a HOST of different directions.
I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes.
That being said, what ever decisions he’s making right now will both reveal his basic character to both the public and to himself, and shape his life FUNDAMENTALLY from here on out.
That being said, I really hope Brendan’s got SOMEBODY advising him that really has HIS TRUE WELL-BEING as their first priority.
Given all of what we have seen so far, unfortunately, I don’t have any evidence whatsoever that that is the case.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 6, 2015 at 10:07 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> That being said, I really hope Brendan’s got SOMEBODY advising
>> him that really has HIS TRUE WELL-BEING as their first priority.
And not only ADVISING him ( he’s probably pretty SICK of that, at this point )… but simply making sure he’s OK.
It would be a shame if something happened that would make it forever impossible to know what he knows… and I think you know what I mean.
This.
“4) Even WITHOUT Brendan’s cooperation or comment… a good reporting on the attempts to depose him, what really happened with BOTH attempts, and where that stands NOW. Will there be another attempt at an ‘under-oath’ deposition… or not? Will it ONLY happen if the mediation fails and the ‘wrongful death’ cases are then going to TRIAL… but the last thing Brendan wants is to ever have to be on a ‘witness stand’… so they will ‘negotiate’ for another ‘private deposition’?:
“the last thing Brendan wants is to ever have to be on a ‘witness stand’
What a contradiction/cognitive dissonance.
He’s walking around with this whole thing inside of his mind, and the burning significance of it, and his “need”/need to disclose it.
Given what Brian Frisbee’s mom said about what Brian was going through. This stuff is real. PTSD in spades.
And yet there are all these “false alarms” regarding Brendan’s deposition.
If, given all this, “the last thing Brendan wants is to ever have to be on a ‘witness stand’
…all things considered, I would speculate that is because, since Eric Marsh hired him, in spite of his imperfections, and then built him up via involvement in the Granite Mountain Hotshots……
……He just CAN’T, in his mind/heart, PUBLICLY narrate a story (however much he has felt some need to get that off his chest) that includes Eric ordering Jesse to lead the crew to descend from the Safety Zone they were already in, much less descend from the saddle into a bowl full of explosives, thus crossing the fire, thus leading into all of their deaths.
More Shakespeare.
As I have said periodically:
Shakespeare could have written this fire.
Thus, I would advise that nobody take ANY of this overly simplistically.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 6, 2015 at 10:39 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> He just CAN’T, in his mind/heart, PUBLICLY narrate a story
>> (however much he has felt some need to get that off his chest)
>> that includes Eric ordering Jesse to lead the crew to descend
>> from the Safety Zone they were already in, much less descend
>> from the saddle into a bowl full of explosives, thus crossing the
>> fire, thus leading into all of their deaths.
If that is what happened… then that is what happened.
It wasn’t HIS fault.
There is NO NEED for Brendan to have EVER felt that it was necessary for him to HIDE that reality from ANYONE.
Even now… his initial BAD choices in this regard just continue to worsen.
He has to ‘get this over with’… no matter how ‘painful’ he imagines it might be to himself or anyone else.
The families have said OVER AND OVER that they WANT the TRUTH… no matter WHAT it is.
Some of them stood there in that auditorium on the morning of September 28, 2013 when the SAIT was officially ‘presented’ to them and SHOUTED at the men on the stage ( through their own tears ) “WHY won’t you just tell us the TRUTH!”.
His BEST ( and least painful? ) option now is to simply get the attorneys for BOTH sides of the ‘wrongful death’ suits to AGREE ( as they have TWICE already ) to ‘accept’ a private ( but transcribed/recorded ) ‘under-oath’ deposition from him and also have them AGREE that that will ‘suffice’ as far as his ‘involvement’ in those proceedings go.
I don’t think he realizes that if he pushes this… and continues to ‘jerk around’ with the attorneys… one side or the other might NOT AGREE to such a ‘private deposition’ and they will be so pissed at this guy they will now WANT to ‘get him on the stand’.
I’m sure Brendan has seen some CNN trial broadcasts before such as the craziness out of Florida over that poor teenager shot to death by that policeman-wannabee idiot.
Unless cameras are BANNED from the Courtroom ( not likely in this case )… his open-court testimony WILL be splattered all over television screens ( probably LIVE ) from here to kingdom come.
It will be NEWS.
It will be the kind of stuff that the MSM just LOVES to cover.
——————————————————————
BREAKING NEWS: Only Granite Mountain Survivor testifying LIVE right now in Yarnell Hill Fire wrongful death lawsuits.
—————————————————————–
If the attorneys really are pissed enough… they are also going to GRILL him ( on camera ) about WHY he was essentially ‘obstructing’ BOTH of the original investigations. Whoever grills him WORSE will just depend on which table in the courtroom feels it would benefit them MORE to ‘discredit him as a witness’.
It even gives ME the shivers realizing what that open-court session might look like if it goes down like that.
Nah… Brendan’s only ‘least painful option’ now is to do an under-oath deposition and suffer the cross-examination in PRIVATE.
All that being said…
If Brendan’s criminal attorney David Shapiro really is advising him that he should RESIST any and all attempts to get him to talk about ANYTHING he may know… and is promising him he can ‘protect him’ and prevent all attempts to ‘get to him’…
…I think Brendan should get himself another attorney toot-sweet.
One who will advise him that he can’t keep playing this game forever and the best he can hope for is a PRIVATE ( no cameras ) deposition and some assurances he won’t ever get slapped with any ‘obstructing an investigation’ charges.
Are you the same Mike from last year who is a doctor, or did we lose him along the way?
Well, I was getting ready for a big response, but WTTKT beat me to it and has it more or less right. But I will still take a shot at it.
Yes, it is confusing and no…I am not the best one to talk about it, none of the best people who can talk about it with more current and relevant experience are here….they are all too afraid to even comment here because they will lose their careers and maybe even their jobs. So how does that strike you for an open and honest culture where you are free to candidly express your opinions and tell everyone what you really think about the plan?
I haven’t been in fire since 1988 and I have been retired since 2006, and Bob retired even earlier than me. And it is obvious neither one of us are counting on going out as pick-up players on fire assignments on short fire teams like so many other retirees are hoping to so they can stay relevant and make a few extra bucks since they are finding it impossible to keep their same lifestyle in retirement. So we are all you got, even if I am not the best one to talk about it.
I think the “turn down” protocols are pure unadulterated BULLSHIT and are just something some mid level manager thought up the big shots signed off on after one of the last disaster fires. I am betting the turn down protocols which did not even exist in my day have about the same value to working stiffs as magic pixie dust would to keep them from being burned in a flash over or safe from bullets (pick your analogy, fire or law enforcement).
And the only reason they really exist is to allow the agencies, mangers, supervisors to say, “Gosh, we are really sorry for the loss of your “fill in the blank here” and they were killed while engaging in a qualifying work assignment, but it really wasn’t our fault, we gave your “fill in the blank here” the very best training that was available in the world and not only that, we then EMPOWERED them to pick and chose which assignment they believed were too risky for them to participated in and it’s not our fault if they didn’t call a time out and go home or whatever….is it?
Look right here in the handbook, manual, policy directive, it clearly states they had not only the power, but the duty and responsibility to call BULLSHIT on any assignment they felt could go badly for them, so you see…it’s really all their fault. We didn’t do anything WRONG.
And of course they never tell you that the “can do”, “gung ho”, “get er done” culture of wildland firefighters does not tolerate anyone actually using the turn down protocol unless they don’t want to get promotions, awards, recognition, desirable assignments, increased responsibility, choice duty stations etc.
And that if they develop a reputation based perhaps on a single incident as being someone who does not play ball, or is not a team player, or does not go along to get along, well…that could very well be the end of their career in an agency like the USFS and in the wildland firefighting culture where they eat their young and kill off the weak, sick and injured.
Based on my experiences, policy directives do not have to be followed by “they” except when “they” want to, and the primary purpose for them is to hang the firefighter or other employee out to dry whenever “they” want to, or it is their best interests or the governments best interest to do so.
The wildland firefighting world is not black and white, it is more like 50 shades of grey. And yes, it has more similarities to the military than it is has differences from the military, in fact, you could definitely say it is quasi-military and on some days, and for some things, it is even more military than the military.
Thanks for this, Gary. That’s what I’ve been picking up through this past year plus.
I will just add what I wrote a bit downstream:
This SO reminds me of the whole South Canyon Anniversary “Let’s all talk about stuff” PR campaign the USFS threw out there last early summer. With the awesome video and all.
While Brian Frisby and the Blue Ridge Hotshots were heading into wildfire season still under a GAG ORDER that they’re STILL UNDER.
And Brian’s mom describing the PTSD that Brian was in BECAUSE OF THAT, while heading a crew that was FIGHTING WILDFIRES.
Oh yeah, USFS, tell me all about how SAFETY FIRST is the FIRST priority.
You betcha!!!!!!!
Gary is 100% correct AGAIN! The one time I turned down an assignment while on a wildland fire, my engine and crew were sent home that same day (I was with a federal agency at the time).. Luckily, my supervisor at home gave me the opportunity to explain my situation and took my side. If he hadn’t, my career in fire would have been over 10 years ago.
Do you mind if I ask a question here?
Was that incident BEFORE of AFTER this whacked out TDWAO ( Turn Down With Alternate Option ) protocol was implemented?
If it was AFTER… did you actually do the TDWAO thing… complete with ‘paperwork’ afterwards? ( as supposedly required? ).
I’m just curious as the the TIMEFRAME being referred to here.
The “Granite Mountain Hotshots” were, themselves, ‘demobbed’ immediately after (supposedly) doing the TDWAO dance on a fire THEY were working.
That ‘story’ was told by Darrell Willis in his ADOSH interview which is what caused ADOSH to request the ‘documentation’ regarding that incident.
That documentation was provided… and it does, in fact, sound like Eric Marsh “did it the right way”… but GM got ‘demobbed’ anyway because he had pissed off the DIVS that he was working for… and Willis says he received a ‘bad report’ ( which he then failed to produce because he says he couldn’t ‘find it’ or something ).
WTKTT
I believe the turn down protocol was established in the 90″s or earlier.
It was established in California in 1974 Then latter revise Nation wide
My memory fails me on that date. It has been around for some time though.
As Gary said the recent few years it has turned on the fire fighters.
unless there home supervisor supports them and gets the negative removed.
Methods said it was 10 years ago or his carrier would have been over.
WTKTT,
Bob is right, it was 10 years ago, I believe in 2005. We followed the TDWAO (now called “How to Properly Refuse Risk” found in the IRPG on pg. 19) and filed a SAFENET. We literally were picked up for a new assignment within hours.
Method… Thank You.
I’m sorry that just the simple exercise of your rights as an employee AND as a firefighter had to lead to even the slightest chance you might ‘lose your career’. That is nerve-racking, insulting and shouldn’t happen to ANYONE.
See a new post above regarding a fascinating Academic Research paper I just found ( done as recently as 2011 ) which examines the specific question of WHY ‘Wildland Firefighters’ ( specifically ) are often AFRAID to exercise their stated right to do a “turn down”.
This no-shit ACADEMIC research is now DIRECTLY related to what (apparently) happened in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
Direct ‘clickable’ link that will take you right to that new comment up above would be…
http://www.investigativemedia.com/yarnell-hill-fire-chapter-xiii/#comment-288915
Gary, the same Mike. But you can call me Fred.
I agree, little in life is truly black and white. The shades of grey usually muddle everything up. Hindsight always makes things so much clearer. But people weep and gnash their teeth over events like South Canyon and Yarnell, say “never again”, and then go back to the same system that produced those tragedies. Maybe we can’t do better, maybe changing things will just create new problems. But human beings are relentlessly optimistic – we always feel compelled to try.
Right on Mike…I mean Fred! I’m glad you’re still here, I thought many of your posts showed some real insight and understanding for someone on the outside!
And of course like everything else, it is not as simple of more wildland firefighters aren’t commenting here because they are afraid for their carrers and their potential retirement income as casuals.
Everybody knows about the blue wall, but the red wall is just as big, just as strong, and just as impenetrable. And to be fair to wildland firefighters, I’m sure they think they can make the necessary adjustments without all of us outsiders meddling. I hope they can, or more importantly, I hope the system allows them to do so. I’m sure it would be asking to much to ask the system to support them.
In case anybody gives a d*mn, given all the pyrotechnics that are going on right now.
I’ve been still trying to comprehend all the various things regarding the still quite controversial (and probably connected to Darrell Willis’ recent current meltdown, and possibly the one he went through last fall that everybody’s talking about now)…….
…….ICMA Analysis that have been really troubling to me, regarding how Prescott moves forward with its wildfire situation, now that both the Granite Mountain Hotshots and the Wildland Division have been dissolved.
There have been three things that have been really BUGGING me about this whole thing.
1) The lack of, in spite of all the platitudes that assure it, public input into it or conversation about it.
2) The lack of any kind of specific description/evaluation of what kind of wildland fire suppression response from anyone other than the Granite Mountain Hotshots that was happening before June 30, 2013.
3) The lack of any clear description of what, in fact, kind of specific and reliable wildland fire suppression response is needed/recommended moving forward.
I’ve pretty much spent most of the entire weekend looking at everything I could find that was presented to/discussed by the Prescott City Council regarding this.
(And thanks WTKTT, for posting that Prescott eNews link. I hadn’t come across that. It was very helpful)
Regarding 1). It is really really really really really hard to find important information on the Prescott City Council website. Not only that, but a number of important minutes of important meetings are missing. And even the minutes that are there are almost agonizingly hard to find.
And, from what I have spent way too much time this weekend trying to look at, there really is NO PUBLIC INPUT mostly anywhere regarding this study, this document, or the decisions that were/are being made as a result of it.
That being said, I, personally, think it’s a really interesting analysis and probably, all things considered, fairly un-biased and probably worth the money. There’s a LOT of data, interpretation, and recommendations in it, especially given the really short amount of time in which they did it, and the price Prescott paid for it.
HOWEVER, it is definitely not friendly to the un-initiated. Which most of the citizens of Prescott are. I had to REALLY struggle to understand the parts of it that were of most concern to me — i.e. the wildland fire program.
In trying to understand WHAT IS IT (other than the Granite Mountain Hotshots) it was really difficult.
It just wasn’t designed for Citizen Participation, nor has it been used for that. And I have a huge problem with that. And I think that’s directly related to what is causing the fight that is causing everybody’s consternation about it all, and the fact that some of that consternation is related to some of what everybody is doing pyrotechnics right now about.
i.e. wildland fire vs the city of prescott including willis vs whomever includin az fire vs adosh etc etc etc.
Anyway, moving along.
Regarding 2) It is REALLY hard to find, ANYWHERE, what was/is going on in the Prescott Fire Department regarding wildland fire suppression outside of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. There is, essentially, NOTHING about it on the Prescott Fire Department website, including the part of that under “Wildland Division.”
Which is not the case for a whole bunch of other Fire Departments/Districts. Most of them are quite clear about what kinds of crews, equipment, qualifications, are involved in their wildland fire fighting work.
Given that that is the case, I was really hoping the ICMA analysis/report would analyze and document that in some kind of easily accessible manner.
Unfortunately that is not the case. It is not described in the wildland fire segment (the one disputed by Willis — for which I thank WTKTT for the link that holds both the draft and final report) nor even almost elsewhere.
Almost nothing says what other wildland fire-fighting is going on in the Prescott Fire Department regarding wildland fire-fighting, which is really disturbing to me given that the recommendation is to have it done the way it’s always been done. Like REALLY??? What does that mean???????
I say Almost. That’s because, after hours of pouring over the report I think I may have found it. You have to get all the way through it and into the Appendices to find it.
There you find it, I think, in the data charts regarding the Stations. They show what kinds of hours etc various apparatuses have spent doing various types of things. They show these things called “Patrol Vehicles.” Somewhere buried in all of that it is explained that these are what are called Brush Trucks. Which WE all know, by now, are Type 6 engines, the stuff you use on wildland fires.
There are five of them within the Prescott Fire Department.
When you get into the Appendices, and you know what you are looking for, then there are some very interesting data about them. And THAT’S what I think the report recommendations are pointing to when it says “we’ll do what we’ve always been doing,” without EVER saying what, exactly, that MEANS.
Also, what it took me a couple of hours to figure out, is there is this handcrew listed in these appendices under Station 71. It’s called C-7. There is nothing anywhere explaining what C-7 is. On a spreadsheet it shows it logging 30 hours in 2013 on calls. Two of those calls were listed as “false alarm.” One was listed as “outside fire.”
Is that the Granite Mountain Hotshots?? Who knows????? I think it is, but what the heck?????? They weren’t even staged at Station 71. But no other “hand crews” were either, that I know of, given that the Prescott Fire Department doesn’t say anything about anything wildland fire related other than the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
There is also a Prescott National Forest engine staged there with a crew of 4-7. But I can’t imagine their time was being logged into the CAD ICMA was using to generate all this data.
So, I ask, how are the citizens of Prescott supposed to evaluate the recommendations of the ICMA (much less the decisions of their City Council upon advisement of their new Fire Chief from Yuma), when it’s almost impossible to know what the PFD is doing, regarding wildland fire-fighting, other than the Granite Mountain Hotshots, and this report doesn’t give them any information regarding that (unless you spend a couple of days tryiing to figure out how to read the fine print)?
Which leads me on to 3). This will be relatively short, given that what I have written above basically leads right into it.
If the recommendations regarding wildland fire suppression (and I haven’t even gotten to the potential issues regardng mitigation) from the ICMA, edited by the fresh from Yuma new Fire Chief, applauded by the City Council, with essentially NO input or conversation by or among the CITIZENS of Prescott (who probably can’t even find the relevant documentation on the website, much less comprehend the bits of data buried within them) are to be understood and deliberated on in order to be trusted, how come there is this lack of any clear description of what, in fact, kind of specific and reliable wildland fire suppression response is needed/recommended moving forward????????????
I think Darrell Willis really blew it. But I also think there is really a huge big problem with this whole report and process.
Even though I also think maybe it’s possible that the existing crews with their existing Brush Trucks, and supporting vehicles and crews, and interagency support, might be capable of handling the various wildfires that strike Prescott, as the report says they might be capable of doing in its analysis of what kind of fire might most significantly endanger Prescott.
Although I really like Gary Olson’s idea better because part of me agrees with his caveats regarding having structure fire-fighters doing hardcore serious wildland fire-fighting, even though that is more and more, out of necessity, going on.
But that’s just my thinking. And it bothers me mightily that any kind of public citizen-based conversation about this really important bunch of decisions is, apparently, being actively thwarted.
The “Fire andEmergency Medical Services Operations and Data Analysis” Prescott, Arizona, August 2014 is here:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=1343
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 5, 2015 at 10:43 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> In case anybody gives a d*mn, given all the pyrotechnics
>> that are going on right now.
Following right along and reading everything, Marti. Thank you.
With regards to possibly finding some of the documents that seem to be ‘missing’… here is a TRICK you can try.
When I was looking for all the budget documents for City of Prescott… I discovered that just because someone failed to provide a top-level LINK on some info page to documents from past years doesn’t mean they aren’t actually still sitting right there on the same Server.
Example….
There is a ‘page’ on the Prescott Website that has clickable links to previous Prescott budget documents… but that ‘front end’ page decided not to list anything earlier than 2007.
The FILENAME in the url for the 2007 budget was “cpfr_2007.pdf”.
Well… all I had to do was manually change the ‘2007’ part of the URL filename to some other year and VOILA!… there is the previous year’s budget sitting on the same server.
So even though they have no links on their website… the following previous year budget files are still totally viewable with the following URL request filenames…
cpfr_2006.pdf
cpfr_2005.pdf
cpfr_2004.pdf
etc.
The ‘cpfr’ stands for “City of Prescott Financial Report’.
They keep using the same FILENAME each year but just changing the YEAR part.
So you might try THAT trick with some of these ‘City Council minutes’ files that seem to be ‘missing’.
More later.
Thanks for that, WTKTT!
I probably am not going to be able to do much more digging into this. I have a HUGE pile of critical urgent undone things to get done, including, but not limited to tax stuff, and that’s partly why I decided to get all single-minded and finish trying to drill down into that ICMA stuff as much as I could this weekend. I really need to “Retire” (she says for the forty-miillionth time).
And realizing things were about to explode and get truly crazy, finally, made me even more determined to “finish up” my digging activities sooner rather than later.
Now I can kind of kick back and go more into just reading (and eating my popcorn……………)
The minutes are not in that kind of file format that you can do that kind of thing that you described above. There may be another way to find them, I haven’t had time to go look.
And, at first I thought, looking at budgets isn’t gonna help me with trying to figure out, relatively exactly, what kind of other wildland fire-fighting was going on before, during, and, now, after the era of the Granite Mountain Hot Shots.
But then I thought again, you might be right. It might actually be quite helpful.
But I don’t think I have time to do it any time soon.
And the question remains, why does someone have to do all this minutiae digging just in order to de-encrypt what that $90K report is referring to in the just slightly critical realm of Prescott Fire Department staffing/equipping/re-organizing itself for wildland fire-fighting?
It should have been just described in the report.
And thanks for confronting the four millionth round of BS with such patience, imagination, clarity, and humor.
It was a great read this morning. Even without popcorn.
Namaste
Marti – We clearly have the duties and responsibilities divided up on this thread. You and WTKTT are responsible for keeping this thread on track and moving forward. Elizabeth is in charge of being annoying and throwing out shiny objects for Bob and I to chase after. And I am in charge of blah blah blah backstory and general commentary…some of which is grounded and some of which simply helps me pass the time in retirement while Bob and I bullshit about the good ole days, which really sucked if the truth were to be known. So…FORGE AHEAD, WE HAVE YOUR BACK!
Thank you, Gary!!!
I learned the hard way, believe me.
And, ps, I really have enjoyed your commentary!!
Yikes, they just issued our long-dreaded red-flag warning.
I guess clearing out my backyard is now higher on my list of priorities than getting my roof fixed. I haz a defensible space problem.
Thank you, and I have enjoyed your hard work even more. Red flags in ABQ already? How is Northern New Mexico looking, (Jemez, Santa Fe, Pecos etc.)? I really miss the Santa Fe, I hated it for the first 2 years and then loved it for the other 16 years in New Mexico. ABQ is OK but Farmington sucks.
LOL, I’ve been mostly in “virtual Flagstaff” since yesterday, so I’m not sure if we have any fires here.
But, as of this afternoon, anyway, Flag’s got a red flag warning, also, and a couple of fires got sparked there yesterday.
My dad grew up in Santa Fe, in a house that was, at the time, at the end of Don Gaspar on the south edge of town. Nothing from there to Albuquerque but wide open spaces.
I always wanted to move back there and buy that house. I loved it.
But, when I came back to New Mexico in 1990, Santa Fe was just so crowded and bustly and expensive and gentrified that I completely lost that desire.
I’m so rooted in Burque. But, after living in Flagstaff, Burque’s always been to big for me.
I think that’s why I’m so fascinated with looking at the Fire “organization” in Prescott and Flagstaff. I can actually wrap my brain around them.
At one point I had decided that when Terra graduated from Albuquerque Academy I would move to either Las Vegas (New Mexico, of course) or Silver City. I really would like to live somewhere smaller.
But pretty much as soon as Terra headed off to Orygun, I had to increasingly stay close to my parents, and I’ve been on an increasingly really short leash here ever since.
I really loved Flagstaff. It was really perfect for me. The only reason I moved back to Burque was because I was sick of abject poverty (especially with a kid in tow, her first two Christmases were painful) and my dad was setting up a business and offered my four times as much as I was making to come home.
And yeah, Farmington. I have had neither the need nor the desire to even waste the gasoline to go there since I came here.
My theme song is from Rent.
“We’re gonna open up a rest-au-rant in
SANTA FE!!!”
Even tho I originally went to Flag to be the Minister of First Congregational Church, I eventually ended up being one of those many many people with Masters Degrees who were working in the restaurant industry there.
Lots of freedom, pretty good tips, and endless interesting places to go hiking, back-packing, and rowing. West Fork was less than half a mile from where I llved my last three years there..
Things got a LOT more difficult when Terra came along……..
Oh, and also skiing on Shultz Pass Road before people (myself included) were even driving on it much.
I actually had to look at a map to orient myself regarding the fire, because everybody’s descriptions of it didn’t ring any bells for me.
Oh, and another (ahem related) story I haven’t written about here, bcuz well you know (at least by now)……
I have a photo of my dad sitting on a log in horsethief meadow (where the jarosa fire burned) in the Pecos in about 1966, staring at a thunderstorm anvil over a pass we were planning to cross on horseback.
We didn’t cross the pass. Instead we went back around it the way we had come.
The next day we DID cross the pass, and there were trees next to the trail that had been exploded by lightning.
He told me that was the exact moment when, after 35 years of forecasting New Mexico weather, he couldn’t forecast a southwestern thunderstorm because they were WAY TOO COMPLICATED. He maintained that stance til the day he died.
And he flew typhoons in the Pacific in order to figure out the math to use to fly airplanes through hurricanes.
According to him, what you do with a southwestern thunderstorm is stay away from it and HUNKER DOWN!
Now you know why I haven’t told that story, except down here in a reply to you in a buried thread.
Actually. I’ve changed my mind. I’m gonna post this. To the top.
Marti – Thank you for the stories and your insights.
Yer seriously welcome, Gary!
Marti,
I sincerely appreciate your efforts in regards to this overall investigation.
Having said that, I think you are really wasting your time with the whole ICMA thing.
The Prescott Fire Department was putting out wildfires long before the GMH came along, and they will continue to do so in the future.
Your biggest misperception is that the ICMA product would include public involvement and an examination of strategic initiatives regarding wildfires.
That is not what the ICMA is about.
The ICMA (previously incarnated as the International City Managers Association) has long been known to be anti-employee (spending a lot of time and money engaged in union-busting endeavors).
Another function of the organization is that they have rosters of consultants that are quite good at providing any result desired by their new “employers”, AND making it look unbiased.
One would have to think, that any final product which didn’t produce a desired result, if repeated over time, would cause that consultant to be black-listed, so to speak. Let’s face it, the consultants want the work, and these managers who talk to each other all the time about how to get things accomplished, want a consultant who will do a “good job” for them.
You don’t have to read between the lines too much on that one.
So, the final product that you see with the ICMA report was no surprise, and pretty much their (the consultants) standard fare.
In addition, the fact that you can’t find detailed strategic wildfire planning information on the PFD website is no surprise, either. Government entities staff and equip as to what they can afford for the everyday occurrences they face. Whether a structural or wildland fire, you send what you’ve got, and if it gets too big, you start calling for help from your neighbors. That’s the way it’s been for eons, all over the country.
The bean-counters continuously evaluate and judge over time, whether or not, funding and leadership (read: planning) is adequate.
It’s not a situation where every fire department and police department in the country plans everything down to the gnats-ass and then publishes it on their website.
Believe me, if I thought anything could come from your investigation of this, I would be encouraging you. I just think you’ll find when it’s all said and done, you’ll wish you hadn’t wasted your time on this aspect.
FYI: When GMH was in quarters, or working locally in Prescott or adjoining areas, they were known as Crew 7. I’m not sure why that was, but perhaps while fighting a local fire, it enabled them to still remain available to respond as a national IHC resource.
There had been some speculation on here quite a while back that during those final chaotic moments at the YHF, that the terminology “Granite Mountain 7” may have been inadvertently used because of the fact they worked under the call-sign of “Crew 7” locally back home.
Thanks for this WTK!! I didn’t know those things you wrote about ICMA. Now that you say it, it makes sense.
My concern about public input and conversation is not, at least on some level, a misperception. Their report and all kinds of other assurances by them and the City Council DID reiterate that this report was the beginning of a discussion within the community.
It may very well be those assurances were just part of a big sales job on the part of both ICMA and the City Council. And maybe, in any other context or community, that piece of that whole sales job would likely have been overlooked.
However, in the context of Prescott and all the issues around this question about wildland fire-fighting going into the future, “selling” the community (including the fire-fighters etc) on a product with repeated assurances of “community involvement” and then basically stone-walling the community, as has been the case,
……….doesn’t seem to be a very good long-term strategy for getting the community’s buy-in.
And it isn’t working. A LOT of people are REALLY p**ssed off.
It kinda reminds me of what is going on here in Burque regarding our infamous police department, our infamous Department of Justice (wink wink nod nod) intervention, and the fact that the wool is not being very successfully pulled over everybody’s eyes and everybody is well aware of that and still fighting back.
So we shall see……….
I just wanted, for both myself and anybody else reading and interested in this, to create something of a “bigger room” to walk around in than what we have at this point.
Although I probably won’t go much further on it because, from HERE out, for me, it is, indeed a waste of time. Because it WASN’T a waste of time for me to go this far.
My interest is not limited to Prescott, nor to the Granite Mountain Hotshots. My interest is all around me right here in Central New Mexico. I’ve learned a lot of valuable things via this digging and all this conversation.
Regarding the websites. And the lack of documentation regarding wildland fire-fighting.
I think, (maybe, because, out here in our RED FLAG WARNING TODAY context, WUI and wildfire fighting — suppression/mitigation/prevention — increasingly are such a VERY BIG DEAL), that……
……….in fact, increasingly FD websites DO post, in some detail, what their wildland crews are all about, what their equipment is, and, NOT THE LEAST, what exactly their crews are and what it takes to qualify to get on one of those crews. And what kind of ongoing training is both supported and required.
Both people in these communities (and also, sometimes, tourists) and people looking for wildland fire work are VERY interested in being able to easily find out about this stuff. Maybe not in excruciating detail, but definitely the game is changing.
From my wanderings around trying to orient and educate myself, I would say the the PFD website is REALLY an anomaly in that department.
And when I say:
“And it isn’t working. A LOT of people are REALLY p**ssed off.”
That’s to the tune of what very well may be a successful campaign for Mayor by the previous and still VERY POPULAR Fire Department Chief.
We shall see…………..
And, I might add, the previous and still VERY POPULAR Fire Department Chief who was, himself STONEWALLED and OUSTED by this cabal.
My take on the people’s ire is that they are not concerned about the lack of public input or the operational aspects of the PFD.
They are just upset at how a well-liked chief was rail-roaded by the city manager, and that city manager’s piss-poor attempt at trying to justify it.
If Fraijo wins, it won’t have anything to do with a lack of community input or operational deficiencies, it will simply mean the voters are fed up with the “cabal at the hall”.
Regarding, either accepting community input, or providing departmental information output, bureaucracies have always been about bluff and bluster, and a lot of smoke-blowing.
That, also has existed for eons
Yikes. I just realized I “replied” to the wrong person.
I’m sorry about that.
I have to admit that, inside my head, sometimes, I get a little bit dyslexic over your two acronyms.
But that’s just my sloppy reading and thinking, which can either happen when I’m either waking-up-while-reading/writing or putting-myself-down-for-the-night-while-reading/writing, nothing else.
But, heck, we’re all the same, anyway, so there’s that…….
Actually I’ve NEVER tied you/WTKTT/anybody else together ever, unless I’ve done it by mistake.
And, also, I have to admit, making that mistake actually caused me to misread you a little bit.
I was actually thinking, “Well, GEE, WTKTT, how come it’s NOT a waste of time for YOU to go down rabbit-holes on a daily basis but it is for ME to do that?????”
LOL!!!
I’m now understanding where YOU are coming from regarding this particular issue. Which is a different place from where WTKTT and I are coming from.
I guess that PROVES we’re not all clones, after all!
You’re being more cynical about this particular thing than I am. Which is totally understandable.
I’ve spent enuff of my life interacting/fighting/negotiating with entrenched (and, from my experience, PATRIARCHAL) bureaucracies to completely be able to see the cya/smoke and mirrors culture of entrenched bureaucracies — so I get what you are saying.
I guess my problem is that, given my experience, I am not willing to just sit back and ACCEPT that.
Of course I’m not fighting this particular battle, I’m just trying to understand it and, thus, learn from it. it’s up to the good citizens of Prescott to step up to the plate on this one.
Maybe they will and maybe they won’t.
I’m not particularly convinced that the path being currently chosen is all that bad of a path, which I couldn’t determine until I dug into it more.
I’m also not particularly convinced, at this point, that it is all that wise of a path, either, all things considered. I guess time will tell.
But at least I have a clearer picture of what it actually IS. So there’s that.
I spent some time today looking into what Flagstaff is doing, after having said somewhere downstream that I figured they probably hadn’t decided to follow in Prescott’s foootsteps because they had 3 IHCs “in their pocket.”
I have, today, realized, that’s not the case. They didn’t decide they needed/wanted another IHC, but they didn’t just decide to sit back and rely on “their” USFS IHCs and a handful of otherwise-structural-firefighter-engine-crews-with-red-cards either.
The Flagstaff Fire Department has a dedicated Wildland Fire Management Program that is its own thing.
On their organizational chart, shown here………..
http://www.flagstaff.az.gov/DocumentCenter/View/45783
….it is on an equal status with Operations and Fire Prevention. In other words, much more like the Wildland Division under Prescott Fire Department before that Division was dissolved as a result of this “independent” study.
And it’s a VERY robust operation, with a skilled handcrew, for both prevention and suppression, a NUMBER of additional professional specialists, and a HOST of very interesting projects.
And Flagstaff, in around 2012-2013 (now I’m writing out of my head, not anything open to cite from), as either a result of sequestration or just comprehending that federal funding, grants, etc, were not going to be reliable, voted overwhelmingly in favor of a $10M Bond, to self-finance their own wildland fuels mitigation/wildlfire suppression program.
I’m SURE that was, at least partially, a result of the Schultz fire, which dramatically hit Flagstaff way more than anything has hit Prescott………………yet.
I don’t see Prescott at this point, much less as a result of this latest “independent” report, being even close to that level of concern/awareness/action.
And remember, as I have said, my major concern in looking at this thing is not Prescott, much less the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
My major concern is learning from this, these Lessons Learned……..
…..What now do we do?
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 6, 2015 at 7:03 pm
Marti… there is nothing ‘rabbit holey’ about what you have been diligently researching lately. The whole AZCENTRAL thing ‘popping’ in the middle of it all doesn’t diminish this ‘thread’ in any way.
We are actually still on a ‘long thread’ about “What happens now?” that was started by “Retired with 38” pretty far down.
It’s also related to the whole discussion about whether that Prescott ICMA report was ( as Willis believes ) ‘tampered with’… or ( as Jon Paladini has now asserted ) truly reflects the WISHES of the current Prescott Fire Chief and City Management.
Everyone seems to keep forgetting that REGARDLESS of what the ICMA report said or recommended… that’s all it was… a REPORT.
The Prescott City Council / Management was ( and still isn’t ) under ANY actual OBLIGATION to follow ANY of the recommendations at all.
The REPORT could have said “You people are so ‘in for it’ in the Wildland Fire arena that we not only recommend you reconstitute the GM Type 1 IHC… we recommend you build 2 more”….
…but Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light could have still decided to do exactly what’s been done.
I still don’t know what Darrell Willis thought he was going to accomplish by spouting off about his own ‘conspiracy theories’ in his own resignation letter.
Did he really think that if it could simply be proven that some 3rd party outside Wildlland expert’s opinions ( Joe Stutler’s ) were supposed to survive totally word-for-word from a ‘first draft’ to a ‘final draft’ of a report that was costing Prescott $90,000?
Did he ( Does he? ) really think if even blatant ‘tampering’ can be proven that will automatically restore his $90,000 “Wildland Division” job and also magically reconstitute the ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’?
It was Willis himself who was pressuring the shit out of Eric Marsh just 56 days before the tragedy because Willis ‘sensed’ that the City no longer saw the CVB ( Cost Versus Benefit ) of running a full Type 1 IHC out of the City garages… so who is to say that even without a tragedy in Yarnell the whole thing wouldn’t have been eliminated, anyway.
The concern over the whole ‘Indian Fire’ thing on the outskirts of Prescott is the ‘wave’ they had been riding for years. It was a ‘dress rehearsal’ that showed Prescott what COULD happen… and Willis and Steinbrink and Marsh ‘rode that wave’.
But that was YEARS ago.
And then came the “Great Recession”… which is actually STILL going on.
Prescott has forgotten… and/or is worried about other things ( like ongoing deficits that are crippling the City ).
They SHOULD do the “best they can” to be prepared for a Wildland fire disaster there.
WILL they do that?
It appears the current Fire Chief thinks they can handle what comes their way with his own NEW ‘plan’.
So be it.
I still wonder what Fraijo is going to do if he is elected Mayor come November of this year.
I don’t think Fraijo himself was even nearly as ‘gung ho’ on all the Wildland stuff as Willis was.
Fraijo might, himself, think that decisions Chief Light has made regarding ‘Wildland Preparedness’ in Prescott is a perfectly GOOD plan.
We will probably actually learn that BEFORE the November election.
I imagine it will actually be a ‘campaign’ issue and when Fraijo ‘hits the bricks’ and starts spending money and doing a REAL ‘campaign’ for the office of Mayor we might find out THEN exactly what HE will do… if elected.
Type up above.
Paragraph above should have read like this…
“The Prescott City Council / Management was NOT ( and still isn’t ) under ANY actual OBLIGATION to follow ANY of the ICMA recommendations at all”.
I must jump in on this topic of where does PFD go from here. Regardless of what “plan” or level of staffing they decide to go with (I personally like Gary O’s) it WILL cost them money. The City Council and the new Fire Chief must recognize there are dollars involved, whether they hire 4 or 40 it will have fiscal impact to the PFD – nobody rides for free!
Now, lets take the next step and hire no one. This too could cost money, if a fire should occur and burn numerous homes in Prescott those homes come off the tax revenues until rebuilt (at least that’s how it works in my area). So that could be a budget hit on monies that you have relied on for years. In addition, without maintaining your “Firewise” status you may loose out on grant opportunities.
I am not from Prescott, but it seems to me that THE biggest threat to the community is from wildland fire. With all the “cost share” requirements today, if I were Chief (new or old) I would certainly promote a proactive approach to reducing the interface threat to my community, both from an organizational and home owner perspective.
The bottom line is that there are a number of good alternatives to fuels mitigation without having to have a Type 1 crew, but you need to spend some money in a proactive manner and not just staff up and wait for the alarm to sound. Maybe using on duty engine companies is an option, but that will cost money too with workers comp claims!
Thanks, Retired with 38, and see what I wrote just above.
Along the lines of what it “will cost” if/when a major wildfire hits Prescott, since I’ve been looking at Flagstaff today, I read a report called “A Full Cost Accounting of the 2010 Shultz Fire”:
http://www.idahoforests.org/img/pdf/FullCostAccounting2010SchultzFire.pdf
What REALLY inflated the already high enough costs of the Schultz Fire was the huge DAMAGE incurred as a result of the FLOODING that happened after it.
I don’t see anything in the ICMA report that even BEGINS to consider THAT set of potential consequences.
Regarding “nobody rides for free,” EXACTLY!
After the Schultz Fire WAKE-UP CALL, the citizens of Flagstaff, in the midst of the consequences of the recession, thus potentially shrinking federal and grant dollars, decided they needed to dip into their own friggin’ pockets to invest in their own “Wildfire Insurance Policy” to the tune of a $10M Bond, which was overwhelmingly approved by the voters.
They had already, by then, set up their own “Wildland Fire Management Program” (see above) but they realized they needed to guarantee its existence, its capability, and its seriousness on, at least, some level, by paying for it THEMSELVES.
I.e. they realized they were actually STAKEHOLDERS in this.
(Having actually lived, myself, in the Flagstaff WUI for ten years, I understand that realization. I was feeling it in the late 1980s).
“Now, lets take the next step and hire no one. This too could cost money,”
That’s exactly what they have done.
Their “solution” is to hand it back to their existing PFD red-carded crews with their existing Brush Trucks (with all the “Structure vs Wildland Thinking” issues Gary has harped on and may have played a part in GM getting themselves killed).
While dissolving their Fuels Mitigation Crew and deciding to “contract that out.”
Which might, given how these things tend to go, cost them even more money. Obviously, they’re doing that because they don’t want to deal with the “liability issues.”
But what ever company they “outsource” this to has to deal with those exact “liability issues,” and, on top of that, MAKE A PROFIT.
“I am not from Prescott, but it seems to me that THE biggest threat to the community is from wildland fire. ”
Yes, it absolutely is, AND on top of it they are having serious and expensive WATER issues. But that’s a whole nuther, but not unrelated, issue.
“The bottom line is that there are a number of good alternatives to fuels mitigation without having to have a Type 1 crew, but you need to spend some money in a proactive manner and not just staff up and wait for the alarm to sound.”
Yeppers!!
“or level of staffing they decide to go with (I personally like Gary O’s)”
I really like Gary O’s idea also, AND I really like Flagstaff’s, also.
Gary’s idea does it on the relatively affordable level, given Prescott’s current finances.
Flagstaff’s idea expands the coverage significantly, by also realizing, and taking local responsibility for, what a serious wildflre seriously hitting the city……..
…….ACTUALLY could COST because it DID.
And, to get another, more personal perspective on the Flagstaff Schultz Fire, which documents another, more intangible, but not less REAL set of consequences of what one of these kinds of wildfires can have on a WUI city………
You just have to read this heart-breaking (for me, i.e., someone who used to live there) account:
“The San Francisco Peaks will never be the same”
https://www.hcn.org/wotr/the-san-francisco-peaks-will-never-be-the-same
“Our mountain is burning in a fire that we hoped would never happen, a fire that has been hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles. The heart of our mountain is blazing in an inferno that grew from 50 acres to 5,000 acres in 24 hours. As I write this, it has torched 14,000 acres — 27 square miles — and it is not yet contained.
Mountain-biking trails, homes for wildlife, favorite hiking places, springs and centuries-old trees — all damaged beyond belief. The San Francisco Peaks, the highest point in Arizona and the geologic feature that dominates the city of Flagstaff as well as all of Northern Arizona, have been altered beyond recognition in a matter of hours. Three-hundred-year-old ponderosa pines are exploding in orange flame. My neighbors take photographs of smoke that is now visible from space. We watch it all with tears in our eyes, but we watch. It’s the only action we can take, this hopeless inaction.”
And, regarding the Flagstaff decision to dig into their pockets to fund a $10M bond:
This is the story here:
“Sequester Guts Wildfire Prevention, Sets Up Bigger Blazes
…and leaves locals to pick up the tab.”
By Tim McDonnell, Friday May 24, 2013 via Mother Jones
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/05/wildfire-prevention-flagstaff-arizona-sequester
“Tree coming down!”
Skyler Lofgren shouts above a din of buzzing chainsaws, leans into his own, and with a final heave topples another 40-foot Ponderosa pine. Lofgren, 27, a forest firefighting crew boss with Flagstaff, Arizona’s fire department, felled a dozen trees on Monday, overseeing an outdoor classroom for a new crop of seasonal recruits who will spend the summer patrolling the Coconino National Forest with three-foot chainsaws at the ready. The crew will fight wildfires when they come, but the vast majority of their time will be spent on prevention or, as Lofgren puts it, “working ourselves out of a job.”
In a stand of trees 10 minutes outside downtown Flagstaff—a tight cluster of low-slung brick buildings peppered with Route 66 paraphernalia—Lofgren and his fellow firefighters are hard at work on a new project that local officials say is the first of its kind in the nation. Funded by a $10 million bond that voters approved by a 3-1 margin in November, the program puts local tax dollars to work clearing trees and brush, and lighting carefully-managed fires, in an effort to stave off the devastating, astronomically expensive megafires that have become increasingly common in the West. If successful, the project could also untether the community from a withering federal firefighting budget.
So read this and take note………
………………….Prescott.
Marti,,
First , thank you for your commitment to this throughout your own personal challenges.
There are a few successful fuels mitigation programs in the west, but Flagstaff certainly establishes the bar with community and organizational support! They have educated the community and gained the financial backing needed to initiate the mitigation of the hazard – the overstocked fuels.
In my opinion the key to their success has been community education and involvement – which as you have noted is currently lacking in Prescott. If you want the program to succeed you need to educate and involve the community. I truly believe Flagstaff is a great example of that.
With all due respect to Flagstaff, I still believe there are advantages to having your own crew resource – whether that is a crew of 5 or 20 it’s a resource that can be utilized in multiple situations to compliment the “Districts resources” in emergency situations..
Kudos to the Board and the community for realizing the threat and taking the correct approach to fund the mitigation (whether internal or external) and reduce the threat. It’s the pay me now ( proactive ) or pay me later (reactive), and if you do some research you will find that the pay me now concept actually works. Numerous recent success stories have been published on the effectiveness of fuels treatment during wildland fires.
So to the City of Prescott, do your homework – you will pay one way or another so look at other programs that are successful in fuels mitigation and continue your mission from the early 2000’s of reducing the risk to your community. Spend some money, it’s important to your communities safety.
Thanks!!
You said:
“With all due respect to Flagstaff, I still believe there are advantages to having your own crew resource – whether that is a crew of 5 or 20 it’s a resource that can be utilized in multiple situations to compliment the “Districts resources” in emergency situations..”
That crew IS Flagstaff Fire Department’s own crew. It’s the one in the Wildland Fire Management “Division” (they don’t call these segments “Divisions,” but, as the organizational chart shows, Wildland Fire Management is at the same “level” as Operations and Fire Prevention).
I’m sure there’s some intense conversations going on behind the scenes about this.
I don’t have the pages open right now, so this is off the top of my head, but the Summit Fire Department Chief (Summit being just “north” of Flagstaff) was a founder of the Wildland Academy in Prescott and is still a MAJOR PLAYER there.
Summit FD is a part of a grouping of FDs up there “in” Flagstaff that have a combined wildland program that has ANOTHER really great uber-Type 2 IA/Fuels crew. They actually train to Type 1 IHC standards. “Bear Claw.”
I’m kind of thinking, all things considered, that when Prescott’s Wildland Division decided to go in the direction of creating their own IHC, it was a double-edged sword in a number of ways.
It became the city’s “holy grail,” if you will, that diminished their options, along with the city’s/citizens’ OWNERSHIP of their situation, and, thus creative thinking about it.
Prescott has done A WHOLE LOT on the prevention side (more than I think the current ICMA influenced almost-plan is going to be able to sustain) …
…but where they’re currently at regarding the suppression side is, I think, woefully inadequate.
That little thunderstorm cell up there to the northeast of Yarnell that turned that fire around “beyond our expectations” on June 30, 2013, also brought something like 20 lightning-ignited wildfire starts to Prescott.
That’s a story you don’t hear, as it was eclipsed by Yarnell.
Hey Marti,
Here is another proactive District (although they haven’t secured the funding of Flagstaff) – check them out at http://www.nltfpd.net
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 4, 2015 at 9:44 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> My point in all of this is that it behooves us to remember that Arizona Department
>> of Forestry has a HUGE VESTED INTEREST RIGHT NOW in divesting themselves
>> (no matter what they have to do in order to do that) of any kind of remote
>> responsibility regarding their mismanagement of this entire fire and any
>> kind of danger they (by either sins of commission or omission) put the
>> fire-fighters on that fire into.
Yes… they do… but at this very moment in time their BEST chance to ‘divest themselves’ of ALL of this is to SETTLE both the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” thing ( and prevent it from going to a full ALJ Hearing ) and the “Wrongful Death” lawsuits ( to prevent THEM from going to a full JURY Trial ).
And that is EXACTLY what ( according to public documents ) they ARE doing at this moment.
When they asked for a 30 day extension to the ‘calendar freeze’ on the ‘wrongful death’ suits back on March 9… the Judge didn’t get around to granting it until March 17… so Arizona Forestry only has 12 more days to “get ‘er dun”. ( Until April 17 ).
I would NOT want to be any of the Arizona Forestry lawyers if they do NOT find a way to ‘settle’ all this outside of a courtroom and away from a no-shit JURY.
So am I the only one who is suspecting that the REASON a lot of stuff is suddenly ‘popping’ here is BECAUSE of THAT looming deadline?
From what we can tell… Arizona Forestry FAILED to reach an adequate settlement with the plaintiffs during the two day March 2,3 ‘mediation’ session(s).
Between additional documents filed the following week in the ALJ Hearing File and some PUBLIC comments made by one of the wrongful death plaintiffs herself ( Deborah Pfingston, Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) it seems pretty obvious that the reason more TIME was being asked for is because the plaintiffs ARE ‘sticking to their guns’ and they want what they have always said they wanted in the actual ‘wrongful death’ case filings.
The TRUTH, transparency, accountability and CHANGE.
The ‘extension for ‘more negotiating’ WAS granted’… and now suddenly ( just in the last 10 days ) we are seeing all of the following…
** ( INDUSTRY ) CHANGE(S)…
Out of nowhere ( only 7 days ago ) the U.S. Forestry Service issues a National press release saying they ARE working on a new fire shelter design and they are now ‘upping’ the planned completion of that project the end of 2016… one year EARLIER than they originally planned.
That ‘press release’ also says they are now testing ‘new materials’ from ELEVEN different manufacturers… but cannot disclose the names of either the companies or the materials because of ‘non-disclosure’ agreements.
And ‘lo and behold’… who is CHARGE of that ‘speeded-up’ redesign?
None other than Tony Petrilli… the ‘fire shelter’ expert for the Yarnell Hill SAIT.
Travis Turbyfill’s father ( David Turbyfill ) has said this is HIS ‘primary’ goal in the category of CHANGE as requested in the common ‘wronful death’ filing(s). He has even been doing how own design ( he is an engineer ) and has posted public YouTube videos of the superior materials HE has been testing.
Petrilli wouldn’t name any of the ‘materials’ HE is looking at… but Petrilli did just give some ‘target numbers’ as far as heat transfer and survivablilty goes with some of the testing already done.
More ‘lo and behold’… some of THOSE numbers actually MATCH what David Turbyfill’s own testing has been showing for various materials.
So I could easily picture something like the following exchange happening sometime recently in the ‘mediation’ with the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs…
———————————————————————-
Arizona Forestry lawyers: As far as this CHANGE thing on your ‘list of demands’ goes… we heard that the U.S.Forestry Service is looking into designing a new fire shelter.
Attorney for the plantiffs: Prove it.
Arizona Foresty lawyers: How would you like us to do that?
Attorney for the plaintiffs: For starters… a National Press release from the U.S. Forestry Service that SAYS that is going to happen. Then we will agree to finalize our demands to make SURE it’s going to happen.
Arizona Forestry laywers: Okay. We’ll make some calls tomorrow.
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Make the calls TODAY.
———————————————————————-
And on they go to the NEXT item on the ‘mediation’ agenda.
Sure enough… just 7 days ago and right in the middle of this ‘mediation’… here comes a ‘National Press’ release ( out of nowhere ) from the U.S. Forestry Service talking all about the ‘new fire shelter’ they are designing and the ‘sped-up’ development times.
Coincidence?
** TRUTH / TRANSPARENCY
All of a sudden ( and also in the middle of this ‘mediation’ ) AZCENTRAL suddenly decides to interview Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini and all of sudden Paladini thinks it is OK to reveal what HE has been keeping a ‘secret’ for MONTHS?
It truly IS a head-scratcher WHY Paladini would suddenly be willing to ‘spill his guts’ like he did for that AZCENTRAL article… especially since HE was the one who was supposedly the initial ‘liason’ between Arizona Forestry lawyers and Brendan for the ‘under-oath’ deposition.
It is almost as if someone called him on the phone, told him AZCENTRAL was going to be calling him… and they finally gave him PERMISSION to ‘say what he knows’…. or something.
Could word have gotten back to the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs that Brendan McDonough might now have no intentions of submitting to a pre-trial ‘deposition’ of any kind ( on the advice of his new criminal defense attorney ) and THAT is why his scheduled February 26, 2015 deposition was cancelled and (supposedly) NOT re-scheduled yet?
Could that have triggered another conversation happening across the ‘mediation table’ right now that went something like this?…
———————————————————————-
Arizona Forestry lawyers: As far as this TRUTH thing goes on your ‘list of demands’… we don’t know WHAT it is going to take now to get Brendan McDonough to finally tell what he knows.
Attorney for the plantiffs: Then stop HIDING what you ALREADY know and release whatever information you DO have, in case he never does.
Arizona Foresty lawyers: How?
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Get some reporters to talk to all of those people who have supposedly already talked with Brendan and tell them to tell the reporters what they ALREADY know and then tell them to PUBLISH that information ASAP.
Arizona Forestry laywers: Okay. We’ll make some calls tomorrow.
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Make the calls TODAY.
———————————————————————-
** ACCOUNTABILITY
All of a sudden… in the MIDDLE of these ongoing ‘mediations’… we learn that OPS1 Todd Abel ( and his wife ) have been DISMISSED as ‘defendants’ in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
SIDENOTE: One of the reasons that ‘wives’ ( or husbands ) are usually included along with individual named defendants in a Civil action ( if that defendant is married ) is because of how easy it is for anyone to transfer all of their assets to their spouse’s name at the drop of a hat. The wives ( or husbands ) are usually also named just to make sure that a couple can’t easily ‘hide’ their assets to get out of paying judgements.
We also learn that OPS1 Todd Abel was dismissed ‘with prejudice’ which does NOT mean that he is being dropped as a defendant but someone thinks he still *might* have been involved in any negligence or wrongdoing. ‘With prejudice’ actually means he CANNOT be sued by anyone else for the same (alleged) incident. It’s akin to being granted ‘immunity from prosecution’ in the criminal arena.
So given THAT ‘piece of news’… here is even one more ‘conversation’ I could imagine took place during the ongoing ‘mediation’ last month…
———————————————————————
Arizona Forestry lawyers: Okay… regarding this ACCOUNTABILITY thing on your ‘list of demands’… I’m authorized to tell you that Arizona Forestry IS willing to ADMIT responsibility when the press releases are made regarding the ‘settlement’.
Attorney for the plantiffs: Okay. Good.
Arizona Foresty lawyers: However… only on ONE condition. You have to DROP OPS1 Todd Abel and his wife from your list of ‘defendants’… and it has to be a ‘Dismissal with Prejudice’ with regards to the Yarnell Hill Fire so he’s not out there hanging in the wind on this.
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Okay. Deal. We’ll make some calls tomorrow.
Arizona Forestry laywers: Make the calls TODAY.
———————————————————————-
Any ‘mediation’ in a complicated case like this is simply an ongoing ‘package’ that gets assembled… and it is NOT unusual for things like what have been happening lately to all of sudden start happening DURING the negotiations. These things amount to ‘demonstrations of good faith and intent’ for BOTH sides during the negotiations.
I could, of course, be totally wrong.
NONE of these things that have all seemed to be happening DURING this mysterious ‘mediation’ might have anything to do with either each other OR with the ‘mediation’ itself…
These things could all just be ‘coincidental’.
Even the OPS1 Abel being dropped as a ‘defendant’ in the middle of mediation…
…but the TIMING here on these things *could* indicate they ARE ‘related’ to what’s going on RIGHT NOW behind-closed-doors between the lawyers for Arizona Forestry and the lawyers for the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs.
We shall see.
The clock is still ‘ticking’ and the ‘little hand’ is about to catch up with the ‘big hand’.
The Fire Shelter is not the full answer here.
To build a Fire Shelter to withstand 2000 degrees for 30 min. and maintain a 7 pound weight
is still a long way off. my guess a oxygen bottle would as well be needed which adds considerable to the weight on the fire line.
The objective should always be to never get in a situation where a fire shelter was necessary
Or admit that people will always fail to follow safety fighting wild fire. and need to carry all kinds of fire safety equipment to the point they can not function on the line.
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 6, 2015 at 7:55 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> The Fire Shelter is not the full answer here.
Absolutely not. It’s just ONE of the things we can be pretty sure is on the plaintiff’s ‘list of demands’. David Turbyfill has made it his ‘mission’ to get some improvements there… and he’s not the only one of the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs who are ‘onboard’ with that as just ONE thing that should CHANGE.
I don’t know if the attorneys for the plaintiffs have actually already sat down with all the plaintiffs and/or independent industry consultants and come up with a comprehensive ‘List of Demands’ for the CHANGE category of all the ‘goals’ in their original ‘filings’… but it stands to reason they DID.
It would also stand to reason, then, that what has actually been happening since March 3 is that the attorneys are simply going through this LIST and ‘negotiating’ on the points.
The ‘Fire Shelter’ thing might have been just one of the ‘demands’ that they felt they could AGREE on… since U.S. Forestry really does seem to have started a research project already independent of the lawsuits.
It’s just a possibility that the ‘mediation’ and the timing of that U.S. Forestry press release are ‘related’… that’s all. Might be total coincidence as well.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> To build a Fire Shelter to withstand 2000 degrees for 30 min. and
>> maintain a 7 pound weight is still a long way off. my guess a
>> oxygen bottle would as well be needed which adds considerable
>> to the weight on the fire line.
Yes… but even David Turbyfill did some research on that and his own public videos show how far the ‘technology’ has come in that area in the last 10 years as well. There are ‘breather units’ for ‘avalanche survival’ that are lightweight, easily available online, and not even that expensive.
It would obviously be a HUGE leap for the U.S. Forestry Service ( which is generally a about a decade behind on technology, anyway ) to suddenly go from a simple ‘shake-and-bake-and-try-to-hold-your-breath-when-it-gets-god-awful’ design to an actual full-featured ‘rescue’ envelope design complete with breathable air…
…but it’s certainly time they at least did the RESEARCH on all that.
Tricky part ( I suppose ) is designing it so whatever container is holding the oxygen doesn’t ‘rupture’ or ‘explode’ all on its own.
Maybe the compromise would be to change the REQUIRED PPE to just some new higher-temp design… but the ‘breathable air’ solutions have been integrated into the design but remain OPTIONAL ( but allowable ) for field units.
The Human Body can tolerate more burn damage than you actually might believe… and your heart will stay beating… but without breathable air you’re not going to be around to even try and survive the burns.
It’s a fact that the more they add TIME to the ‘survivability estimate… the more important it is to move to an option where you don’t have to just ‘hold your breath’.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> The objective should always be to never get in a situation where
>> a fire shelter was necessary
Abso-frickin-lootely. No question.
I don’t know what CHANGES might be on the plaintiff’s ‘List of Demands’ in THAT part of the ‘Industry Change’ category… but I will bet there are any number of things they would like to see ‘change’ in THAT area as well.
MUCH better training? MORE checks on the ‘certification’ process to make sure certain personality types are ‘in check’ at all times? Don’t even allow a DIVS to communicate with his resources over a PRIVATE frequency so others can do interventions ( if needed ) during poor decision making? More restrictions on the use of cell phones for fire command intra-communication?
Something. “Lessons Learned” type stuff.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Or admit that people will always fail to follow safety fighting wild
>> fire. and need to carry all kinds of fire safety equipment to the
>> point they can not function on the line.
Has anyone ever done a TEST to see how MUCH weight a WFF can carry and still be able to ‘function on the line’… and for HOW LONG at different ‘weight’ levels? Seems like that would be good to know.
Maybe the physical requirements will simply need to be ‘raised’ and being able to ‘function on the line’ at the new weight requirement becomes simply another TEST that has to be passed… or you don’t get the job.
They are pushing the limit now on weight and pack discomfort when using tools.
Put a forty pound pack on in 100 degree temps and swing an ax for an hour
Let me know how it works?
I think you can figure it out wit out doing that.
I think I’m about to ask a crazy question.
Actually… I’m sure of it.
I’m about to ask a crazy question.
WHERE did the REQUIREMENT come from that these guys/gals have to be dressed ( and functioning as ) PACK MULES pretty much EVERY MOMENT while they are actually ‘working’ and ‘cutting line’?
When you are ACTUALLY ‘cutting line’… and there is no immediate danger… why can’t you take your frickin’ pack OFF?
Of course it should be RIGHT THERE near you ( or no more than a few paces away )… but where did the REQUIREMENT come from that you have to WEAR the frickin’ thing EVERY MOMENT?
If something happens SO quickly that you can’t even take a few steps and pull your precious ‘fire shelter’ out of the bottom of your pack… then you probably don’t have the minimum 25 seconds to even use the damn thing, anyway, right?
Why is it absolutely VERBOTEN to take the pack OFF, at ANY time while you are actually just ‘swinging an axe’ or ‘scraping the ground’?
That’s exactly the same thought I had when I was looking at this today:
“Portraits of the 1973 “Burnt” Fire”
http://deliriousramblings.com/2014/01/26/the-1973-burnt-fire/
via “Delirious Ramblings” which is really an awesome Northern Arizona blog that explores a lot of Northern Arizona things, including its wildfires.
The photos in his exploration come from him camera-phone-photographing a bunch of microfilm images from a microfilm Flagstaff Daily Sun archive.
These photographs show fire-fighters hiking into and attacking this fire without any kind of packs on themselves.
I thought, WOW, that’s interesting!!!
I’m really curious about this.
I can see hauling a pack of some sort into the general vicinity of where you would be working.
But, to be perfectly honest, I am also having kind of a difficult time understanding, all things considered, the necessity of having it on you all the time when you’re working.
I’m sure the actually experienced fire-fighters here have some kind of explanation for this. And I would really be interested in “hearing” it.
PS This article is, in itself, a REALLY interesting reflection.
I’m still scratching my head about the timing.
I’m skeptical that the Fire Shelter thing is ALL THAT related to this recent revelation. The Turbyfills aren’t part of the suits. But who knows………
The Daily Courier still hasn’t broken this story, even though Wildfire Today has. Maybe there is a reason for that.
I’m still trying to contemplate the various pieces flying around.
Including the incredibly poorly done job on the part of the writers. Like I’ve said before, I’m SURE there was somebody there at AZCentral following this whole thing and reading all the stuff we were reading, and they didn’t just go OMG!!! and dive headlong into those documents at the last minute.
But maybe I’m wrong.
Cuz it sure looks like a last-minute hack job to me.
So that’s been the part of this that I’ve been wondering about in the back of my head this weekend.
What kind of pressure were THEY under, and from WHOM, especially given the distorted narrative regarding AZFire vs ADOSH.
And yes I did read what you wrote me in response to that down below. And I appreciate the correction. But STILL this article comes across to me as being unethically one-sided and manipulatively so, in regards to that months-long fight. And, generally speaking, their Yarnell coverage has been pretty accurate and well-researched for the most part all along.
Yvonne’s stuff has been high quality, but for the past six months she’s been busy covering the elections, the aftermatch of the elections, and the recent state legislative session. So, maybe she/they did scramble…
So, so far as the possibly-under-some-serious-pressure-from-somewhere timing of this story, so much so that they did an incredibly bad job of it, …………….
……………well, I’m still just trying to think things through. They’re all swirling around in my head, at this point.
Obviously, all these points are connected. I just haven’t managed, in my own head, to figure out which order they’re connected in.
One can only hope that the reason the Prescott Daily Courier hasn’t gone to press with their own article yet is because they are trying to turn the ‘hack job’ into a better piece of journalism.
( You can’t see ALL of my fingers and toes crossed here… but they are ).
If THEY can’t get Brendan to do an ‘on-camera’ interview as a result of this… or at least get some kind of coherent RESPONSE from him… I don’t know who else is going to be able to.
And that NEEDS to happen.
At the very least… the ‘followup’ to this story HAS to be some word about whether Brendan is EVER going to actually agree to be deposed and/or EVER going to talk about what he knows.
I just hope someone is watching Brendan pretty carefully at this point… and I mean someone who is close to him.
It would be a shame if something happened that would make the chance of ever hearing what Brendan really knows an absolute impossibility.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 6, 2015 at 9:25 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I’m still scratching my head about the timing.
>> The Daily Courier still hasn’t broken this story, even though
>> Wildfire Today has. Maybe there is a reason for that.
One can ONLY hope the ‘reason’ is that they are trying to turn the ‘hack job’ that was released last Friday into a better piece of reporting.
What it NEEDS ( at a minimum ) is…
1) Clarification on whether the ‘story’ that Paladini is telling is SOLELY based on conversations with Darrell Willis… OR whether Paladini might have heard a few more significant details from Brendan himself ( or even others ) as he was acting as the official ‘mediator’ between Brendan and Arizona Forestry ( prior to Brendan retaining his own criminal counsel, Mr. David Shapiro ).
That would EXPLAIN why Precott City Attorney Jon Paladini ( a VERY accomplished and respected LAWYER ) says he is “standing by his story” even though Darrell Willis is now hemming and hawing and saying he doesn’t ‘recall’ saying some of the things that Paladini now says he ‘knows’.
Paladini could have been including details that really did NOT come from Darrell Willis initial conversation with him… but Paladini hear them later from either Brendan himself… or some other person who had ‘talked’ with Brendan.
2) WHO are the ‘other witnesses’ openly referred to in the article who were ALSO ( apparently ) interviewed for that article? If they are specifically CHOOSING to remain ‘anonymous’ and spoke only on a guarantee of that… then it needs to say that as well.
3) A COHERENT response from the person who is actually at the epi-center of the article… Brendan McDonough himself.
4) Even WITHOUT Brendan’s cooperation or comment… a good reporting on the attempts to depose him, what really happened with BOTH attempts, and where that stands NOW. Will there be another attempt at an ‘under-oath’ deposition… or not? Will it ONLY happen if the mediation fails and the ‘wrongful death’ cases are then going to TRIAL… but the last thing Brendan wants is to ever have to be on a ‘witness stand’… so they will ‘negotiate’ for another ‘private deposition’?
ALL of the above are now PARTS OF THE STORY that was NOT reported on Friday.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I’m skeptical that the Fire Shelter thing is ALL THAT related
>> to this recent revelation.
So am I, actually… but I felt I needed to include in the list of “things that have POPPED” just in the last 10 days… DURING this whole secret ‘mediation’ thing.
Because it MIGHT be related. Might NOT.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> The Turbyfills aren’t part of the suits.
You are right. The PARENTS aren’t… but Travis’ WIFE is.
Thank you for correcting me.
It is Stephanie Turbyfill ( Travis’ wife ) who is one of the listed plaintiff’s in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits… and NOT David Turbyfill ( Travis’ father ).
AZREPUBLIC
Article Title: Yarnell Hill Fire: 12 hotshot families sue state
Published 4:51 p.m. MST June 27, 2014
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/2014/06/27/yarnell-hill-fire-12-hotshot-families-sue-state/11525623/
From the article…
——————————————————————————-
The listed plaintiffs in the case are: Juliann Ashcraft, wife of Andrew Ashcraft; Claire Caldwell, wife of Robert Caldwell; Krista Carter, wife of Travis Carter; Michael MacKenzie, father of Christopher MacKenzie; Grant McKee, father of Grant McKee Jr.; Daniel Parker, father of Wade Parker; John Percin, father of John Percin; Desiree Steed, wife of Jesse Steed; Stephanie Turbyfill, wife of Travis Turbyfill; Roxanne Warneke, wife of William Warneke; Carl Whitted, father of Clayton Whitted; and Joseph Woyjeck, father of Kevin.
——————————————————————————–
Something tells me, though, that given the hard work Travis’ FATHER has been doing for over a year on the ‘improved fire shelter’… Stephanie Turbyfill probably has that on HER list of ‘INDUSTRY CHANGES’ being demanded by the ‘plaintiffs’.
Any number of the other ‘plaintiffs’ are probably firmly on board with that as well.
You wrote:
“Arizona Forestry lawyers: As far as this TRUTH thing goes on your ‘list of demands’… we don’t know WHAT it is going to take now to get Brendan McDonough to finally tell what he knows.
Attorney for the plantiffs: Then stop HIDING what you ALREADY know and release whatever information you DO have, in case he never does.
Arizona Foresty lawyers: How?
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Get some reporters to talk to all of those people who have supposedly already talked with Brendan and tell them to tell the reporters what they ALREADY know and then tell them to PUBLISH that information ASAP.
Arizona Forestry laywers: Okay. We’ll make some calls tomorrow.
Attorney for the plaintiffs: Make the calls TODAY.”
—————–
However much I’m not convinced the Fire Shelters deal is connected to this thing………
I DO think what you wrote here makes some sense.
AZFire is freaking out becuz they don’t have a “Brendan said” story (to fill in a clarify and substantiate the already swirling around everywhere stories and rumors regarding what he heard and knows) to head into the last-ditch-minutes of the so-far FAILED mediation negotiations.
And their lawyers are pretty much saying what you say they are saying to the plaintiffs lawyers.
And the conversation proceeds pretty much like what you are saying.
That makes a lot of sense.
Even though even this “revelation” doesn’t, as has been hashed out below downstream, completely get AZFire off the hook. It just adds Eric/Jesse TO the hook.
Which might be the best they can come up with at the moment. It better fits the bill of the “We want the facts, the TRUE facts” demand than what, at this point, exists.
(And I’m still factoring into this, in my mind, the whole “video that records the argument” thingy. Which, so far, hasn’t been released, unless the videos they DID release (wink wink nod nod) are connected, in some way, to THAT video (wink wink nod nod).
The only thing I would edit in your narrative is this:
“Get some reporters to talk to all of those people who have supposedly already talked with Brendan and tell them to tell the reporters what they ALREADY know and then tell them to PUBLISH that information ASAP.”
I would write it more like:
“Get some reporters to talk to all of those people who have supposedly already talked with Brendan and tell them to tell the reporters what they ALREADY know and then tell them to PUBLISH that information ASAP.
Lawyers for AZFire: It might be really difficult to get those reporters to do all of that in the time we have at hand.
Lawyers for the Plaintiffs: Well, looks like you might have to find a way to put some PRESSURE on them to get this done ASAP. So we’ll even help out and give you THIS LIST of people for them to “interview” ASAP. Come on guys, you know EXACTLY how to throw your weight around to get your story out there!”
Or maybe the Lawyers for the Plaintiffs didn’t need to take the time to make the list. AZFire already KNEW who they wanted on THAT LIST.
And the Lawyers for AZFire walk out of the meeting and into AZFire, high-fiving, and patting everybody on the back, saying, “No problem, boys, we’ve GOT THIS!”
Except, maybe for the possibility that maybe, as this plays out,……………
Maybe they haven’t, just all that easy, GOT THIS.
Who knows???????
*buys more popcorn*
There is every chance in the world that the Arizona Forestry lawyers themselves are now so frustrated with Brendan McDonough and his bullshit games and private agendas that they do not give a rat’s ass how anything they do now affects him in any way.
Maybe they thought ( since they still have 11 days left in their negotiations with the plaintiffs ) that making some phone calls and giving people like Jon Paladin PERMISSION to ‘tell it all’ to the PRESS would actually cause someone ( anyone? ) to get this McDonough guy to POP and just tell the frickin’ PRESS what he does ( or doesn’t ) know.
That actually MIGHT be what is happening, following Friday’s article.
The Prescott Daily Courier might be ‘holding’ on their own version of this ‘story’ because that is exactly what they are trying to do RIGHT NOW.
Convince Brendan to ‘come clean’ in an on-camera-exclusive interview with THEM.
I hope he does it.
There will be MANY who will say that since he isn’t ‘under-oath’ you really can’t believe a word coming out of his mouth in that kind of ‘on-camera’ thing… but that is neither here nor there.
That’s because there are also MANY who won’t even believe what this guy is saying if he IS ‘deposed’ and puts his hands on tall stacks of books about every faith system on the planet.
Either way… he is going to be called a LIAR by some… so he might as well ‘get it over with’ sooner rather than later.
And while I am at it, I want to say a few things about Jesse Steed. Steed could have technically refused Marsh’s direct order to take his crew down into that smoky cauldron of fire in that valley of death, but there is no such thing as a former hotshot, just like there is no such thing as a former Marine. And any hotshot knows Steed was not really acting as the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew Boss since he was stepping into the job behind Eric Marsh and Marsh was the Division Boss and to make matters worse, the GMHS were the only crew on Division A under Marsh. For all practical intents and purposes, Steed was still in his role as assistant crew boss under Marsh when the decision was made to leave the black.
And I don’t believe for one minute it was about Steed worrying about pissing Marsh off so that when Marsh moved up the ladder, Steed would get the crew boss job. I picked up some where along the way there may have been some friction between Marsh and Steed, possibly because the crew responded so well to Steed and called him their Greek God and Steed’s Dojo etc. for their weight room.
And I did a lot of push back against Elizabeth’s contention that a hotshot crew is some kind of democracy where crew member’s opinions are sought after, listened to and valued, but that does not happen. There wasn’t anybody on that crew who was in a position to go down into that valley. Yes, for one thing, most of them did not even know why they were going there or where they were going unless they were standing close enough and overheard snatches of the radio conversations between Steed and Marsh.
Steed and the rest of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were following their crew bosses orders, period…because they were hotshots and that is what hotshots do. In addition to that, Steed and several others on the crew were Marines, and that’s what Marines do.
That is the way the system works. That is the way the system has to work. That is how hotshots stay alive and get the job done on almost every fire since hotshots were created by the fire gods (except for the Loop Fire, the Battlement Creek Fire, the South Canyon Fire and now the Yarnell Hill Fire).
Yes…those were notable exceptions, but the system has worked on tens of thousands of fires where no hotshots died. You have to go with the law of averages. Put the best people you have in charge and then everybody relies on them to make life and death slit second decisions in the best interest of the crew and getting the job done.
It has to be that way or the entire system would break down on a regular and reoccurring basis and a lot more hotshots would die. Steed did his job as assistant crew boss, he made his concerns and objections known to the crew boss AND THEN HE FOLLOWED HIS ORDERS, JUST LIKE HE WAS SUPPOSED TO, and unfortunately…and that is an understatement, that time those orders were based on a very flawed decision making process…but that doesn’t make Steed and the others wrong in any way. The crew bosses plan should have worked…and it almost always does. But when it doesn’t…the results can be catastrophic.
I want to repeat what I something I said on this thread a long time ago. When a hotshot crew boss say’s it’s Easter…his hotshot crew immediately starts looking for Easter eggs, regardless of what day it actually is. That is how the system has to work or everything will fall apart all of the time, instead of just some of time. Which is probably a really hard thing for the families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots to hear because this time it fell apart in a terrible way…I’m sorry for your loss.
I meant to say, “There wasn’t anybody on that crew who was in a position NOT to go down into that valley.
So all this talk about the “turn down” is just talk, or it was written just for the crew boss to use, or what?
Everyone comes home, except in cases where the crew boss has lost his mind?
This is not the military, except it is?
I’m so confused.
No. You have it. The only reason you are confused is because the people who have to actually WORK in this more-than-pseudo-military environment for peanuts and no benefits are pretty confused, too.
They carry a book in their pockets that has the official TDWAO ( Turn Down With Alternate Option ) policy printed in big black ink.
They hear ( at Wildfire Academies and stuff ) that they are NEVER supposed to suffer reprisals for EXERCISING that policy… even if they are the ONLY ones who can see something terribly wrong and no one else does.
But then the Co-leader of the SAIT investigation ( and a high level official in the U.S. Forestry Department itself ) gets up in PUBLIC and says that anyone who EVER chooses to ‘run’ to try and save their own life rather than lie down and burn to death in aluminum baking foil is derisively referred to as a RABBIT.
So if you think YOU are confused… try being an actual Hotshot.
Darrell Willis told ADOSH the reason WHY Eric Marsh fired the previous GM Caption ( who was replaced by Jesse Steed ).
It was over Hotel points being accumulated on his credit card, even when the City of Prescott didn’t even HAVE an account or card set up whereby they City of Prescott could earn ‘Hotel Points’.
Because of THAT one, stupid, silly thing… Marsh told Willis he could no longer ‘trust’ him and he won’t work with anyone he doesn’t trust.
So if ANYONE things that wasn’t a ‘job threatening’ moment for Captain Jesse Steed when he DARED to disagree with Eric Marsh over the radio on June 30, 2013… think again.
Even though he finally agreed to ‘take the risk’ ( and thereby committed his OWN negligence as a supervisor that day )… Steed might still have been wondering all the way down how he was going to tell his wife that he had already probably just lost his chance at ever becoming GMIHCS ( at the least ) or had probably already just lost his job with the Prescott Fire Department ( at the worst ).
If the ‘wrongful death’ suits DO end up going to trial, however, the cards are already dealt as to how both sets of attorneys will need to ‘play’ the decison making process.
The Arizona Forestry attorneys will be spewing the same kind of bullshit that our own ‘counselor’ continues to do here on this forum. It will be full of “other people would have done the same thing so it can’t be considered negligence” crap or “if they took the walk that means they automatically didn’t think they were in any danger” horse manure.
The plaintiff’s attorneys will be focusing on the whole ‘more-than-psuedo military’ style culture and the fear of ‘consequences’ ( even though there aren’t supposed to be any ) for ‘disobeying a direct order’.
The JURY ( who will be non-firefighters ) will be the ones to decide whether knowingly risking the lives of others because you are afraid to lose your job ( on BOTH Marsh’s and Steed’s part ) is ‘gross negligence’…. or not.
This SO reminds me of the whole South Canyon Anniversary “Let’s all talk about stuff” PR campaign the USFS threw out there last early summer. With the awesome video and all.
While Brian Frisby and the Blue Ridge Hotshots were heading into wildfire season still under a GAG ORDER that they’re STILL UNDER.
And Brian’s mom describing the PTSD that Brian was in BECAUSE OF THAT, while heading a crew that was FIGHTING WILDFIRES.
Oh yeah, USFS, tell me all about how SAFETY FIRST is the FIRST priority.
You betcha!!!!!!!
With any luck… someone who is doing ‘followup’ reporting on Friday’s AZCENTRAL article will drive to Prescott Station 7 TODAY ( Monday ) and ask to speak with former BR Hotshot Ronald Gamble.
I don’t think he was one of the three BR Hotshots that was helping to move the GM Carriers ( since his own YARNELL-GAMBLE video shows him sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the BR Carriers… and not one of the GM Carriers )… but I will bet a fin to a sawbuck Ronald Gamble also knows more than he has ever either ‘told’ OR even been ‘asked’.
If FORMER U.S. Forestry (temporary) employee Ronald Gamble himself actually says “I’m still under orders not to talk about Yarnell”… THAT, itself, is another STORY unto itself that needs to be pursued and published.
Not to mention whatever else Ronnie Gamble may have (WINK WINK COUGH COUGH)
heard.
Mike,
Again, Google heuristics. Then think about a simple hiking group, which is not intended to be death-defying.. Particularly once that group gets above 5, you have 1 or 2 leaders appointed, informally or formally, and unless they are asking people to play Russian Roulette they generally are deferred to. Many hiking accidents happen exactly this way, even though group members may all be experienced and even though many may with hindsight admit to some concern over a decision to, for instance, bushwhack.
Add work as a factor. Add a group of people used over a period of years to who the leaders are and who the followers are. Add a culture where being wimpy is more a liability than it would be in an office job. Given that, it is not at all surprising that everyone deferred to the leaders of the group.
And again, go back to Dudley’s video and his disdain for “rabbits.”
SR –
I understand your point when it comes to much of the crew. But Jesse Steed was an experienced hotshot being groomed to be a crew super. From all accounts, he was highly respected by the crew. He apparently was highly bothered by what Marsh wanted him to do – so much so he got into an argument presumably heard by other crew members. He was the acting super of the GMHS – the safety of those men around him was his direct responsibility. It is never good when the crew overhead gets into a fight, especially in front of the crew, and it should be avoided as much as possible. But in matters of safety, sometimes it is impossible to avoid an ugly situation. The idea that someone like Jesse Steed had to acquiesce to an order he felt was dangerous is dangerous in of itself, This is not the military – people like Marsh do not have the right to order people to die, or even to take outsized risks. All this preaching about situational awareness – why bother if the crew boss is going to do all the thinking. I wish Jesse Steed had said “hell, no”. Maybe he would have lost his job, maybe not. But 19 men, including Eric Marsh, would be alive.
I really appreciate your writing this.
And it’s related to my saying that Shakespeare could have written this fire.
Seriously.
There’s this machine. And there are these people. And, when push comes to shove, this machine lives on. No matter what happens to these people.
This machine brands itself with a cheap Logo that says, “Safety First.”
And yet, all we are seeing is the direct opposite of that.
This machine says in all of its PR that YOU the individual fire-fighter have both the freedom and RESPONSIBILITY to say No.
I saw that today on the “Wildland Fire Leadership” website.
From their Friday, March 27, 2015 posting:
“Do You Have the Courage to Choose the Difficult Right?”
http://wildlandfireleadership.blogspot.com/2015/03/do-you-have-courage-to-choose-difficult.html
“Choosing the difficult right over the easy wrong takes a lot of courage. However, research shows that “situational pressure leads to ethical fading.” Good leaders must have the moral courage to do the right thing in challenging situations.”
And, on the other hand we have the obvious reality that Gary Olson et al have described that, in fact, in this USFS-driven culture, countering one’s superiors is, in most cases, grounds for, at the least serious derision, and, at the most, grounds for losing your job and your career.
This kind of dove-tails into what I wrote to TTWARE, that I understood his cynicism but, as someone who had to both understand and fight with the PATRIARCHAL bureaucratic institutions I had to deal with (for 35 years), I couldn’t just sit back and accept all the BS they were putting up.
There is really a HUGE cognitive dissonance here.
The fact that Jesse Steed perceived (whether it was while they were sitting in the safe black or whether it was at the saddle above the explosively fuel-fillled chimney-bowl) that moving from a relatively safe place into a relatively seriously dangerous place………
…….and could have been over-ridden by this whole SYSTEM……
……….and that Gary and WTKTT et al are saying that, all things considered (given the way this whole SYSTEM works) that’s the nature of these things………
…….especially given the whole entire mismanagement of this fire………..
…………….SHOUTS to me that there is a HUGE problem with this whole system that needs to be………..
…………AHEM
………..ADDRESSED.
Along with a whole bunch of other things, which I have written ad nauseum about.
I keep saying LOOK UP!!!
I have said that about this entire fire.
You are saying that about this entire system.
And I totally agree.
The evidence provided here that Jesse Steed couldn’t say “no” is in my opinion, an indictment against this whole entire system.
And I totally get that there are serious reasons why the machinery needs to work, for the most part, in a way such that when orders need to be obeyed they need to be obeyed.
When I was raising my daughter, my general policy was that I wanted her input into all of our decisions, in the interest and value of the reasons for democracy.
But there were exceptions to that. The exceptions came when there was time-pressure to make decisions as quickly and efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. So I get all of that.
HOWEVER.
It seems to me that when an Assistant Superintendent of a friggin’ Federal Interagency Hotshot Crew (with all that that entails regarding creds and experience) senses that what he is being asked to lead that Crew into is possibly seriously dangerous, how can it be just accepted to be OK that he just has to “get along to go along” when that whole way of thinking leads to him and his crew and his superior getting themselves killed?????
Something really needs to give here.
P.S. And after 32 years in resource land management in the southwest working for the Prescott, the Coconino and the Santa Fe National Forests in addition to the BLM New Mexico State Office, the BLM Arizona State Office and the BLM Washington Office of Law Enforcement & Security (in Prescott, Flagstaff, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Farmington and back to Phoenix) retiring as a Senior Special Agent, Supervisory Criminal Investigator. EVERYBODY THAT IS ANYBODY in resource management in the southwest knows me or knows about me. Especially since I continued with my interest in wildfire even after moving into law enforcement as the Chief Law Enforcement Officer on the Santa Fe National Forest by becoming a certified Wildland Arson Investigator.
And FYI, I have far more enemies and detractors than I do friends or supporters…it went with the job descriptions I had, nobody ever paid me to make friends and build a long Christmas card list. I’m sure if you look you could find plenty of oppo research on me…in fact, I am a little surprised none has been volunteered yet (at least that I know of). I am not afraid to let my resume speak for me and if somebody doesn’t like it, they can kiss my ass. This thread isn’t about making friends either…it’s about finding out why 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots…my brothers…died very horrific and untimely deaths.
I forgot to ask you do you know Chuck Mook, A really old friend of mine from the Angeles NF
He was FS Law Enforcement out of Phoenix.
Yes, but I knew him as Charlie, worked a lot of ARPA cases. Charlie was the Zone Special Agent (Tonto, Prescott, Coronado National Forests) out of Phoenix while I was the Chief LEO on the Santa Fe but I worked with him on some region wide marijuana eradication and border ops. Good guy…died of a heart attack and ran his G ride through a restaurant with a big plate glass window about McDowell Street and 16th Street in Phoenix if I remember right. If I don’t remember right…that’s OK, there’s a lot of stories floating around inside my head. And some people say they get better every time I tell them!
Dam Did not know that the last time I saw him was the Late 80s. When we were down visiting My Mom and Dad in sun city. (Dad as in Step Father)
He also was A hot Shot From the Redding Hot Shots the Year they Lost 4 In a Helicopter Crash he was one of the Squad bosses on a Year detail.
Thanks
I didn’t even know Charlie was a hotshot. Yes, and he wasn’t that old, I want to say early 50’s. It was a long time ago.
Yes he was about 2 years younger than me so would have been 50
in 96 or so.
We spent 3 years working on adjoining Patrol units and three winters
going for a week to Northern California Goose and Duck Hunting,
Then a it seems in the FS we transferred to different areas and lost contact. He was a great guy. thanks for the info
Elizabeth – I am getting backlogged on my arguments with you, it’s a good thing I am retired. I will work on a detailed response but in the meantime, no…I did not say you were defending Daryl Willis I was just pointing out that NOBODY has defended Daryl Willis that I know of, which I find really strange, there should be dozens if not hundreds. I’m sure that fact has left a very bitter taste in his mouth, he thought he had more friends.
OK…you got me. I did not specifically say Fred was a squared away firefighter and a good crew boss, but I thought I did since that is what I think of him and I am saying it now, although I don’t like to say bad things about any former hotshot, even though I disagree with them on some things. You see…I know what it takes to be a hotshot and anybody who had been there and done that is OK in my book (except for maybe that little shit Brendan…I am starting to have my doubts about him) that is why I am having such a hard time being critical of Eric Marsh and why I have tried so hard to excuse what happened.
Here are the emails I have on file regarding Fred…if you have others, please feel free to post them. And by the way, saying he is really fucking smart and lasted a long time as a hotshot crew boss in an agency and a business where they eat their young and kill off the sick and wounded…is the same thing as saying he was a squared away wildland firefighter and a good hotshot crew boss.
FYI – Pertinent email excerpts regarding Fred:
Yes, I know him, he is the former Payson Hotshot Crew Boss. I will read your email in detail and then send another reply. The most interesting thing I know about him is that he learned how to speak and write Navajo, which as you may or may not know is a really, really, really, hard thing to do.
Oh, and one more thing, Fred has got to be retired now, I think he is more my age. Maybe he is still going out as a pick-up overhead, like Roy Hall and Paul Musser was doing for the state. Fred was really into being a hotshot for a really long time, although he may have ended up as an AFMO or FMO, but I don’t think he ever left the Tonto National Forest and maybe didn’t even leave Payson.
P.S., my guess about who RTS to you is was right on the money except he is older than I thought he was. The northern boundaries of the Tonto N.F. are up against the southern end of the Prescott N.F. in many places. And Fred is really connected to the hotshot world, much more so than I was, especially since I left Arizona in 1981 and the USFS in 1988.
FYI…Fred and were not friends, but our circles overlapped a few times on fires for brief conversations although I can’t remember any right now. It is more like we knew about each other because of our positions. I’m pretty sure he was a crew boss for me and I am sure he was a crew boss long, long, after I was. The hotshot crew boss job wasn’t as far advanced back in my day as it is now. Back then they just treated us like mushrooms for the most part.
Gary— he also worked for me his first year 1973 Oak Grove Hot Shots.
right on, and by they treated us like mushrooms, they fed us bullshit and kept us in the dark or on an airport tarmac, in a high school gym or in a National Guard Armory going from Point A to Point B to fight fire. I think the hotshot crew boss job is a lot more advanced than it was in my day, I think they actually ask those guy’s about what they think once in a while. Can you imagine that?
When you need to know we’ll let you know—-
Fred Schoeffler? I remember Fred from the old days when we were both hotshot crew bosses on neighboring forests where our districts butted up against each other. I remember Fred as a squared away wildland firefighter who was a good hotshot crew boss.
In fact, that is EXACTLY what I told Elizabeth more than a year ago in an email when she emailed me and asked if I knew Fred and what I thought of him if I did? I wonder how much other favorable information Elizabeth is withholding from us while she tries to dish up dirt on a guy who has been there and made it back again to talk about it from her stable of anonymous or semi-anonymous informants?
I think Elizabeth should look up “exculpatory evidence” in one of her law books, or in case that is too much trouble, here is a quick definition from Wikipedia, which is normally good enough for government work.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exculpatory_evidence
This is what unethical attorneys withhold from the other side when they are trying to win an argument in an unethical manner which is against all of the rules attorney are supposed to govern themselves by.
FYI – Do any of you think it is strange that NOT ONE wildland firefighter (at least that I know about)has spoken up and either seconded or defended Daryl Willis’ outrageous claims regarding how hand crews should be used mixed in with all of the God, Guts and Glory stuff we are supposed to believe sane structural firefighters live by according to him?
How many people in the wildland firefighting community from the fire management end do you think Willis knows personally and has worked with over the past 20 years in his various job titles? Hundreds? Thousands? Where are his friends and supporters to defend his assertion the Granite Mountain Hotshots died as part of a greater plan God had them and therefore they did not die as a direct result of poor fire management and reckless decisions?
I’m glad most of the families are not going there because it is hard enough to sue the Arizona State Forestry, much less sue God…right?
Gary, I am not trying to defend Darrell Willis. Where are you getting that from?
Also, are you suggesting that I am trying to say that everyone says that Fred Schoeffler was bad at what he did? I certainly never said such a thing! So what exactly are you thinking that I am saying about Fred, other than the fact that he has made up MULTIPLE anonymous names to use here to try to pretend that he is MULTIPLE unrelated people, to make it seem like MULTIPLE unrelated people agree with his ideas and opinions, which, in my opinion, is a SHITTY thing to do when he is specifically saying inflammatory things that are often inaccurate about people who are not here to defend themselves?
(In an unrelated vein, Gary, do I have your permission to share the e-mails that you sent me regarding Fred, since you yourself are disclosing them here? I would never do it without your permission.)
Once again, the counselor spreads some more of her sweet, runny, bullshit.
I can’t believe you folks continue to bite.
They call me Fred. 🙂
You Might ask your self how many have blocked her from E-mail.
My last count was 4 and that is just who I know.
Well, it’s been kind of hard for me to keep track, but the counselor has pulled it all together in some comments down below.
Apparently, EVERYONE COMMENTING ON THIS SITE except for Rocksteady and Bob, is ACTUALLY Fred.
For anyone out there keeping score, according to EN, there have ACTUALLY only been only four distinct commenters here for the past few months.
It’s so nice to have cleared that up!
One of the Freds
I confess.
EN has never accused me of being Fred.
But that’s just because I am such a BRILLIANT MASTER of disguising myself.
🙂
Are we a gang yet?
And I totally agree about not biting.
My apologies for leaving Marti and Gary off of the counselor’s not-Fred list.
To make it easier, just call me Fred too. 🙂
What a simple solution!
OOps I should have put this here:
Are we a gang yet?
To avoid this post getting lost, I want to drag it back up here to the top:
Anyone can sue anyone for anything. The question is whether a particular lawsuit or claim is likely to be a winner. Here’s the problem with trying to pin the whole YHF tragedy and 19 deaths on Eric Marsh: 18 other guys, including at least roughly 12 with some experience, WENT ALONG WITH Eric’s alleged order, which suggests that the other senior, experienced members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots ALSO did not see any irrational level of risk with what they were doing that fateful afternoon.
Meaning: what Eric allegedly “ordered” the guys to do in leaving the dirty black struck at least the senior guys as REASONABLE at the time, or else they would have refused, because NOBODY was looking to die that day. If Eric’s alleged “order” struck senior hotshots as NOT IRRATIONAL, such that they did as asked and did not instead go over the other side of the ridge line as Fred Schoeffler keeps trying to say that they should have done, how can anyone successfully argue that Eric’s alleged order constituted an irrationally dangerous “rogue” order or action?
Meaning, how can something that other senior hotshots viewed as “reasonable” at the time, under the conditions then-existing, honestly be viewed by folks who WERE NOT THERE as irrationally dangerous or rogue? (For those who are asking how I know that the senior members of the GM IHC viewed the move to the BSR as “reasonable,” my answer is the obvious one: Because they DID IT, and senior hotshots tend not to do things that they believe are insanely and irrationally dangerous and likely to get them and their squads killed.)
If there was an “order” – we have been told this would be unusual – someone almost by definition was objecting. Otherwise – why the order? It would be assumed that Steed was objecting – which is the narrative laid out in the article. Any conversations between Steed and the rest of the crew will probably remain unknown forever.
Mike, are you saying that Steed would have to accept the “order,” even if he thought it was insanely dangerous? (If that is not what you are saying, then why does it matter whether it was an “order” or an “instruction” or a “direction” or a “strong suggestion”?)
According to my WFF friends, that is just now how hotshot crews work these days. If Steed and someone like Norris or Caldwell or Ashcraft thought it was insanely dangerous, they would have said “no,” regardless of whether it was an “order” or a “suggestion,” because, again, nobody was looking to die that day.
Elizabeth, you are a smart person. But you are being too black and white here. The occurrence of an order indications someone (Steed) was objecting – reportedly on the basis that the idea was unsafe. But when given an order, Steed had a choice to make Was the order so unsafe that he could disobey it? This was not just some run of the mill overhead – this was his direct superior who he had to work with every day. Who could fire him, or make his life difficult. In the end, he decided, for whatever reason, to obey it. It was a deadly mistake. I am sure Steed was not happy about being put in that spot. His obeying the order does not mean he was comfortable with it or thought it was truly safe.
Marsh said they could beat the train, Steed said they could not, Marsh said sure you can, Steed said he wasn’t comfortable. Finally Marsh said, I am the boss and you WILL beat the train.
They tried, unfortunately the train was going faster than they thought.
Most times you can beat the train, but under the extreme fire behaviour and fire weather conditions, they lost to the locomotive.
And THAT ‘decision making’ process by 2 men, on behalf of the other 17 who they were supposed to bring home safely… is called “gross negligence”.
That is ALL that has to be proved in order for the plaintiffs to prevail in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
Rocksteady –
It might just be semantics and a small point, but I would hate to believe that Steed thought they would not make it and then obeyed Marsh. He may have thought they would make it, but just thought the idea of going into that canyon, with the increasing fire, the unstable weather and poor eyes on the fire was a very bad idea – raise the hair on your neck thing. He should have stuck to his guns in any case, but if he really thought they would not make it, there should have been no question – he had to stay put. He allegedly later said they were not going to make it – but that was well into the descent I think.
You get it, you hit the nail on the head, use whatever metaphor suits you, right on!
They knew the train was the te, but underestimated it’s speed.
Its been 20 years since wff have been killed due to a fire train wreck.
They did not know when they launched off the hill that they would pay for it with their lives.
So, in response to Liz, they did not consider it irrational, as they did not have all of the data to process.
Fire behaviour, rate of spread, distance thru the green, speed they could travel, etc.
Back to the 10 and 18, if you don’t know, DON’T GO!!!!
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on April 5, 2015 at 5:47 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> According to my WFF friends, that is just now how hotshot
>> crews work these days.
It doesn’t matter what the hell your “Hotshot friends” think or how “hotshot crews work these days”.
As far as the pending/active ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits go… it ONLY matters what happened on the afternoon of June 30, 2013… and what a JURY is going to think with regards to whether there was ‘gross negligence’ involved in the deaths of those men.
From the AZCENTRAL article…
AZCENTRAL
Article Title: NEW ACCOUNT OF HOTSHOT DEATHS
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
————————————————————————–
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.
—————————————————————–
YOU are the one who keeps ‘inventing’ ( and repeating ) the term “insanely dangerous”.
That is not what has been reported.
THIS is what is ACTUALLY being reported…
1) Steed thought it was ‘dangerous’ ( Sic: RISKY. No ‘insane’ word used ).
2) His Supervisor Marsh refused to take “no” for an answer.
3) Argument ensued.
4) Steed still did NOT want to go down.
5) His Supervisor STILL refused to take “no” for an answer.
6) Continued ‘objections’ WERE made.
7) Eric Marsh continued to pay no attention to his Captain’s wishes.
8) Marsh gave a direct ORDER to ‘take the risk’. and ‘come down’.
9) Steed agreed to ‘take the risk’ but still said it was a ‘bad idea’.
Got news for ya, counselor.
If even HALF of what is now being reported is TRUE… it is still a TEXTBOOK definition of ‘gross negligence’ on BOTH Eric Marsh’s and Jesse Steed’s part.
Like I said before… I think the JURY will only be ‘out’ on the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuit cases for about an hour.
And since ‘counselor’ seems to think people can’t even scroll down 1 or 2 pages… here are my original comments to the same ‘word for word’ post so they don’t get ‘lost’, either.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on April 5, 2015 at 11:52 am
>> counselor said…
>>
>> If there is something I am missing, tell me. I’m happy to hear it.
A clue?
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Anyone can sue anyone for anything. The question is whether a particular
>> lawsuit or claim is likely to be a winner.
What is YOUR definition of ‘winning’, counselor?
Sometimes civil actions are filed just for the sake of making sure the TRUTH comes out.
The families have already stated over and over that even the existing ‘wrongful death’ suits in the civil arena have NOTHING to do with MONEY.
They are seeking (quote) “The TRUTH, accountability, and change”.
If ANY of them feel ( based on past, current, or new information that might arise ) that filing other suits will lead to some people finally having to “tell the truth” as part of the proceedings in that case… then that might easily be ENOUGH of a reason to file.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Here’s the problem with trying to pin the whole thing on Eric Marsh:
loquetur et plane, counselor. ( Speak clearly ).
What do you mean by ‘the whole thing’?
The currently active ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits involve the ENTIRE mismanagement of the Yarnell Hill Fire… from the moment it began until the moment 19 lives were lost BECAUSE of that ‘chain of mismanagement’. and poor decision making.
It is not even POSSIBLE to ‘pin the whole thing’ on Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed, or any other single individual. This is clearly stated in the filings of the wrongful death lawsuits.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> 18 other friggin’ guys, including at least roughly 12 with some experience,
>> WENT ALONG WITH Eric’s alleged order.
When you stopped by the afterlife and conducted your interviews with them… did any of them say they were off taking a piss and did not even KNOW there was an ‘order’?
Did ALL of them even KNOW what ‘the plan’ really was… or what the route was supposed to be… in order to either ‘go along’ or not?
The mere fact that they are DEAD does NOT mean they were ALL fully advised of the situation they were being asked to participate in.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> This means that none of the senior, experienced members of the Granite Mountain
>> Hotshots perceived any irrational level of risk either.
Again… check your notes from your afterlife interview sessions?
Are you SURE you are reading them correctly?
That NONE of them were ‘perceiving irrational risk’… regardless of whether they also decided to keep their mouths shut and keep their jobs?
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> This means that what Eric allegedly asked the guys to do
Bzzzzt. WRONG. Eric did not ‘ask the guys’. No friggin’ way.
Eric Marsh only had ‘one guy’ to ask/order. That was Captain Jesse Steed.
How much ANY of the ‘others’ overheard, or were told, or even KNEW about what the hell was going on that afternoon and what their workplace supervisors were ‘deciding’ FOR them is ( and will probably remain ) a total mystery.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> struck them as REASONABLE at the time, or else they would have refused.
You are ASSUMING an awful lot there, counselor.
Including ( but not limited to ) that they were all fully AWARE of the planned route BEFORE agreeing to leave the black.
NONE of ‘those men’ were even given any maps. ( See ADOSH report/citations ).
We have no idea how many of them knew what a “Boulder Springs Ranch” was, WHERE it was, or how to get there.
They were TRUSTING their ‘managers’ to make the right decisions to keep them safe.
That TRUST was misplaced.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> because, again, NOBODY was looking to die that day.
That’s about the only thing in this latest post of yours I’m going to agree with.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> If Eric’s alleged “order” struck at least 12 or so other hotshots as NOT IRRATIONAL
Again… check your afterlife interview notes. Make sure you talked to ALL of them.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> such that they followed his alleged order
If they were all even AWARE there was an actual ‘order’ given ( if it even WAS given )…. the prevalent MILITARY-STYLE culture has to be factored in here to answer even your own musings.
Many a soldier has muttered “He’s out of his fucking mind”… but gone ahead and done what they were being told, anyway.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> how can anyone successfully argue that Eric’s alleged order constituted
>> an irrationally dangerous “rogue” order or action?
Because that isn’t what has to be ‘successfully argued.
All a jury has to do in order to find for the ‘plaintiffs’ in the currently active ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits is decide that there is sufficient evidence that their deaths… in THAT workplace… on THAT workday… were the direct result of ‘gross negligence’ on the part of their supervisors/employers.
Gross negligence is (quote) “a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or both”.
The ADOSH investigation has ALREADY proven there was all kinds of ‘gross negligence’ going on in that workplace that day. To actually find out ( for sure ) that even MORE of it was going on out in that box canyon is going to just be ‘piling on’.
It’s actually going to be a ‘fast jury’ on this one.
I would imagine they will only deliberate for about an hour.
And if Arizona Forestry even thinks they can throw Eric Marsh ( alone ) under any kind of moving vehicle… they better have a damn good pitching arm.
** BEGIN NEW COMMENTS FOR NEW TEXT
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Meaning, how can something that other senior hotshots viewed
>> as “reasonable” at the time, under the conditions then-existing,
>> honestly be viewed by folks who WERE NOT THERE as irrationally
>> dangerous or rogue?
Easy. Bring in OTHER people who will testify to the OPPOSITE…. that THEY would NEVER have attempted THAT risky move… at THAT time… under THOSE conditions… on THAT day.
There are PLENTY of them. Probably WAAAY more than whoever it is YOU are referring to.
Besides… it isn’t ‘other experienced Hotshots’ that the attorneys will have to convince what ‘reasonable’ or ‘unreasonable’ decisions were that day.
It’s a JURY ( E.g. People who don’t fight fires for a living ).
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> (For those who are asking how I know that the senior members of
>> the GM IHC viewed the move to the BSR as “reasonable,” my answer
>> is the obvious one: Because they DID IT, and senior hotshots tend
>> not to do things that they believe are insanely and irrationally
>> dangerous and likely to get them and their squads killed.)
Good luck with THAT argument in court.
Be sure to bring your ‘afterlife interviews’ transcripts with ALL of the men that died.
They will need to be admitted as evidence if you even try to make THAT argument.
Don’t forget the part of EACH transcript of EACH interview with ALL of the men where they clearly state WHAT they knew, WHEN they knew it, and how they each personally decided to keep their jobs rather than challenge the decisions of the people they were TRUSTING to keep them from getting killed.
Even if the Judge rules that your ‘afterlife interviews’ are inadmissible as evidence… it will certainly make for good reading.
Presumably Paul Musser, Bucky Yowell, and True Brown would all testify, if asked, that the fire moved far far far faster than they anticipated between 4:24 and 4:37 p.m.
Presumably all three men would testify that they would have wanted to be out of that area a bit sooner, if possible, than they were ultimately able to get out.
Presumably the jury would hear Aaron Hulburd’s video in which he yells “WE NEED TO GET THEM ALL OUT OF HERE…. WE NEED TO GET THEM OUT!!” (or something like that – I am quoting from memory) which shows that MULTIPLE WFF professionals were caught off-guard with how fast everything changed. (And presumably the video clip in which one of the most senior WFFs on the fire says, as GM is making their move, “things are changing pretty fast” will speak for itself, no?)
Reply to Elizabeth ( counselor ) post on April 5, 2015 at 5:56 pm
And the point of your NEW ‘tangent’ would be?
EVERYTHING you just listed above can ALSO be attributed to ‘gross negligence’ in that workplace that day ( and, indeed, has already been established by the ADOSH report ).
The fact that a new article from AZCENTRAL is now ALSO providing a possible glimpse into the other ‘gross negligence’ that was going on out on the WESTERN side of the fire ( not the EAST side as you keep harping on ) is really nothing but ‘piling on’ at this point.
The more you keep REMINDING us of all the other ‘negligence’ that was going on there on that EAST side of the fire as well… I’m about to reduce my best ‘guesstimate’ as to how the long the JURY will be ‘out’ in the ‘wrongful death’ suits to more like only 30 or 40 minutes.
EN has taken her long-running ‘Theater of the Absurd’ to a new and very appalling low. What we now have is the ‘Theater of the Reprehensible’ wherein she unconscionably capitalizes on the fact that there are 18 deceased individuals who have NO opportunity to step up and dispute her recent claims that she knows all about what they were thinking, and all about what they were perceiving, and she can therefore put the blame on them for doing what they were told to do.
If nobody else here is going to say it, I will. Those 18 firefighters don’t deserve this treatment. It’s an outrage.
If that cross fade video by WTKTT shows anything at all, it reveals that the rank and file on this crew were done a horrible injustice on that day in being coerced to leave that ridge. And, now, more than a year and a half later, EN is making sure that horrible injustice is not over yet. She is clearly on a campaign to blame-the-victims.
I realize that there must surely be some fatigue on the part of more than just a few of you here, after tirelessly pushing back against EN’s endless parade of falsehoods all this time. I’m tired of reading it, so I can visualize just how tired you must be of submitting the much-needed debunking and rebuttals. But somebody has got to do it. EN does not have the right to speak for those 18 firefighters. Not now, not ever.
For someone who does seem to have gone to college and then has had this event as one of her main focuses for some time, EN seems oddly disinclined to learn anything about heuristics. I would say that, were Marsh to have been standing there with 12 peers who were equally or more experienced and equal or higher in perceived (or actual) rank to Marsh, she would have a point. But that’s not the case. It’s not surprising at all that the whole crew went along. Moreover, per Dudley’s “rabbits” comment, had any of them bailed, I fully expect that they would have been subject to a great deal of negative scrutiny afterwards.
Kind of like the free range chicken in stead of pictures— no matter what she just keeps disagreeing. Some one else’s turn to explain the facts of life.
I am about wore out—– I am sure WTKTT is getting close but then he has better comebacks than me.
Gotta love that chicken.
He Just. Keeps. Sending. Pictures.
We already learned that J. Stout = Fred Schoeffler and SR = Fred Schoeffler, right? Fred keeps making up different names to use on this blog to stalk me, right? I think someone either on this blog or another one already proved that….
So, Fred Schoeffler, stop stalking me.
Oh MY GOD ARE you Insane??????????????
Bob, you realize “anonymous posters” on here can be identified by IP addresses, right? 🙂
Say what you will Neither are Fred.
You are delirious.
And are you going to say that “seymour” and mike and TTWARE and Robert-the-Second are NOT Fred Schoeffler as well, Bob? 😉 🙂
YES, YES, YES and any thing is possible????????
Anyone can sue anyone for anything. The question is whether a particular lawsuit or claim is likely to be a winner.
Here’s the problem with trying to pin the whole thing on Eric Marsh: 18 other friggin’ guys, including at least roughly 12 with some experience, WENT ALONG WITH Eric’s alleged order. This means that none of the senior, experienced members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots perceived any irrational level of risk either.
This means that what Eric allegedly asked the guys to do struck them as REASONABLE at the time, or else they would have refused, because, again, NOBODY was looking to die that day. If Eric’s alleged “order” struck at least 12 or so other hotshots as NOT IRRATIONAL, such that they followed his alleged order, how can anyone successfully argue that Eric’s alleged order constituted an irrationally dangerous “rogue” order or action?
If there is something I am missing, tell me. I’m happy to hear it. Otherwise, I am just not seeing what the lawyers on this board – like Bob Powers 🙂 – are seeing.
As I said the Case Files are out there look it up or shut up—–
I am not seeing any thing where ever that came from?
In a court of law you are still at the mercy of the JURY–
Spend some time in a little research, Your the Professor.
Bob, name *ONE* case in which a Hotshot sup was held liable for what you are alleging Marsh did. Name ONE case…. (Not surprisingly, you will not be able to do so.)
And what does this mean: “I am not seeing any thing where ever that came from?” What are you trying to say?
First I can not name the cases I have seen 2. in the past 10 years. And there are more. I do not remember the names of the fires.
Second I never said a Superintendent—- I said Crew Bosses and Higher Supervisors including Engine Capt.
as such Marsh as a DIVS or Steed as a Crew Leader or Marsh as the Supervisor
of GM. All are with in the realm of Law Suits. or Identified as the decision makers. From what I saw on one case the Crew Boss Was held responsible be cause he was the supervisor of the crew and the crew had no responsibility to over ride his decisions based on the court.
Last Your statement above—Like Bob Powers are seeing.
Every time I say something you are trying to make an argument.
I am thru with you games. .Ask all you want— some one else can try to discuss facts with you. I’m Thru after yesterday and today.
Bob said:
“From what I saw on one case the Crew Boss Was held responsible be cause he was the supervisor of the crew and the crew had no responsibility to over ride his decisions based on the court.”
Bob, that is different than what allegedly happened with Eric Marsh. Marsh wasn’t even WITH the crew, according to your story and that of the AZ Republic. So *STEED* was in charge. Nobody *HAD* to do what Eric Marsh said.
After all this time and all the discussion on how HS Crews are run.
ARE YOU SERIOUS?????????????
Marsh Hired and Fired– Steed worked for Marsh he did what he was told as did the crew. Steed was a temporary supervisor for the day
He wanted Marshes Job would he say no when pressed? If Steed maid an attempt at an argument the facts say he gave in.
That is more than I wanted to say to you– but you do not know what you are talking about———-
Bob, you honestly think that 18 guys knowingly walked to their death? Honestly? Every single one of those guys had the right to say “no,” and they didn’t – the senior ones knew enough to say “no,” even if the newer ones might not have been comfortable with such.
On the Clear Creek Fire, your pal Fred Schoeffler wanted his assistant or squad bosses to keep fighting fire AFTER they had decided they were no longer comfortable doing so, and the assistant or squad bosses basically gave Fred the metaphorical middle finger and moved to the black regardless of Fred’s view. That didn’t harm the careers of any of them. For example, Mike Shinstock (who was one of the senior guys under Fred on the Clear Creek Fire, if I recall correctly) ultimately became the Supt. of the Payson Hotshots after Fred was finally out. So senior guys on hotshot crews will absolutely disobey orders or push back if they feel like a Supt. is making unsafe demands. (On the Clear Creek Fire, based on what I was told, I believe Fred ranted while the guys were in or moving to the black, saying something on their crew net like “AM I GOING TO BE THE ONLY ONE OUT HERE FIGHTING FIRE????” Yes, Fred, you are. 🙂 )
And That was proven wrong by another Superintendent that was there. Again your sources are not creditable.
that is the proven fact .
What you were told by who ever is false but that has been prove with names not ghost bloggers.
Find something new to talk about and quite attacking those on here you disagree with.
What are you talking about, Bob? The story about Fred standing in the unburned fuel yelling at his guys about “AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO IS GOING TO BE OUT HERE FIGHTING FIRE” was never disproven! Mike Shinstock or Mike Heron or one of the other Payson guys who was there that day and ON Fred’s intra-net (which he apparently favored, so that he could talk/yell privately to his guys) can corroborate the story (although I might be getting Fred Schoeffler’s words slightly wrong, in terms of what he was yelling at his crew when he was pissed that they were “hunkering” in the black – the take-away, though, is that he was bitching at his guys for being in the black when he wanted them instead fighting fire, and they basically just ignored Fred without issue, at least according to the way that they tell me the story).
Again you are being fed BS ——
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on April 5, 2015 at 11:52 am
>> counselor said…
>>
>> If there is something I am missing, tell me. I’m happy to hear it.
A clue?
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Anyone can sue anyone for anything. The question is whether a particular
>> lawsuit or claim is likely to be a winner.
What is YOUR definition of ‘winning’, counselor?
Sometimes civil actions are filed just for the sake of making sure the TRUTH comes out.
The families have already stated over and over that even the existing ‘wrongful death’ suits in the civil arena have NOTHING to do with MONEY.
They are seeking (quote) “The TRUTH, accountability, and change”.
If ANY of them feel ( based on past, current, or new information that might arise ) that filing other suits will lead to some people finally having to “tell the truth” as part of the proceedings in that case… then that might easily be ENOUGH of a reason to file.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Here’s the problem with trying to pin the whole thing on Eric Marsh:
loquetur et plane, counselor. ( Speak clearly ).
What do you mean by ‘the whole thing’?
The currently active ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits involve the ENTIRE mismanagement of the Yarnell Hill Fire… from the moment it began until the moment 19 lives were lost BECAUSE of that ‘chain of mismanagement’. and poor decision making.
It is not even POSSIBLE to ‘pin the whole thing’ on Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed, or any other single individual. This is clearly stated in the filings of the wrongful death lawsuits.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> 18 other friggin’ guys, including at least roughly 12 with some experience,
>> WENT ALONG WITH Eric’s alleged order.
When you stopped by the afterlife and conducted your interviews with them… did any of them say they were off taking a piss and did not even KNOW there was an ‘order’?
Did ALL of them even KNOW what ‘the plan’ really was… or what the route was supposed to be… in order to either ‘go along’ or not?
The mere fact that they are DEAD does NOT mean they were ALL fully advised of the situation they were being asked to participate in.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> This means that none of the senior, experienced members of the Granite Mountain
>> Hotshots perceived any irrational level of risk either.
Again… check your notes from your afterlife interview sessions?
Are you SURE you are reading them correctly?
That NONE of them were ‘perceiving irrational risk’… regardless of whether they also decided to keep their mouths shut and keep their jobs?
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> This means that what Eric allegedly asked the guys to do
Bzzzzt. WRONG. Eric did not ‘ask the guys’. No friggin’ way.
Eric Marsh only had ‘one guy’ to ask/order. That was Captain Jesse Steed.
How much ANY of the ‘others’ overheard, or were told, or even KNEW about what the hell was going on that afternoon and what their workplace supervisors were ‘deciding’ FOR them is ( and will probably remain ) a total mystery.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> struck them as REASONABLE at the time, or else they would have refused.
You are ASSUMING an awful lot there, counselor.
Including ( but not limited to ) that they were all fully AWARE of the planned route BEFORE agreeing to leave the black.
NONE of ‘those men’ were even given any maps. ( See ADOSH report/citations ).
We have no idea how many of them knew what a “Boulder Springs Ranch” was, WHERE it was, or how to get there.
They were TRUSTING their ‘managers’ to make the right decisions to keep them safe.
That TRUST was misplaced.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> because, again, NOBODY was looking to die that day.
That’s about the only thing in this latest post of yours I’m going to agree with.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> If Eric’s alleged “order” struck at least 12 or so other hotshots as NOT IRRATIONAL
Again… check your afterlife interview notes. Make sure you talked to ALL of them.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> such that they followed his alleged order
If they were all even AWARE there was an actual ‘order’ given ( if it even WAS given )…. the prevalent MILITARY-STYLE culture has to be factored in here to answer even your own musings.
Many a soldier has muttered “He’s out of his fucking mind”… but gone ahead and done what they were being told, anyway.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> how can anyone successfully argue that Eric’s alleged order constituted
>> an irrationally dangerous “rogue” order or action?
Because that isn’t what has to be ‘successfully argued.
All a jury has to do in order to find for the ‘plaintiffs’ in the currently active ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits is decide that there is sufficient evidence that their deaths… in THAT workplace… on THAT workday… were the direct result of ‘gross negligence’ on the part of their supervisors/employers.
Gross negligence is (quote) “a conscious and voluntary disregard of the need to use reasonable care, which is likely to cause foreseeable grave injury or harm to persons, property, or both”.
The ADOSH investigation has ALREADY proven there was all kinds of ‘gross negligence’ going on in that workplace that day. To actually find out ( for sure ) that even MORE of it was going on out in that box canyon is going to just be ‘piling on’.
It’s actually going to be a ‘fast jury’ on this one.
I would imagine they will only deliberate for about an hour.
And if Arizona Forestry even thinks they can throw Eric Marsh ( alone ) under any kind of moving vehicle… they better have a damn good pitching arm.
What is the point of your last seven paragraphs? You are saying that ADOSH has to prove “gross negligence”? Or what are you trying to say?
My only point was: Even if we assume that what Fred Schoeffler and Bob Powers are trying to say that Eric Marsh did was true, how does that change the legal liability picture? How does that get the State of Arizona off the hook? I do not think that it does, but it seems like you do. How, exactly, do you think that it does? I am assuming that that is what you are trying to explain with your last seven paragraphs, but the dots are not connecting.
You Might add besides us the city of Prescott’s Lawyer, city Council, and Willis
and the list will grow—–
You are not listening and haven’t for 2 days—–
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on April 5, 2015 at 4:51 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> What is the point of your last seven paragraphs?
Nothing lofty, really.
Just pointing out ( once again ) that you are ( as usual ) completely full of shit and you don’t know what you are talking about.
It’s a boring task… but someone has to do it.
>> counselor
>>
>> You are saying that ADOSH has to prove “gross negligence”?
>> Or what are you trying to say?
Reading skills, counselor. Reading skills.
You asked a QUESTION how someone might prove something.
That ‘something’ is NOT what has to be proved ( by anyone ).
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> My only point was: Even if we assume that what
>> Fred Schoeffler and Bob Powers are trying to say
>> that Eric Marsh did was true,
So now Brendan McDonough, Darrell Willis, Jon Paladini, David Selden,
and AZCENTRAL reporters Robert Anglen, Dennis Wagner and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez are all ‘Fred’ too?
Hey… why not. Can’t ever have too many ‘Freds’ at a party, I guess.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> How does that change the legal liability picture?
It doesn’t. Not really.
>> How does that get the State of Arizona off the hook?
It doesn’t. Not really.
>> I do not think that it does, but it seems like you do.
Again… ‘Reading skills’ counselor. See other posts ( of mine ) below.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> How, exactly, do you think that it does?
I don’t. ‘think it does’. Not really.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> I am assuming that that is what you are trying to explain
>> with your last seven paragraphs, but the dots are not connecting.
ASSUMING is what you do best… so I’m not surprised.
The ‘dots’ your poor reading skills ( and/or medication levels ) don’t seem to allow you to ‘see’ are the ones pointing to the fact that I think the ARGUMENT that YOU were trying to make is nonsense… and would never stand up in court as any kind of ‘defense’ in the currently active Yarnell HIll Fire ‘wrongful death’ suits.
My 2 cents… and my opinion… but there it is ( up above ).
I wasn’t suggesting it would, WTKTT. That was my point – my point was that the AZ Republic and guys like Bob are wrong, in that, even if Eric Marsh did what they are suggesting, that is not going to take the governmental entities off the hook.
And I said way down that the question remains Marsh was a DIVS on the Fire which means he was high enough in the pecking order to also be considered a Overhead assigned by the STATE FIRE and there for part of the State overhead team and why the State was Fined and may be liable.
He also was The Superintendent of the Crew So the Lawyers will have to work that out or the Judge or a jury.
All plausible outcomes of who was responsible.
Maybe everyone else has seen this clip, I hadn’t, I was out of the loop for a few months. A friend and former hotshot just sent it to me. The following is his comment that came with the clip. I couldn’t agree more or have said it better. You did some amazing…absolutely amazing work here WTTKT. I hope this clip is used at all wildland firefighting training from here to eternity. It puts everything in perspective like nothing else has for me. Amazing work.
“This is the clip I was talking about I think they said it was taken around 1620, or about when they were standing on top ready to head down the rabbit hole. My first reaction is that I would have refused, not out of a superior knowledge of fire behavior, but out of pure pant shitting fear.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYpnPMfPmc&app=desktop
Gary… yes… my own personal ‘best estimate’ as to the time that ABC15 Chopper clip was taken is circa 4:20 PM on Sunday, June 30, 2013. That may change as I continue to work with all 35 of the video clips… but probably by no more than +/- a few minutes.
The western edge of the fireline that is clearly seen in Christopher MacKenzie’s photos and videos in the 3:50 to 3:55 PM timeframe did nothing but CONTINUE to head DIRECTLY SOUTH and towards those two little features we have come to call “Big Roundtop” and “Little Roundtop”… and also did nothing but keep PICKING UP SPEED.
Those ‘mounds’ SPLIT the western edge of the SOUTH moving fireline.
One ‘split’ then (apparently) charged up that drainage where that two-track heads up to the ridge and became the flames that ignited the ‘Descent Point’ area up on top of the saddle.
The other ‘split’ sort of raced over and AROUND “Little Bigtop” and headed DUE SOUTH straight for the mouth of the box canyon.
That is the fireline that ( apparently ) reached the mouth of the box canyon first, caught the draft into that natural ‘chimney’, and then burned WEST and killed ‘Granite Mountain’.
There is actually ‘more to come’ on this.
This was only the 18th sequential ABC15 Chopper clip shot that afternoon.
‘Air15’ was over the Yarnell fire for only 43 minutes but it was at a ‘crucial’
time ( from 3:59 PM to 4:42 PM ).
There are actually 35 clips ( 17 more following the one above ).
There is no EXIF metadata TIME or DATE information in the PUBLIC clips uploaded by ABC15 to YouTube on the night of the tragedy itself ( 8:00 PM on June 30, 2013 ).
Only the ABC15 television station has the ORIGINAL footage complete with exact TIME and DATE ( and possible GPS location ) information in the video data.
Astoundingly… NONE of this ABC15 footage was either requested or examined by TWO different ‘official’ investigations into the incident.
I fail to see how Eric Marsh ordering the guys down to the ranch – or NOT – would change legal liability for *ANY* of the governmental entities that are currently being sued. Meaning, down below someone was suggesting that maybe the State of Arizona is trying to shape the narrative to get themselves off the hook. But HOW would Eric ordering the guys down to the ranch actually get the State of Arizona (or any other governmental entity) *COMPLETELY* off the legal hook? I just don’t see it.
I know that the Arizona Republic made that suggestion in their article, but, again, I just do not see how pointing the finger at Eric would achieve that result.
Anyone?
IF it can be proven that Marsh issued an order to move the crew from a safe place and (although unintentionally) put them in harms way, the IMT, State and any other parties that are being named in the wrongful death lawsuits will then claim that it was all a rogue decision by Marsh that caused the demise of the crew and not any fault of the IMT or State. i.e.: “He acted on his own, we would never have approved that had we known!” It’s pin the liability on the donkey!
This ” IF” true gives all the parties involved a person to point the finger at basically…
Not being a lawyer, would it also not open up Marsh’s widow and estate to be sued civilly?
Also to add– A Law Professor who ask the question, should be able to answer this with a little research into court case history on fatality fires.
Crew bosses and supervisors have been found responsible and sued for the deaths in burn overs. unless higher supervisors were involved.
The Federal Lawyers do this all the time thus the need for liability Insurance.
As I have said over and over the Crew boss/Superintendent are the final responsibility.
No one above Marsh knew or discussed the move. and the old saying the buck stops there if they have that proof. we know the OPS and IC
did not know of the move.
Marsh being a DIVS. for the State may still cause a problem but he was also the crew Superintendent.
Reply to rocksteady post on April 5, 2015 at 9:23 am
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> Not being a lawyer, would it also not open up Marsh’s widow
>> and estate to be sued civilly?
Yes.
‘Wrongful death’ suits CAN be filed in civil court against ANY person or company or agency if the proof exists to justify the filing and the person filing the action has the right ‘standing’.
The right ‘standing’ for filing ‘wrongful death’ is limited to family members of the deceased.
The ‘defendant’ would have to be the ESTATE of Eric Marsh… and not Amanda Marsh herself ( or any other Marsh family member ).
It is NOT likely any of that is going to happen… but it’s legally possible.
Clarification for above regarding “proof exists to justify the filing”.
That does NOT mean you have to have full PROOF of the alleged negligence or wrongdoing.
That is what the court proceeding itself will reveal.
The ‘Right to Proceed’ that gets granted in most Civil cases is based on about the same PCRTB rules ( Probable Cause, Reason To Believe ) that criminal cases are based on.
It doesn’t even matter if some ‘defendant’ has already been found INNOCENT of any negligence or wrongdoing in an actual CRIMINAL trial ( if there was one ).
Famous example: O.J. Simpson. Found ‘innocent’ in a Criminal Trial but then found ‘guilty’ in a subsequent ‘Wrongful Death’ suit.
There is also a legal distinction here between ‘fault’ and ‘liability’.
An employer might find just about any employee to ‘point a finger at’ following an accident and say “It was THEIR FAULT”… but that does NOT, in any way, mitigate the LIABILITY on their part.
Am not sure blaming Marsh gets the state off the hook, but it would seem that they will attempt to argue that (to at least reduce their liability).
If it went down like this, one will have to wonder why Marsh was so insistent. Was he just stubborn, or was he being pressured? We have speculated ad nauseum about that, but it is a legitimate question. We hear Marsh asking about Steed’s comfort level, he does not really seem like “my way or the highway” there. But we do not know the whole conversation. Also, it would seem that at least one person realized the danger and sadly did not stick to his guns – Jesse Steed. You may think it is naïve, but when your are in a leadership position, sometimes you must be willing to be fired.
I would also suggest if the DIVS was not Marsh and someone else.
Like most Captains of IHS crews they as Steed would have refused and dealt with it latter———-
The right of refusal because of safety issues is there for Fire Fighters to use with out reprisal.
If Marsh had not been Steeds Immediate Supervisor?????????????
The fact that Marsh was made DIVSA… and the ONLY resource under his command was his own Type 1 Hotshot crew will ALWAYS be a ‘factor’ as this incident continues to be studied.
Just the fact that this meant a DIVS and his (only) IHCS could fully communicate using a PRIVATE radio channel WAS a contributing factor to the tragedy.
Even SAIT Co-Lead Mike Dudley admitted this was true when he was answering questions from that roomful of Utah firefighters on June 20, 2014.
One of them pointed out that all of the crucial communications about a DIVS deciding to abandon his Division and move ALL his resources out of it without any of that taking place over the normal TAC channels was ‘off the reservation’ and probably a major contributing factor.
Mike Dudley said… “I agree”.
Not true. I have not seen a single iota of law that would suggest that what Marsh is alleged to have done would get the government OFF the hook. Not true at all.
The Ellreese Daniels case was a *criminal* prosecution, not a civil one.
I cannot imagine what Amanda Marsh would be sued for, because Jesse Steed was the acting Supt., and he had the right – 100% – to turn down any order that he thought was unsafe. We *all* know that.
When Arizona Forestry filed all the motions for the ‘wrongful death’ suits to be dismissed way back when… they STIPULATED ( in writing ) that Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed, and ALL of the Granite Mountain Hotshots were ’employees’ of the State of Arizona Forestry Division ALL DAY on Sunday, June 30, 2013. Period.
It’s going to be really hard now ( if not impossible? ) for them to ‘punt’ in that stipulation and try to paint Eric Marsh or Jesse Steed as just ‘sub-contractors making bad decisions’.
Forgive me for not understanding, but how is your point relevant to mine (the one to which you were responding)?
Geezus. Unbelievable.
Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate such. Peace.
**
** “WE’RE NOT GOING TO MAKE IT”
Reply to mike post on April 4, 2015 at 4:31 pm
>> mike said…
>>
>> It sounds like Marsh was the first to realize the disaster
>> that was about to take place, not the crew
Maybe not.
The AZCENTRAL article specifically says that at some point… Jesse Steed called Eric Marsh on the radio and said “We’re NOT going to make it”.
That would suggest that it was, in fact, Jesse Steed who first KNEW what deep tapioca they were in.
Wherever Eric Marsh was at that time ( presumably now somewhere near the Boulder Springs Ranch )… THAT could have been the moment that Eric Marsh took off hauling-ass WEST to meet them.
Marsh might have thought, at that point, that since HE was the one who ( presumably ) had ‘marked the path’ he wanted them to take through that fuel-filled canyon with his little pink ribbons… that maybe they were ‘off course’ and if he RAN out there to meet them then HE knew where all the ‘pink ribbons’ were ( and the shortest path to the Ranch )… and MAYBE ( just maybe ) they would then be able to ‘make it’.
That original AZCENTRAL article is here…
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
From the article…
————————————————————————————-
During one of the final radio transmissions, according to the account,
Steed told Marsh the crew was not going to make it.
“That is what Darrell (Willis) told me,” Paladini said.
————————————————————————————-
What would still be ASTOUNDING would be to learn that all of this FRANTIC activity had begun to take place out there in that canyon… but NO ONE ( Not Marsh, not Steed ) ( apparently? ) thought to even inform anyone ELSE in ‘fire command’ about the developing predicament.
When we FIRST hear Jesse Steed FINALLY giving ANY indication of trouble ( at 1639 ) over the A2G channel… we can ALREADY hear at least two chainsaws running. That is why Jesse was SHOUTING that first “We are in front of the flaming front” MAYDAY call. It was as much so he could hear himself speaking as it was to get the message across.
So they had ALREADY done all of the following by then ( 1639 )…
1) Realized they were in deep shit.( When? )
2) Considered ALL their options. ( For how long? )
3) Decided to DEPLOY.
4) LOCATED a deployment site. ( How long did that take? )
5) Pulled ropes on chainsaws to start improving the chosen site.
6) Decided to call Air-Atack and FINALLY let someone know what was happening.
How much TIME are we really talking about here, now… for any one of the ‘action items’ above AND for the TIME intervals in-between these actions?
If the statement in the article is TRUE… are we NOW looking at a scenario where there might have been yet ANOTHER fatal ‘moment of decision’?
If the statement is TRUE… then WHEN did Steed first make that radio call to Marsh and say “We’re not going to make it”.
Is it possible that even THEN ( depending on WHEN it happened ) there might have been a CHANCE at ‘other options’… but Marsh’s response to Steed was…
“You can MAKE it. KEEP COMING FORWARD and I’ll meet you and show you the shortest way”.
So that’s what they did? Kept moving FORWARD because of yet ANOTHER ‘order’ from Marsh?
And ALL of this going down out there without anyone knowing about it until 1639?
It all truly continues to meet the definition of “Unbelievable”.
Followup…
IAOI ( If And Only If ) that statement in the article about Jesse Steed calling Eric Marsh and saying “We’re not going to make it” is TRUE…
…then it’s worth pointing out that even Eric Marsh himself might have had no real idea exactly WHERE they were ‘out there’ when Steed made this terrible ‘announcement’.
If Eric Marsh was much closer to the Boulder Springs Ranch than they were… he, himself, might have thought that THEY were also ‘farther along’ in their journey than they really were.
THAT would have influenced Marsh’s decision making at that point.
If Marsh *thought* they were only a few hundred yards WEST… then he would have also been more inclined himself to say something like “You can MAKE it. KEEP COMING FORWARD and I’ll meet you”.
Marsh himself might have been SHOCKED to discover ( after he took off hauling-ass WEST to meet them ) how little progress they had actually been making and how DEEP into that box canyon they really were.
Any possible idea on Marsh’s part about him ‘meeting them’ and ( since he knew where all the pink ribbons were ) that making a ‘difference’ to them ‘making it’ went out the window the farther WEST he ran and the DEEPER into the canyon he had to go to even FIND them.
And… of course… every step farther WEST that Marsh took was also doing nothing but sealing his OWN fate.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 4, 2015 at 10:33 am
NOTE: The ‘documents’ that Marti was wondering about are the actual ORIGINAL and FINAL drafts of the ‘Wildland’ section of the ICMA report(s).
>> Marti said…
>>
>> WTK, have you found any way to find these actual documents?
>> All we’re getting is various other peoples’ interpretations of them.
Yes.
Both the ORIGINAL and the FINAL drafts of the ‘Wildland’ section of the ICMA report were included as ‘attachments’ at the bottom of the actual ‘response letter/report’ that Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini just sent to the Prescott City Council.
The ‘Prescott Daily Courier’ article about Paladini’s ‘investigation’ into whether the ICMA report was ‘tampered with’ did NOT include a link to his actual ‘letter’, or the attachments… but the ‘Prescott eNews’ article did.
Here, again, is a link to the Prescott eNews article…
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25217-city-attorney-paladini-completes-investigation-of-icma-tampering
The LINK to DOWNLOAD Jon Paladini’s actual letter /report on his ‘investigation’ ( a PDF file with attachments ) is at the bottom of the page as the clickable link named “ICMA Investigation Report”.
NOTE: At NO time did Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini say there weren’t obvious CHANGES between the original draft and the final draft. He goes out of his way in his letter to reproduce dictionary definitions of ‘tampering’ ( changes made with some malice or surreptitious intent )… and it is THAT ‘situation’ ( which is what he was asked to investigate ) that he says he finds no evidence of. He ADMITS there WERE ‘changes’… but says there were ALLOWED as part of the normal/contracted process of producing this ‘independent’ report.
** EVEN THE ORIGINAL DRAFT SAID “NO NEED FOR A TYPE 1 IHC”.
The SIDEBAR in the Prescott Daily Courier report was ONLY showing the ‘difference’ between third-party ICMA contractor Joe Stutler’s original 4th ‘recommendation’. They failed to show the one BEFORE that where even in his ORIGINAL submission Wildfire expert Joe Stutler was recommending that Prescott NOT continue supporting a ‘Type 1 IHC’ as part of the Prescott Fire Department. In his professional opinion… a ‘Type 1 IHC’ was NOT ( ever? ) needed as part of the Prescott Fire Department.
That same ( original ) recommendation from Joe Stutler survived ‘word for word’ though however many additional ‘drafts’ there were and was, indeed, still the recommendation in the FINAL report to the City of Prescott.
That would be the following EXACT words…
—————————————————————
“Implement both the ‘Conceptual Community Vegetation Management Plan, April 2001’ and the Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Strategic Plan for 2012-2017, with the EXCEPTION of staffing an Interagency Hotshot Crew.”
—————————————————————
In other words… the existing ‘5 year plan’ for the Prescott Wildland effort SHOULD still be followed… but Prescott should NOT reconstitute a full-blown ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’. Period.
So as far as THAT ‘recommendation’ goes ( that Prescott NOT reconstitute or support a Type 1 IHC Crew )… Willis is dead WRONG about it NOT being in the original draft he says ‘he received’.
There wasn’t even a possibility of any ‘tampering’ with THAT recommendation since it was ALWAYS there… from ORIGINAL to FINAL draft(s).
As for whether or not Willis’ own $90,000 per year double-dipping job as Prescott ‘Wildland Division’ chief should evaporate ( along with the actual ‘Wildland Division’ itself )… there ARE differences between what Joe Stutler said in his original draft and what appeared in the final version.
The CHANGES that DID eventually appear in the final draft obviously just reflect some ‘tweaking’… but they are still also obviously BASED on the ORIGINAL ( expert ) recommendation that Prescott NOT have a ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’.
Since that was mostly what the entire Prescott Fire Department’s “Wildland Division” was all about… then someone in the ‘food chain’ ( City Manager? Fire Chief? ) thought that what would remain without that crew just doesn’t justify even having a full-blown ‘Division’ for that ‘on the books’ as part of the Fire Department.
So THAT is the way the final draft was actually ‘worded’.
Here is what that Prescott Daily Courier article SHOULD have shown in their own sidebar. Not just ‘recomendation 4’… but also ‘recommendation 3’ just above it.
That is where even Joe Stutler said, in no uncertain terms, that Prescott does not NEED ( nor should they reconsititute ) a ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’…
From Joe Stutler’s ORIGINAL draft…
——————————————————————–
3. Implement both the ‘Conceptual Community Vegetation Management Plan, April 2001’ and the Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Strategic Plan for 2012-2017, with the exception of staffing an Interagency Hotshot Crew. A wildland fuels mitigation crew either with a 10 or 20 person staffing will suffice. The solutions for both tactical response and wildland fuels mitigation are specifically identified with measurable and realistic outcomes.
4. Maintain the Wildland Fire Division with the Prescott Fire Department to provide both leadership and successional planning for the division.
———————————————————————
Now from the FINAL draft ( and partial rewrite ) of Stutler’s ORIGINAL section…
———————————————————————
3. Implement both the ‘Conceptual Community Vegetation Management Plan, ( April 2001) and the PFD Wildland Division Strategic Plan for 2012-2017, with the exception of staffing an interagency hotshot crew. A wildland fuels mitigation crew either with four people in the winter seasion and six in the summer season is an alternative that enhances the fule mitigation effort. The solutions for both tactical response and wildland fuels mitigation are specifically identified with measurable and realistic outcomes.
4. Maintain the wildland fire component, (e.g training, certification, and initial attack response utilizing existing suppression fire fighters), within the PFD to provide both leadership and successful planning efforts for wildland operations.
———————————————————————
NOTE: Stutler’s ORIGINAL draft was OBVIOUSLY rewritten by someone who was also just making syntactic changes such as dropping Stutler’s use of ITALICS and putting parentheses around dates like this… ( April 2001 )… versus Stutler’s lack of parentheses around dates… and shortening Stutler’s use of the full phrase “Prescott Fire Department” to just “PFD”, and dropping his use of CAPITAL letters for “interagency hotshot crew”.
** CHANGES TO PARAGRAPH THREE…
BOTH of the ‘recommendation 3’ paragraphs above are essentially IDENTICAL in both Stutler’s original draft AND in the final draft… except for just ONE sentence, and even the first SEVEN words of that one sentence remained the same.
The ONLY change was someone changing what Stutler’s idea of an adequate ‘Fuels Mitigation Crew” should be ( 10 to 20 people ) to a smaller version with only 4 people in the winter and 6 in the summer.
So THIS ‘recommendation’ in Stutler’s original draft…
“A wildland fuels mitigation crew either with a 10 or 20 person staffing will suffice”.
…got ‘downgraded’ and changed to THIS in the final draft…
“A wildland fuels mitigation crew either with four people in the winter season and six in the summer season is an alternative that enhances the fuel mitigation effort.”
** CHANGES TO PARAGRAPH FOUR…
From Stutler’s original…
4. Maintain the Wildland Fire Division with the Prescott Fire Department to provide both leadership and successional planning for the division.
From the final draft…
4. Maintain the wildland fire component, (e.g training, certification, and initial attack response utilizing existing suppression fire fighters), within the PFD to provide both leadership and successful planning efforts for wildland operations.
NOTE: The use of the specific word ‘Division’ was changed to just using the word ‘Component’. This MUST have happened during the ‘staff input’ phase of the report generation and since even the ORIGINAL was ‘recommending’ there be no ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’… Fire Chief Dennis Light’s ‘input’ was obviously also this proposed ‘restructuring’ of the PFD organizational chart and the elimination of the overhead-heavy “Wildland Division” from that org chart.
** TO HAVE A FULL ‘WILDLAND DIVISION’… OR NOT
It is perfectly obvious (now) WHO was ‘rewriting’ this. It was most likely Prescott Chief Dennis Light himself or just one of the ICMA authors incorporating Chief Light’s own ‘recommendations’ that he made during the legitimate ‘staff input’ phase.
Chief Light felt comfortable changing all references to “Prescott Fire Department” to PFD and also ‘tweaking’ the recommendations to match HIS plans.
As Marti already discovered… that HAS to be how it went down.
Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light took one look at that ORIGINAL ‘recommendation’ on Joe Stutler’s part that Prescott should NOT reconsititute a full ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’, and then he inserted his own ‘restructuring’ scheme that would remove the actual “Wildland Division” from the PFD organization chart, as well.
According to the ICMA contract ( and now according to City Attorney Jon Paladini )… Fire Chief Light had every right to make those ‘changes’ during the ‘staff input’ phase of the report generation.
So it wasn’t ‘tampering’. Chief Light was ALLOWED to ‘tweak it’.
On page 34 of the eventual ICMA ‘Powerpoint Presentation’ that was made to the Prescott City Council…
“ICMA supports the Fire Chief’s proposed organizational restructuring that: Consolidates the wildland suppression function with the operations functions under the command of a single division chief.”
That is EXACTLY the way Stutler’s original ‘recommendations’ were rewritten in the ‘final draft’… to support that exact ‘organization restructing’ that the Powerpoint admits was ‘authored’ by the Fire Chief ( Dennis Light ).
And the ICMA was ‘officially onboard’ with those ‘recommendation’ coming from Chief Light.
So it’s pretty clear this was Fire Chief Dennis Light’s WISH ( and his decision ).
His job was to run the Fire Department now… and since even the ORIGINAL draft of the ICMA report was recommending Prescott NOT have a ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’… it simply made ‘sense’ to him ( during his own contracted staff input phase during the report generation ) to do a ‘reorg’ and not have an entire ‘Division’ within the PFD that only had a “Fuels Crew” attached.
Joe Stutler did NOT specifically recommend that the City of Prescott ‘eliminate’ its ‘Wildland Division’… but keep in mind that Joe Stutler was hired because of his expertise in ‘Wildland Fire’… and NOT because of any expertise in how to manage a City fire department and/or whether or not an entire department ‘Division’ devoted to just ‘Wildfire’ issues is even prudent, or necessary to achieve even his own recommendations.
The ICMA authors obviously put more ‘weight’ on Chief Dennis Light’s ‘recommendations’ about whether the continuance of an entire ‘Division’ devoted to ‘Wildland’ stuff was the prudent thing for the Prescott Fire Department than they did the 3rd party Wildfire expert’s opinion.
End of story, really.
It looks like what Willis doesn’t like ( or won’t accept ) is that even the ORIGINAL recommendation coming from the ‘independent expert’ said that Prescott did not NEED a ‘Type 1 IHC Crew’…. and then Willis ALSO doesn’t like ( or won’t accept ) the fact that BASED on that very recommendation… current Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light had every right to propose a ‘reorganization’ of the PFD ‘org chart’ itself during his own ‘input phase’ during the generation of the FINAL report.
It sounds like Marsh was the first to realize the disaster that was about to take place, not the crew (as he was running back to them – he must have known). Did he radio to the crew to warn them – it almost certainly was too late to run, but to start preparing a deployment site. Maybe no one knows that.
When Willis and McDonough say “inaccurate” – that sounds like a careful word. One or two details could make it “inaccurate” without the gist of what was reported being wrong. To me, given what has been discussed the past few months, this has the ring of truth. In fact, I think if people were honest, no one is really surprised – I kind of expected it by now. This was always going to end very badly. I don’t see any great lessons coming out of Yarnell. It was one frigging horrible mistake. Maybe Marsh had flaws that contributed to it, but no way he foresaw or wanted his men to die. People screw up, and sometimes the results are just gosh awful.
The bombshell revelation in this story is the order. I will say that if Willis denied the part about the order specifically, and the Republic just left it as “denied key details” without mentioning the order specifically, that would be unethical journalism of the highest order. Therefore I do not believe that Willis denied that McDonough told him that.
Well said Mike
It is a terrible tragedy caused by some very bad decisions and I am sure Marsh
did not plan or believe the move would kill the crew or him.
We may never know why he decided to move the crew.
I did not read the Republic article carefully enough – buried well into the article, the reporter says Willis “denied” the part about the order. But Willis’ language again seems carefully worded – he does not flat out deny and say nothing of the sort was told to him. He talks about what was “quoted” to him and “what he knew”. I know people do not like Jon Palladini, but he is not going to go to the newspaper with something made up out of whole cloth. And he is definite that this is what Willis told him. I could see getting some details wrong, but hard to believe he was “mistaken” about that crucial bit.
There is also the FACT that when Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini started communicating with the Arizona Attorney General’s office… he was ( as per the ALJ Hearing File evidence ) AUTHORIZED to act as the ‘liason’ for Brendan as far as setting up the ‘deposition’ went.
That really does mean that following his conversations with Darrell Willis… Jon Paladini MUST have had SOME direct contact with Brendan McDonough himself.
The article is quoting Jon Paladini… and reporting on the ‘totality’ of what Jon Paladini seems to know.
Willis might be right about what HE didn’t say to Paladini… but that doesn’t mean these ‘other details’ now being reported didn’t come out of Paladini’s OWN subsequent talks with Brendan himself ( which Willis was not present for ).
So just because Darrell Willis says he doesn’t remember telling Jon Paladini something doesn’t mean Paladini didn’t eventually hear it from Brendan himself.
In other words… even Willis might have been ‘holding back’ on telling Paladini about any kind of ‘order’… but when Paladini then started acting as Brendan’s ‘mediator’ for the ‘deposition’ arrangements… McDonough himself told Paladini that WAS part of what he now wants to “get off his chest”.
It was actually pretty incompetent on the reporter’s part to not ‘sort this out’ and hear from Paladini whether he heard any of these details during his own conversations with Brendan… or whether ALL of this is just based on what Willis was ‘reporting’ to Paladini.
I just don’t know how the ‘depositions’ could have been ‘arranged’ with Paladini acting as the official ‘mediator’… unless he was also in direct contact with Brendan himself ( at some point ) about all that.
Also at the Top of the Article’—-
QUOTE
When Willis reported the conversation to Paladini and others, it set off a chain reaction of legal actions beginning with reports to Arizona State Forestry Division, Prescott city Council and Arizona Attorney Generals Office. It also led authorities to interview other potential witnesses and prompted an unsuccessful effort to subpoena McDonough.
What did those other witness say that caused a decision to subpoena McDonough.?
What ever info they got from those witnesses may have prompted the decision to try and subpoena.
There is more information here that we are not yet privy to.
Reply to Bob Powers post on April 5, 2015 at 7:40 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Also at the Top of the Article’—-
>> QUOTE
>> When Willis reported the conversation to Paladini
>> and others, it set off a chain reaction of legal
>> actions beginning with…
>>
>> Reports to Arizona State Forestry Division
So what does THAT mean? Are they saying this was a ‘separate report’ to AZF over and above the lawyers representing them in the “AZF vs. ADOSH” case?
And what does REPORT mean?
A WRITTEN report? ( Where is THAT )
An EMAIL? ( To WHO… and WHEN )
A ‘phone call’ ( Ditto. To WHO? and WHEN? ).
>> Prescott city Council
Really? All of the same questions above apply.
Was it a WRITTEN report? EMAILS? Phone calls?
Private meetings?
How MANY members of the ‘Prescott City Council’ were being TOLD about what Brendan now wanted to “get off his chest”… and WHEN were they told it?
>> Arizona Attorney Generals Office.
That’s the only one we already knew about and *some* ( but not ALL? ) of that communicating is in the public ALJ Hearing File.
>> Bob Powers also said ( quoting the PDC article )…
>>
>> It also led authorities to interview other
>> potential witnesses
Again… really?… WHO?
Remember that Mike Dudley himself said that MULTIPLE people ( more than one ) had made the same ‘allegation’ ( Dudley’s word ) that they HEARD an argument between Marsh and Steed.
The most likely candidates for those other ‘multiple’ people testifying that they heard the argument has ALWAYS been at least the 3 Blue Ridge Hotshots who were moving the other GM vehicles the same time Brendan supposedly HEARD the argument.
The SAIT ( via Arizona Forestry contacts? ) WAS able to personally interview at least 4 Blue Ridge Hotshots. ( Frisby, Brown, Fueller, Ball ).
Are these ‘other potential witnesses’ that were supposedly interviewed lately the actual OTHER Blue Ridge Hotshots who were helping to move the vehicles?
Some pretty piss-poor reporting here.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> What did those other witness say that caused
>> a decision to subpoena McDonough.?
Exactly.
OR… is this just more ‘bad reporting’ and they are missing the fact that Arizona Forestry DID offer an ‘explanation’ to Judge Mosesso about WHY they felt it was imperative to subpoena Brendan for the February 26 re-scheduled depostion.
Actually… AZF gave Mosesso a number of reasons…
1) They had ( as of the end of January ) still had NOT heard back from McDonough’s lawyer ( David Shapiro ) about whether he and his client actually intended to ‘be there’ on February 26th.
2) Arizona Forestry wanted this deposition to be SURE and take place BEFORE the already-scheduled March 2, 3 global mediation meetings with the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs.
3) Arizona Forestry was very AFRAID that this ‘story’ about Brendan knowing more than he has ever said would ‘leak’ to the media BEFORE they could get Brendan under-oath and get the story first.
NOTE: It appears Arizona Forestry’s worst nightmare has now happened. The story is OUT… and they STILL haven’t gotten Brendan’s sworn deposition.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> What ever info they got from those witnesses may
>> have prompted the decision to try and subpoena.
Possibly… but Arizona Forestry makes no mention of any ‘other witnesses’ being able to back up Brendan’s information when they ASKED Judge Mosesso for the subpoena… so I actually doubt that was WHY they felt the need subpoena.
They gave MORE than enough reasons, anyway, for wanting to be SURE they got Brendan’s under-oath version of things BEFORE March 2,3 and BEFORE it ‘leaked’ to the press.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> There is more information here that we are
>> not yet privy to.
Without a doubt.
Yes The Article said that from what I gather Willis and Paladini reported Orally to the above reference unities.
And both agreed that the State Attorney should also be notified.
It is near the top of the news article.
I would also assume they were not releasing any witness names that were contacted Who ever the other Potential witnesses were. .
I was just quoting what was said in the article.
Which seems to indicate there are other witnesses.
Your guess is as good as mine.
I am betting in the next week or so we will be filling in the blanks. just a guess—-
Unities should be entities.
My only comment to the witnesses is what RTS and I have been saying all along there are more witness yet to be Identified.
From Prescott and other areas like Mike Dudley for one.
They were dam interested in his Utah taped discussion session——-
If Brendan made statements to any one it is admissible in a court of law.
Statements to Willis, other fire department employees etc.
Hearsay if a third party quotes what he herd from some one other than Brendon.
A lot of possibilities we will have to Waite and see.
Sometimes people screw up the results are just gosh awful. ……
I think it’s pretty much a given to all of us here….
The difference is, when you know a truth about the tragedy, but it takes 18 months or more for you to tell what you know, is stopping to a new level of “just gosh awful”….
The families have been searching for answers, crying many tears, losing many nights of sleep and praying to find out why? But there are people who know the truth but not talking…. SAD!!!!
Rocksteady –
Nothing is more painful than those 19 deaths, but if what seems to be the truth is, I do not believe you could have concocted a more horrible sequence of events leading up to those deaths – leaving just pain, anger and recriminations. The truth should definitely be known, but I can understand why maybe some hoped it could remain obscured (not to protect their own hides, but to protect the reputation of the GMHS). But the truth cannot remain obscured. I think it is eating at Brendan, it is quite likely eating away at some on Blue Ridge as well. Maybe others. When the truth comes out – maybe these people can begin to heal too. Nobody should carry that burden around.
I will bet money that it has gone BEYOND ‘frustration’ for Brian Frisby and the Blue Ridge Hotshots. I will bet it is now absolute red-hot ANGER that THEY still have to be fielding phone calls from the media just because Brendan McDonough won’t do the right thing AND their own US Forestry bosses have also ALWAYS had their own AGENDAS.
How do you think Brian Frisby felt when his phone rang the other night and he was asked to ‘comment’ on all this?
I’m sure he was very polite to the reporter on the phone when he just said “No comment”… but I will bet the room he was in turned many shades of BLUE the moment he put the phone down.
So it’s beyond just SADNESS.
The shenanigans that have always been going on here are now going to really piss some of these ‘players’ off… and that anger alone will probably cause any number of other things to happen at this point.
Wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that after that phone call the other night from that reporter… Brian Frisby called his own BOSS and said “FIX THIS”. Either send them our unredacted statements… or give us permission to talk about it ourselves. Enough is enough”.
WTKTT – I can assure that did not happen (Frisby calling his boss and giving an ultimatum) this is being way handled way above his bosses (the Blue Ridge District FMO) boss (the Blue Ridge District Ranger) all the way up and BEYOND the Chief of the Forest Service and over to the Department of Agriculture Solicitor General and they will destroy Brian Frisby and everyone else who threatens the interests of the government in any way. Not the USFS, not the USDA…the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, you know…as in Sovereign Immunity (The CROWN). If Uncle Sam had a dog in this fight, this fight would have been over a long time ago, and it would have been a very lop sided victory.
Nothing even remotely similar to this brouhaha have ever happened when there where dead federal firefighters and nothing like it ever will no matter how many dead firefighters are on the slope. And the families will get exactly what the Office of Workers Compensation Program say they get…and not one penny more, they never have and they never will.
Amen Gary
Down below, one of you said the news article about the alleged argument or order by Marsh was “skewed, flabby, reckless, inflammatory, faulty, sketchy, and, to be honest, not much of anything else.”
I found that to be an interesting comment, particularly given the source, so I did not want it to get lost in the weeds.
(In terms of my personal view, what struck me about the article is the alleged exchange with Paladini. I am stunned that Paladini would have that type of exchange with the media… on the record! It just does not fit (at least in my mind).)
LOL! Well…….since you mentioned it. I was about to copy my whole collections of thoughts up here to the top anyway, but I had to reboot. And then I found THIS!
So here’s my complete two cents worth:
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 8:37 AM
Well, there IS some pretty twisted stuff in this article. There’s definitely an agenda or two playing out.
Not surprisingly.
The repeated and false (as I understand the documentation at this point) claim that ADOSH is responsible for the delay(s) in Brendan’s deposition(s) just demonstrates the most obvious one.
So I have to say I’ll believe it when I see it.
Which has been pretty much my whole approach all along.
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 8:41 AM
It’s nice of AZCEntral to FINALLY mention the months-long (and very expensive, I’m sure) bar-room brawl going on in the back rooms.
It’s too bad they decided to yellow-journalism it.
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 8:44 AM
Correction. I should have written brawls, not brawl. There’s definitely more than one going on.
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 11:41 AM
I’m curious who tipped this off to the Republic. It says at the end that the Republic called Palladini, not the other way around.
Bob Powers says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 1:38 PM
I would suggest Marti that the Same people that have been talking to me and RTS. Just a guess, Also John has been working on this for some time. once the info was out there that the State was trying to get a deposition from McDonough the investigation flood gates opened. WHAT IS THE STORY HERE???????????????????
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 1:54 PM
Well, that’s kind of why I’ve been saying for awhile now that the media should be covering the fight-almost-to-the-death (on the taxpayers millions of dollars) going on between AZFire and ADOSH.
So everybody said nothing would get covered til some “news” “broke.”
I guess they FINALLY decided to “break” the “news.”
This article is skewed, flabby, reckless, inflammatory, faulty, sketchy, and, to be honest, not much of anything else.
I can’t believe Yvonne put her name on it.
That’s why I’m not even going to come CLOSE to the big argument y’all are having upstream.
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 1:56 PM
It’s not worth the oxygen, much less the bandwidth
Marti Reed says APRIL 4, 2015 AT 1:59 PM
This is totally NOT responsible journalism. Which is why this story is not worth fighting over.
Namaste.
So if you all want to fight over the juicy details of an article that pins the blame for the delays in the deposition of Brendan McDonough on ADOSH, go right ahead.
I have bigger fish to fry.
Marti Sorry but this is the big fish—
It confirms every thing I said last fall but from another source.
This is going to break wide open.
Read everything I have said today trying to clarify what Elizabeth has said.
I can do no more………..If you don’t believe me that’s OK just remember I am now not the only one saying it.
Marti This is for you–
Since I started this story from some ones information to me that was associated with the Yarnell Fire I have had some attacks on my character
so this release with every thing I have been saying for 6 months adds the additional facts to mine.
Paladini Said the same as I have been saying— to me that is more creditable fact. from some one that works for the City of Prescott.
Willis made a contact and told Paladini what he was told.
I have never talked to either one so they both have said McDonough unloaded the Shocking story.
To me this supports my information and also gives me some vindication for Those like Elizabeth calling me a liar or the mother of a GM crewmember verbally slapping me for saying the same thing.
Just where I am coming from I believe every thing Paladini said as I have been saying it all along he had no reason to lie. He may not have got the story completely strait. It would surprise me if he did not require Willis
to provide him with a written statement so we shall see.
If you don’t believe I was providing the truth almost the same information
as was released today then there is not much else I can say to you.
So we will wait and see I think this is far from over.
Bob, with all due respect, you and Fred Schoeffler have been wrong with your rumors more than you have been right. Brendan does NOT agree with what you said. Willis absolutely disagrees. And you said that ADOSH had already deposed Brendan months ago, which was totally incorrect. Moreover, you said that there was a video of an argument… but that was just more rumor and nonsense.
Dear God, Bob. With all due respect, your sources (presumably Fred Schoeffler, since the Sawtooth IHC Supt. has made clear that he does not know you or associate with you) have been wrong repeatedly. No wonder Mrs. Pfingston lost her patience with you, as did Mr. Turbyfill, as have others. One person has spoken with Paladini, and that person is not you.
I will say one more time you do not know shit..
As far as the Sawtooth HS Superintendent Mike Krupski I know him have spoken with him and been and socialized with him at 2 retirement parties this past year. And I have talked with him the past 2 years since he took over the Crew. So I have no clue where you are getting that BS..
We have already been thru the other BS And discussed it severial times we shall see what we shall see.
ay be you should reply to severial questions I have asked you today and in the past.
Mrs. Pfingston lost her patience over what I said which was the same thing said in the article today. The truth some times hurts
That is not my fault.
Find another player I am not playing your game any more—-
Bob.
I really really trust and respect you.
You said:
“Since I started this story from some ones information to me that was associated with the Yarnell Fire I have had some attacks on my character.”
And I totally get that. I’ve been dismayed by that also. Along with a whole bunch of other things. Which I’m sure you and TTWARE and WTKTT and a few others know exactly what I’m/we’re talking about.
My PROBLEM with this ARTICLE, in the credibility zone, kicked me right away when half of it was painting a picture of ADOSH being the CAUSE of Brendan’s deposition being DELAYED.
That is totally a bunch of HOOOOOEY.
That told me, right away, that there was a serious BIAS behind it.
AZCentral has every bit of access we do to the ADF vs ADOSH documentation. That documentation ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT SUPPORT the general narrative AZCentral is pushing (or at least buying into) in this article.
Whose interest is being served by this narrative? Arizona Department of Forestry’s.
In saying this, I am not meaning to say I doubt your sources.
I’m just doubting the credibility of the journalism in this article.
I seriously don’t know what’s going on here, but I seriously don’t trust it, either.
I have often written about the stage being set upon which these fire-fighters were operating. Because of that, I’ve always said, LOOK UP!!!
What is the stage upon which this article is being written?
Apparently a stage set by the Arizona Department of Forestry and it’s a stage being manufactured using stuff that isn’t true ala their fight with ADOSH.
Otherwise, why would half of this article be about ADOSH delaying Brendan’s deposition when that, actually, is totally untrue?
So that’s where my basic serious dubiousness about this article is coming from.
It’s not coming from any kind of fundamental distrust of you.
That’s why I said, when I see it I will believe it, and that that’s ALWAYS been my own personal orientation regarding this whole thing.
I can’t maintain any kind of sanity evaluating any of this without that basic orientation.
I don’t KNOW anything that I don’t KNOW. And I do my share of speculation, but I try to keep it based, as much as I possibly can, on what I KNOW.
I KNOW that this article is fundamentally incorrect in its narrative regarding ADOSH.
That, frankly, is all I KNOW.
I DON’T KNOW anything else that is being narrated in this article.
And, frankly, at this point, all things considered, I have to admit I don’t particularly believe any specific thing The City of Prescott’s Lawyer says. Maybe I’m mistaken to feel that way, right now. I DON’T KNOW.
When I said I had bigger fish to fry, that didn’t mean I didn’t think this story was not important…………
But I had personally decided it was IMPERATIVE to try to get to the bottom of the whole ICMA report/dispute, which I think is a root issue in this whole thing also (including perhaps various things playing themselves out in this article), and I had decided that was my first priority for this day.
Which I kept working on in spite of all of this drama, as I’ve posted downstream.
Again, I’m trying to drill down into what is possible to KNOW.
You KNOW your sources. I DON’T KNOW them. That doesn’t mean I don’t take you seriously. It just means I can’t KNOW the accuracy of what you KNOW.
So that is why I am perfectly comfortable not relying on the “truthiness” of this article.
When a great deal of it I KNOW isn’t TRUE, that makes me hesitate relying on it.
I am SURE this will eventually lead to more stuff getting exposed. and more dust flying around and eventually settling, and more KNOWABLE data eventually emerging.
Until that happens, I have NO OPINION about the various narratives that are currently swirling around here around it except for THE FACT that a significant chunk of this story is NOT TRUE.
Namaste.
IMHO. And I’ll probably regret writing this.
Given the stage this article is being written upon.
It is, all things considered, at this point, given how AZ Dept of Forestry has handled this whole thing, very muchly in their interest, at this critical time, to make Eric Marsh their Fall Guy.
Even given the fact that he was, on June 30, 2013, a part of their Incident Management Team as a Division Supervisor. He’s still ONE PERSON, to deflect their overall responsibility to have managed this fire competently, which they most certainly didn’t, which we have documented month after month here.
They are playing SERIOUS HARDBALL right now. And AZCentral/Arizona Republic is playing right into that strategy.
Does Eric deserve that? I DON’T KNOW.
I DON’T KNOW what happened.
Arizona State Fire has a HUGE INTEREST, right now, given the breakdown in the Settlement Negotiations, in doing what ever they can (including trying, unsuccessfully, to subpoena Marshall Krotenberg’s last five years worth of employment records) to cover up their own responsibility in the various debacles regarding this fire that we have documented month after month here.
So, yes, maybe it is true that Eric, or Jesse, or some combination of Eric and/vs Jesse ordered the crew to head down into that bowl full of explosives that they headed down into.
And maybe Eric was somewhere near the Boulder Springs Ranch when that was all happening (but we STILL have NO PROOF of that–so how come it is that this article states that as some kind of FACT????).
My point in all of this is that it behooves us to remember that Arizona Department of Forestry has a HUGE VESTED INTEREST RIGHT NOW in divesting themselves (no matter what they have to do in order to do that) of any kind of remote responsibility regarding their mismanagement of this entire fire and any kind of danger they (by either sins of commission or omission) put the fire-fighters on that fire into.
I just have to say, all things considered, that’s where I think THIS ARTICLE is coming from.
Whether or not various purported details in it are true or not true.
Got you Thanks—and Thanks
>> Marti said…
>>
>> My PROBLEM with this ARTICLE, in the credibility
>> zone, kicked me right away when half of it was
>> painting a picture of ADOSH being the CAUSE of
>> Brendan’s deposition being DELAYED.
>>
>> That is totally a bunch of HOOOOOEY.
I totally agree that this particular article is NOT “Journalism finest hour”… but probably for different reasons.
I just don’t like the fact that the reporter didn’t even bother to ask Paladini if any of these details he was reporting came from his OWN conversations with Brendan… or whether it was ONLY all coming from Willis.
It is still ‘not credible’ to me that the City Attorney for Prescott would then be acting as the official ‘liason’ between a former PFD firefighter and the State Attorney General’s office for coordinating all the details of the ‘agreed upon’ deposition… WITHOUT him having his OWN conversations with McDonough about this deposition and the expected CONTENT of it.
As far as YOUR ( primary? ) reason for disliking the reporting… I think it’s worth pointing out that while badly reported… the statement that ADOSH tried to DELAY the first scheduled deposition with McDonough is TRUE. They DID.
But again… simply just lousy reporting.
ADOSH was NOT AGAINST the deposition itself taking place. They were only objecting to the TIMING of it.
Arizona Forestry wanted it to happen on November 26, 2014… BEFORE the actual already-in-place deadline of December 13, 2014 for both ADOSH and Arizona Forestry to ‘exchange discovery documents’.
ADOSH simply wanted the Brendan McDonough deposition to wait until AFTER that… for the simple reason that they thought that might produce a BETTER interview and a BETTER chance at ‘asking all the right questions’ of Brendan during that deposition.
The COMPROMISE ( and the reason Judge Mosesso declined ADOSH’s request for another deposition date ) was that the Arizona Forestry lawyers had to make every promise they could that Brendan would consent to a SECOND deposition… if any information they didn’t know on November 26 came to light in the ‘document exchange’ on December 13.
The ALJ documents then indicated that Bredan totally AGREED to this possibility of a SECOND ‘under-oath’ deposition, if necessary.
Again… shitty reporting… because right there in black and white is PROOF that even the Arizona Forestry lawyers were in DIRECT CONTACT with Brendan about this ‘despostion’ and the expected CONTENT.
This story isn’t near over.
It isn’t just about what ‘Willis might have told Paladini’.
There is HARD evidence all over the place that even after that conversation between Paladini and Willis… all kinds of OTHER people were now ‘in the loop’ and hearing possibly even MORE details directly from Brendan.
Even Arizona Forestry attorney David Selden seemed to know a LOT more than he was saying to Judge Mosesso in those ALJ Hearing documents.
I wonder now if even the LAWYERS are LAWYERING UP.
What a mess.
Also True Paladini as City Lawyer represents the City Employees which at the Time would have included
McDonough even though he no longer worked there he was under that coverage because he was employed during and after the Accident.
I would bet Paladini talked to him and advised he get a personal Lawyer.
I also can not believe that Paladini did not have Willis wright a statement about his conversation with McDonough it is standard practice. From what I know working for a City for 4 Years and the county. Witnesses and others that have info are always required to submit a written copy. That is the way the lawyers work.
Good point. If Willis was still the actual “Wildland Supervisor” when this ‘conference’ he had with Paladini took place… then there was a member of PFD management OFFICIALLY reporting about something that still affects the City of Prescott to the City Attorney himself…
…and that City Attorney didn’t ask for his ‘written report’ about it… as “Wildland Division Chief”?
Something is seriously ‘not right’ there, as well.
It’s also seriously mysterious why this would all now be ‘reported’ in the media… but no reporter lifted a finger to even get the exact DATE when this all happened?
The article says that Willis decided to give Brendan (quote) “the weekend” to find a way to get the information out… or Willis would feel compelled to do that himself.
Which ‘weekend’?
That statement suggest that Brendan talked to Willis on a Friday.
Which Friday?
Did all this go down right BEFORE Brendan’s first scheduled deposition ( Like… the WEEKEND just before it? )… and that is when someone ( Willis? Paladini? ) advised Brendan he better get a CRIMINAL attorney with experience handling (possible) ‘obstructing and investigation’ charges?
And THAT is what led to Brendan having to cancel his first deposition… because Shapiro was too busy to make it on such short notice?
I wondered the same thing for about one second and then I realized Paladini is doing what he is doing to hurt and discredit Willis because Paladini and his bosses at the city are now in this back and forth with Willis is mad at the city because they are eliminating his dream and the city is mad at Willis that he is now turning on them.
I guess Paladini doesn’t have the same values you do as a lawyer. Now there is an oxymoron…lawyer and values. What do you think Elizabeth?
Gary, my impression of Mr. Paladini has been that he is a smart, reputable, and ethical fellow. In terms of any beef he might or might not have with Darrell Willis, let me simply say this: Mr. Paladini has been a practicing lawyer in the municipal realm for some time, so I suspect that he has a thick skin (given the nature of small-town politics), such that I imagine he could weather whatever Darrell Willis and others toss at him without lashing out.
I think that it is premature to judge anything related to that AZ Republic article at this point. I say this in part based on what I am hearing from my friends or colleagues who are close to this matter. If I could say more to you without violating confidences, I assure you that I would. I apologize for being cryptic.
Well OK then, I was just taking a wild guess. I just have a natural distrust of management (even though I were one) the system (even though I was a cog in it), “they” (even though I was them) the legal system (even though I was part of it for 25 years) and the government (which I once was a minion of and a flunky for)…as you have probably already figured out. I met the enemy a long time ago and the enemy was me.
And meanwhile, back at the ranch.
I’ve begun searching for the minutes of the Prescott City Council meetings that include discussion and decisions regarding the ICMA “recommendations” regarding the Fire Department.
So far, the past two related meetings, the ones on March 26 and March 10 have no minutes no where of them.
Still working my way back in time. I got back to the November 4 meeting when my Adobe Reader ineplicably quit working for the first time ever, that I can remember. Guess I’ll have to reboot.
If you want to search, too, the website is here:
City of Prescott City Council Meetings:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/web/site.aspx
So here are the minutes of the infamous November 4 meeting, where Chief Light presented the “recommendations” of the analysis.
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=1586
I’m just reading it right now.
Note: I’ve posted downstream some of the other more recent documents/powerpoints that I find relevant to this whole thing.
Unfortunately I haven’t found, so far, the powerpoint presentation he gave, so this narrative, via these minutes, is a bit sketchy and confusing.
Now that I’ve figured out how to find powerpoint presentations — they’re NOT with the minutes, they generally ARE with the Agenda (regular meeting link) I went back and looked at that November 4 2014 meeting.
The powerpoint is NOT THERE.
So here’s the ICMA Report that was presented to the Prescott City Council on August 26, 2014. Haven’t read it yet, just posting things.
“ICMA Data Analysis – Fire and EMS”
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=1343
Here’s the page for that meeting that includes links to the Report, the PowerPoint Presentation, and the Agenda Memo.
Well I think it will lead there. These meeting pages are REALLY confusing.
8/26/2015 Special Meeting
javascript:LaunchPlayer(530,-1,-1,-1,0);
OK, that didn’t work. So what you have to do to get to the page for the 8/26/2014 meeting is go to the City Council Page and just go to the Special Meeting 08/26/2014 1:00 PM link on the page(s).
Click on that and a separate window will pop up with the page with the three links on it.
To read the MINUTES for that meeting you have to hunt and hunt and eventually find them inside the Name link for the Regular Voting Meeting 09/23/2014 1:30 PM. And click on the August 26 Special Meeting MInutes.
I’ll save you the trouble. Here are the minutes for the August 26 Special Meeting Minutes:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=1437
Now I’ll go see if the minutes actually reflect the report and the powerpoint.
One would think that as important as all of this, and how ICMA and, sometimes the mayor and the City Council, have reiterated that this is all supposed to be happening in a
COMMUNITY CONVERSATION
…….there would be an easier way to find all this stuff. But so far I haven’t discovered one.
Especially given that the CONTRACT specifically says:
“15. All work products of the Professional for this Project are instruments of service for this Project only
and shall remain the property of the City whether the Project is completed or not. All plans, drawings,
specifications, data maps, studies and other information, including all copies thereof, furnished by the
City shall remain the property of the City. They are not to be used on other work, and, with the
exception of this Agreement, are to be returned to the City on request or at the completion of the
work.”
Apparently the taxpayers must not be considered to be part of “the City.”
The Description, remember, of the Project, including The Contract, is here:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/UserControls/DocPreview.aspx?p=1&aoid=113
You have to scroll a long long long ways down through this, but
IT’S ALL THERE IN BLACK AND WHITE
It might actually be better to enter into this analysis/report via the PowerPoint, which is here:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/GenFile.aspx?ad=1342
So it seems to me the most important pieces of this PowerPoint are pages 35 and 36.
Page 35 shows the “Proposed PFD Organizational Chart.” That puts “Wildland Fire Suppression Function” under Emergency Service Delivery Branch (Suppression/EMS” which has under it Three Battalion Chiefs (A Shift, B shift, and C shift).
That assumes, as it says on Page 32 under Wildland Analysis that:
“–Fuels mitigation staff is not deployed to active wildfire scenes.”
And, on Page 33:
“•Wildland fire preparedness is the state of both prevention and being ready to provide an appropriate response to wildland fires based on identified objectives.
–Preparedness requires identifying necessary firefighting capabilities and implementing coordinated wildland prevention programs to develop those capabilities.”
Which leads to, on Page 34:
“ICMA supports the Fire Chief’s proposed organizational restructuring that:
–Consolidates the wildland suppression function with the operations functions under the command of a single division chief.”
There is nothing here, under this category that describes what kinds of crews are “assumed” to be doing “wildland suppression.”
So Page 36 says:
“Response to Wildfires
•Utilize the Prescott Basin Response Model
•Existing Prescott on-duty structural/shift personnel will respond as they always have
•Automatic/Mutual aid companies deployed on initial alarm
•Forest Service contacted and statewide mutual aid requested as necessary
•Resources increased as situation progresses or if bringing the fire under control is not successful.”
I don’t know what the “Prescott Basin Response Model” is.
And, I guess the key to what kind of crews Prescott will be utilizing is the existing Prescott on-duty structural/ shift personnel responding as they always have.
So, good luck Prescott, when it comes to responding to future Indian Fires, Doce Fires and West Spruce fires!!!
And there you have it.
I’d love Gary’s perspective on this.
This is about the epitome of having structural fire-fighters doing the majority of wildland fire-fighting.
But then, maybe Prescott doesn’t need wildland fire-fighters doing wildland fire-fighting because WAIT WE HAVE Prescott IHC for that kinda stuff!!!!!!
So, anyway, This, apparently, is the basis for Prescott’s current re-organizational planning for wildland fire-fighting, for whatever it’s worth.
I still haven’t dug into the report itself, to see if it actually looks at what the Granite Mountain IHC was doing.
I’m kind of doubting that it does, all things considered.
And maybe these recommendations are right and adequate. Maybe Prescott doesn’t have all that much of its own “wildland” to do “wildland fire-fighting on” and when something crops up, it’s usually on someone else’s land, or at least it eventually gets there.
Namaste.
And I haven’t even gone into Fuels Reduction, which is a WHOLE NUTHER ballgame.
The new article regarding Marsh and Steed is perplexing for at least two reasons:
1. If Marsh was near the BSR – which is what Bob Powers and his sources are saying – and Marsh could get back in to the deployment valley to get to the guys, why couldn’t the guys get to Marsh?
2. *BOTH* Brendan McDonough and Darrell Willis state that the narrative about the alleged “argument” (attributed by the article to Jon Paladini) is INACCURATE. Brendan is a first-hand witness to what was said or not said, and Willis and Paladini are not. Therefore, the fact that Brendan disagrees with the story being recited by the media is noteworthy.
Willis and McD are saying the argument is not accurate, however neither is adamantly denying that an argument occurred.
It sounds like the media release hit a nerve and I am sure more digging into the investigation to find out the truth .
I hope the truth finally comes out.
Of course McD disagrees, if he said it was all true, he would be branded by all as a coward, as he had very key information that would have assisted the investigations, but did not, even though he has been scheduled twice to tell the truth.
RS, you say “Neither is adamantly denying that an argument occurred.” Well, Willis wouldn’t know either way, and we don’t know if Brendan denied it. We have no idea how much Brendan said to the reporters that they chose not to publish. My view is that Brendan does not interview well.
I am stunned that you, of all people, would try to prematurely judge Brendan before all of the facts are out.
To that end, we do not know if *BRENDAN* canceled the second deposition. We certainly know that he did NOT cancel the first!
Not prematurely judging, just saying how it looks at face value.
She is Defiantly a Defense Lawyer clamming to the end. Innocent, Innocent
The information is out there and way more than his testimony.
Again what would he tell Willis that was so shocking and new to him that he went to Paladini with the info and it was so astounding that Paladini
Talked to the City Council.. They all kept it quiet for the past 6 months.
There is a lot here to ask us not to believe what’s being said??????
There has also been a lot of confirmed talk about what was released this morning, that would lead many to believe there is validity here whether word for word or in general.
Bob, when you say “what was released this morning,” what are you talking about?
And I am not trying to defend Brendan at all. Nor am I trying to defend Eric Marsh. Rather, I am trying to avoid giving Brendan a stroke prematurely, and I am trying to avoid pointing the finger at Eric prematurely. That is all. I have no dog in the fight, but, if you and RS think that crucifying Brendan is going to make him come forward, you are 100% WRONG. So, if you think he knows more, and you want him to tell it, common sense would suggest that you should treat him a bit more carefully rather than crucifying him on here.
First Poor Brendan is a grownup he has already told his information to Willis if he is not deposed he will be or called to the witness stand. He shocked Willis what else but telling the world dose he need to do? Once he laid it on the table he has opened the preverbal worm can. Hiding it in the first place is bad enough. Like it or not it is shocking according to Willis.
Willis can also be called because first hand he was told by Brendan. That makes it difficult to change stories on a witness stand.
We also have the unknown Blue Ridge information.
There is no crucifying here, with the story today that I was referring to he has information that he needs to provide.
The statements by Willis that said he was shocked leaves little room to wiggle What else would be shocking than what was said????? Please tell me if there is something else as shocking as what was released.
Again no matter what the Crew died because of decisions made by their supervisors. That is still the bottom line.
What was released this morning, Bob? Documents or videos or something?
Maybe a bit of public pressure from the news released today will encourage McD and Willis will tell everything.
Pretty obvious the truth is about to come out
Playing games with me is going nowhere.
The news story was released. Verifying the information I had that was given to me last fall by someone who had first hand info some of which is still out there. I will not divulge his name,
You said that never happened too but there it is in Black and white today almost word for word that I talked about on here.
Released by a lawyer, even though second hand.
Coincidence or FACT?
Liz, I call him McD rather than Brendan, not out of disrespect, I am doing this via my smartphone and I am not a great typer, especially on such a small keyboard
Use some common since here and reed what I sad below.
—If they left at or near the same time from different direction they would meet some place in the middle———–
The distance to the deployment site was over 1/3 of a mile from BSR Marsh could not possibly run to the crew at the time the fire was in front of them nor could the crew run to the BSR (Ranch) when they were confronted with the fire. It was to late.
What can be more simpler than that it is not rocket science———-
Inaccurate can mean many things not all discrediting the evidence……….
NOTE—-Willis was so disturbed by the information he told what he knew—
What was so disturbing??????
The fact that Steed did not want to leave the black?????
The Fact that Steed thought it was a Bad Idea but did it any way??????
The possibility that Marsh ordered Steed and the Crew to leave the black?????
What else could disturb him so bad that he gave McDonough a week to come clean then went to the City Lawyer??????
There has already been mention of an argument by Mike Dudley.
Do we now know the content that was alluded to by Dudley?????
From reliable sources way back last year from reliable sources in side the FS community
Myself and RTS were hearing the same Info.
I believe there is more info that will now come out Confirming what has been released.
Maybe you should ask why—
McDonough Got a highly expensive Defense Lawyer that handles criminal cases.
Why did Willis Retire just before this article came out?????
Is Willis Lawyered up as well????
Disagrees with the Story??? Some fine points, Specifics, or words?????
I think we all know that the both of them would like to protect there friends,
as long as they do not go on the witness stand they do not have to release any thing.
If they end up in court then they can through them self’s on the mercy of the court that it was there friends they were protecting, friends and family members because they were very close to the crew.
Been done before will be again.
HOlY COW.
Marsh at the ranch. ORDERED Steed to bring the boys down.
From today’s AZ Republic:
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/investigations/2015/04/04/yarnell-fire-new-account-hotshot-deaths/25284535/
Brendan and Willis are *BOTH* indicating that that is not true, right?
Well for those of you that attacked me and RTS Read the news report.
Willis acknowledges it and McDonough is Lawyered Up.
Every thing we broke and released on here was Fact.
It is a terrible thing but again to the Families.
The Truth is some times not what we would like it to be. I have been there in denial in my past.—— For giving is also very important for many reasons
To John thanks for believing we had uncovered something and put an article out there that put McDonough on the hot seat.
Thanks to those sources that talked with me and RTS about this untold event I am sure more will break over the coming days.
To Elizabeth I believe we had and still have better sources than you your continued attack on Me and RTS to say our information was wrong was shameful and discouraging to say the least. You have asked for apologies from us now its your turn but I am not holding my breath
Bob, Brendan was the first-hand witness. And Brendan is saying that Paladini got it wrong. Paladini is, at best, a THIRD-hand witness, and Brendan is allegedly a first-hand witness. Therefore, in my mind, if Brendan is saying that Paladini got it wrong, then I am inclined to believe Brendan!
You and Fred Schoeffler put out rumors, and, unless and until Brendan himself speaks, your rumors remain as RUMORS. It is no secret that Fred Schoeffler has been spreading rumors to the media about the Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy (apparently despite the USFS’s instructions regarding media contacts).
RIGHT————-Enjoy your self
And by the way he was not on the Fire and not under any restrictions by the FS,
We are both Retired and not subject to those restrictions.
Checkmate
Bob, why would both Brendan and Willis argue with what Paladini said if what Paladini said was 100% accurate? To be clear, I do not think that Paladini is lying, but, rather, I have to wonder if something got lost in translation. Until Brendan himself speaks publicly, all of this is rumor and second-hand gossip.
One more thing: If things actually did happen as the AZRepublic story suggests, then how could Marsh get to the crew but the crew could not get to Marsh (at the safety of the ranch)? How does that actually work?
Simple Marsh started back after the crew was ordered down. When they left the black Marsh headed back up to tie in with them.
Odds are he knew the fire was pushing toward them and wanted to hurry them up.
All guesses on my part but plausible.
Wow.
More to come, I am sure, but if its true…..WOW! !!
Bob, your theory perplexes me: If Marsh could get back to THEM from the ranch, why couldn’t they get to MARSH at (or near) the ranch?
Wow Dumb Question.—–
As I just said if they left from 2 seperiate points at or close to the same time then calculations say they would meet some place in the middle.
The crew of 18 would take longer going down thru the Brush filled canyon than 1 person coming back up thru as you can see a slight flat slope that may have had less brush to contend with for Marsh still my conclusion.
We know for sure Marsh was with the crew or within a min. of being with them at the first we are in front of the flaming front.
At that point they were out of time.
As we have discussed here. There is no actual facts to say that Marsh was actually at BSR or maybe he was near it.— We still have a lot of open information to tie up.
Willis and McDonough playing specific word games with the facts is expected. They are trying to protect GM’s image as long as they can.
Your a Lawyer what would you tell them??????
Don’t make any statements to the media????
We do not know yet if Willis is also Lawyered up???? Time will tell now…..
Willis said that the “revelations were so shocking” that he had to tell someone else. Willis himself said ‘shocking.” Quote. “So Shocking”. We know because we heard for ourselves that Steed and Marsh had a conversation about “comfort levels.” Now unless you believe that they were talking about the beds at a Holiday Inn Express, it points directly to the beginning of a longer conversation about Steed leading the guys down that hill. It fits. There are 3 scenerios here as I see them. 1) Marsh ordered them down. (That would be shocking information. 2) Steed demanded to come down against Marsh’s orders (That would be shocking). 3) Steed and Marsh both agreed that the guys should move. That would NOT be shocking. Since that is what they did, you would assume that it was a mutual decision. My guess is that McDonough and Willis are still trying to protect Marsh’s reputation. Can’t blame them I guess but the cats out of the bag now.
Elizabeth, even I can figure out how Marsh made it to the deployment site, but the guys couldn’t get there. The fire swept up behind him-coming around that mountain. Remember the ROS was astronomical at that point. My guess is that Marsh knew as he was headed backwards that the fire was closing in to his right and would soon be behind him, but what was he going to do? Just stand there and watch the guys get trapped? It’s like soldiers who run headfirst into almost certain death to rescue a fellow wounded soldier. Sometimes you make it and get a Medal of Freedom at the White House–sometimes you die and your family accepts on your behalf because you are dead. .
Well, there IS some pretty twisted stuff in this article. There’s definitely an agenda or two playing out.
Not surprisingly.
The repeated and false (as I understand the documentation at this point) claim that ADOSH is responsible for the delay(s) in Brendan’s deposition(s) just demonstrates the most obvious one.
So I have to say I’ll believe it when I see it.
Which has been pretty much my whole approach all along.
It’s nice of AZCEntral to FINALLY mention the months-long (and very expensive, I’m sure) bar-room brawl going on in the back rooms.
It’s too bad they decided to yellow-journalism it.
Correction. I should have written brawls, not brawl. There’s definitely more than one going on.
I’m curious who tipped this off to the Republic. It says at the end that the Republic called Palladini, not the other way around.
I would suggest Marti that the Same people that have been talking to me and RTS. Just a guess, Also John has been working on this for some time.
once the info was out there that the State was trying to get a deposition
from McDonough the investigation flood gates opened.
WHAT IS THE STORY HERE???????????????????
Well, that’s kind of why I’ve been saying for awhile now that the media should be covering the fight-almost-to-the-death (on the taxpayers millions of dollars) going on between AZFire and ADOSH.
So everybody said nothing would get covered til some “news” “broke.”
I guess they FINALLY decided to “break” the “news.”
This article is skewed, flabby, reckless, inflammatory, faulty, sketchy, and, to be honest, not much of anything else.
I can’t believe Yvonne put her name on it.
That’s why I’m not even going to come CLOSE to the big argument y’all are having upstream.
It’s not worth the oxygen, much less the bandwidth.
This is totally NOT responsible journalism.
Which is why this story is not worth fighting over.
However, if the allegations are true, (which we have all been thinking for the past 18 months), it could send the story in a whole new direction.
Marti said,”Who would love to be able to go into Photoshop and be able to clone Tony Sciacca about ten times over…….
…..and I’m really curious about what Gary Olson would think about that”
I can’t figure out the question?
LOL!
Cloning in Photoshop is a time-honored way of doing lots of things to things in a photograph, including getting rid of things you don’t want but also including multiplying things you do want.
On a more seriously serious level. Everything I have read regarding everything Tony Sciacca has Incident Commanded has left me sitting back and thinking, “Wow. Brilliant.”
Including what I wrote below regarding the 2013 Jaroso Fire in New Mexico.
And what I have written periodically about the 2014 Slide Fire. And what others have documented regarding the Whitewater-Baldy Fire in the Gila in 2012 (where Granite Mountain IHC was photographed). And then there was the Doce Fire.
And a couple of nights ago I just sat here thinking, deeply and almost painfully soberly, I REALLY think if Tony Sciacca had been properly (and thus timely) dispatched to the Yarnell Fire as the Safety Officer, I REALLY think what happened on June 30 wouldn’t have happened.
Everything I have seen of him indicates someone who is deeply committed to fire-fighter safety as a number one priority, no matter what, on all the fires he has commanded.
And who is, also, a brilliant strategist when it comes to managing even some REALLY complex fires.
So I have to admit, when I wrote that I was wondering what your impression is of him. I really respect your opinions about things. And people.
I know, and share, your deep pain about what happened here.
And it pained me deeply when I had that thought, that if Tony had actually made it to the Yarnell Fire when he should have (and could have if it hadn’t been screwed up via, apparently, the ordering system) his influence could have SERIOUSLY changed how things happened/didn’t happen regarding the safety of, not only the Granite Mountain Hotshots, but a bunch of other people whose safety was compromised to the point of endangerment on this fire.
Which leads me to think that, in this time when the USFS talks safety but doesn’t walk it, and the regional management cuts corners every which way they can………
……maybe “cloning” somebody like a Tony Sciacca might, hypothetically (I know this is a completely impossible fantasy but it expresses a serious value) be something really worth valuing.
As in “We need more people like Tony Sciacca.”
And PS I don’t want to romanticize or demonize anything/anybody. I’m really trying to stay away from romanticizing/demonizing in a pursuit to ferret out, in the midst of human complexity…..
…..what then do we need to do.
I don’t want to romanticize Tony Sciacca. But I really do see him, in all of this, as someone who we need more people “like.” And I’m wondering what you think of that.
Yes, I know Tony from back in the day when we were both hotshot foreman, he was with the Prescott Hotshots and I was with Happy Jack, although I don’t know him well.
Tony has always had a solid, highly competent reputation whatever he was doing. And he went right up the ladder to very near the top (I don’t think he was ever a Type I IC, but I might be wrong) in the alternative world of fire teams while doing the same in the real world of fire management on the Prescott National Forest….and he was able to do it without transferring anywhere (which is unusual) so yes…he is a good…even great wildland firefighter.
**
** PRESCOTT CITY ATTORNEY JON PALADINI HAS FINISHED HIS
** ‘INVESTIGATION’ REGARDING THE ICMA REPORT.
In a nutshell… Paladini says…
“We can find no evidence of malice, wrongful intent, improper influence or ‘tampering’.”
According to the following Prescott eNews article… one of the ‘surprises’ here is that YES… the ‘final draft’ was a lot different from the ‘first draft’… but despite what Willis seemed to be saying in his resignation letter… BOTH the ‘first’ and the ‘final’ drafts recommended that Prescott actually KEEP the “Wildland Division”.
Apparently… the decision to DISSOLVE the “Wildland Divsion” came AFTER the report, and was not even one of the report’s actual recommendations.
So I’m sure there is ‘more to come’ on this.
Here is the Prescott eNews article…
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25217-city-attorney-paladini-completes-investigation-of-icma-tampering
Here is the ‘Prescott Daily Courier’ (PDC) article covering the same story…
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1086&ArticleID=143678&TM=6113.818
The PDC was able to augment their report with some (new) comments from Darrell Willis.
From PDC the article…
————————————————————————
Former Fire Division Chief Darrell Willis, who made the claims against the city, says Paladini’s inquiry did not go deep enough, and failed to answer the basic question.
“I don’t think it was a thorough review,” Willis said Wednesday morning.
“They never talked to me.”
————————————————————————
As it turns out… the ICMA didn’t even have the expertise to ‘evaluate’ a ‘Wildland Division’ as part of a Municpal Fire department and budget… so they sub-contracted some ‘wildland expert’ guy named Joe Stutler.
It was, apparently, some EMAILS that Willis had exchanged with this Sutler guy that led Willis to believe the ‘Wildland’ part of the report was being ‘monkeyed with’.
So Willis still maintains the City first monkeyed with the report… and THEN used it as an ‘excuse’ to get rid of the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” organization and, indeed, the entire “Wildland Division” of the Fire department itself.
Followup….
Apparently, it all comes down to this.
Some WORDS got changed in one paragraph between the INITIAL report ( which contained Joe Stutler’s evaluation ) and the FINAL report.
From the SIDEBAR in the PDC article linked to above…
———————————————————————————-
The draft report that wildland expert Joe Stutler prepared in March 2014 recommends that the city: “Maintain the Wildland Fire Division with the Prescott Fire Department to provide both leadership and successional planning for the division.”
By the time the report went to the City Council in August 2014, the recommendation had been changed to: “Maintain the wildland fire component (e.g. training, certification, and initial attack response utilizing existing suppression firefighters), within the PFD to provide both leadership and successful planning efforts for wildland operations.”
————————————————————————–
Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini still hasn’t really explained HOW ‘Paragraph 1’ above eventually turned into ‘Paragraph 2’.
BOTH versions are obviously ‘recommending’ that Prescott continue a ‘Wildfire component’ as part of the Fire Department… but the word ‘Division’ was not in the final draft.
NEITHER version says anything about whether Prescott needs ( or has ever needed ) a ‘Type 1 Hotshot Crew’ operating out of the City garages.
There is also this in the ‘final version’….
“Maintain the wildland fire component (e.g. training, certification, and initial attack response utilizing EXISTING suppression firefighters”
That is pretty much the ‘scenario’ that Marti and I were discussing below.
Use the EXISTING firefighters you have… and make sure they have the ‘special’ training needed to form themselves into a valid ‘Type 2 IA’ Crew on-demand and as-needed.
That would probably WORK for Prescott ( and solve salary and liability issues )… but that’s (apparently) NOT what Darrell Willis thinks qualifies as “Making sure the dead have not died in vain”.
More to come on this… I’m sure.
WTK, have you found any way to find these actual documents?
All we’re getting is various other peoples’ interpretations of them.
Also, the contract report (powerpoint slide thingy I posted downstream) says that ALL the documents and whatever that they collect/generate in the course of the analysis belong to the City to be made PUBLIC. So that that PUBLIC conversation that they repeatedly call for can actually happen on an informed basis.
This thing is just all smoke and mirrors, compared to what they contracted with the City to do, it seems to me.
VERY interesting. Thanks!
To go back a little on IHC Initial Attack use—–
In Idaho as in the Great Basin’, Arizona Etc. we because of large tracks of Sage Brush have two types of
Initial attack Small Lightning 1/4 acre to running burns of 10 to 100 acres for initial attack.
So Yes IHC’s are used on IA often as a full crew. My point on small starts is the dist. IA crews , Helitack
Crews and the sticks of smoke jumpers here in Idaho are used for those small 2 to 5 man Fires.
Seldom are HOT Shots used to IA small 2 to 5 man Fires they are more than likely already headed to a larger Fire where more resources are needed. Once you start pulling 2 or more FF off a HS crew the crew as a whole is no longer available. As a Dispatch you have to make that choice and generally the Region is involved. Your taking a Type 1 crew out of rotation which is a serious thing at certain times of the year.
Management Fires are a lot more complicated than just letting them burn to reduce the fuel.
They take a management plan. normally you do not allow a management burn close to a urban interface your banking on not loosing structures. Not a good place in the middle of the fire season
talk management burns.
Back to the meeting the prescription this involves a FBAN, Location, Weather predictions, Management area, availability of crews if the Fire escapes prescription.
Yarnell would not have met prescription on severial counts.
Elizabeth– it is way more complicated than it sounds when you talk about unplanned ignitions in heavy fuel, with the extreme fire danger in drought conditions, late June thru September.
within 2 to 4 miles of towns and small communities. Not a controllable scenario.
Thanks!
You wrote”
“Management Fires are a lot more complicated than just letting them burn to reduce the fuel.”
I spent some time yesterday reading about the Jaros0 Fire in the Pecos Wilderness in early June 2013.
That’s a place my dad and I used to pack in via horseback in the 1960s and 1970s. It took me awhile to orient myself via the fire maps but I finally did. A number of gorgeous places we used to camp burned in this fire. But there was a HUGE swath of trees right through it that had been blown down and made dead in the years since we used to camp there.
When the fire was lightning-ignited, a rappel crew and a smokejumper crew were initially flown in. It was REALLY difficult and remote country. They had to be pulled out in the first twelve hours.
It was also, ahem, Wilderness. So it was determined it didn’t have to be uberly suppressed.
The Initial IMT handed the fire off to Tony Sciacca’s team.
Tony’s team came in and spent about SIX DAYS JUST INTERVIEWING the people and stakeholders surrounding the area of the fire, in order to determine what were the most important resources and values that would need to be protected, while, EVERY DAY, communicating that the area where the fire was burning was TOO DANGEROUS to send human beings in to engage the fire. While the fire burned.
I could see the smoke from the fire from Albuquerque. And then the Thompson Ridge Fire started, which is a whole nuther story. Not to speak of the fact that Santa Fe was INUNDATED with smoke. All things considered, it is SERIOUSLY NOT COOL when Santa Fe gets, periodically inundated with smoke.
(What, apparently, our counselor also doesn’t understand, also, is how POLITICAL SMOKE IS when fires are allowed to burn because, well, sometimes these places do need to burn). So that’s an additional COMPLEXITY.
So, anyway. That fire burned for about six days with nobody doing anything about stopping it, because, well, it was a natural fire in a Wilderness, and, generally speaking, Wilderness fires are allowed to burn, because that’s what Wildernesses are all about. And, to be honest, probably that area needed to burn.
And also because Tony Sciacca determined that, fire-fighter safety being the FIRST consideration, it was too dangerous to send fire-fighters in to try to suppress it.
As I write this, I’m not sure which of these considerations took precedence, if even one of them did.
I am sure that the conversations with the stake-holders in those conversations had a WHOLE LOT TO DO with, not only structures at risk, but the WATERSHEDS.
It is said that trees and structures can be replaced. Which is somewhat true in the calculations. On the other hand, WATERSHEDS are a whole different ball of wax. They’re almost as non-replaceable as wildfire fighters. Not quite, but seriously close. Especially in the Southwest.
I think the other thing our counselor does not quite understand is how wildfire damages watersheds and how incredibly SERIOUS that damage can be, in the drought-prone Southwest. It REALLY adds to the complexity of all of this.
But it was STRESSED on InciWeb that fire-fighter safety was the reason for not attacking the fire at that point, not Wilderness designation.
So.
At a certain point, the fire was passed on to the Atlanta NIMO team, the same team that was later involved in the eventual Yarnell Fire Memorial Preparations. (I have no idea why this Atlanta NIMO was so engaged in incidents in the Southwest at that time, but that seems to be what happened.)
The Atlanta NIMO was, at that time, involved also in wrapping up and doing the BAER work on the Thompson Ridge Fire (the one that Granite Mountain got major PR about for their night-time structure protection back-burning operation). So they were just generally engaged on stuff in the Arizona/New Mexico area at that time.
Unfortunately, for the Atlanta NIMO Team, after they inherited the Jarosa Fire from Tony Sciacca’s team (who went from there to the Doce Fire), it did, relatively speaking, blow up quite a bit, expanding from about 4K acres (when Tony Sciacca’s team was managing it) to about 12K acres.
At that point, a whole lot of suppression/structure protection crews had to be quickly pulled in. There were IHCs doing handlines to increase all kinds of roads and other barriers and wildland et al engine crews scrambling to do structure protection.
And then, finally, the monsoons slowly moved in, things got more and more humid, then it rained, and then slowly the fire slowed down and stopped burning around about the time they were doing a nation-wide stand-down for safety to honor and think about the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
And this fire DID seriously damage the Las Vegas, New Mexico watershed. And there was flooding in that small city because of it.
Given this whole narrative, I agree with WTKTT when he said something along the lines of (and I’m hugely paraphrasing) “the time to be thinking about this kind of stuff is not when a fire is erupting on a relatively small manzanita-filled ecosystem with a bunch of unprotected homes (owned by a community of people mostly older than 60-years-old) close on to its borders.”
That being said, To Be Honest, I have had the same sorts of thoughts our counselor has spoken of here. That huge acreage of manzanita/chaparral was very muchly way beyond DUE TO BURN. And it may even get there again.
But, yeah, the time to mitigate those risks is not when a fire gets lit into an explosive container with humans next to it.
So yes, as you say, Bob, “Management Fires are a lot more complicated than just letting them burn to reduce the fuel.”
Namaste.
No, Elizabeth…if you actually read my comment, I say SPECIFICALLY JUST THAT! You must be too busy to read the entire comment, so here let me print it for you again. In addition, I am still planning on responding to the LAST time (regarding Thirtymile) you tried to gig me on something I said, and you completely SCREWED IT up because you did not read the previous comments!
“The only time I ever went on initial attack as a hotshot (excluding being in a “move up” role to be prepositioned at a helibase either on forest or off forest to go out to initial fire starts in small modules as small as two crewmembers for that specific preplanned purpose, where one crew member would serve at the Incident Commander who then doubles as a line resource and the other crew person fills every other role on the fire)”
In addition, I did say the following,
“Based on my experience, hotshots usually have very little to do with whether a fire takes off and gets big or not, when compared to those resources who are tasked with INITIAL attack responsibilities. In other words, I don’t think hotshots should ever be thought of as an INTIAL attack resource, they should always be thought of as an EXTENDED attack resource.”
And I have stated several times in the past, my last firefighting experience was in 1988, although frankly…it does not appear to me the strategies and tactics in wildland firefighting other than some differences such as not fighting wildfire at night, which I don’t understand or agree with. In addition, there is apparently a much greater emphasis on wildand/urban interface because so many people unlike me, do not want to live in a town, and in houses in what they call “subdivisions” (see Levittown N.Y.) where everyone is in neat little rows in very similar and sometimes identical houses like they started building after WWII because there are too MANY people for everyone to live like they did prior to WWII.
And we have been doing nothing but creating babies and bigger and bigger cities since then. While people want to live near a city for the amenities a city offers, and need to live near enough to a city where there are jobs, so they start building a short distance from the city in order to have wildlands in their back yard, but still get to town to work in an office building and for social and shopping experiences. So take my comments as you will, based on the fact I fought wildfire a long time ago.
And now I want to add to what Bob said. IF the only TOOL you have in your tool bag is a really big, really heavy, and really expensive CLAW HAMMER that carpenters use to knock house frames together, well…then, every time you want to hammer a nail in, even if it is a finish nail you want to pound into a picture frame you are going to use a really big, really heavy and really expensive CLAW HAMMER. The USFS Service has a lot of DIFFERENT wildland firefighting tools in their in their tool bag because well…they are in the wildfire fighting business. In fact, the USFS was built on two principles, growing trees to cut down to frame houses for the America people and putting out fires that threatened those trees.
That is why the USFS is in the U.S. Department of Agriculture whereas logical people would naturally assume it is under U.S. Department of the Interior, just like all of the other land management agencies in the federal government. Most politicians you see…or at least those politicians who matter, those from the western states who control the committees who control how the USFS operates, still think of growing trees just like they do of growing wheat, barley or corn crops. Trees are something to be grown and harvested, which I am totally OK with, the house I live in is a wood frame house. I don’t want one made out of straw.
On the other hand, the USFS does not have a lot of tools in their tool bag that you could use to manage a local municipality because well…they are not in the business of managing a local municipality. There are a few of the same tools in their bags (Prescott and the USFS) for example, when I worked on the Santa Fe National Forest, I was acquainted with the Forest Civil Engineer who left the USFS to go to work for the City of Albuquerque N.M. on their roads instead of forest roads. So there is some crossover.
So…I know that many of you are wondering, how would I set up the Prescott Wildlands Fire Division if I were in charge, or if I was being paid as a consultant? Well…first off, I would not even consider working as a consultant in my Goldenish Years for less than $125.00 per hour, plus expenses. But since I think WTKTT, Marti and several others time who have so generously contributed their time to this thread, and I think their time is worth as much as mine or more, well…it would truly be selfish not to jump in and answer that question as best I can. I’m sorry Elizabeth, based on your contributions to this thread to date…you actually owe us a great deal of money. Just kidding, April Fools, based on some of our side emails, you know how much I really think of you…don’t you?
I actually consider the chance to answer this question is my golden opportunity to make a real contribution to this thread that is different than my normal angry, sarcastic, smart aleck, snarky remarks, in addition my usual general comments and back-story blah, blah, blah.
So here we go…I would like to say that the Good Citizens of Prescott are really lucky that Eric Marsh and Darrell Willis didn’t have a dream to fly their own slurry bomber as a division of the Prescott Fire Department. At least based on what I know of the oversight and the level of expertise of those individuals who were providing that oversight, regarding Mr. Willis in particular, or right now the city could very well own their very own Boeing 747 that had been converted into a slurry bomber that could drop 11,000 gallons of retardant on a single mission. In other words, the only tool in their wildland firefighting tool box would be a 20 pound sledge hammer, assuming it had not been flown into the side of Granite Mountain yet.
The USFS has a really big toolbox for nothing but sledgehammers, they have sledge hammers that start at 2 pounds…and go all the way up to 20 pounds. But they also have a wide variety of other hammers, ball pein hammers, tack hammers, claw hammers, and they even have some rubber mallets, all of different sizes and weights. They have to because they are in the hammer business, and have been for a really long time. They pound a lot of things, so they need a lot of different kinds of hammers. You know what they say, “If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” And if the only tool you own is a really big and expensive carpenters hammer, well…you are going to want to treat every problem like it’s a nail sticking up.
So…what does Prescott really need to build a successful Wildland Fire Division?
1. Don’t make wildland fire suppression a DIVISION. You just aren’t that important, you just don’t have that must wildland around you as a smallish city to pay someone more than $90,000 a year to manage this program, unless your real goal is to create something slightly more than a “no-show” job for your ex fire chief so he won’t go to the Prescott Courier with a hand drawn map showing where all of the bodies are buried…I guess? Put the people who work in that area into the Emergency Services Division, after all…a wildfire can be called an “emergency” that needs to be “serviced”….right? You just aren’t going to need, nor can you afford very many people to work in this area, once again…you just don’t have very much area to cover.
2. Hire an experienced and qualified person to run that program. Call this person an Assistant (Deputy) Emergency Services Chief. Get a copy of a Vacancy Announcement from the USFS for a District Fire Management Officer, dumb it down a little bit, because once again, you aren’t very big nor very important when compared to a USFS District.
Then look for someone who is currently working as a USFS Assistant Fire Management Officer or his or her equivalent in another agency. If you want someone who is really good at working at small town (read chicken-shit) politics, glad-handing the local population and not only surviving, but excelling in an closed environment that is dominated by Machiavelli politics, hire someone operating at that level who has lasted for a minimum of five years in a similar position working for the National Park Service.
If you can handle someone who is a little rough around the edges but does good work…hire somebody who works for the USFS. If you want to hire someone who used to work for both the USFS and the NPS, hire somebody who works for the BLM. You may also may want to check with the BIA, but knowing the people and politics of Prescott, somebody from the BIA is probably not going to be happy working and living in Prescott.
Be sure the Position Description requires that person must pass the current wildland firefighter pack test and a hire youngish person unless you want just a guy who is really good at schmoozing people and ordering free shit out of the big book the USFS already sent to Chief Willis. In other words, you need a working supervisor who can write fire plans, federal grant applications, fuel reduction plans (someone who has worked as a USFS Fuels Technician would be good) and knows how to do budgeting and how to train and supervise wildland firefighters with both engine and hotshot crew experience that still has a lot of energy and likes to work in the field but can work in an office. P.S., don’t phrase it like I did or the EEOC will probably be all over your ass, but the shit bag who runs your personnel office knows how to play all of the games…I am quite sure of that.
3. Buy and equip two 4×4 “brush trucks” that can carry 200 gallons of water (more than that would be too heavy, less than that would not be effective enough for what you need). Put a lift kit on it (not to high, you don’t want roll it) heavy bumpers that can run into trees or back into trees once in a while without sustaining much damage and put a big honkin’ ass winch (minimum Warn 16.5 Thermometric like I have my 4×4 one ton Ford E-350 van with a Buckstop bumper with a grill guard, not only does that set up look bad-ass…but if you ever bury those bitchs up to their axles…you are going to need those winches) and get a bunch of recovery gear, like several really heavy duty snatch blocks etc.
Have them call me, I love to shop for and buy recovery gear I hope I will never actually need. Buy single cab trucks, double cab trucks will be too big. Talk to the USFS, NPS or BIA and get their spec sheets and a list of suppliers, they own a bunch of vehicles similar to what I am describing, tell them I sent you…they will hook you up. If you want to be different and spend a lot more money that will make people point and whip out their camera phones…call the BLM and ask them about their Mercedes Benz Unimog program. It’s really cool. If they still have it…it has been awhile.
3. Buy a crew van. Don’t get a Chevy or Dodge van unless they are all out of Ford vans everywhere in the country. Just kidding, you are probably screwed on this angle no matter what, since Ford has started making all of their vans just like they have been making them for decades in Europe due to gas mileage requirements. So…you are going to have to shop for a good, low mileage E-350. Take it to Quad Van in Portland, Oregon, tell them I sent you, and they will add a lift kit and a four wheel drive system. It’s not cheap…but it is well worth the money.
4. Now…you are going to need some more supervisors. You will need a minimum of 3 supervisors, one for each of your rigs. Look for a mix of hotshots who have worked on engines or people who have worked on engines who have hotshot experience. In other words, your supervisors will need the skill sets that are only obtained on engines (wildland fire engines, not big red or lime green fire trucks you sillies) and hotshot crews, you won’t be able to hire some of each…you can’t afford it.
But…give you 4 supervisors some benefits for God’s sake…you cheap bastards. I know…I know…your big problem is that Prescott has been on top ten retirement place lists for about 40 years now…so you do have an overwhelmingly burden of really unpleasant (nasty) budget minded (cheap-ass, after…their kids are already grown and have THEIR educations, so they have no intention of paying one fucking penny more than they have to help educate anyone else’s kids or anything else for that matter) citizens, but you are just going to have to deal with it.
5. Finally…hire some crewmembers. You will need to a minimum of 2 crewmembers for each brush truck/pumper, and (here is where you can play with the numbers) 6 to 10 crewmembers to fill up your bitchin’ van, (here’s a photo of mine so you have something to shoot for http://virtualroadtrip.net/randomtrips/roadtripmisc.html your welcome). What you are really shooting for here, is to be able to field the equivalent of one squad (9) of hotshots. Here you can afford to hire either people who have worked on engines or hotshot crews, avoid people who have only worked on helitack crews or as smokejumpers because, well…they have only worked on helitack crews or as smokejumpers…enough said!
I know…I know…you still have the problem we talked about before, so you don’t have to offer them any benefits, just dangle the POSSIBILITY they could get benefits SOMEDAY, and you will get a more qualified applicants than you can manage. You will be able to select some really, really, good people for all of these positions. Uncle Sam has spent millions and millions and millions of dollars training all of the wildland firefighters they discard every year. This will save you a lot of money in training dollars.
6. Get that big book the USFS sent to Darrell Willis before he takes off to dedicate his life making sure the Granite Mountain Hotshots did not die in vain, or he ends up in a catatonic state staring at a blank wall in his house clutching a cross and mumbling to himself…if he ever admits to himself what he has done. Because you are going to need to order some things, but most of the tools and other equipment you will need are already in storage over at Fire Station 7.
7. Develop an interagency memorandum of understanding or some sort of mutual aide agreement with the Prescott National Forest that will allow your crews to be sent to fires on the Prescott so they can stay proficient and get additional training and experience, and so that the Prescott National Forest will send its engines to help you fight a wildfire in a subdivision. I’m sure they will do that already, but now you will be contributing something to the mix. Arrange in these agreements to have your brush trucks and 6-10 person hand crew to be dispatched out of the Prescott Zone Dispatch Center (or whatever they call it) out by the airport. Don’t send them any further than the boundaries of the Prescott National Forest, you can’t afford to be a “playa.” Know what I mean?
8. Once you have followed all of these steps, you will be able to handle anything your little town faces in terms of wildland fire threats (multiple starts) and when they are not on fires, your crews can engage in fuels reduction projects. If you have any question…call me!
You made the point again that you think hotshot crews should not be an initial attack resource. I just find that curious. No more, no less.
Also, my calculus is less complex than yours, and I bill at a higher rate than you do. My calculus is more along the lines of Steve Pyne’s (sp?): If an area has not burned in forty years, it is going to burn badly when it does burn, so the public needs to be trained to just EXPECT that and evacuate at the first sign of a fire in that type of area. If you “initial attack” and suppress everything, you are doing NOBODY any favors. Those of you who are complaining that the YHF was not put out quickly enough miss the point that there should have been prescribed fire or mastication in that area for years… but there wasn’t, and you cannot blame Russ Shumate or Dean Fernandez for that.
Friday night, June 28, 2013 and (especially) Saturday, June 29, 2013 was NO time to be having a ‘mastication debate’ or talk about what SHOULD have been happening over the previous decades.
Arizona Forestry’s JOB was to perform an INITIAL ATTACK on a Lightning Strike in an area ( and under fire conditions ) that could potentially be disastrous.
That Initial Attack FAILED ( miserably )… resulting in significant loss of life and property.
There ARE “Lessons to be Learned”.
Don’t order crews for your ‘Initial Attack’ who ( even though their rating says they are supposed to ) are UNABLE to physically hike to where the fire is.
If it’s the RATING system for Crew Ordering that’s broken… fix it.
If it’s Crews being GIVEN ratings they shouldn’t have… fix that, too.
Then it’s time to look around and have more ‘mastication’ debates.
Exactly.
Actually I can’t describe it any better than Bob did below, the correct answer is yes and no.
Bob said “Yes your guys are right the local HS Crews can and have be used on IA fires in small groups.
In reality it is not done very often when FS Regular resources are available. Like Eng. crews, Fuels Crews, trail crews, Fire Prev. People, those local resources are generally first.
There are occasional lightning fires that are to numerous on a forest to attack with the resources available. Generally the HS Crew is used on larger starts where more Man Power is needed 5 1o 10 man squads. Similar to ordering smoke jumper sticks. 3,6,12 etc.
So back to the question the answer is yes and no.
IRHS are never split or at least in my day were never.
HSC forest can and have depending on the national and Regional Fire out look.
that is not to say that the Region or NIFC may put a hold on all HS Resources and keep the in full crews ready for dispatch nationally. Happens quite often in my day and now.
So there are some hoops to jump thru to split a crew up into small squads and spread them out they are now not a Type 1 crew, till all are back together and reinstalled on the crew availability lists.
Final answer IT CAN HAPPEN BUT IT IS VERY SELDOM DONE.”
But is just so happens that where I have worked on the Mighty Coconino, the forest was flush with lots of initial attack resources, mostly engines, on all of the districts. Therefore hotshots would just be used to go on extended attack to those fires the engines have lost or very may well lose.
And on the Santa Fe, the Santa Fe hotshots were normally kept within a 50 miles or so of Santa Fe because that was a central location on the forest and near the airport. If they Santa Fe Hotshots were sent to the Coyote or Cuba Ranger Districts for initial attack, they would be 12 hours or more from being able to respond to a fire on the Las Vegas District and 6 hours or more from the airport. So no, it wasn’t a good idea to use them for initial attack.
And Retired with 38 is 100 correct in his well written analysis “A couple comments,
First, as Bob corrected himself all type 1 crews are IHC – the IRHC and IHC (T) went away several years ago (unless it has changed again).
In regard to using an IHC as an IA crew I must respectfully disagree with Gary Olsen. In my time the concept was always use the “closest resource” and attack the fire that you know you have instead of the fire that might happen. The utilization of an IHC on Friday night or even Saturday morning for initial attack would (IMHO)have dramatically changed the tragic outcome. Steep, rocky, inaccessible terrain – with the ongoing conditions in the area sounds like the perfect IA for an IHC. IHC’s are more qualified, more experienced, better conditioned, etc., than DOC crews. Cost more? You bet, but in this situation you would have had a small fire at a higher cost versus a small/medium sized fire at a cost that will NEVER be accepted (regardless of decisions made and why). What about the next fire, or the fire that needs IHC’s? Once contained, the DOC crew could have been utilized for holding, mop-up, and patrol and the IHC could have been made available for re-assignment.
As discussed several chapters ago, this fire was mismanaged from the onset. Utilizing the proper resources in a timely fashion would have changed the tragic outcome.”
So yes, you should also send the closest resource it’s just because I have worked where there are so many engines, they almost always handled the initial attack. The Santa Fe Hotshots did go on one initial attack fire while I was there, the Valdez Fire and we lost it big time. But the fact we were close enough to do the initial attack was a very rare occurrence.
I have stated before that a lot of my comments are general statements and with an agency as big and diverse as the USFS, it is almost always wrong to make any blanket statements. It’s complicated.
And I think there were plenty of initial attack resources available or on scene to stop the Yarnell Hill Fire before it ever got started, what seemed to be lacking was the will to do so, but that is a cultural problem.
Thank you, Gary, for this. And also for your GREAT explication of what you would advise if you were asked (at $150 an hour, which you deserve) to reconfigure a wildland fire-fighting crew for Prescott. I read that with GREAT interest (and also appreciate WTKTT’s description of the already available resources Prescott has for that crew).
You wrote:
“And I think there were plenty of initial attack resources available or on scene to stop the Yarnell Hill Fire before it ever got started”
That is so completely true, it just boggles my mind.
Think Prescott Helitack.
An hour away, at the most. I don’t know (and can’t find) if they were available (if maybe not that night, but for the next morning??), but they are never even mentioned in the Dispatch WildCAD log. They were never even brought up or considered or asked for or ANYTHING. I really don’t understand that. They didn’t even need a helispot to engage, something that, apparently, determining the existence of ALSO cost time on Saturday morning.
I can not even begin to comprehend the fact that Shumate never even thought of this crew, all things considered. There’s no way he could not have been aware of its existence.
A rappel crew with a big helicopter. An hour away. The PERFECT Initial Attack crew for this fire.
Even the BLM helitack crew, whose helicopter and crewman somehow DID get called up (probably due to BLM Dean Fernandez being involved), could have done a better job of dousing and killing this fire by somewhere around noon, even if that entailed them high-tailing it over to Yarnell from Payson, where they were staged.
I mean, how long does it take to drive from Payson to Yarnell early on a Saturday morning? Two hours at the complete maximum most??????
Even if it had taken them awhile to fly up to the ridge (in a smaller helicopter than Prescott Helitack had, I think), at least they were highly qualified and I’m SURE they would never have lost control of that fire the way the DOC crew did.
I just really truly don’t even begin to understand what was going through Russ Shumate’s mind that Friday night when he ordered those (albeit cheap OH YEAH!!!) DOC crews to deploy and accomplish any kind of effective Initial Attack on that fire up on that ridge.
This is a real conundrum for me. It has ALWAYS been.
They didn’t need Granite Mountain that Saturday morning. They had two perfectly adequate crews right in their back pocket.
Yes they did, what they didn’t have was motivation.
Great ‘blueprint’, Gary. ( Also great commentary, as usual ). Love the ‘analogies’. Spot on.
Bitchin’ van as well. Thanks for the photo.
If I am reading the following (current) ‘Equipment List’ for the Prescott Fire Department correctly… they seem to ALREADY have at LEAST FOUR ‘Type 6’ Engines ( Brush Trucks ) stationed all around their response area(s).
They even list one of them ( at Station 71 ) as a “Type III, US Forest Service Engine with 4-7 personnel”.
So it looks like the ‘regular’ side of the Prescott Fire Department has ALWAYS recognized the need to have ‘Brush Trucks’ and that fighting Wildland Fires on the outskirts of their Service area(s) has ALWAYS been something they need to be ready to do.
How THAT turned into even the NEED for a (separate) “Wildland Division”, a ‘Type 2 IA’ crew… OR a full blown Type 1 Hotshot Crew sort of remains a mystery.
The TRUTH is probably that that is simply what people like Steinbrink and Willis and Marsh WANTED to have… and once the GRANT money started flowing after the “National Fire Act” was passed… they saw a way to “have their dream” right there in Prescott.
Even now… it looks like they could simply ‘beef up’ the support they have always had on the “Regular” side of the Fire Department Budget and still be able to handle whatever they need to ( just short of a disaster that is ALWAYS going to need the ‘playas’ to show up ).
From… Prescott Fire Department’s own website…
http://www.prescott-az.gov/services/fire/stations/
Station 71 (333 White Spar Rd.) – Equipment
2 Type 1 Engines
1 75′ Ladder Company
1 Type VI
1 Utility
1 Historic Engine
NOTE for Station 71: Response area includes; City of Prescott, Prescott National Forest, Hwy 89, and rural areas surrounding city. Station 71 houses a Type III, US Forest Service Engine with 4-7 personnel.
Station 72 (1700 Iron Springs Road) – Equipment
2 Type 1 Engines, 1 Truck Company, 1 Type 6 Patrol
Station 73 (1980 Clubhouse Drive) – Equipment
1 Type 1 Engine, 1 ARFF Unit, 1 Type 6 Patrol
Station 74 (2747 Smoketree Lane) – Equipment
1 Type 1 Engine, 1 Support Unit, 1 Rescue Boat
Station 75 (315 Lee Boulevard) – Equipment
1 Type 1 Engine, 1 Type 6 Engine, 1 Hazardous Materials Unit
NOTE: Granite Mountain Station 7 ( and all THAT equipment ) is still listed as
an ‘active station’ in the PFD Station roster…
Station 7 (501 6th Street) ( Granite Mountain Station 7 ) – Equipment
1 4×4 Superintendent Truck
2 10 Person Crew Carriers
2 Chipper Trucks
1 Chipper
Misc. Wildland Division Trucks
Well…never mind then. If they already had what the needed? Oh well.
For ten years ( from 1990 to 2000 )… there was this PAWUIC ( Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface ) thing going on. All it could achieve for pretty much a decade was ‘community awareness and education’.
The City of Prescott was not, in and of itself, seeing the CVB ( Cost Versus Benefit ) of actually funding any REAL work for “Fuels Abatement”.
Then came the “National Fire Act” of 2000… and suddenly there was $$$ MONEY $$$ to be had.
Prescott was in an ideal position to get a piece of the first round of “Fuels Abatement” money because they WERE being listed as one of 9 communities in danger of a CATASTRPOHIC Wildfire… AND they already had this PAWUIC thing for going on ten years.
So that’s how they became part of that first ‘Beta rollout’ of this new National “Firewise” effort.
Suddenly… the money showed up… and that is where Prescott’s first actual “Fuels Abatement Crew” came from.
You know… ACTUAL people doing ACTUAL work and stuff.
That is all well and good.
But then something WEIRD happened… and I don’t believe the whole ‘story’ on that has come out yet.
Somehow… even with the GRANT money now showing up… there was this feeling that Prescott STILL didn’t see the CVB and if the GRANT money dried up… so would the actual ‘Fuels Abatement Crew”.
So somewhere in THAT ‘paranoia’ the idea was ‘hatched’ to try and prove to the City of Prescott that a crew like that could ‘break even’… if they just achieved some status whereby they could ‘job out’ during fire season.
That’s when the “Fuels Crew” turned into a “Type 2 IA” crew.
What we still do NOT really know is how ‘in the loop’ the Prescott City Council really was on these “let’s transform ourselves” decision being made by Willis, Steinbrink and Marsh.
Ditto for the NEXT decision ( after achieving Type 2 IA status ) to try and even go to “the next level”. Actual ‘Type 1 Hotshot’ rating.
What is MISSING from the actual published Prescott City Budget documents going all the way back to the year 2000 is this ‘decision making’ process being either reflected ( or supported ) by the Prescott City Budget.
The ‘increasing expenditures’ only start showing up in the Budgets AFTER these different ‘status levels’ had already been achieved.
Were Steinbrink, Willis and Marsh even TELLING the City they were doing this ‘upgrading’… or was it really some kind of “forgiveness is easier than permission” strategy on their part?
Now that the post-mortem discussion is so focused ( as Chief Dennis Light proved just last week ) on whether that program was ‘making money’ and/or even just ‘breaking even’… it’s worth re-asking the questions about how they even GOT to the point where they were even EXPECTED to be ‘breaking even’.
I’ll repeat an analogy I made below.
If the police department is found to not be ‘breaking even’ and ‘covering their expenses’ with enough traffic ticket income coming back to the City of Prescott… is it time to start talking about DISBANDING them?
If the City of Prescott itself was even ‘onboard’ with creating that initial “Fuels Abatement Crew”… and the CVB was there for THAT… then WHEN did it all start to go south and WHEN did the ‘bean-counters’ start looking at the whole thing sideways?
Was it after the jump to ‘Type 2 IA’?
Was it after the additional jump to ‘Type 1 IHC’?
And as you pointed out succinctly above… WHEN ( and WHY? ) was there a decision to even create an actual “Wildland Division” for such a small Fire Department and pay out that salary… instead of just ‘integrating’ that GRANT money and the “Fuels Abatement” Crew into the existing infrastructure?
I don’t think a lot of these questions have ever really been answered.
There really was some kind of “Bridge Too Far” scenario that had been developing here for YEARS… but the actual REASONS for ending up with a full blown ‘Type 1 IHC’ Crew attached to a full-blown “Wildland Division” of a small town Fire Department ( that couldn’t even afford $8,000 lousy dollars to REPLACE their ATV when it burned up ) are still a little mysterious.
Willis has stated ( in media interviews ) that when it came time to try and fly something that could prove that this Crew could ‘make money’ or ‘break even’ for the City… that he always intended to ‘go for the gusto’.
Willis stated ( to the media )…
“I wanted to provide the best we could. If we’re going to have a crew, we might as well have the best.”
So maybe right there is when the “Bridge Too Far” thing really began.
It’s one thing to just apply for ‘trainee status’ for Type 1 IHC and then get (supposedly) only 3 people to ‘sign off’ on whether you deserve that rating ( one of whom is attached to your own Prescott National Forest )…
…but whether that really SHOULD have been allowed to happen without the FULL support of your host agency ( The City of Prescott ) is ‘another story’ that I think has yet to be told.
That is where all the PRESSURE was created. The PRESSURE to perform. The PRESSURE to ‘break even’. The PRESSURE to ‘train within and hire from within’..
Those PRESSURES were with 43 year old Eric Marsh all the time… even on Sunday, June 30th, 2013… so the STORY of where those PRESSURES were really coming from remains just as relevant as ever.
Yes, as I keep saying, the pressure the crew was under does not excuse the decision they made, but it does explain why they made it to me.
For what it’s worth here is the agenda for the March 26 Prescott City Council “Special Meeting,” which includes what looks like frames from what must have been a powerpoint presentation or such. Some interesting things in it.
Including, on page ten:
“ Primary functions of the GMH consisted of:
▪ Fuels reduction by hand-crew methods under grant funded projects
▪ Assisting property owners/associations by chipping vegetation
removed by others from private property
▪ Initial wildfire response
▪ Extended deployment to other fires under external incident command
and cost reimbursement according to federal and state guidelines”
So, apparently, they WERE expected to do Initial Attack.
Very worth looking through this.
They haven’t posted the minutes yet.
I may not be posted very much for awhile. I’m really exhausted and need to do a WHOLE lot of In-real-life stuff, it being tax month an all.
But I’m ALWAYS reading!!!!
Oh doh, I forgot to post the link. That’s how tired I am.
It’s a .pdf.
PRESCOTT CITY COUNCIL Council Chambers
SPECIAL MEETING 201 South Cortez Street
Thursday, March 26, 2015 Prescott, Arizona 86303
9:00 AM
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/UserControls/DocPreview.aspx?p=1&aoid=259
To get to other City Council Meetings Documents go here:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/web/site.aspx
PS The more I’ve been looking at all of this, the more I see how Prescott’s Wildland Fire Response is integrated with that of Central Yavapai Fire District and Yavapai County in general.
I’m wondering how they’re all reacting to this. But I haven’t found much online about all of this except the usual media articles.
And I STILL can’t figure out the numbers when they say the Wildland Div cost $250K to $300K per year. There’s nothing in this pdf that breaks down any of those numbers, it just presents them as stated.
Reply to Marti Reed post on April 1, 2015 at 8:37 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> And I STILL can’t figure out the numbers when they say the Wildland
>> Div cost $250K to $300K per year. There’s nothing in this pdf that
>> breaks down any of those numbers, it just presents them as stated.
I think I said somewhere down below that even with this ‘latest’ information from Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light which ( supposedly ) came from some ‘final audit’ of the Granite Mountain operation… I don’t think we’ll ever really know the TRUE answer to the question “Was Granite Mountain breaking even…. or not”.
There are too many sets of ‘numbers’ floating around without the DETAIL to back up the conclusions.
Example: Crew Carriers
To this day… I haven’t seen ANY ‘evaluation’ factor in the VEHICLES, and the tremendous COST that must have been involved just to have them.
I haven’t seen any exact figures ( there is nothing about these vehicles in any report or document from Prescott )… but when Wildfire Today published their article about the “Ironwood Hotshots” disbanding the article also said they had just taken delivery of their own new Crew Carriers ( identical to Granite Mountain’s Carriers ) to the tune of half-a-million dollars ( $500,000 ) for the two Crew Carriers alone.
Here is that article… which ALSO mentions Granite Mountain and contains even one more report about them only being $65,000 dollars ‘in the hole’ for 2012.
Wildfire Today
Article Title: Ironwood Hotshots to be disbanded
Posted on March 4, 2014 by Bill Gabbert
http://wildfiretoday.com/2014/03/04/ironwood-hotshots-to-be-disbanded/
From the article…
——————————————————————
The Prescott Fire Department paid the personnel on the Granite Mountain Hotshots around $12 an hour according to The Daily Courier, but the department was reimbursed by the federal government at the rate of $39.50 an hour In fiscal year 2012, the city estimated that the crew brought in $1,375,191, and had $1,437,444 in operating expenses – for a difference ( deficit ) of $62,253.
In 2012, payments for fighting fire paid for 95.5 percent of the cost of the Granite Mountain Hotshots. While they were not assigned to a fire, they sometimes spent time on projects for the city, including hazard fuel mitigation — removing vegetation to reduce the chance that fires approaching residential areas would destroy the homes of city residents. And of course, much of the year they were available for fighting wildland fires in and near the city of Prescott.
We have a report that the Ironwood Hotshots have been doing even better financially and the crew is not a monetary burden on the Fire District. They are reimbursed at about $40 per crewperson hour, which covers not only salary but some other routine expenses while firefighting the fire. The starting pay for a new crewperson is about $13 an hour.
Even though the crew recently purchased and paid for $500,000 worth of new crew carriers, they still have a positive balance in their hotshot crew account of several hundred thousand dollars.
Last September another hotshot crew, El Cariso, established 60 years before, was disbanded.
The Ironwood Hotshots first attained Type 1 Interagency Hotshot Crew certification in 2009 ( A year-and-a-half after ‘Granite Mountain’ became a Type 1 HS Crew ).
—————————————————————-
We also KNOW that “Granite Mountain” took delivery of their brand-new custom built Crew Carriers in the same year ( 2007 ) when they were certified as a ‘Type 1 Hotshot Crew’… but that information is NOWHERE any official BUDGET document coming out of the City of Prescott.
The only actual report on WHEN they purchased these $500,000 Crew Carriers comes from an ‘accidental history’ that was posted on the ‘Wildland Fire’ website in June of 2007 by someone with a real name of ‘Mike’ from Prescott… who uses the handle ‘CWZWildfire’ ( I assume the CWZ stands for ‘Central West Zone’ ).
Here is that posting and the additional “History of Granite Mountain”…
** From WildlandFire
http://hotlist.wildlandfire.com/threads/466-1st-MUNICIPAL-Hotshot-Crew-Formed
Thread: 1st MUNICIPAL Hotshot Crew Formed
———————————————————————–
06-21-2007, 23:09 – Comment by CWZWildfire
The City of Prescott AZ Fire Dept has formed the FIRST MUNICIPAL Hotshot Crew, called the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” the crew itself called “Crew 7” has been a Type 2 crew since 2002 working toward this goal of becoming a IHC, they have now completed it and are now a Type 1 (t) crew as of this year.
Yes I know what your going to say, California already has Fire Dept Hotshot Crews from Kern County, but they are COUNTY, Granite Mountain is first “City Fire Dept” to form a crew, Prescott is 100 miles NW of Phoenix right in the middle of the Prescott NF.
Also the Northwest Fire District is also forming its own hotshot crew, they are currently a Type 2 crew but are set for 2008 season as a IHC(t) crew as well, they will be called “Ironwood Hotshots” they just missed getting it for this year due to staffing concerns,
Northwest FD is NW of Tucson AZ
I wrote an article for ‘Wildland Firefighter Magazine’ on this, tentatively scheduled to run in their July Issue, I interviewed the Wildland Division Chiefs of both depts and got some great info.
Anyone interested email me off forum and I will email you a copy of the article I submitted, its in MSN Word Format.
Have a great one
Mike – Prescott AZ
———————————————————————–
———————————————————————–
Comment: 06-23-2007, 11:03 by CWZWildfire
Re: 1st MUNICIPAL Hotshot Crew Formed (Here is article I wrote)
Here is a copy of that article I wrote. for ‘Wildland Firefighter’ magazine…
Arizona Fire Departments Achieve Hotshot Crew Status
The Prescott Arizona Fire Department’s “Crew 7” has earned its “Hotshot” Status. Crew 7 started in May 2001 as a fuels management crew funded thru National Fire Plan Grants & State Fire Assistance Grants. On May 15th 2002 the Indian Fire burned into Prescott City Limits and the fire chief wanted to upgrade Crew 7 to a Type 2 I/A Crew. In May 2003 Crew 7 became a Type 2 I/A Crew.; they decided that their goal would ultimately be a Type 1 Hotshot Crew. Using the National IHC Operations guide (IHOG) they started working toward their Hotshot certification.
While on various fires they had division supervisors sign off on various accomplishments required to become a Type 1 Crew. They adopted the name GRANITE MOUNTAIN HOTSHOTS,
Duane Steinbrink, Wildland Division Chief for Prescott Fire Department stated “15 names were listed and then voted on by the crew members to pick the top 5. Out of these names ‘Granite Mountain’ was chosen, a prominent landmark in the Prescott area. This was picked due to its ruggedness and majestic strength which the crew strives to be.”
“One of the most difficult obstacles to forming the crew was hiring full time wildland firefighters”, stated Steinbrink., “As part of the hotshot status is 80% of the crew be experienced, that leaves only 4 positions that can be open to ‘rookies'”.
Granite Mountain Hotshots are committed to training both physical and mental. In 2006 the crew completed over 3500 crew hours of training including the annual 80 hour refresher, Crew boss, firing boss, squad boss, Type 4 & 5 incident commander, Class B faller, as well as pump and saw classes. Physical training included running (60 miles ran), full gear hikes (30 miles hiked), weight training, and yoga. They also attended (as well as helped run) the Arizona Wildfire Academy held in Prescott, AZ each year and the Great Plains Wildfire College.
“Granite Mountain was initial attack on 7 incidents in 2006, including the 20 acre Wolf Fire, the 1100 acre Cornfield Fire, 40 acre Green Fire & 60 acre Battle Fire all on the Prescott National Forest”, Steinbrink Stated. “We also worked fires on the Coconino NF, Kingman District BLM, Hualapai Agency BIA, Tonto NF, and Whiteriver Apache Agency BIA in Arizona as well as Reno DNR in Nevada and the Gallatin and Deerlodge National Forests in Montana.” Granite Mountain had a total of 16 fire assignments totaling 61 days and 640 hours of overtime.
Crew 7 (As they are still known thru local dispatch) continues to do fuels management work in the off season. In 2006 they treated over 49 acres and burned 3,500 tons of material. They have also assisted in Search and Rescue/Recovery Missions. “A couple years ago we had a real wet winter”, Steinbrink stated. ‘3 college students tried to canoe the flooded Granite Creek, their canoe got flipped over under the Highway 89 Bridge. One of the students made it to shore, the other two were swept away by the flood waters. Crew 7 assisted in the search of the creek for two days until the students bodies were found a few miles down stream.”
Another major accomplishment of the 2006 season ( besides earning hotshot status ), was the delivery of their new crew buggies, 2006 Ford F750 air ride chassis with caterpillar 7.2 litre diesel (275 hp) engine. Phenix Enterprises Crew Carrier box with seating for 10. These replaced Ford Vans that were the previous crew vehicles. Granite Mountain’s crew vehicles (Supt truck and crew carriers) traveled a total of 22,083 miles, throughout Nevada, Montana, Utah, Idaho and Arizona.
The crews operating costs for 2006 was approximately $400,000.00 and the crew billed for $541,233.15.
“Granite Mountain Hotshots (Trainee) would like to thank the Prescott Fire Department, Prescott City Council, Prescott City Manager, Prescott National Forest, Central West Zone Incident Management Team, the Arizona Wildfire Academy, and all the friends we’ve made along the way for their incredible support of our ground breaking program”, stated Steinbrink.
Another Arizona Fire Department that is working on finishing up everything needed to get their Hotshot program off the ground is Northwest Fire District in Marana Arizona (Northwest of Tucson). Their Type 2 I/A Crew has been in existence since 1995. Northwest Fire District Wildland Battalion Chief, Bill (Dugger) Hughes stated “NWFD Hand Crew has been following the IHOG guidelines to become a hotshot crew, but due to staffing issues we will have to wait until the 2008 season to make that happen”.
In the 2006 season NWFD Hand Crew was initial attack on several fires on the Coronado National Forest, Arizona State Land as well as Saguaro National Monument in Southern Arizona. ‘NWFD Hand Crew was dispatched to 7 large fires in 2006 totaling 72 days off district”, Hughes said. “We were on fire assignments in Montana, California and of course Arizona just to name a few”.
Our hand crew does fuels management work during the off season, much like the Granite Mountain Crew does but we don’t have the fuel load down this way like they do up there. Hughes said “We assist with prescribed burning on the Saguaro National
Monument and Coronado National Forest, and are available for all risk incidents such as search and rescue, disaster assistance etc.”
The Northwest Fire District hand crew has chosen the name Ironwood Hotshots (t) which will be official in 2008.
Any further questions or information on Granite Mountain Hotshots you may contact
Duane Steinbrink, City of Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Chief.
duane.steinbrink (at) cityofprescott.net or call (928)445-5555
Any further questions or information on the Ironwood Hotshots you may contact Bill (Dugger) Hughes, Northwest Fire District Wildland Battalion Chief
Dugger Hughes – Battalion Chief – Wildland Ops
(520) 887-1010 Ext. 2701 / dhughes (at) northwestfire.org
Mike – Prescott AZ
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END OF WILDLAND FIRE COMMENT(S) BY MIKE – FROM PRESCOTT
So here is the only place I’ve ever seen the following DETAIL about WHEN Granite Mountain took delivery of their (possibly) $500,000 worth of Crew Carriers…
————————————————————
Another major accomplishment of the 2006 season ( besides earning hotshot status ), was the delivery of their new crew buggies, 2006 Ford F750 air ride chassis with caterpillar 7.2 litre diesel (275 hp) engine. Phenix Enterprises Crew Carrier box with seating for 10. These replaced Ford Vans that were the previous crew vehicles. Granite Mountain’s crew vehicles (Supt truck and crew carriers) traveled a total of 22,083 miles, throughout Nevada, Montana, Utah, Idaho and Arizona.
——————————————————
There is also THIS in that ‘article’ the guy wrote where he says he was able to interview Duane Steinbrink, Prescott’s first Wildland Division Chief.
So the following report that ‘Granite Mountain MADE money ( $141,233 dollars ) in 2006’ was probably coming from Duane Stenibrink himself…
————————————————————————
The crews operating costs for 2006 was approximately $400,000.00 and the crew billed for $541,233.15.
=———————————————————————–
So once again… it’s hard to know WHO to believe here.
All I know is that somehow, somewhere… you HAVE to factor in over a half-million dollars just for those Crew Carriers.
If the 2007 purchase was ‘stretched’ over a 5 year period due to a LOAN, or something… then that amounts to at least $100,000 per year between 2007 and 2012.
There is NO EVIDENCE that was the case… but NOR is there ANY EVIDENCE where the money for these Crew Carriers came from.
They are not mentioned in ANY Prescott Budget from the years 2004 right on through to 2014… even though all OTHER vehicles being purchased by/for the Fire Department at any time during that same 10 year period DO fully ‘show up’ in the Prescott BUDGETS and FINANCIAL REPORTS.
Even the purchase of the ATV for “Granite Mountain” ( to the tune of $8,000 ) shows up in the Prescott BUDGET… but the $500,000 Crew Carriers themselves are nowhere.
Like it never happened.
Followup…
Not only is there no evidence whatsoever in any Prescott City Budget document or Financial Report ( going back to 2004 ) about the purchase of these ( possibly ) $500,000 Crew Carriers…
…there is also NOTHING in any document that says they were paid for out of any of the GRANTS that Prescott was getting.
I’m not even sure it would have been OK to take that ‘Fuels Abatement’ GRANT money and spend it for two fancy-dancy Crew Carriers… but regardless.. there seems to be NO DOCUMENTATION that that’s what they did… even if they did it.
WHO paid for the Crew Carriers ( the taxpayers of Prescott and/or the FEDS with all-country tax dollars flowing in as GRANTS ) remains a mystery.
WTKTT,
I can tell you after managing a similar program that it is never cost neutral. Because of the committment to full time employees, benefits, etc. it will always cost the district something -some years more than others, but from a firefighters accounting it all plays out over time and the benefit from the work produced far out weighs the cost (obviously my opinion). The challenge is and will be to educate the powers that be, both BOD and Chiefs of the benefits of the associated costs. Knowing that the crew may be out of area during critical times, which really takes some arduous educating! As far as the vehicles go I can’t say were they are accounted for – in my situation we purchased four crew carries and financed them over ten years – should be paid for this year I think..
Thank you. Yes… the City of Prescott had what is called a VAAP program, like many municipalities do. ( Vehicle Acquisition and Replacement Program ).
The published BUDGETS for the City of Prescott ( going back to 2004 ) show all kinds of police, fire and emergency management vehicles going INTO and coming OUT OF ( paid for ) this VAAP program.
But NOWHERE do the (potentially half-a-million-dollar ) GM Crew Carriers actually ‘show up’ in those Budget Reports in the ‘VAPP’ section(s).
Like I said above… like they never happened.
If they were flat-out paid for with “Fuel Abatement” GRANT money that WAS ‘flowing’ into that program… there is also NO EVIDENCE that is the case, either.
It’s actually ABSURD to even be talking about whether a Municipal Public Safety program ( fire, police, etc. ) is even ‘breaking even’… much less ‘making money’.
I mean… what’s the corollary?
If the police department aren’t covering their expenses as per the number of traffic tickets they generate for the city… then let’s talk about DISBANDING them?
I mean, c’mon.
If you ‘fire up’ something like this… you are SUPPOSED to already be aware that the taxpayers WILL be ‘supporting’ it… and you’re supposed to be OK with that. The CVB ( Cost Versus Benefit ) arguments is supposed to be already CLEAR in your mind before you even ‘go there’.
But apparently… that wasn’t the case in Prescott.
This “Wildland Division” of the Prescott Fire Department apparently had to keep “fighting for its very existence” even AFTER Duane Steinbrink, Darrell Willis and Eric Marsh had already done the “sell job” to get it created in the first place.
Apologies… acronym dyslexia up above.
“Vehicle Acquisition and Replacement Program” is VARP.
Agree that the vehicles, from what I’ve read were paid for out of the “General Fund” of the City of Prescott.
And agree that the fact that they’re not showing up anywhere in the financial documentation is really weird. Thanks for looking for it.
I truly don’t know what to make of it.
I’m also wondering about Jesse Steed’s truck. I’m currently thinking he may have bought it himself and had the “paint job” done.
But really, all these things considered,
Who knows?????
For that matter, did you find Eric’s truck and Willis’ truck and Tony Sciacca’s truck and Cory Moser’s truck etc?
I have learned so much from all of those posting here. I have been very critical of the Prescott response to many things concerning this tragedy. But the city self investigation into the Chief Willis’ allegations seems to have ignored some very interesting changes in what was presented to the Council. It will be very interesting to see what transpires in coming days as the Ninth Circuit ruled in the Riley vs Kuykendall suit. In that matter the mayor was found guilty of and sanctioned by Judge Teilborg for destroying email evidence. There is a pattern of recurrent behaviors of obfuscation that is germane to this matter
Gary said: “I don’t think hotshots should ever be thought of as an INTIAL attack resource, they should always be thought of as an EXTENDED attack resource.
What would you do if you committed your available hotshot crew to initial attack a particular fire when you have dozens of starts in your area from a lighting storm (or fireworks, or train sparks, or along roads from passing motorists, or from arsonists) that passed through the night before? Make a bad guess which fire to send the hotshots to for initial attack to early, and they won’t be available when a different fire, or multiple different fires on the other side of your area (forest, district, municipality) takes off about 3 p.m.”
Gary, these days, IHCs are sometimes prepositioned, and they send out “lightening crews” or squads (groups of five or so from the roster of 20 or whatever) from their prepositioned location to pick up lightening starts in various geographical areas. Maybe that did not happen back when you were working on a hotshot crew, but it certainly happens now based on what the guys are telling me. My understanding is that these guys are really good at picking things up and preventing bigger headaches down the road.
Are you saying that, in your view, this type of usage of an IHC is inappropriate?
I am sure Gary will answer this but just jumping in for another Clarification.
There are in fact 2 types of Hot Shot Crews Some what confusing but true.
IRHSC—These are financed from the Region and are first in rotation to Large Fires.
Forest Hot Shot Crews or the ( GMHS) —financed on the forest or local Funding.
Yes your guys are right the local HS Crews can and have be used on IA fires in small groups.
In reality it is not done very often when FS Regular resources are available. Like Eng. crews, Fuels Crews, trail crews, Fire Prev. People, those local resources are generally first.
There are occasional lightning fires that are to numerous on a forest to attack with the resources available. Generally the HS Crew is used on larger starts where more Man Power is needed 5 1o 10 man squads. Similar to ordering smoke jumper sticks. 3,6,12 etc.
So back to the question the answer is yes and no.
IRHS are never split or at least in my day were never.
HSC forest can and have depending on the national and Regional Fire out look.
that is not to say that the Region or NIFC may put a hold on all HS Resources and keep the in full crews ready for dispatch nationally. Happens quite often in my day and now.
So there are some hoops to jump thru to split a crew up into small squads and spread them out they are now not a Type 1 crew, till all are back together and reinstalled on the crew availability lists.
Final answer IT CAN HAPPEN BUT IT IS VERY SELDOM DONE.
Thanks for this clarification. I’ve been still a bit fuzzy, also. Looking around it seems like all the IHCs say, online, that they are available for Initial Attack, but as I’ve been reading/researching actual fires in Region 3, I haven’t seen that actually happening very much. But I have a ways to go.
You said, “IRHSC—These are financed from the Region and are first in rotation to Large Fires.” I’m still not clear what you mean about this. What, exactly does IRHSC translate into?
And your thoughts about Type 2 crews sent me searching. There are, indeed, what is beginning to look like, to me, a host of “Type 2 Initial Attack” crews in Region 3, in a variety of configurations, but still quite competent, professional, actively used, and successful. And they, so far as I’ve seen, often do a LOT of fuels reduction work when they’re not out fighting fires to both generate income/funding and gain wildfire-fighting experience.
Still, nobody gets wildfire fighting for free (much less for profit), which it still seems to me the City of Prescott currently seems to think they should have been getting.
Marti
Inter Regional Hot Shot Crews —-IRHSC
I keep seeing IHC and not sure what the I stands for or some one is using the wrong term.
Example—Sawtooth IR Crew R4 finances the crew and it is stationed in Twin Falls. The Forest supervises and maintains the crew at R4 costs the crew is not under the Forest budget requests as say Payette HS or Boise HS.
The Region set up the funding for 2 IR crews. The Forests applied for additional crews under Forest Funding. All are type 1 certified.
GMHS OR GMIHS. If the I stands for Interagency that may be something just tacked on by the city Interagency means they are shared by different agencies. They should be referred to as Granit Mountain Hot Shots they had no funding and were a basic contract crew as are most type 2 crews.
They just had the type 1 designation.
I am sure that is clear as mud — Simply the Region wanted to insure 2 Type 1 crews and called them IR crews. Other Regions do the same. So the crews are assigned to a forest as the Region dose not have the ability to provide work and supervision for them. The National office provides the funding..
Let me back track here all Hot Shot Crews are now being listed as
IHC— Interagency Hot Shot Crews my mistake although The IR designation still exists with some crews.
The other IR Crew In R4 is the Logan IRHSC
There Dispatch Statius is listed as NAME IHC
Under Type 1 Crews..
Hope that helps— So GM may well have been ID as a IHC under the Type 1 Crews Nation wide. My mistake.
So, given this whole conversation about what IHCs do regarding IA, especially regarding (but not limited to) Granite Mountain IHC (especially given what the City of Prescott is doing), I’ve definitely been wondering exactly what their role was on the Doce Fire.
It’s really hard to figure out (thanks InciWeb!!!)
There’s really not a lot of specific documentation. The closest I can find is a combination of two things.
So this is a bit rough.
According to a 6-27-2013 article in the Daily Courier by Joanna Dodder Nellans:
“DOCE FIRE: Ground coordination, air support helped save homes from blaze”
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=120619
“A combination of plentiful air support and well-oiled coordination on the ground made all the difference in preventing the Doce fire from torching any homes, Doce Fire Incident Commander Tony Sciacca said.
Local fire and law enforcement agencies spend a lot of time working together and just this spring, they conducted an extensive drill as a new Northern Arizona Type III incident management team led by Groom Creek Fire District Chief Todd Bentley.”
Tony Sciacca, who is quoted in this while he was the later Type 1 IC, was not the original IC. Todd Bentley was. But Tony Sciacca was the OPS on that Initial Type 3 Team.
The article continues:
“Many of those team members were part of the initial attack around 11:30 a.m. June 18 on the Doce fire just west of Prescott. Sciacca, a retired Prescott National Forest fire manager who also runs the Arizona Wildfire Academy here, ran the operations section with the help of Eric Marsh and Jerry Anderson.”
Jerry Anderson was the “US Forest Service Spokesman” (I can’t give the link which describes this right now but it exists somewhere). Given the intensity of the need for communications with the public, I would guess that’s why Sciacca mentions here that person.
The other being “with help of Eric Marsh.”
From what I’ve read, the Doce Fire rapidly, after being ignited early mid-day June 18, 2013, burned uphill on Granite Mountain from the southwest and then kept even more rapidly burning downhill on Granite Mountain on its east side, threatening a whole bunch of homes in that direction. It really expanded rapidly.
Keep in mind that the overall significance of what this narrative is saying is that a serious amount of previous planning was what made the response to the Doce Fire effective.
And I’m betting, all things considered (to be continued) Eric Marsh and GMIHC was a part of that previous planning.
By the way Todd Abel was also a HUGE part of both that previous planning and the initial action on that fire.
Which is part of why I wonder about how the current City Of Prescott plan may impact the Central Yavapai Fire District wildfire work.
Correction. I should have written:
“And I’m betting, all things considered (to be continued) Eric Marsh and GMIHC was a part of that previous planning and, thence the Initial Attack.”
The next document I finally found regarding the Doce Fire and GMIHC “Initial Attack” is this document from the Prescott National Forest that I had to open a “cached” page of.
“Doce Fire Programmatic/Cost Fire Review
Prescott National Forest
U.S. Forest Service
May 2014”
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:fTFnzn1rMgQJ:www.fs.fed.us/fire/publications/fire_review_reports/2013/doce_cost.docx+&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=safari
It’s quite an interesting read about all the factors that went into, relatively speaking, successfully (including financially) corralling the Doce Fire.
Marti… don’t forget there is a LITTLE bit of information about what Marsh was doing on the Doce Fire contained in Rance Marquez’s ADOSH interview.
Rance Marquez worked the Doce fire, and was assigned as a Task Force Leader (TFL) ‘resource’ under DIVS Eric Marsh on the Doce.
Marquez told ADOSH he had to ‘remind’ Marsh that is when they met right before they had that ‘not-so-friendly’ discussion in Yarnell about ‘Division breaks’.
From PDF page 11 of Rance Marquez’s ADOSH interview…\
A = Rance Marquez, Division ‘Zulu’ on June 30, 2013 in Yarnell
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A: finally got a hold of Eric and basically, I just introduced myself. I had to remind him who I was cause I – he was actually a division on the Doce Fire that I worked on as a Task Force Leader, the ten days before.
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A little later in the same interview.
This is where Marquez basically says Marsh just gave him ‘busy’ work to do since the Doce was ‘winding down’.
It’s also where we learn a little bit more about Eric Marsh’s personality. Marquez relates the story that when they first met… Marsh launched into some story about how pissed off he was about Prescott just because he found out in the first week he was there they have some “Kelly bumps” on the mountain trails which meant Marsh couldn’t ride his mountain bike the way HE wanted to. He told Marquez that little thing alone intially made him “sorry he moved there”.
—————————————————————–
Q3: Okay. And he was – was he – did he ever uh, say – uh, express any concerns about uh – uh, south? Glen uh, Glen Ilah or the Helm Ranch? Did he mention any of – any concerns about that in his conversations with you?
A: No. He did not uh, mention anything about any – any kind of structure protection.
Q3: Okay. As uh, had you ever worked with him before or you – you said he was division and uh, what was that fire before – Doce?
A: The Doce Fire.
Q3: Doce.
A: Yep. Doce, Doce. Yes. I worked with him for I don’t know, two to three days.
Q3: And – and he was a uh, division and you were strike team or…
A: I was Task Force Leader.
Q3: Okay. What was your – what was your uh, what was your assignment out on Doce like if we can get into that a little bit.
A: Doing – I was uh, oh, there was a lake over there, outside of Prescott. We’re – there’s some summer homes. Kind of Forest Service lease thing I guess and uh, I was assigned to give an – I don’t know, take charge of half a dozen engines and a couple crews to do some structure protection and really, it was just structure cleanup um, around – there must have been 15 to 18 summer homes, summer cabins type things.
Q3: Okay. And is – what – what – what did you do there?
A: I was a Task Force…
Q3: I mean as far as – what – what was the – what was the tactic that was – you were using?
A: On the uh, on the Doce?
Q3: Doce.
A: Well the tat- at that time, the fire was pretty much um, had pretty much run its course and so we were just cleaning up uh, doing structure – basically tree – uh, what would amount to triage of just doing your basic structure protection. Creating defensible space around the summer cabins and improving in- ingress and egress.
Q3: Okay. Wa- was – was that an amicable uh, relationship then?
A: Uh, I don’t know. Um, it was direct. Um, I know – I know Eric and I talked a little a bit about – he talked – he joked about when he first moved to Prescott, he hated it because he used to ride mountain bikes and he judged the – his whole first week of life in Prescott because the first trail he rode was right there where we were working and he said they had – they had put a bunch of Kelly humps or tank traps in it and he couldn’t ride his mountain bike very fast cause he was cussing the whole – his whole decision to move – to move to Prescott based on that one bike trail. But uh, with regards to the assignment, um, it – it was ki- kind of one of those things. I’m sure you’ve been there where I got there late and they just assigned me to uh, kind of a dead division and he didn’t know what to do with me so he put me in charge of clean- cleaning stuff up and you – you get to that point in a fire and it – it’s kind of a – I – I’d been there. When you – when you get resources you don’t really want, so – so you try to create a job for them. But I’m not a good judge of being amicable or not because I’m a – a pretty direct person so often times people say that I’m not amicable.
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So the ‘Doce’ fire cost 7 MILLION dollars ( plus )… and here we learn a little bit about WHY. Even as the Doce fire was ‘winding down’ people like Rance Marquez were showing up and “Division Supervisors” like Eric Marsh didn’t really know “what to do” with those resources so they were being given just ‘busy work’.
WTKTT,
Taking a side trip from Yarnell for a moment or two this is where we really need to look at our system (Doce fire example). The fires I have experienced from an IMT perspective have been rapidly expanding (order lots of resources) and have had a fairly rapid deceleration. Now we have all these resources what should we do with them? Typically the Host agency provides input on what resources they would like to “keep committed”, that input usually involves holding an IHC or two for the next fire, still showing them commited to this incident even though it s a done deal. That concept sometimes goes for overhead (or the team) due to projected weather preditions, draw down, etc. So yes, these incidnets become very expensive and the resource pool can become fairly shallow because of the “what if we have another start” mindset. I certainly don’t agree with the way this works, but it happens frequently within my former region.
Reply to Retired with 38 post on
April 3, 2015 at 12:28 am
>> Retired with 38 said…
>>
>> Now we have all these resources what should
>> we do with them? Typically the Host agency
>> provides input on what resources they would
>> like to “keep committed”,
Exactly. There’s been a lot of discussion about the process of moving from “Initial Attack” to “Extended Attack” and then on up through the ‘Type 2 short’ to ‘Type 2 long’ to full-blown ‘Type 1’ process…
…but not a whole lot of discussion about the REVERSAL of that process.
Once you have a full-blown ‘Type 2’ or ‘Type 1’ team assigned to the fire ( The ‘playas’, as Gary calls them )… you are committed to a certain level of management and infrastructure until the whole thing is over, right?
Or does it work some other way?
Just as a fire ramps UP through all this ‘layering’… does it also ramp DOWN in the opposite direction?
Once you have a ‘Type 1’ team handling an incident… can that ‘Type 1’ team turn around and issue an IAP that says it is now ‘disbanding’ itself… and transferring control BACK to a ‘Type 2’ or ‘Type 3’ management team and the associated ‘lowering’ of resource levels?
If that isn’t what normally happens… then no wonder the cash register can start ringing out of control on some of these big fires.
WTKTT,
Yes, in theory the system ramps up and down with a similar process – however once a type 1 or 2 team is in place there seems to be a reluctance in de-mobing the team too early due to the expense that has occurred to get them there. The other very common action that takes place is to hang onto resources due to the national preparedness level – ensuring the “Forest” or local area that resources are available for any new starts. Not saying either of these activities is right, but I have seem them happen through out my career.
A couple comments,
First, as Bob corrected himself all type 1 crews are IHC – the IRHC and IHC (T) went away several years ago (unless it has changed again).
In regard to using an IHC as an IA crew I must respectfully disagree with Gary Olsen. In my time the concept was always use the “closest resource” and attack the fire that you know you have instead of the fire that might happen. The utilization of an IHC on Friday night or even Saturday morning for initial attack would (IMHO)have dramatically changed the tragic outcome. Steep, rocky, inaccessible terrain – with the ongoing conditions in the area sounds like the perfect IA for an IHC. IHC’s are more qualified, more experienced, better conditioned, etc., than DOC crews. Cost more? You bet, but in this situation you would have had a small fire at a higher cost versus a small/medium sized fire at a cost that will NEVER be accepted (regardless of decisions made and why). What about the next fire, or the fire that needs IHC’s? Once contained, the DOC crew could have been utilized for holding, mop-up, and patrol and the IHC could have been made available for re-assignment.
As discussed several chapters ago, this fire was mismanaged from the onset. Utilizing the proper resources in a timely fashion would have changed the tragic outcome.
Totally agree.
Just 48 hours before they all died… Jason Clawson was saying that HE already KNEW he needed a ‘Type 1’ Crew to help put out that lightning strike near the Prescott National Forest… for the same reasons you cite above.
1) They HAVE to be able to HIKE out there.
2) They HAVE to be able to ‘cut line’ around a 23 acre fire.
3) They HAVE to (maybe) work in the dark.
Russ Shumate made NO SUCH SIMILAR decision the SAME NIGHT down in Yarnell, Arizona.
Russ Shumate accepted TWO ‘Type 2’ Prison Crews… who showed up prompt at 8:00 AM Saturday morning.
Russ Shumate then had upwards of 40 FIREFIGHTERS standing around in the Yarnell Fire Station parking lot… NONE of whom seemed to be able to hike out to the fire there were hired to fight… even in broad daylight.
THAT became Shumate’s ‘limiting factor’ that morning ( and all day Saturday ), and ended up the reason that only SIX out of those FORTY firefighters were ever even actually UP there on that ridge fighting that fire.
And THAT wasn’t even until 12:30 PM ( Four and one-half hours after they all showed up for work ) because Shumate also then had to WAIT until the BLM Chopper N14HX showed up in order to have a chance at getting ANY firefighters ‘out there’ to actually fight the fire.
Given the TERRAIN alone… Shumate should have INSISTED on Friday night when he was ordering his resources that only a Type 1 Crew ( at least ONE ) show up the next morning.
If it had been Granite Mountain… they would have then done the SAME HIKE along the SAME ROUTE to the SAME SPOT they did on Sunday… only it would have been 24 hours earlier and the fire just needed ‘mop up’.
If it HAD been ‘Granite Mountain’ ( or Blue Ridge or Arroyo ) that showed up on Saturday instead of the two prison crews… I will bet a fin to sawbuck we wouldn’t even be here having this conversation.
Heck… scratch that… if it had been ANY 20 persion IA crew that actually knew how to achieve a less-than-3-mile hike out to the damn fire… we probably would NOT be having this conversation.
EXACTLY !!!!!
Well…there is a lot here to comment on, and I hardly know where to start. To WTKTT and Marti…and you both know how much I respect you and appreciate the time and contributions you have made to this discussion right? But…
First, no WTKTT, working in a job that requires you to cut fire line is not rocket science, but 12 hotshots on the Loop Fire, 3 hotshots on the Battlement Creek Fire, 9 hotshots on the South Canyon Fire (plus 2 helitack, 1 fire guard and 3 smokejumpers) and 19 hotshots on the Yarnell Hill Fire, plus hundreds of other wildland firefighters died because they did it the wrong way.
And it is an understatement to simply say they died, when they all died extremely horrible deaths in a manner that has been reserved by man, as a way to kill other men in an extremely cruel method as they demonstrate their own inhumanity. I hope you were not like me and you were able to resist watching the unedited video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive, even though I knew the memory would haunt me for the rest of my life.
Do you know what the biggest difference between wildland firefighters and rocket scientists is? Well…I would say first and foremost that no rocket scientist has ever died an extremely horrible death as a direct result of their work. With the caveat that no rocked scientist has ever stood under the rocket jets when they flipped the ignition toggle switch to “fire”.
Secondly to Marti…I was going to post a question asking you what you meant by the “clutching at pearls” analogy, but then later I figured out that you meant what I thought you meant by saying you are not convinced that wildland firefighters and structural firefighters can’t mix just as oil and water can’t mix.
I think the initial basic concept that I expressed to John Dougherty that putting hotshots on the fire line who have structural firemen mentality, values and culture contributed to the deaths of the Granite Mountain Hotshots and was in the end as John described it a “blueprint for disaster” has been accepted on this thread. So…if the horrific deaths of 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots can’t convince you the cultures shouldn’t mix, well then…there is certainly nothing I can say to convince you of this basic premise.
Although I think the difference between wildland firefighters and hotshots is being missed in this conversation entirely. Although all hotshots are wildland firefighters, not all wildland firefighters are hotshots. For example, I think ENGINE crews who have been properly trained and equipped can hold their own and work with structural firemen anytime and anywhere, but I think there is also a big difference between structure protection (keeping the exterior of structures from catching on fire) and structural firemen who are trained and equipped to fight structural fires by going INSIDE burning buildings. I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I always make a distinction in my mind and on this thread by repeatedly calling wildland firefighters…”firefighters” and those who show up in big red trucks in full turn out gear and all of the equipment and support in the world at their disposal…”firemen.”
Thirdly…I think hotshots who have labored for decades in near obscurity outside of the wildland firefighting community itself, are now being put in a position where there is far too much importance on this thread being placed on them, at least when it comes to wildland fire INITIAL attack. Based on my experience, hotshots usually have very little to do with whether a fire takes off and gets big or not, when compared to those resources who are tasked with INITIAL attack responsibilities. In other words, I don’t think hotshots should ever be thought of as an INTIAL attack resource, they should always be thought of as an EXTENDED attack resource.
What would you do if you committed your available hotshot crew to initial attack a particular fire when you have dozens of starts in your area from a lighting storm (or fireworks, or train sparks, or along roads from passing motorists, or from arsonists) that passed through the night before? Make a bad guess which fire to send the hotshots to for initial attack to early, and they won’t be available when a different fire, or multiple different fires on the other side of your area (forest, district, municipality) takes off about 3 p.m. Remember…wildfires don’t occur or burn in a predictable or linear manner, that’s why they call them “wildfires.”
Engines (with engine crews who can leave their engines and hike up the mountain with hand tools to where the flames are) helicopters (with helitack crews who can hike down the mountain with hand tools to where the flames are or water buckets that can drop water) slurry bombers who can drop on the flames, smokejumpers who can jump near where the fire is and hike either up or down the mountain to where the flames are, and then local “administrative area” personnel who are red carded as wildland firefighters, e.g., fencing crews, timber marking crews, fire prevention technicians, all kinds of miscellaneous range, timber, soils and watershed, or recreation personnel, or the work force heavy equipment crew, and engineering or road building crews who are the red carded wildland firefighters typically play a far more important role in initial attack on wildland fires than hotshot crews do.
Don’t sell wildland firefighters who are trained to do initial attack short just because Arizona State Forestry screwed up really bad on their initial attack of the Yarnell Hill Fire. Millions of wildfires you have never thought about or even heard about have been successfully controlled and extinguished by initial attack wildland firefighters. Even Arizona State Forestry has put out tens of thousands of wildfires you have never thought of or even heard about. And they don’t amount to a pimple on the ass of the silverback Mountain Gorilla called the U.S. Forest Service, much less the other Great Apes, the BLM, the NPS and the BIA.
The only time I ever went on initial attack as a hotshot (excluding being in a “move up” role to be prepositioned at a helibase either on forest or off forest to go out to initial fire starts in small modules as small as two crewmembers for that specific preplanned purpose, where one crew member would serve at the Incident Commander who then doubles as a line resource and the other crew person fills every other role on the fire) is when we were first and foremost bored, readily available, somebody in control felt sorry for us because we could use some OATS & H-pay, refresher training, a line work out, hadn’t smelled smoke for awhile and were on the good side of the forest dispatcher or the local IC on the fire AND nothing else was going on in the area, or anywhere else in the country where the hotshot crew might be needed more on short notice and then the question becomes, “Why not send the hotshots to the fire, they’re not doing anything important right now, it can’t hurt…can it?”
Hotshots go to wildfires AFTER all of those resources I listed above have lost the fire due to any number of variables. I don’t really think most of you have really grasped yet exactly what a hotshot is and what they do. There are only about 2000 hotshots nationwide, while there are…I don’t have really have any idea…that’s how many there are…hundreds(?) of thousands OTHER red carded firefighters of every other kind and description (especially those who are qualified to initial attack on small non complex fires) everywhere you look, if you know where to look. I think there are tens of thousands of qualified red carded wildland firefighters who are routinely formed up into Type II crews in pockets of high unemployment areas (Native American reservations, Spanish communities in northern New Mexico or up and down the Snake River Valley, prisons, military bases, Appalachia etc.) alone.
I just don’t buy there is anything that special about Prescott, (and I grew up there, went back there several times a year for decades, even when I was in New Mexico because my mother lived there, and I even lived there for a few years after I first retired) that means they need a TYPE I crew any more than literally thousands of other communities across the southwest. Have you seen some of those wildfires in Texas and Oklahoma on the news? They needed stand by Type I crews far more than Prescott has to date but they didn’t have anybody but Darryl and his other brother Darryl available as volunteer firemen anywhere in the entire state and then it was a crap shoot which Darryl was going to die of a heart attack on the fire line because…well, they weren’t really wildland firefighters now were they?
And yes to Marti and to everyone else who is asking the question, “Should other employees be cross trained and have co-lateral duties and responsibilities as firefighters?” The answer is an unequivocal and a resounding, “YES.” That very thing has been the back bone of wildland firefighting in the U.S. Forest Service since 1905 and under all of the precursor agencies to the USFS even before that. Especially those firemen who you are already paying to fight fire.
And if you use the USFS model, you will also cross train your sanitation workers, road crews, building maintenance staff, clerical assistants AND the city manager AND just about everyone else, especially in the old days when wildland firefighting started with the ONE Forest Ranger who was sent out from Washington to manage all of the national forests in say…New Mexico (or whoever) and ended when that ONE forest ranger went with sign-up sheets to empty the local bars and sign up timber crews, farmers and their field hands, ranchers and their cowboys, and road construction crews and miscellaneous townspeople to go fight the fire on the mountain.
Whew!
oh…and one more thing. Somebody (Marti?) down below made a comment about the hotshot crew who didn’t make it to the fire because their CHASE truck broke down in Phoenix and they had to wait to get it repaired before they tried to go on to the fire.
A hotshot crew didn’t continue on to the fire because their ****ing CHASE truck broke down? Are you ****ing kidding me? WTF! Now there is somebody, or multiple somebody’s who sure as hell should be removed from their position(s) pending a personnel investigation and then they should be summarily FIRED.
Why…back in my day, if the chase truck we didn’t have because we had everything piled into our bus on top of us would have broken down, well…we would have continued on the fire without our ****ing CHASE truck and it could have caught up with us being driven by one crew member after it was fixed. And what would we have done if our crew carrier broke down? We would have continued on to the fire by double timing down the road ON FOOT carrying our ****ing tools while we hoped somebody would send some kind of vehicle to pick us up on the on the road.
That’s just one thing that happened pertaining to the Yarnell Hill Fire that I have not been able to grasp yet! Can somebody out there is the cyber world please explain that one to me?
whoops…I got so worked up on my comment above I screwed up my historical reference, they didn’t have anybody except for “Larry his brother Darryl and his other brother Darryl available as volunteer firemen anywhere in the entire state and then it was a crap shoot which Darryl was going to die of a heart attack on the fire line because…well, they weren’t really wildland firefighters now were they?”
Gary— what else can be said you hit the Nail on the head and drove it in nice job.
Thanks Bob, passing that muster from you means a lot because you are even more old school than I am.
And I did think about you and your father when I was writing that stuff about why and how firefighters died. I’m sorry your father died on a wildfire and I know that every wildland firefighter did not do it the wrong the way, of course I just meant that SOMEBODY somewhere in the loop did it the wrong way by definition because somebody died.
Which takes us back to the Yarnell Hill Fire and how ridiculous the statement is that no one did anything wrong. If no one does anything wrong, then nobody dies, excluding what is truly an “accident” like a helicopter going down, a slurry bomber going in, or a widow maker falling on somebody’s head, although that last one is not a very good example because the sawyer should have been working with a spotter who could have gotten him out of the way.
Which brings us all of the way back to the beginning, if everyone does as Bob always says, and follows the 10 and the 18, nobody has to die fighting wildfire, the mechanisms are in place to prevent that, people just have to follow the rules and not think they are above them, even though I did not always do that myself, but I used to think I was invincible, just like so many young people do.
That is the biggest difference between military battles and firefighters who fight battles against wildfire, there are no “expectants” in wildland firefighting, expected casualties that military planners can predict in advance, as in…this type of operation will result in this many dead and wounded.
And even though I said wildfires are not predictable, that was a very broad statement. Wildfires really are predictable within the laws of nature. That’s why the meteorologists told the firefighters there was a very good chance the Yarnell Hill Fire was going to go to hell in a hand basket. Wildfires can’t OUT THINK wildland firefighters because wildfire have to follow the laws of physics.
Do you know what most wildland firefighters hear when they listen to weather forecasts in briefings? Blah, blah, blah, will you shut the fuck up so I can go get my crew ready to hit fire line! It’s dark, it’s cold, I just woke up after four hours of shitty sleep, my boots are wet and cold, I didn’t have time to get breakfast, I haven’t got my lunch yet, we need to find some more chain saw gas, I need to take a shit and the porta potty is full…so I am going to wait until I get to the fire line but I hope I don’t shit my pants on the way and I hope the fucking helicopter doesn’t break down again because I don’t want to hump it up that fucking mountain again this morning! And if that stupid fucking sector boss who is timber staff in real life shows up again today on my fire line with some more stupid fucking ideas rattling around inside his empty head, I might have to kick his ass all of the way back to this fire camp!
The bull shit story the Granite Mountain Hotshots hiked in front of the fiercely wind driven fire storm called the Yarnell Hill Fire because they thought the predicted weather event had already occurred is just that…BULL SHIT. The Granite Mountain Hotshots hiked in front of that fire storm because they thought they could beat it across that valley to save Yarnell or at least make a good show of it and save the crew that was Eric Marsh’s and Daryl Willis’ dream from the asshole city fathers of Prescott because although they liked the idea of their very own Type I crew, the cheap retired old bastards who live in Prescott wanted something for nothing and the mayor and the city council didn’t want to tell them the truth and raise their property taxes one tenth of one penny per thousand or whatever the fuck it would have been.
The Granite Mountain Hotshots lost their bet. And I am sorry for them and their loved ones, I wish I could change that or make it better, but I can’t.
As blunt as it may be Gary, you are absolutely correct.
Old Fire Dogs had to learn how to read the weather and figure out the predicted fire behaviour impacts. Not just read it off the IAP or listen to it at the briefing.
I am not saying the FBAN briefing is not important, I just don’t know, as you state, are really focused and lsitening.
Actually Gary I have admitted here that my Dad did it wrong and paid the price.
He went out to look at the fire with the crew boss although he was not in charge of the crew he had a lot of fire experience. he just took there lunches to them then ate with them. But he should have suggested posting a lookout and did not. They looked at the backfire along the road above them and evidently decided it was safe. Then the down canyon winds hit blew the fire across the road and right at them.
If there had been a look out they could have all hauled ass out of the Spot Fire.
Yes there were such things as lookouts long before the 10 Standard orders.
One of the big keys to Fatalities Many would be alive but for a Lookout–
And talking OLD SCHOOL back in the 60’s and 70’s we never had FBAN’s on fires it was pure by the seat of your paints. You projected your own fire progression and got what you got from Plans.
When my dad was fighting Fires in the early 50’s Portable Radios were few and far between. Not every Crew had one.
When I started we had them but they were 15 pounders and the size of a car battery. Some had wire you had to attach and through in a tree the get resection and transmission.
That’s really old school it was 69 before we started seeing the hand held Radios the size of a brick.
well…I am still sorry for your loss.
Thank you Gary. I really appreciate what you are writing here and I completely agree.
I LOVE the part about what firefighters hear when they hear the weather forecasts!!!!!!!!! Awesome!!!!!!
THAT’S EXACTLY why there was an FBAN on that fire. It’s HIS job to really HEAR those forecasts and those alerts that were sent out and comprehend what they MEAN and then pound on whatever heads it takes to MAKE SURE they are taken SERIOUSLY!!!!!!
When my dad did the forecasting for the Kodak™ Albuquerque $$$$$$$$$$$$ International Balloon Fiesta, I’m SURE the crews standing down there at the Crew Briefings were thinking some of the same kinds of things you are so honestly narrating.
HOWEVER.
Their PILOTS were TOTALLY paying attention. Because they understood that the WEATHER was a life and death issue. They trusted my dad with their lives and they knew it.
They loved having my dad fly with them because “he could see the winds” and he flew with them so he could always learn more and more about how they translated the weather and the winds into how exactly they did the job of flying.
It was always a conversation.
No matter WHAT the Gods of the Kodak™ $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta thought. For my dad, the safety of the crews was ALWAYS his number one priority.
There was a complete and total disconnect SOMEWHERE in between the NWS folks in Flagstaff, the FBAN on the Fire, the IMT (including Eric???????) on the fire, and the groundpounders who lost their lives on the fire.
And it wasn’t the forecasting that was in error.
And one of the breakdowns I see is that the FBAN understood completely what the forecasts meant and he was observing the fire and seeing the effects the weather was having……….
BUT he wasn’t doing ANYTHING to use that two-by-four I thought of while listening to that AMS report…….
to make sure the PEOPLE that MATTERED understood the potentially catastrophic reality that was INCREASINGLY MATTERING.
of course wildland firefighters should not do that, and certainly not all do, but apparently you got the point, and the point I was trying to make actually agreed with you, the real problem on the Yarnell Hill Fire may be that the right people just weren’t listening.
I’m so glad to see Gary Olson’s post! Gary is 100% accurate of what goes on in a wildland firefighter’s mind and what supervisors are thinking. It’s just sad that it has taken 22 months for someone to step forward and say it like it is. Kudos to Gary!
Thank you, but I really don’t deserve any kudos, I am retired and I don’t have a dog in the fight.
Gary,
Incredibly well thought out. I’d venture one minor thought, which is that a different organization that respected the inherent differences could swing having structural and wildland divisions. Simply, there’s the need to take it seriously. Someone who’s succeeded with a high volume take-out based bistro probably needs to hire a different chef and different senior staff if they want a first go at a more-formal restaurant to succeed, and likewise if they want to give Chinese takeout a go. That is not intended to trivialize the issue. But, if you have a new venture, and then you find that the “good guy” who you decided to hire (instead of someone with more extensive experience at the desired level of responsibility) has serious communication problems, maybe you re-assign him to a job to which he’s better suited, but you don’t keep him in the same role and further complicate matters by putting yourself (who also doesn’t have the right experience) into a higher supervisory role. Those elements were not sufficient to cause what happened at Yarnell, but imo they were part of it. The good old boy aspect of what turned up as to the Yarnell chief’s own past likewise suggests there were widespread cultural issues in this regard. Start by not taking the subject matter seriously and then tolerating troubling limitations in job execution, and it is not surprising to see a certain degree of reality-check. Even if what actually occurred at YHF was to an extent a worst-case scenario.
Take out Chinese food does not kill 19 people..
Risk vs reward. …
Complete right. What I was getting at is respecting the important differences, task-wise, training-wise, and gear and PPE-wise, between the two in the case of fire. Part of that respect is hiring people who in fact have received a thorough education and who, both in terms of experience and in terms of leadership and management skills, you think are ready to lead. For wildland fire, it doesn’t even take that much experience years-wise, but the experience should be there, and then the leadership and management skills can certainly be polished, but they should be there as well.
A second part of that respect is, if it turns out the first person you put in the role is struggling, whatever you do, don’t ask another person not experienced vocationally in that specific role to supervise to help the person through it.
What we had in the case of PFD was, it seems , a few managers who all knew, liked and respected one another, but didn’t stop to say, Hey, do any of us really have that deep a grounding in wildland fire? I can even see saying EM may need to grow a bit to take over the whole show, so let’s find an old guy with great relevant experience to come to shepherd the transition. Those arrangements sometimes work, sometimes don’t, but then at least maybe you have someone with truly deep experience asking the right questions.
I hate to say it, SR, but this seems to me to be the most incomprehensible post I’ve ever read that you have ever written.
However, I think I may, through the fog, have a feel for what you might be trying to be saying.
Because I’ve spent the greater part of today looking around at how other communities in Region 3 (in which I have a vested interest) are experimenting with configuring themselves in order to deal with the wildland-urban interface challenges.
Gary should know about Summit FD which, even in the face of financial challenges, has been building, over the years, something of a hybrid fuels-reduction/wildland-fire-fighting module composed of otherwise regular “structural” fire-fighters, especially given that their Fire Chief is one of the major leaders at the Arizona Wildfire Academy.
It’s not an anomaly. Heck, even the little community of Angel Fire, in northern New Mexico is doing something of a mini-version of the same thing.
I DO, however, totally understand what I think is Gary’s concern that Granite Mountain IHC may have been, in June of 2013, OVERLY fixated (because of both the Prescott Fire Department influence compounded by Darrell Willis’ influence compounded by all the pressures vis a vis the City of Prescott compounded by their two most recent high profile hero narratives on both the Thompson Ridge and the Doce Fire of SAVING OOO LA LA STRUCTURES)……….
overly concerned about saving the structures in Yarnell compared to their making sure they paid attention enough to what was happening around them, leading to them
crossing the fire by descending into an explosive bowl with a fire headed straight toward it.
I think the take-away Lessons Learned, for me, anyway, is that if you are going to, probably necessarily, all things considered, mix the functions, and thus, the cultures, of wildland fire-fighting with the functions, and thus, cultures of structural fire-fighting, you REALLY REALLY need to MAKE SURE the GLORY of saving homes etc doesn’t eclipse the NECESSITY of paying attention to what the wildfire and its weather are doing, even if that means realizing you may need to SIT YOURSELVES DOWN in your already existing safe zone and watch when the BIG DOG decides to EAT, as HARD as that may be to do.
I really think it’s, all things considered, a possibly necessary mix, and also do-able, but also potentially extremely dangerous, as I think we are seeing here, regarding the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Coupled with the overall complete mismanagement of this fire.
So there’s that to keep in mind, also.
And I have a whole bunch of other things I’ve never even written about circling around inside my head.
I guess it’s time to go to bed.
I’m just a photographer.
Who would love to be able to go into Photoshop and be able to clone Tony Sciacca about ten times over…….
…..and I’m really curious about what Gary Olson would think about that.
yes…that is exactly what I think.
I agree, good analogy.
So now that I just wrote somewhere down below the following:
“I think the REAL problem that ADOSH hadn’t discovered at that time was that NOBODY in charge of this fire EVER took this fire and the weather forecasted to impact it even REMOTELY seriously enough.
I think that had to do WAY MORE than ANYTHING remotely involving Structure Protection.”
Regarding the Weather.
I’ve been meaning to post this since before I wandered off into the whole “was it worth it” realm and the resulting ICMA report realm and the resulting “what do we do with the wildland-urban interface” realm. But I got side-tracked.
In January 015 the American Meteorological Society met in Phoenix.
A major presentation at that meeting focused on the Yarnell Hill Fire. It was presented by Brian Klimowski (who was the NWS person in Flagstaff sending the weather alerts to the Yarnell Hill Fire), Andrew Taylor (who also works at that Flagstaff NWS office), and MJ Staudenmaler. I’m a little bit fuzzier than I was when I was gathering these links before I wandered off into the above concerns. But I will try to put this thing together.
The page for this presentation is here:
“4.3 Meteorological Conditions and Decision Support Services Associated With the Yarnell Hill Fire”
https://ams.confex.com/ams/95Annual/webprogram/Paper267072.html
“The National Weather Service (NWS) Flagstaff Forecast Office exercised several opportunities to provide decision support to key partners both leading up to and during the Yarnell Hill Fire.
Several days prior to the fire’s lightning-caused ignition, a high-impact weather briefing was provided to all emergency management and first responders email lists discussing near record high temperatures and possible thunderstorms contributing to extreme fire behavior during the upcoming weekend.
On the afternoon of 30 June, two phone calls were made to dispatch at the Yarnell Hill Fire. A call at 2105 UTC alerted them to new convection developing near and east of the fire and associated strong/gusty winds. The next call, at 2230 UTC, provided information regarding the approaching wind shift and estimated speeds. Phone calls to the Yarnell Hill dispatch resumed in the late evening as another wind shift approached the fire from the southeast.
The Yarnell Hill Fire tragedy highlights the need for both scientifically sound forecasts and clear, timely communication of forecast information. Both points will be emphasized.”
more to come
You can hear the actual presentation here;
“Meteorological Conditions and Decision Support Services Associated With the Yarnell Hill Fire”
https://ams.confex.com/ams/95Annual/videogateway.cgi/id/29504?recordingid=29504
At the end of the presentation, someone asked what the presenters maybe could have done to change the outcome.
All things considered, at that point I just sat back and LOLLED and thought, “A Friggin’ Two By Four!!!!!!!”
……..given that after picking my way through all this stuff, in conversations with FBAN Rocksteady, my essential conclusion was that the problem wasn’t with the forecasting, the problem was with anybody paying attention to the significance of the weather that was being forecasted.
The folks giving this presentation are more forgiving, however. According to them, they came up with a list of things they think might have been helpful and that need to be addressed regarding weather forecasting and wildfires.
I did an extensive google search trying to find this list, but didn’t find it. So I’m adding to my bucket list to go have a talk with one or another of them to find out what they put on their list.
I have to admit, I do take seriously a question our “counselor” asked somewhere downstream, along the lines of, “but why didn’t they issue a red flag warning???”
When I hopefully eventually go have a conversation with one or another of these people, that’s a question I will ask because I don’t understand why they didn’t do that, either.
I don’t know if it would have made a difference. But then, again, I don’t know either, if it would have.
Maybe that’s one of their bullet points on their list.
Maybe, all things considered, in hindsight, they should have. Maybe that, in the digital world, would have helped them provide that “two by four” that might have made a difference.
I’m totally sleepy and almost brain-dead right now, but I don’t know if I will be able to post this in the future so I’m thinking I should put this out there right now.
I wrote somewhere downstream that I was exploring whether or not “it was worth it” for Prescott to have hosted an Interagency Hotshot Crew. We’ve discussed various things related to this. And I wrote that I wasn’t so sure that that concept had been totally been “taken off the table” in relationship to the context regarding Darell Willis and Dan Fraijo’s run for Mayor of Prescott.
I have to say, I’m thinking about this whole thing very seriously as a person who lives in New Mexico, i.e. the Southwest, seriously considering how do we confront what is happening here. Especially given decreasing funding from the federal side of things for dealing with the increasing threat of wildfire.
But back to Prescott.
People in Prescott seem to think that they can, oh so confidently and conveniently, rely on “the Feds” to cover their situation (per their comments in the articles on the Daily Courier). As I’ve read those comments I’ve thought, “Wait a minute, that might not be so necessarily so, all things considered.”
This is what I’ve been really wrestling with over the past few days.
What they don’t know is that, by erasing their IHC, they are erasing a considerable chunk of their “wildfire fighting insurance policy.”
According to the Prescott Daily Courier article “Granite Mountain Hotshots were dedicated despite daunting obstacles”
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=121702
“…Fire Department Capt. Dan Bates also emphasized the value of the crew. ‘It’s a program that should be put back in place,’ he said Friday. ‘It’s a huge benefit to the community.;
Bates and Fraijo both pointed out that even though the Hotshots often left the community to fight fires elsewhere in the country, the existence of the local crew ensured that another Hotshot crew would be nearby.
‘When you have a Type I team, an elite team, if they’re deployed, we get another team here,’ Fraijo said.”
I tried, last night, to find something in the “official documentation” that substantiated this, but was unsuccessful. But I’m not sure how to find and read that kind of policy.
So I’m asking those of you who know more about these things than I do:
Is it the case that if you, as a hosting agency of an IHC, face a wildfire (when your hosted IHC is deployed elsewhere), can you assume that the ordering system will prioritize replacing your IHC with another one?
I’m thinking that this is a “perc” that Prescott is not being aware of, and that that this “perc” could make a difference that may not be being taken into consideration in this whole equation.
I’m really interested in feedback on this.
I am out on a limb here—-
In the Fed. Side Crews can be moved and staged but it cost money out of the base budget.
Which a municipality would not have. The State may be able to stage crews but again they have the cost. Even if and if is big there was a tradeoff of money for wages you still have to lodge and feed the crew. The feds just trade off but a city or county would in my estimate have to fund the staged crew and they would be for fire not city fuels work.
Any body out there that can add or change what I said please jump in.
In the FS Regions stage crews by Forest requests And fund accordingly by Interagency.
This city thing is a totally new thing to me. In reality it is a contract crew and I do not believe
another crew would be staged for a city or county–State is another matter.
Marti,
These discussions about a Hotshot crew in the Prescott area many times forget that the Prescott area has long had a shot crew in the Prescott Hotshots (PNF).
Staging of crews is generally related to the level of “fire danger” in a particular region. If the southwest is not in “high, or above” fire danger, and the northwest is burning, a crew from the SW that goes up to fight the fires will not necessarily be replaced.
As Bob has alluded to, the feds move their crews around based needs and abilities to finance those needs.
Due to critical interface issues regarding the city of Prescott’s proximity to the national forest. if possible, the Forest Service likes to keep an IHC around during those periods when the fire danger is high, or above.
Having two hotshot crews in the Prescott area simply delayed the need to stage a crew in that area until both crews were called out. I don’t believe the feds EVER staged a crew, just to replace the GMHS if they were the only one’s from that area on assignment.
A caveat to the last statement would be if the area was in “extreme” fire danger when the decision might be made to keep two crews in the Prescott area at all costs. But, that situation would exist whether or not, the city had a hotshot crew.
Thanks!
What you are saying is what I was thinking about as I was doing various searches regarding this. It’s really hard to find any kind of documentation about this, other than just news articles, including the one WTKTT wrote about regarding the Spruce Fire, which I had very much in mind. But I never found anything about a crew being dispatched to “Prescott” to make up for Granite Mountain being somewhere else.
I DID come across a Daily Courier article, I think, about how on Sunday the 30th, as those thunderstorm cells came down off the Mogollon Rim over Prescott on their way to Yarnell, there were a WHOLE BUNCH of lightning-started fires ALL AROUND PRESCOTT. And there were “crews’ racing all around putting them out.
It may very well be that both Bates and Fraijo were using a hypothetical to sell their case. That’s why I was wondering about Policy, and still don’t know EXACTLY what it is.
But I’m getting a better picture of, generally speaking, what’s going on.
Here is my unvarnished “feedback.” With all due respect, after all this time and all that has been covered on this website concerning the contributing factors which led to the demise of the GMHS crew … such as all the ways putting a HS crew on a municipal fire department removed important (critical) institutional checks, and how structural firefighting and wildland firefighting don’t mix, and just how detrimental the cronyism of a small town FD can be … it is now chilling to read that anyone can actually favor going down that exact same road AGAIN. When it comes to the Lessons Learned Dept., it sure seems that one of the major lessons is being lost in some weeds. Putting a Hotshot crew on a municipal fire department WAS a blueprint for disaster, and if 19 dead firefighters does not do a good enough job of proving that point, then I don’t know what does.
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 31, 2015 at 2:13 am
>> Marti said…
>>
>> I wrote somewhere downstream that I was exploring whether or not “it was
>> worth it” for Prescott to have hosted an Interagency Hotshot Crew.
Just 48 hours before they all died… the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” actually participated in a CLASSIC example of WHY many felt it was important to have them ‘based’ in Prescott.
The following article details that ‘event’… and there are TWO important points about this ‘event’ and this ‘article’….
1) This ‘event’ took place on June 28, 2013… just 48 hours before 19 of them would die.
2) The ‘event’ is being recounted to PDC by none other than PNF National Forest employee ( and former Hotshot ) Jason Clawson. Yes. That’s right. The same ‘off-the-radar’ Jason Clawson of the Yarnell “3 Prescotteers” who would himself, just 48 hours after this ‘event’, be the one calling OPS1 Todd Abel from the deployment site to confirm the body count.
The Prescott Daily Courier ( PDC )
Article Title: Hotshots vital in many ways, experts say; crew helped
Prescott become the leader in national Firewise efforts
Posted on 9/1/2013 6:00:00 AM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=122777
From the article…
————————————————————————-
PRESCOTT – On the fateful late afternoon of June 28 when lightning ignited the now-infamous Yarnell Hill wildfire 20 miles south of Prescott, lightning also sparked a relatively unknown blaze on the outskirts of Prescott called the West Spruce wildfire.
It was on the dangerous southwest side of the city, a few miles west and below the Highland Pines subdivision. And it was poised to push right up into the subdivision the next morning during extreme wildfire conditions if firefighters couldn’t surround it in rugged terrain overnight.
Jason Clawson, an assistant fire management officer on the Prescott National Forest where the fire started, was grateful that both the forest’s own Prescott Hotshots as well as the City of Prescott’s Granite Mountain Hotshots were in town instead of out on another fire. A former Prescott Hotshot himself, Clawson knew it would take at least two elite Type I hotshot crews to surround the blaze before the heat of the sunlight could send it running toward Prescott.
“If we hadn’t had both crews here, it would have been worse than the Doce,” said Clawson, referring to another June wildfire just northwest of Prescott that forced the evacuation of hundreds of Williamson Valley residents. “The capabilities of a hotshot crew far outweigh a Type II crew.” A Type II crew just doesn’t have the same skills to hike into remote areas and cut lines by hand around a 22-acre fire in the dark, so he wouldn’t have sent one to that fire, he said. Other federal hotshot teams were four or five hours away, so they couldn’t have helped either.
The West Spruce fire is just one example of the value of Prescott having the only municipal hotshot crew in the nation.
“That’s definitely a huge asset to have in your pocket,” said Joe Reinarz, a Type I national incident management team commander from Oregon who has been the incident commander on numerous fires with the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
Now, the Prescott City Council is struggling with the decision about whether to rebuild its hotshot crew after losing 19 of its 20 members in the Yarnell Hill wildfire on June 30.
————————————————————————-
Key sentence from Jason Clawson’s recounting of the incident…
“Other federal hotshot teams were four or five hours away”.
So, as this example shows, it’s all about TIME. It’s about RAPID RESPONSE.
Having that “Granite Mountain” resource close by ( and not otherwise engaged ) allowed the incident to have ‘Type 1’ resource(s) fighting it toot-sweet… WITHOUT either having to go through the rigarmarole of ‘declaring’ a ‘Type 1 Incident’ level and then suffering the whole ‘ordering’ process. They were THERE. The fire was ‘lit’… so they just jumped in to put it out.
Ironic, isn’t it, that they were ‘up all night’ on June 28 making sure that fire didn’t turn into something much bigger than it did there near Prescott… but down in Yarnell Russ Shumate didn’t even think a similar fire, in similar extreme fire and fuel conditions burning up on a ridge near a town called Yarnell was worth the same CONCERN or ‘sense of URGENCY’.
Shumate’s level of ‘concern’ was “It can wait until tomorrow”.
The only thing I would disagree with Clawson with is the Type 2 crew statement.
There are in fact many Type 2 crews nation wide made up off of a Forest these crews have highly qualified Crew bosses and crew members from employees on the Forest. They are outfitted and fiscally fit they fight fires on the Forest and can hike any where.
from first year to 10 or 15 years in Fire they come from the District fire crews Fuels crews trail crews and can preform at a high level I have run some and fielded some from the Sawtooth N F the are a small step down from a HS Crew. But capable of all the task’s of a type 1 crew. They just do not work to gather all the time. The Crew bosses we assigned were Strike team leaders and occasionally Division Bosses. Most of the crew was from 1 to 10 year FF. That is common in the west and great basin areas.
There are type 2 contract crews that are not that way. We in R4 always asked for the FS REG’s and specified that in the orders when Hot Shots were all deployed.
I have always said and it has never happened that there should be a different designation whit in the type 2 crews.
I do not know if R3 Arizona/New Mexico field FS REG’s or not.???????
Every body always wants a Type 1 Crew getting them in the middle of the Fire Season is the real life problem. There is only so many that can go around.
To get more than 5 on any one fire is a real feat. In this day and age——-
Do you think we are looking at an Arizona thing, here?
That the WFF people in Arizona ( specifically ) don’t have much respect ( or expectations ) for Type 2 crews, or something?
I mean… think about the EVIDENCE we are now seeing of that.
Here we have PNF employee ( and former Hotshot ) Jason Clawson admitting flat-out that whatever ‘line building’ he felt needed to be done for the West-Spruce thing HAD to be a ‘Type 1’ crew… and that’s why he was so glad GM was around. He says he would NOT have sent a Type 2 crew in to do what needed to be done.
The very NEXT DAY ( June 29 ) down in Yarnell… we have Arizona Forestry ICT4 Russ Shumate just ‘accepting’ the fact that NEITHER ONE of the TWO full-contingent Type 2 crews he had available to him at 8:00 AM that morning could possible be required to HIKE to the damn fire.
The crew boss for one of those ‘Type 2’ Crews ( Jake Guadiana ) had been told to ‘scout a way to get to the fire’ and he came back 30 minutes later and said “there’s no way to drive up there so we can’t do it”.
And Shumate ACCEPTED that as a ‘fact’.
Is there really just some LOW opinion ( or, perhaps, an actual deficiency in skills ) for ‘Type 2’ crews in Arizona itself?
Here again I would hope it depends on the crew.
There are differences in type 2 crews that have never been
used to Identify the different capabilities.
In my day many Type 2 crews were highly qualified.
I had 3 Spanish American Fire Fighting Crews on the Sawtooth NF in the 70’s and early 80’s they were well trained and Supervised the went on a lot of fires all over the US and were highly thought of.
I have worked with Indian Reservation Crew from Arizona, New Mexico,
Calif., Washington, Idaho they were all well recognized Crews. Many of their Fire Fighters went to work for the FS.
Maybe its the State Inmates in Calif. we had good and poor crews from them. Arizona I do not know if that is the problem or not??????
It sounded like it on the Yarnell Fire.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 31, 2015 at 12:13 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> Here again I would hope it depends on the crew.
>> There are differences in type 2 crews that have never
>> been used to Identify the different capabilities.
Yes. I think we’ve had this discussion before… and it was when we were really focusing on what happened Saturday, June 29, 2013.
I found it ‘astonishing’ to learn that there WERE, in fact, two FULL Type-2 crews available to Russ Shumate ( upwards of 40 firefighters! ) standing around in the Yarnell Hill Fire Station Parking lot as early as 8:00 AM…
…but because no one felt they were ‘good enough’ to achieve a safe ‘hike’ out to the fire… it took 4 hours and 30 minutes before they could even get just 6 of them up there to where the fire was.
My astonishment was along the lines of… “If you ORDER a Type-2 crew and they actually show up to your fire… aren’t you supposed to be able to EXPECT a certain minimum level of capability?”
I think your answer was then ( as now ) “Sort of. Depends on the crew. Some are better than others.”
I have to say that STILL suggest to me there is something seriously BROKEN in this actual ‘rating’ system, then.
If a guy/gal has HEQB on his/her red-card… you HAVE to assume he knows something about bulldozers and will be able to ‘manage’ one for you.
If a guy/gal has DIVS on his/her red-card… you HAVE to be able to assume they know how to run a Division on an active fire.
Etc… etc. Same with these ‘Crew Ratings”.
If you KNOW you need a ‘Type X’ crew that knows how to (safely) hike out to a fire in order to fight it… you SHOULD be able to ‘order that up’ and not end up with 40 guys standing around who don’t know how to hike to where you need them… as Shumate did.
According to the article above… Jason Clawson of Prescott National Forest seemed to just be ASSUMING there was no ‘Type 2’ crew anywhere near him that he could have ‘ordered up’ that was going to be able to do the kind of “Initial Attack” required… so that’s why he was so glad Granite Mountain was local… and available.
Also seems to indicate a real PROBLEM with the ‘certification’ process.
If there are crews being CERTIFIED as ‘Type 2 IA’… but they can only do a LIMITED amount of ‘Initial Attack’ ( and might not be able to hike far, as in Sumate’s case, or work at night, as in Clawson’s case )… it still seems there should be some WAY for you to know that beforehand ( via sub-ratings or checkmarks on a capabilities sheet ).
But I hear ya. The REALITY of ‘Type 2’ crews really does seem to be the ‘Forest Gump certification system’.
Type 2 crews a like a box of chocolates.
You never know WHAT you’re gonna get.
In my day many Type 2 crews were highly qualified.
I had 3 Spanish American Fire Fighting Crews on the Sawtooth NF in the 70’s and early 80’s they were well trained and Supervised the went on a lot of fires all over the US and were highly thought of.
I have worked with Indian Reservation Crew from Arizona, New Mexico,
Calif., Washington, Idaho they were all well recognized Crews. Many of their Fire Fighters went to work for the FS.
Maybe its the State Inmates in Calif. we had good and poor crews from them. Arizona I do not know if that is the problem or not??????
It sounded like it on the Yarnell Fire.
Whoops… hit SEND too early.
That last paragraph above was the rest of Bob’s comments which should have looked like this…
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> In my day many Type 2 crews were highly qualified.
>> I had 3 Spanish American Fire Fighting Crews on the
>> Sawtooth NF in the 70’s and early 80’s they were
>> well trained and Supervised the went on a lot of fires
>> all over the US and were highly thought of.
And ‘in your day’… if you KNEW you needed one of those crews ( because you understood their capabilities )… were you also able to specifically ASK for them when placing a ‘resource order’?… or was it already this “whoever is next up in the rotation is who you’re gonna get” sorta thing?
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> I have worked with Indian Reservation Crew from
>> Arizona, New Mexico, Calif., Washington, Idaho
>> they were all well recognized Crews. Many of
>> their Fire Fighters went to work for the FS.
Again. Same question as above, then.
Could you specifically ASK for these guys if/when you knew you needed them?
>> Bob Powers also wrote…
>>
>> Maybe its the State Inmates in Calif. we had good
>> and poor crews from them. Arizona I do not know
>> if that is the problem or not??????
>> It sounded like it on the Yarnell Fire.
I’m sure the REALITY ( with the prison crews ) is that you cannot FORCE any inmate to serve on one of these crews.
They have to be ‘volunteering’ to work on those crews… so the ‘talent pool’ ( for lack of a better phrase ) is also limited.
Sometimes you get ‘good’ volunteers… sometimes you don’t.
My POINT remains is that regardless of whether you have a ‘good crew’ of inmates or a ‘poor crew’ of inmates… if that crew CANNOT meet the minimum standards/expectations for a ‘Type 2’ crew… then WHY are these crews still allowed to be going out for job assignments that require ‘fully qualified’ Type 2 crews?
THAT is what is still ‘confusing’ ( to me ).
Ok Good questions remember I retired 21 years ago—-
First my last years as a Supervisory Dispatcher and Fire certified as a Lead Dispatcher for Large Fires. I went to many Forests to Supervise the Fire Dispatch organization
and did so in my region and on my Forest.
We had the right to request specific crews we were Authorized by the IC’s, Region’s and The NIFC in Boise.
I believe that is still in affect today.
In R4 you could request specific crews within Region.
We had a list every morning of available Crews.
We could also request thru the R4 Dispatch specific needs of the crews being ordered if Type 1’s were not available we could specify the type and kind of type 2’s we wanted 95 % of the time we got what we asked for
The other part of your question is I believe Qualifications.
All FF are required to meet the Physical fitness test which includes the 3 mile hike with 40 LBS. on you back in X amount of time. The Step test was also a requirement for overhead based on 5 min cadence and hart beat.
I am still confused about the two crews at Yarnell that could not hike 3 miles or less to the Fire at night or any other time. In my time they would have been removed from the type 2 list and not sent to fires till they meet requirements.
I was surprised by that occurrence. even if the were not the top crew they should have been able to do the hike and worked the fire line.
Generally most crews would fit between a 5 and 10
10 being the best HS crew down to the lowest preforming Type 2. The 2 crews on Yarnell would have been a 2 or 3 rated crew basically Fire Camp Helpers
Not IA or fire line crews.
The State of Arizona needs a reality check and R# needs to evaluate their Crews and maybe their overhead from what we have found there is something wrong in this mess.
I forgot to say you have to meet the physical requirement YEARLY to be Red Carded……
Thanks Bob.
One thing I find frustrating is that when I look at a fire via InciWeb, it doesn’t name the crews. It just says six of this and seven of that.
Granted, most people probably could care less. But I’ve been really wanting to know who’s where, so I can understand this whole thing better.
But what you wrote about the Type 2 crews helps. I’ll start paying more attention to that.
The high danger knuckle-biting fire season in the southwest is, not surprisingly, the two hot dry months, May (hot, dry, windy) and June, before the monsoons actually start precipitating enough to counteract the lightning they bring. So I’m pretty sure the southwest crews are probably, as you all have been explaining, being “kept relatively staged” nearby during that time, and more free to roam elsewhere later in the summer.
One of the things that’s bothering me is this whole concept that Granite Mountain was somehow supposed to be “making money” for the City of Prescott. I think that idea really skews the discussion. That’s never what they were created to do.
During the flush years, they were, hopefully, paying for themselves to do a service for the City of Prescott. And they did a LOT of that service.
During the non-flush years, they may have cost the City money, but it pretty much averaged out to about maybe $100K a year. So that means they were, say, a $100k a year “wildfire insurance policy” that also did a TON of other work for the City.
Given all kinds of other stuff I’ve poured thru in the City Council Minutes, it doesn’t seem to me that a $100k a year “wildfire insurance policy” plus fuels mitigation crew plus all kinds of other stuff they did, was all that, relatively speaking, bad of an investment.
Which is why I’m concerned that, so far, it doesn’t look to me that actually analyzing THEIR work was specifically written into the contract for the ICMA study. But I’m not sure about that. Which, one would think, I OUGHT to be able to be by now.
All that being said, it seems to me that the real achilles heal was never really pinning down the liability thing from the get-go.
(Speaking of liability, all the angry complaints I’ve read on wildlanfire.com about what a nightmare getting workman’s comp for injuries on the fireground is, I’m not so sure USFS et al is being all that honest about liability issues themselves.)
And that, plus pensions, is still, and has been all along, a topic of contention related to the regular Fire Dept and the Police Dept.
And I find myself wondering if the fact that the Prescott Fire Department had never had a fatality in its one hundred year history may have contributed to this somewhat laissez-faire attitude regarding preparing for liability issues…..and maybe even a culture of “it will never happen to us.” Which culture may have had more to do with Granite Mountain’s relative (according to some) high-risk behavior mentality than anything related to “structure-protection” mentality (which I, PERSONALLY, all things considered, have not been able to get all that pearl-clutchy about in these conversations).
On the other hand, a hundred years without a fatality is not a meaningless history, when it comes to safety culture, I would think.
So maybe it cuts both ways.
Just thinking out loud here.
I would be willing to bet the ONLY reason Flagstaff never “experimented” with a municipal Type 1 crew was they had three USFS IHCs “in their pocket.” Otherwise I bet they would have.
Everybody wants fire protection “for free.” Everybody expects those federal IHC’s are always gonna be there.
Remember there was one Federal IHC that never made it to the Yarnell Fire. For whatever that may have been worth.
In another article that I can’t remember which one it was, Darrell Willis said he thought the “lean years” tide was turning in 2013, and GM was on a path to make quite a bit more money that year. And that that would continue because the fires were getting bigger hotter meaner etc and the fire year was getting longer. That may very well be the case.
Although, ironically, last year-in-the-SouthWest included a definitely nail-biting May and June, but, as it turned out, NM and AZ had no really major dangerous fires in any major dangerous places. Except the Slide Fire, which, given the circumstances, they threw EVERYTHING THEY COULD GET at. And they had A LOT AVAILABLE then. Fortunately.
Which means, if they hadn’t been dead, Granite Mountain probably could have made a TON of money last year just off of Washington, Oregon, and California alone.
And THIS year is, so far, completely astonishing. Our fire weather forecast is currently, if it’s accurate (AHEM), for essentially NO FIRE WEATHER. According to the current climate maps New Mexico, in particular, and Arizona, to a somewhat lesser extent, are completely in the green all the way through June. Which may mean I may actually be forced to get my roof fixed. But that remains to be seen.
Somewhere in my weekend roamings I came across mention of another county-hosted IHC in California. So I’m gonna check that out.
The REASON I keep chewing on this BONE is because I, for one, DON’T trust that we’ll always have all those federal IHC’s right there in our back pockets right then when we need them.
All the tea leaves I’m reading are pointing in the direction of the NECESSITY for LOCALS to take MORE rather than LESS responsibility for their own wildfire protection, both in terms of prevention AND mitigation. And there’s no way that’s not gonna include dealing with LIABILITY. None of this can continue to be swept under a rug.
Including in Prescott.
To sum it all up, I wish my Homeowners Insurance Policy provided me with all the extra benefits Prescott’s Wildfire Insurance Policy provided THEM.
LA County has at least 1 Hot Shot Crew or Use to.
They also field 10 man Helitack IA crews.
Some other County’s in Southern California may as well.
Marti,
A fire weather watch was issued today for most of New Mexico. With the humidity in Arizona approaching the single digits, both Arizona and New Mexico will be routinely having fire weather and red flag warnings very soon.
On another note, while it sounds like a great idea for municipalities and counties in the southwest to field their own locally dedicated firefighting crews (i.e; hotshots), as I posted in a comment long ago, we have seen the last of it.
As with everything, it simply comes down to money.
Not pay and benefits, but liability insurance.
The City of Prescott is insured through the Arizona Municipal Risk Retention Pool (an association of governments to manage risk). and due to the incident at YH, Prescott, and the other associated governments were told their rates were going up quite a bit. The other entities were none too happy about that.
Prescott was also told if they put together another crew, their insurance rates would go up astronomically. It is a relative certainty that if the other government entities in the risk pool were to be faced with their rates going up again, simply because Prescott wanted to field another hotshot crew, they would revolt and kick Prescott out of the pool.
With Prescott being out of the pool, there is no way they could afford the insurance on their own.
As I think Bob said long ago, they only way the feds are able to manage this risk is by spreading it out across the entire U.S.
Copy.
Re “A fire weather watch was issued today for most of New Mexico. With the humidity in Arizona approaching the single digits, both Arizona and New Mexico will be routinely having fire weather and red flag warnings very soon.”
Thank you! I had a feeling things were too good to believe.
Regarding the rest, I’m pretty well fading right now but will go back and take into consideration.
Namaste
Yes, that story was in the center of my mind as I was “researching” this.
I still haven’t had time to go back and DIG into the Prescott City Council archives of their meeting minutes, and it may be awhile before I get back to there, but I DO intend to go dig and see what more I can find of the ICMA report.
I just can’t believe WE are the only ones doing this weighing of whether or not it was all “worth it.” After the City of Prescott paid them $90K to do the job.
But then………………..
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 31, 2015 at 2:56 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> Yes, that story was in the center of my mind as I was “researching” this.
I’ve always wondered why that ‘West Spruce’ indicent on June 28 ( the same Friday evening the Yarnell Hill Fire got started ) hasn’t been mentioned more in the ‘analysis’ of what happened that weekend.
I just can’t get past the ‘irony’ that there they were up in Prescott on Friday night throwing everything they had at a ‘lightning strike’ fire because they KNEW what COULD happen if they let it get away from them…
…but the SAME EVENING… just a little ways down the Highway in Yarnell… an Arizona Forestry employee wasn’t even letting the people who WANTED to ‘go up there an put it out’ do that. He ( Shumate ) had NO equivalent sense of URGENCY or what *COULD* happen if he let it get away from him and turn into something bigger.
If that lightning hit hadn’t happened up in Prescott… I wonder if Granite Mountain would/could have done the same thing down in Yarnell that they did that night near Prescott… and none of us would be here having this conversation.
Actually… that’s a double-sided question.
I ALSO wonder that if Granite Mountain had been ‘free’ that evening ( instead of staying up all night doing IA on the PNF lighting hit ) if Arizona Forestry would have even bothered to ASK them to do the same thing down near Yarnell.
Something tells me it was just sort of a ‘mano-e-mano’ think up in Prescott and they were jumping in to help Jason Clawson specifically.
If they hadn’t been doing that… I don’t think they would have ALSO been as readily ‘volunteering’ to schlep down to Yarnell.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I still haven’t had time to go back and DIG into the Prescott
>> City Council archives of their meeting minutes, and it may
>> be awhile before I get back to there, but I DO intend to go
>> dig and see what more I can find of the ICMA report.
>>
>> I just can’t believe WE are the only ones doing this weighing
>> of whether or not it was all “worth it.” After the City of Prescott
>> paid them $90K to do the job.
Well… if I read Prescott City Councilman Charlie Arnold’s letter to Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini correctly… *we* are *not* the ‘only ones doing that’.
I think Charlie Arnold wants to know pretty much the ‘same things’.
1) Is Willis right? Was the report ‘tampered with’… or was it actually just following the standard ( and contracted ) path to completion that INCLUDED the chance for the City to ‘make changes’ to initial drafts?
2) If the City WAS allowed to have ‘input’ prior to ‘final drafts’… then WHEN did that ‘phase’ take place… and WHO was really involved? Was it then a bunch of EMAILS that aren’t showing up in the public record yet?
3) Was there really any ‘discussion’ of whether it was still “worth it” for Prescott to have a “Wildland Division”… or was its elimination just a foregone conclusion by the time the final report came out?
Remember… the Prescott City Council STARTED to have an ‘open discussion’ about that… but that first meeting turned into a PR disaster ( mostly because of Amanda Marsh )… and they then ‘postponed’ having the NEXT meeting because of that… but that ‘postponement’ turned into ‘permanent’.
I don’t believe they ever even tried to have a SECOND ‘open discussion’ about it after that first meeting went sideways.
What actually happened is that this FIRST meeting to try and ‘discuss’ ( openly ) whether to continue the GM organization was, itself, listed in the public agenda as an initial ‘organizational’ meeting by the City Council.
The PUBLIC was, in fact, invited to attend, but the agenda also stated clearly that this intial meeting would NOT be open to ‘public comment’ yet since there were going to be a planned SERIES of meetings and public comment would be allowed at subsequent meetings.
Amanda Marsh didn’t get that memo.
She sat through the whole ‘organizational’ meeting and then just ASSUMED show would be allowed to get up and speak at the end of it.
She stood up and asked to spead after adjournment… and Mayor Kuykendall said “No, Maam… this meeting was not scheduled for public comment”.
Amanda Marsh went ballistic and just took over the microphone and started speaking anyway… and then it turned into free-for-all with Kuykendall still trying to control the situation and people like Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) first yelling at the board to “Let her SPEAK!” and then ‘walking out’ in a huff and talking to reporters outside.
Since they couldn’t stop her… Amanda Marsh ended up saying that all she wanted to say was “Thank You” to the Council for even having these meetings to discuss the future of GM… but then she got nasty and cut their heads off for publishing her benefit amounts in the newspaper.
It was a mess… and it actually ENDED the Council’s own desire to actually HAVE any more ‘open’ meetings to discuss the ‘future’ of the GM organization.
Here is a link to an article about that first meeting… including a VIDEO from the end of the meeting when Amanda Marsh went ballistic…
Article Title: Granite Mountain Hotshots meeting turns bitter
when mayor refuses to let widow Amanda Marsh speak
By: Josh Frigerio , Navideh Forghani
Published: 7:00 PM, Aug 6, 2013
Updated: 5:05 AM, Aug 7, 2013
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/prescott/granite-mountain-hotshots-meeting-turns-bitter-when-mayor-refuses-to-let-widow-amanda-marsh-speak
Copy. Thank you.
I have a couple of posts which are “awaiting moderation” (including one from last week) so I’ll try something different this time and it is possible that this one may show up twice. I hope not, but if it does, I do apologize for the inconvenience to you all.
My unvarnished “feedback” is this. With all due respect, after the considerable amount of time and all that has been covered on this website concerning the contributing factors which led to the demise of the GMHS crew . . . such as the numerous ways putting a HS crew on a municipal fire department removed important (critical) institutional checks, and how structural firefighting and wildland firefighting don’t mix, and just how detrimental the cronyism of a small town FD can be . . . it is now chilling to read that anyone can actually favor going down that exact same road AGAIN. When it comes to the Lessons Learned Dept., it sure seems like one of the major lessons is being lost in some weeds. Putting a Hotshot crew on a municipal fire department WAS a blueprint for disaster, and if 19 dead firefighters does not do a good enough job of proving that point then I don’t know what does.
Reply to J. Stout post on March 31, 2015 at 11:37 am
>> J. Stout said…
>>
>> It is now chilling to read that anyone can actually favor going down
>> that exact same road AGAIN. When it comes to the Lessons Learned
>> Dept., it sure seems like one of the major lessons is being lost in some
>> weeds. Putting a Hotshot crew on a municipal fire department WAS
>> a blueprint for disaster, and if 19 dead firefighters does not do a
>> good enough job of proving that point then I don’t know what does.
What is equally ‘chilling’ is to read the resignation letter of the “Wildland Division Chief” for that same City Fire Department and end up reading straight reproductions of most of the Gettysburg Address.
And then see him reporting ( in writing ) that he feels he is on some kind of “mission from God” and has a “moral responsibility” to make sure “the dead shall not have died in vaid”…
…but then he leaves it at that. No DETAILS about what that actually MEANS or what he intends to DO about it.
It is almost as if he is saying that ( in his mind ) the sole justification for recreating the entire ‘bad idea’ in the first place should now be the simple fact that they all got killed.
Willis’ mix of constant preacher-wannabee and military references ( God, Guts and Glory stuff ) is more than just annoying… it gets pretty ‘scary’ sometimes.
With all the ‘help’ that Willis’ has dedicated himself to during the whole aftermath of this disaster… I still hope Willis HIMSELF has gotten some of the help that HE, perhaps, has needed to deal with this thing.
I think he actually MEANT what he said in his resignation letter, and I think this IS all going to ‘come back on the table’ again.
Maybe even BEFORE the 2015 election and the chance that former Chief Dan Fraijo might actually get elected to be MAYOR of this town called ‘Prescott’.
It really does seem like Darrell Willis really does think that unless they are 20 more guys trapsing around the Arizona landscape with “Granite Mountain” logos on their helmets… that the men who died are not “at rest”… or some such weird thing like that.
Thanks for your thoughts about this. And I want to add that we’re all QUITE FORGIVING about messed up/double posts, whatever, because we all have had our own ISSUES posting here!
I’m trying to keep an open mind about this. Just trying to weigh this versus that, without falling into any kind of romanticizing of anything. Or, on the other hand, demonizing of anything.
I think the most important point, in my mind, that you make is, generally speaking, the issue of those “important (critical) institutional” additional checks and balances that a more locally hosted (especially municipally hosted) crew doesn’t automatically have that a federal crew DOES have.
It’s right there smack dab in the face in the narrative of what happened that spring of 2013 in regards to the staffing of the crew, which was extremely problematic and directly contributed to the whole year and a half long battle over the benefits.
The ongoing fights with the City of Prescott over funding really DID MATTER, possibly even at 4:00 in the afternoon on June 30, 2013. Not to mention 4:20 PM that same afternoon.
Here’s another competing thought, though. And I’m trying to think BEYOND the Granite Mountain thing, (so, I’m not thinking of the “same exact road” but….) in the direction of what, then, do we do when it becomes more and more apparent that, we need to come up with SOMETHING on a more localized level that is better than what we’re doing now.
The wildland-urban interface issues are WAY bigger than just Prescott. You can say that wildfire and structure fire protection don’t mix, but they ARE mixing everywhere, including and, in my mind, especially, say, on the east side of the Sandia Mountains, which, in my mind, COULD be a next “Yarnell Hill Fire.” Just slightly different vegetation.
Or Jemez Springs, where I spent a day, a month ago, photographing up and down the canyon, which is WAY more populated than the Valles Caldera, where Granite Mountain spent a week wildland fire-fighting, including some structure protection, just a couple of weeks before Yarnell.
The days of just purely fighting wildland fires out in the uninhabited boonies are increasingly rare.
One of the benefits of that local type 1 crew was that it fed quite a few people who understood wildland fire-fighting into the “regular” Prescott Fire Department.
That’s why they became, I think, an “expanding the envelope” kind of team in regards to multi-agency training and coordination regarding wildland-urban interface fire-fighting.
I think that kind of thing has to increase, not decrease. Whether it includes reconstituting a type 1 crew (or maybe something more along the lines of more highly skilled type 2 crews–which could be VERY RELEVANT–like what Bob Powers is talking about)……
SOMETHING has to be envisioned/experimented with/confronted to fill in what I see as being some kind of serious existing gaps, and that DOES include highly skilled wildland fire-fighting where increasing numbers of BUILDINGS are a part of the FUELS loading.
And if the Granite Mountain HotShots experience includes some serious Lessons Learned in this realm, I think it needs to be looked at from something other than a purely Pro-WhatTheyDid vs purely Con-WhatTheyDid set of lenses.
That’s what I’m trying to do, anyway.
So thanks for adding to this conversation I’m having both inside my own head and here on this site and, also, with some other people in my own “neighborhood” about all of this.
Marti… you just raised a point I was going to make up above but it fits better right here.
Yes… it is becoming INCREASINGLY more important for cities/towns that find themselves smack in the ‘Wildland/Urban Interface’ reality to think more about having their OWN resources for fighting larger and larger Wildland fires ( at least on ‘Initial Attack’ ) than to stand around the courthouse-square just hoping the FEDS show up to save their little town.
Well… it’s astonishing to me that what seems to be the OBVIOUS ‘way forward’ isn’t even being discussed.
Since you HAVE to have firefighters ( no matter what )… why not just make sure you hire firefighters that know how to do BOTH ‘Structural’ AND ‘Wildland’… to some degree.
I don’t understand why it’s still such a “Never the TWAIN shall meet” situation in the Firefighting community itself.
It should begin to be more of a REQUIREMENT that City/Municipal Fire Departments that also have a significant local ‘Wildland/Urban Interface’ threat only hire FFs that can DO BOTH.
I mean… let’s face it… scraping the ground and ‘building line’ is NOT exactly ‘rocket science’.
If that is what is going to get the cows in the barn on an Initial Attack and STOP a local lightning strike on the ‘Wildland’ side of town from turning into a ‘Type 1’ incident… then anyone employed as a firefighter in THAT particular City or Town should be qualified to go out there and DO that.
I’m not sure why that SIMPLE idea isn’t getting more ‘air time’ these days.
You said:
“I don’t understand why it’s still such a “Never the TWAIN shall meet” situation in the Firefighting community itself.”
I really don’t think the “never the TWAIN shall meet” thinking is going on in the heads of the Firefighting community, especially, and not limited to, in Prescott.
To be honest, I see more of that kind of thinking going on right here than just about anywhere else. ESPECIALLY regarding Prescott.
I see Prescott kind of in the geographic middle of the Central AZ zone, where a LOT of “hybrid” interagency fire-fighting and training is going on on a VERY intensive and increasingly sophisticated level.
I mean, one of the day-long training sessions a few years ago (I don’t have it open so I can’t remember if it was a stand-alone or something related to the Wildfire Academy) was a mock-up of a major rapidly expanding wildfire hitting Pioneer Park (I think it was) during a major June festival on a hot dry windy day, where several thousand people were gathered and they also had to figure out what to do about the nearby zoo.
And that was a wildfire training, and all kinds of fire-fighters from various kinds of agencies were doing it. To learn how to work together so when they DID have to work together, which they do all the time, they had built up “cohesiveness.”
That’s why I said that when people here get all “pearl-clutching” about how wildland/structure fire-fighting is so awful/impossible/terrible/like water and oil/whatever……
I just fail to get on that band-wagon.
It’s increasingly just not real.
Cooperation between agencies and departments is ALWAYS a good thing ( and needs to be ‘rehearsed’ )… but I think by “Never the TWAIN shall meet” I was actually referring more to the nuts-and-bolts of actually FIGHTING Wildland Fire versus putting out building fires.
I think I was saying that instead of it just being NICE if some of the ‘Structural’ guys who pull the three day shifts at the station ( mostly watching TV or working at the station if there are no alarms ) knew how to scrape ground and build line and fight Widlfire… it should start to be more of a REQUIREMENT.
Maybe something along the lines of instead of having to maintain some ‘independent’ ‘Type 2 IA’ crew over in some garage on the outskirts of the City… any Fire Department in a known WUI setting should be REQUIRED to have a fully certified ‘Type 2 IA’ ready-to-go and ‘on call’ from within the ranks of the already full-time FFs being paid to be firefighters for that City.
I’m not sure I’m explaining myself right.
Maybe an analogy would be the whole SWAT thing.
Remember when ONLY very LARGE cities could even be expected to actually have a SWAT ( Special Weapons and Tactics ) team?
Nowdays… I believe it is almost a REQUIREMENT that even municipal police departments have enough personnel trained ( and certified ) in “Special Weapons and Tactics” that on a moment’s notice they can ‘put that team in action’ from within the ranks of their own career police officers.
Same sort of thing is what I am suggesting.
ALL City Fire Departments where WUI is a big concern SHOULD be able to put together their own (fully qualified/certified) Type 2 IA Crew together on a moment’s notice… from WITHIN the ranks of the already-on-salary career FFs.
I just started reading, and haven’t finished, but THIS jumped RIGHT OUT at me:
“if some of the ‘Structural’ guys who pull the three day shifts at the station ( mostly watching TV or working at the station if there are no alarms ) knew how to scrape ground and build line and fight Widlfire… it should start to be more of a REQUIREMENT.”
No kidding!!!!!!!!!!!
The huge big issue, not only in Prescott but everywhere else, is that IRRITATING sight of that big honkin’ fully staffed LADDER TRUCK going out to do Medical Interventions.
I was looking at some of the stats, and PFD spends something like one minute fighting fires for every hour doing medical interventions.
It’s really that extreme.
And everybody knows it.
OK I was seriously exaggerating.
“There are about 493 minutes per day spent on EMS calls, and about 150 minutes spent on Fire calls.”
From:
“ICMA REPORT ON PRESCOTT FIRE DEPARTMENT”
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/24080-icma-report-on-prescott-fire-department
I’m following you just fine.
Actually Albuquerque’s infamous Police Department had their SWAT team ordered to be dismantled by the Department of Justice as a piece of their infamous DOJ intervention. So there’s that.
But they still do SWAT thingies, so I’ll have to check into that.
Looking at PFD’s website……
http://www.prescott-az.gov/services/fire/about.php
“The department consists of 92 career personnel”
I think this was written before the loss of GMIHC, but I’m not sure.
So, say, around 100ish. So, if I understand you correctly, that would mean 20-ish of that 100 would be trained/qualled/geared/vehicled properly so that when that Spruce Fire hit, they would have been fully capable of joining Prescott IHC in putting that fire out in pretty much exactly the same way GMIHC did.
But they WOULDN’T be prepped to go outside of the basic regional (probably including some of the mutual aid agreements) area, so they may even be MORE available to catch local stuff than sometimes GM might have been. So that wouldn’t be an issue.
That would maybe even mean they MIGHT have been (in part or whole) dispatched to the Yarnell Fire and done just about the same stuff GM did. For maybe better or worse.
OR they may have been kept intentionally close to home in Prescott, given the generally awful dangerousness of the predicted and actual weather that weekend, and would have been able to break up (as Bob says the higher-level Type 2 Teams can do) and respond to some of all those fires that got sparked on Sunday.
And, generally speaking, during non-wildfire season, they would just be regular fire-fighters, and fully paid/benefitted just like all the other PFD employees.
I like it!
Which is making me think a bit of hmmmmmmmmmmmm there’s that newly constituted “off-season” fuels reduction crew of about 12 or so part-time (think no benefits) people, a number of whom are actually IHC ffs (including Ronnie Gamble of Blue Ridge IHC) during on-season.
And I think you and I are thinking more along Bob Powers’ concept of an “upper” Type 2 crew, not the same thing as the DOC Type 2 crews (and I have no idea if Arizona has the kind of Type 2 crews Bob is thinking about).
I really do believe this is the kind of conversation they should be having in Prescott.
It just really galls me that, even though the ICMA hired, specifically for the Prescott Study, someone who is supposed to be a wildland fire expert, the only thing they have to say about wildland fire in their oral presentation to the City Council was, apparently (according to that prescott enews report:
“”Wildland fuels mitigation and ensuring a defensible community (FireWise program) should remain a priority,” is written in the report. “It is a priority, should be a priority and always should be a priority, and never should not be a priority,” he said.
“The best way to take care of a fire problem is prevention and education.””
Completely. Missing. The. Point.
So you’ve got a Fire Dept that spends 3/4 of its time doing Medical Interventions and a City in the Woods where, apparently, it is no longer a priority to be staffed and equipped to put out wildfires. Much less be capable of training itself how to do that.
For all that, given that kind of thinking, they might as well just disband the entire Fire Department and rely solely on building codes.
I firmly think the City of Prescott should hire us for the tune of $90k to fix their fire department.
I bet we could even do it without making their fire department hate us, which could, all things considered, be a game-changer.
Be that as it may, I have to admit I have bigger fish to fry.
Calm down a bit folks.
All of the City of Prescott’s firefighters are red-carded, as is most every other Arizona professional firefighter working outside of the greater Phoenix and Tucson areas.
And they already do respond to wildfires within and threatening their response areas, and dig line when needed.
As with most places, staffing has been at bare-bones levels for years, even before the great recession caused further staffing cuts.
Prescott’s five stations have 3-man minimum manning and are spread out over almost 40 square miles of mountainous terrain.
If a fire is threatening the city, everybody goes, with stations being backfilled by other jurisdictions as soon as possible
So, I guess I’m wondering where the personnel and financing are going to come from the support this “immediate response type-2 two crew” you are saying they should have?
In this regard, Prescott is no different than any other Arizona town or city.
In addition, the reason fire trucks have paramedics onboard is that they can routinely get to a scene 5-10 minutes faster than an ambulance, due to the location of their stations.
For the taxpayer waiting for someone to jump-start her husband’s heart, a having a medic closer, and arriving faster, is worth every penny, and, in fact, does save lives.
Re TTWARE’s:
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive says
MARCH 31, 2015 AT 9:34 PM
“All of the City of Prescott’s firefighters are red-carded, as is most every other Arizona professional firefighter working outside of the greater Phoenix and Tucson areas.
And they already do respond to wildfires within and threatening their response areas, and dig line when needed.”
Thank you. I knew some of that was happening but not all of it.
When you say they are “all” red-carded, do you know what levels of red-carding that pertains to?
Say we/whoever is discussing the need for some kind of quick coherent response to something like the Spruce Fire, which, apparently somebody like PNF National Forest employee ( and former Hotshot ) Jason Clawson. was putting together June 28, and felt the need to corral another Type 1 crew in order to do that–so he called on GMIHC…because…..
Or whatever was happening in Prescott on June 30 in response to the lightning strikes there.
My question is, given a lot of things, does what you are saying mean that you think there is adequate coverage regarding wildfire mitigation without any kind of relative replacement of what GM was capable of doing?
Maybe that’s the case. I just don’t know..
And I just have to reiterate. I find it ludicrous that we are having this conversation here when the City of Prescott paid $90k for a study that should have addressed itself to this, and, from what I have seen, didn’t–instead saying that prevention was the most important priority without saying anything about how Prescott should act when prevention didn’t quite make the grade, as it obviously didn’t when the Doce fire hit.
Regarding “red carding,” however generic that may be.
Tyson Esquibel was “red-carded” as a Task Force Leader Trainee, and was operating as such on the Yarnell Fire.
He staunchly asserted, in his ADOSH interview, that the Granite Mountain buggies were at the Boulder Springs Ranch that Sunday morning. Which they most assuredly weren’t.
It’s also a strong possibility that he was the one who ordered the Peeples Valley water-tender driver to leave the Youth Camp even though that driver knew there were crew-members left behind up above in the canyon and Esquibel apparently told him to do it anyway.
So I’m wondering if the simple fact that various people are so-called “red-carded”, depending on what that means, guarantees that they are actually capable of performing, in real life, in such a manner that the citizens of Prescott can count on them to do what needs to be done if/when a wildfire hits Prescott.
I’m not criticizing what you said. I’m just really trying to figure this thing out. Just in case……
Marti—
The State is responsible for the Red Carded Positions they certify. From what we have seen
that may be a very lax justification.
Lower positions up to Division Super. may be the good old boy thing just a thought—–
Region 3 should be evaluating the ops and above positions type 2 and type 1 team certifications. Are they? or again is it a rubber stamp?
We have uncovered some serious problems on the Yarnell Hill Fire. Are those State wide
are State County and City Red Cards really correct? there is a lot of qualifications here we have found in the overhead assigned.
Certification can follow the good old boy carding or have a certifying committee.
Local committees of the Chief can promote with out State approval.
Feds for all of there teams Go thru the certification process and review. Be fore they are assigned and they train and meet together. week members are some times weeded out.
A red card, the same as a J.D degree, or being a M.D. is not a guarantee that one is not incompetent, or an idiot.
Are far as quals go, the good-ol’-boy network seems to be much more active in the middle management area and above, where there has always been a lot of back-scratching going on between agencies, and between various levels of government. The grunts, who are not entitled to the “golden rocket” ride up the chain, see it exactly for what it is.
Everything noted above, was I’m sure, part of the reasoning behind the creation of that unwritten, but important watchout, Watchout # 19 – Death from above.
As far as adequate coverage goes, you could have 5 hotshot crews standing by at all times, and when the right conditions occur, a new start could blow by them and burn 100,000 acres.
I guess the short answer is that there is never enough staffing for the “big one”, and there never will be. That’s why mutual aid and the ROSS system exist.
There are no guarantees, EXCEPT, that when’s nothing’s burning, all that the bean-counters and taxpayers want to do is cut, cut, cut, staffing and funding, no matter what kind of entity you are working for.
Oh wait. Building codes are Communist.
And, I would add.
Regardless of my/our negative feelings about Darrell Willis’ uber-religious worldview regarding fire-fighting (which was echoed in SPADES by EVERYBODY at that Granite Mountain Memorial Service–which I only just watched last night because I HAD to)…….
He and Granite Mountain IHC were/are regarded VERY HIGHLY on a NATIONAL and REGIONAL level for their LEADERSHIP in the world of pushing this wildland-urban interface fire-fighting practice/education/training/experience/etc including BOTH prevention AND mitigation way ahead of the habitual thinking into the real world of the 21st century.
It was a very important thing.
And I think that’s what’s foremost in Willis’ mind, and rightly so, even though we may not be understanding it because he’s not saying it very well.
And I think he’s got a LOT of backing in this region. He’s not on Bea Day’s very highly regarded team because he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
Looks like I should have said, “… the philosophical differences between structural firefighting and wildland firefighting when it comes to personal RISK” as it was THOSE discussions in previous chapters that I was attempting to refer to.
However, it is nice to see that some EXCELLENT discussion has followed as a result of the lack of clarity on my part.
I’ve been purposefully “ignoring” this comment as I was exploring another room in this house until now. But I did see it and take it seriously.
And, yeah, it’s been a really interesting and useful conversation for me.
I’m not sure exactly what you are referring to regarding “the philosophical differences between structural firefighting and wildland firefighting when it comes to personal RISK”.
Having been here for almost a year and four months, I remember that those conversations happened, but I don’t remember exactly what they entailed, at this point, and I don’t remember exactly where they are.
But I am VERY interested in discussing what you are thinking about.
I’d hate to get all uberly excited about this hybrid urban-wildland firefighting stuff if I’m missing something really important. Such as SAFETY.
So I REALLY appreciate your speaking up. Thank you!
I also think it’s good for me to root around inside of my brain and see if I can remember/ figure out stuff, so that’s what I’m trying to do.
It seems to me that, if I recall correctly, the way the structural issue regarding safety emerged had to do with the idea, re-inforced by the ADOSH report, that a higher priority was being placed on structure protection than firefighter-protection, and that Granite Mountain, because they were attached to a municipal fire department, bought into that and that was what influenced them to leave the black and head to Yarnell by hook or by crook, thus leading to them getting themselves killed.
I don’t know if that’s what you’re referring to but that’s what I’m remembering.
Are you speaking of something different?
Also, a corollary of that is that, actually, for the most part, wildland fire-fighters are not equipped, much less trained to put house-fires out.
Which they mostly don’t do anyway.
So, if I remember correctly, the conversation had to do with why in the world would Granite Mountain have left the safe black to walk thru a petroleum-filled bowl, with a lit match headed toward it also, to do a job they weren’t equipped to do if it wasn’t because they were under the influence of a structural fire department and someone who used to be its chief?
Which then became the SAFETY issue regarding wildland firefighting vs structural fire-fighting.
I’m not willing to totally dismiss the possibility that Granite Mountain might have seen that fire headed towards Yarnell and thought, all things considered, OMG we can’t just sit here and watch that town burn down!!!!
I’m thinking that very likely could have been in their possibly heavily smoke-induced thinking.
But I still don’t see in that, or anything I’ve read, any indication of a different kind of thinking in wildland fire-fighter thinking vs structural fire-fighter thinking regarding the importance of maintaining proper basic adherence to safety rules and risk-analytical thinking (except of course, when any of either of them decides to see if they can bend the rules and get away with it if they think there’s something there they think they need to do).
Am I remotely even in the ball park?
I also think that some of the justifiable side-eying toward Darell Willis regarding an over-infatuation with structure protection (which he might also have transmitted to Eric and GMIHC, but I’m not altogether sold on that idea) has to do with his incredibly expensively wasteful and potentially seriously dangerous and completely failed attempt to save the Double A Bar Ranch.
THAT entire operation makes absolutely no sense to me.
So, I’m thinking it is possible that, after the highly celebrated “saving” of the historical buildings in the Valles Caldera on the Thompson Ridge Fire in a prominently photographed and published Night Back-Burning Operation (nothing like the perfect photo-op!!) that Willis was the OPS on, and then after that, whatever they did that “saved” all those houses in the Doce Fire……………
It very well could be that the concept of saving the homes of the citizens of Yarnell (much less the citizens of Yarnell themselves who, thanks to REALLY BAD evacuation planning, almost ended up dead themselves) would have likely been very much in their minds as they (with or without direct or indirect pressure from someone else) watched that fire turn around and start burning towards Yarnell.
But in all of this, I’m still not seeing anything that indicates a difference in thinking about safety between wildland fire-fighters and structural fire-fighters. Generally speaking.
Am I missing something? (I often am, so I welcome being corrected)
And I’m writing about this and wandering around in this because if we are going to think about the kind of hybrid crews like what WTKTT and I have been exploring……..
…….because I think those of us who live in that wildland-urban interface zone need to figure this stuff out……..
…..if there’s a Lessons Learned to be learned via this disastrous fire regarding the wildland-urban interface……
…..maybe it has to do with the possibility of getting too attached to saving buildings (because, generally speaking, the public loves and celebrates and heroes that) so that that could become an incentive to going too far and risking too much……………..way too much……………..
……….and ending up getting killed in the process.
I do think that that is an inherent danger in this kind of strategizing that needs to be mitigated.
Exponentially so if you haven’t nailed down to the board your liability issues.
PS I have to say at this time after all this wandering around in this fire for almost a year and four months
I don’t really think that the biggest problem with the (mis)management of this fire was about Structure Protection eclipsing Fire Fighter Protection.
I think ADOSH wrote that before they had enough time to actually finish investigating this fire and that’s what it looked like to them at that time.
I think the REAL problem that ADOSH hadn’t discovered at that time was that NOBODY in charge of this fire EVER took this fire and the weather forecasted to impact it even REMOTELY seriously enough.
I think that had to do WAY MORE than ANYTHING remotely involving Structure Protection.
Amen!
It’s getting really late for me and I just wrote a post that seems to have gotten lost in cyberspace so I’ll try it again because I think this is important..
I spent some serious time, in between times of otherwise in-real-life-stress today, trying to find out more about that International City/County Management Association (ICMA) study of the Prescott Police Department and, more importantly to us, the Prescott Fire Department.
Especially given Darell Willis’s recent claim that the analysis, as presented to the Prescott City Council, was not the same as the original draft, and the subsequent decision of Prescott City Council Member Charlie Arnold to call for an investigation of it.
The contracted proposal of the analysis can be found, starting at digital page 114, of this PDF:
http://prescottaz.suiteonemedia.com/Web/UserControls/DocPreview.aspx?p=1&aoid=113
“AGENDA ITEM: Approval of City Contract No. 2014-050, a Professional ServicesAgreement with the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) for Comprehensive Analsis of Public Safety Services, in an amount not to exceed $87,900.00”
This pdf contains all the documentation which describes the analysis which the Prescott City Council contracted the ICMA to do for them.
After reading a bunch of stuff regarding the ICMA, I no longer believe the analysis itself was not “independent.” And I think it was probably worth the money that was paid for it.
HOWEVER.
There are a whole bunch of statements within it that allude to stuff like “a community-wide dialogue” (which seriously NEVER happened).
Also. I can’t find anything in this plan that seriously focuses on any kind of analysis of the work of the Granite Mountain IHC. It’s as if they weren’t even a part of what was going on or what was being discussed. Which they seriously WERE.
But who knows. Given that:
The contract includes a draft report that would have been delivered March, 2014 (which corresponds to what Willis is saying), plus 30 days for the City of Prescott to submit changes to it, and then 60 days for the delivery of the final report (May of 2014), WAY earlier than “the final report” that was delivered to the Prescott City Council.
I haven’t yet googled my way to finding the actual document that was delivered to the Prescott City Council in August of 2014.
Better yet… if the CONTRACT actually SPECIFIED that the ‘City of Prescott’ was allowed to make its own CHANGES to the initial DRAFT of this ( supposedly ) ‘independent’ report… then I wonder if there is a copy of THAT ‘document’ around.
There really would HAVE to be. This is ALL ‘taxapayer funded’ stuff here. It’s not ‘Exxon Mobile’.
The very fact that the ‘City’ seems to have been allowed ( as per the contract itself ) to ‘submit changes’ to the intial draft almost makes it sound like applying the word ‘independent study’ to the FINAL draft would be absurd.
Maybe the INITIAL DRAFT could be considered ‘the independent study’… but once the entity that is PAYING for it is ALLOWED to ‘submit changes’ to that DRAFT… it most certainly is no longer any kind of ‘independent report’.
BTW… when Prescott City Council member Charlie Arnold stood on those steps and told the media he had sent a letter to Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini request a ‘report’ about the actual PROCESS that was followed here from DRAFT to FINAL report…
…he also told the media he expected to hear back from Paladini no later than Friday of that week.
That Friday ( and two more weeks ) have gone by… and there is no indication that City Attorney Paladini has responded to Charlie Arnold at all.
And speaking of people ‘not responding’ and/or not doing what they are SUPPOSED to do…
…it should be noted that the PUBLIC Arizona Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board has now been in violation of Arizona law for more than a MONTH now.
There are STILL no publicly available MINUTES from the last meeting of the Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board that took place on February 27, 2015.
Arizona Law REQUIRES that ‘minutes’ from all meetings of PUBLIC Boards in Arizona be posted within 72 hours of a meeting.
Those ‘minutes’ are supposed to appear on the Arizona State Parks website that was dedicated for this purpose at…
http://azstateparks.com/committees/Yarnell.html
All agendas and all minutes from all previous meetings are there… but ONLY the agenda for the last meeting is sitting there. No ‘minutes’.
It still amazes me how many folks in Arizona seem to just treat LAWS as something slightly below the level of ‘guidelines’ that they can either choose to follow or ignore as they wish… and get away with it.
It should also be noted that the NEXT meeting of the PUBLIC Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board has already been ‘announced’ on the page above.
It says…
Next meeting…
April 10, 2015 (3pm. at the Yavapai County Supervisor’s Office located in the County Administration Building at 1015 Fair Street in Prescott)
That’s basically 10 days from now… and not only are there still no publicly available MINUTES from the LAST PUBLIC meeting… there is still no publicly posted AGENDA for the NEXT meeting ( also required by Arizona Law ).
One of the ‘on the books’ penalties for a duly formed Arizona PUBLIC ‘Board’ or ‘Committee’ NOT following the established rules and procedures that apply to ALL Arizona PUBLIC Boards is that that ‘Board’ can/should be DISBANDED and/or DISSOLVED.
**
** TONY PETRILLI ( FROM THE YARNELL SAIT INVESTIGATION )
** TASKED WITH BUILDING A NEW FIRE SHELTER
This article was published TODAY…
The Denver Post
Article Title: Firefighter tasked to craft shelter
Posted: 03/30/2015 12:01:00 AM MDT, By The Associated Press
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27811237/firefighter-tasked-craft-shelter
NOTE: Tony Petrilli was on the SAIT team for the Yarnell Hill Investigation.
The following is in ‘Appendix H: Team Members and Signature Page’ on page 113 of the SAIR…
Tony Petrilli, Equipment Specialist, USFS Missoula Technology and Development Center
From the “Denver Post” article that appeared today…
———————————————————————————-
The man tapped by the U.S. Forest Service to come up with a better fire shelter once got inside one and listened to flames roar past.
At the time, Tony Petrilli was a smoke jumper based in Missoula, Mont. He deployed the fire shelter in 1994 with eight other smoke jumpers on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs. But 14 firefighters on another part of the mountain died trying to escape the flames.
The federal agency worked to improve equipment and strategy after those deaths. It’s doing the same now after the 2013 deaths of 19 firefighters in Arizona.
Petrilli is the fire shelter project leader for the Forest Service at the Missoula Technology and Development Center hoping to make improvements to protective gear. Fire shelters are one part of that plan. The challenge is to find the right combination of shelter weight that won’t add too much to a firefighter’s pack and can withstand temperatures well past 1,000 degrees for short periods.
———————————————————————————-
That’s actually the ENTIRETY of the Associated Press “Article”.
Not even an “Article”, really… more like just an ‘announcement’… but interesting nonetheless.
Absolutely no TIMEFRAMES are given for this ‘development’… or if it will include any of the amazing work that GM Hotshot Travis Turbyfill’s father ( David Turbyfill ) has already been doing since June 30, 2013.
Here is just one of the many MSM articles that have been published about the ‘fire shelter’ work that David Turbyfill has been doing for quite some time now…
US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT
Article Title: Dad Of Fallen Arizona Hotshot Hopes To Make Better Fire Shelters
Published June 30, 2014 3:28 AM ET
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/30/326093305/dad-of-fallen-arizona-hotshot-hopes-to-make-better-fire-shelters
The article also contains a link to David Turbyfill’s amazing ‘furnace test’ where he PROVES there are better materials available RIGHT NOW.
And here is a DIRECT link to David Turbyfill’s amazing YouTube DEMO video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps-0cG70hps&feature=youtu.be
His (incredible) ‘furnace test’ starts at +1:34 into this video.
If you have never seen this ‘Furnace Test’… you owe it to yourself to watch this video.
From David’s own comments explaining the content of the video…
————————————————————————
To all who view this or have viewed the Shelter Test, the point is to show the weakness of the current shelter design, not to those who already know, but to those whom have no idea, of what Wildland Firefighters are given. This test confirms that there are materials available that will be 100% protective against direct flame contact. Add in a Rescue Respirator and now you have a Fire Safety System.
More detail for those involved in Wildland Firefighting and have had concerns of weight and inside air temp…all valid concerns. The material shown for instance actually is lighter than the existing shelter materials. It also has much higher insulation value, thus keeping the inside the shelter temps survivable.
—————————————————————————
Gust another look at funding for GM
First FS and BLM Hot shots are funded for the season out of there Region and State Offices.
That’s 40 hrs. a week for about 6 months. When they go on a Fire they are funded by the Fire.
The savings in the local funding is used to pay for fires at the end of season.
In the case of GM their only funding was the Grant money. They were paid under contract for fires out of fire funding. While there contract was designed to make money for Prescott it was probably put back into the crew when they were not on Fires.
The Type 2 pickup Contract crews are only paid on Fires then they are off till the next one thus the private contractor makes the extra money for being able to field a crew when called. He dose not work them unless contracted to do so.
It is very expensive to field a Hot Shot Crew Equipment, Vehicles, FT and PT positions, Possible Housing and meals in some locations. I do not see a contract crew type 1 ever being able to make money for a municipality. You are talking 20,000 to 25,000 a week for a hot shot crew. For wages $600,000 a season with out Fires and that dose not include all the other costs per year.
Most Federal Crews are Funded for the season at $900,000 plus per year/season more than likely higher———.
Interesting points, all. Thank you.
Yes… the realities of running one of these crews is NOT ‘compatible’ with what most people envision as “Working for a City”.
The points you make are backed up by the fact that what was also different here in Prescott was Willis and Marsh trying to make those realities ‘different’… and NOT be subject to the same ‘turnover rate’ and ‘strangers element’ that most Crews have to deal with as the fire seasons come and go.
Darrell Willis himself SAYS that is what they were “trying to do do”.
They wanted to always be able to “promote from WITHIN” and not have to go out onto the National Marketplace looking for crew boss replacements and whatnot.
From Darrell Willis’ SECOND ADOSH interview on October 10, 2013…
A = Darrel Willis, SPGS1 in Yarnell and Prescott Wildland Division Chief
————————————————————————————-
A: I pushed Eric to make sure, “Get the books out. See when you can get people qualified. You’re getting the experience. Let’s – let’s not get ourselves into a situation where, you know, you – you don’t have people qualified within our organization and we have to go outside.”
————————————————————————————-
So even MORE ‘pressure’ on Marsh from his boss… Darrell Willis.
Not only was Willis asking Marsh to run a full Type 1 Hotshot organization without even enough money to have ALL of the ‘required’ fulltime crewmembers receiving the same benefits OR being able to replace one lousy ATV that got fried…
…Willis was also asking Marsh to be ‘insular’ and “promote from within” so they didn’t have to go out looking for people on the National Market like other crews do.
BTW: This is the SAME PARAGRAPH from Darrell Willis’ ADOSH interview where he gives them ( and US ) a “picture” of what Eric’s real working relationship was like with “the boys”…
He was ‘demanding’ ( sic: BOSSY ), and definitely NOT “one of the boys”.
He kept his ‘distance’… and ran that outfit with an “I GIVE the orders and YOU FOLLOW THEM” management style… and wasn’t afraid to have ‘conflicts’ with his ’employees’…
————————————————————————————-
A: Eric was pretty demanding. And a lot of the – Dave can probably attest to this that, uh, hotshot superintendents are pretty demanding. They got 19 kids they gotta take care of and, uh, keep in line and keep safe and everything. So Eric wasn’t one of the boys. He was a hotshot superintendent that took care of business. And he had personality conflicts sometimes with folks.
————————————————————————————-
I wonder if Eric Marsh was ‘demanding’ just “one time too much” and really
did give just “one order too many”.
There are both good and bad that come from promoting from within—-
The lead crewman to squad bosses and even to crew boss but change is good at the Captain and Superintendent by hiring people from other agencies as they did with the fuels crew they put into place hiring a BR person. There is always turn over in crewman every year it s what it is.
Change and new ideas are always good and move the crew forward from stagnation
Good Supervisors in place usually stay a long time but many want to move up the ladder to better pay and challenging positions.
The ‘scenario’ in Prescott, though, was that Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis was putting a LOT of PRESSURE on GMIHC Superintendent Eric Marsh.
Not only by asking him to ( as Eric himself said in writing ) “run a nationally recognized program with minimum standards and requirements that I am UNABLE TO MEET”… but the PRESSURE was also there from Willis about HOW to run the organization… hiring practices included.
So it’s all about the ‘P’ word.
We KNOW that Willis was putting ALL of the following PRESSURES onto Eric Marsh ( as per written statements in performance evaluations and from Willis’ own mouth in his multiple ADOSH interview(s) )…
1) Keel ME ( Willis ) ‘in the loop’ for all decision making.
2) NEVER ( again ) go ‘over my head’ to solve staffing issues.
3) Get the people we’ve got TRAINED to ‘promote from within’.
4) Maintain EXCELLENCE at all times.
5) ALWAYS follow the ‘Prescott Way’
6) And while you are at it… ALWAYS live up to this “Esse Quam Videri” thing.
7) PUT UP with the fact that we have no benefits for 2 of the fulltimes.
8) KEEP giving be ‘good news’ that I can report to the City Council.
9) The FUTURE of this ENTIRE DIVISION is in OUR hands.
Geesh.
That’s a LOT of ‘P’ word ( PRESSURE ) for a 43 year old guy whose days ‘on the line’ were now limited and who was being ‘mentored’ by the same guy applying all this PRESSURE to ‘succeed’ him.
I didn’t even list ALL the PRESSURE that Willis himself reported about how hard he was ‘training’ Marsh to try and be able to replace him and be able to ‘play the game’ and ‘bridge the gap’ between Wildland and Structural.
Willis said Marsh was ‘getting the hang’ of all the BUDGETING stuff, the POLITICAL stuff, and the GLAD-HANDING that he would have to do to be ‘Division Chief’… but he wasn’t there yet.
So Marsh must have really felt he was “under the microscope” in MANY, MANY ways there in Prescott… and all the eyeballs belonged to Darrell Willis.
Bob said down below: “They had to have seen the fire moving into those locations before they dropped into that canyon. They should have seen the fire progression and what it was doing before they ever left the Black.”
This is the point I have tried to make: GM *watched* the fire move as the alleged winds were thought to be arriving (e.g. around 3:26 p.m. and thereafter). As a result of those alleged winds, the fire was NOT moving as a head fire toward the BSR, but, rather, it was moving far more EAST or NE, toward Yarnell and Shrine. When GM set off for the BSR, the fire was a healthy distance away from them, they had good eyes on the fire, they had – if Bob and Fred Schoeffler are to be believed – a marked and timed escape route to what GM viewed as a good safety zone, and the fire was moving at a ROS that would have given them PLENTY of time to get where they were going even IF the fire somehow changed direction and came at them.
It is not true to say that GM stepped into the path of a raging HEAD fire when they started moving to the BSR. They were FLANKING the fire, and everyone seemed to believe that they were doing so *after* the warned-of winds were already impacting the fire (such that they could see how the fire would respond to those winds).
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Where do you get this stuff????????????
There was no marked or timed Escape route—Neither of us have ever said that??????
The Fire was not a Healthy distance away from them at Less than 3/4 of a Mile???????
The Fire was moving South as well it over ran McDonough’s Lookout spot and
also crossed the Retardant line which was to the South of the Fire ?????????
The Fire was moving toward the BSR with nothing to stop it ????????
The Fire was predicted to have erratic winds due to thunder cells in the area????????
With those warnings you just do not walk down in front of that moving slow or fast Head with as little as 3/4 of a mile between you and the flaming from ?????????
On top of thru a brush filled canyon No Look Out—No communication with OPS—-No open and scouted Escape Route???????????
Until we have verifiable information that Marsh was in front of the crew and scouted and marked the Route that as well is open as true or false. ?????
They were in the Black they had no reason to move?????
Some one (Marsh) pushed the move for what ever reason ignored the warning signs and yes walked into the dragons mouth again They IGNORED THE WARNING SIGNS AND FAILED TO FOLLOW SAFETY PROTOCAL——————- .
Another point.
You state they were flanking the fire—–I do not know if you even understand what flanking is but it truly is not what GM was doing they were walking in front of a uncontained fire Front in heavy brush in the worst part of the day.
A pure and simple calculated risk that they could beat the fire to the BSR.
How many time do I have to say you just do not take a risk that you think you can make it from point A to point B before the fir gets there.
That ignores every safety rule—- there is no reason to take that kind of chance on any FIRE
Dam key board skipping letters again.—times, fire……
Especially important during periods of aggressive fire behaviour
Thanks for the lighter side….
Thanks, Bob!!
I. Just. Couldn’t.
Especially for the ninety-nine millionth time.
e have mentioned FIRE GODS
For clarification they are mostly at the higher levels of the Organization Regional and Washington.
At those levels they respond more to the staff level and directives and less to the ground pounders.
In some cases Some IC’s think they meet the Fire God distinction.
I will however say here that there are many leaders at the Forest and Regional level that understand the workers Fire Fighters Needs. I have known a few.
One Regional Fire staff Officer in Region 5 was a solid Fire man and helped with a lot of safety issues.
People like Len Biddison, Ben Lyons, Bill Derr, Severial of the IC’s that worked their way up thru the Fire ranks until the late 90’s spoke for and took the side of the regular Fire Fighters.
So I will just say it is hard to class all in the Bad Fire God position.
Why we call them Fire Gods is not always Negative some earned immense respect from the Fire Fighter and had unbelievable Reputations as Fire Fighters.
WE I believe need more of those today to get the Fire Organization back on tract.
The past few years has changed the promotion ladder. You have to have a bachelors Degree .to become a Forest FMO and the same on some Districts. There is less emphasis on a working background in Fire suppression working up through the system in what I call the Collage of hard knocks. This is raising hell with the fire suppression Field. and the lack of the old well Qualified Fire Fighters becoming leaders. Fire jobs are being handed to Collage education people with less and less Fire Knowledge. This may create more Fire Gods with less knowledge in Fire which may increase the Safety Problems in future Years. There is already a need to rehire Retirees to fill critical Fire positions why because there is a lack of people to fill those positions from the workforce. It use to be that every body that worked for the FS or BLM had a fire Qualification.
Less than Half do now . I guess it is a sign of the times that no one is interested in.
And so there are way fewer FIRE GODS today than 20 years ago. Good or Bad——
I may be responsible for some thinking the term Fire Gods is negative because of the way I am using it in my book title and in Chapter 1, but I just want to second what Bob said, we thought of Fire Gods in much the same way as the Greeks, Vikings and Romans thought of their pagan gods. Some are good, some are bad, some are good and bad or good some of the time and bad some of the time, and some are mischievous etc.
It’ just that in the story I am writing regarding the Battlement Creek Fire, we were Betrayed By Our Fire Gods. And much of it was done tongue in cheek because we were mere mortals subject to the whims of our fire gods. We also referred to the National Interagency Fire Center as Mecca, although nowadays, somebody may get their head cut off for that…so I certainly would not.
I concur well said— The Grunts Identify the GODS by the actions Leadership and personalities. We all have a mental list of those we trust and those we do not.
Some of those Fire Gods were on the Yarnell Hill Fire SAIT.
Just saying They wanted those leaders who would follow the directives and not challenge the theory that no one did any thing wrong. which has turned into a total disaster and a scrambling of the facts. A predetermined out come——
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 27, 2015 at 10:55 pm
>> Marti wrote…
>>
>> What I’ve been pondering is this.
>>
>> When I wrote about the smoke/situational awareness etc thing at the time
>> of the video/still, i.e 4:20-ish (which is why I brought up the flaming front
>> approaching the ridge over the Shrine Road area, which we seem to agree
>> on–thus, I think, fairly accurately placing this around 4:20 rather than maybe
>> relatively later)…..
It really all comes down to WHEN the ABC15 Chopper pilot actually called Thomas French on the Air-To-Air Channel and said “We’re done for the day. See you tomorrow morning”.
I am ASSUMING ( since he actually told Thomas French “We’re done for the day” ) that means he didn’t make the ‘sign off’ radio call until they really were DONE filming all of those 35 video clips that ended up in the ‘raw footage’ loop.
We KNOW he made that radio call to French at 4:42 PM… right in the MIDDLE of the MAYDAY calls from Granite Mountain. That’s a given.
What we ( I, me personally, anyway ) are still assuming ( because we have to? ) is that ABC15 Chopper “Five Hotel Delta” was then exiting the airspace to the south, the way it came in, and headed back to Phoenix as the pilot made that “See ya tomorrow” call to French.
If he made that radio call to French any SOONER than that ( like WHILE they were still filming clips from either up north in Peeples Valley or WHILE they were ‘exiting’ down the WEST side of the area ) then that just moves the TIME for sequential clip #18 FORWARD in time.
I’m sorry this is complicated… but it is.
We just don’t have the EXIF metadata for ANY of these ABC15 video clips.
I am as sure as I can be, at this time, that the video clip #18 WAS shot circa 4:20 PM.
I don’t think the time will change to more than +/- 5 minutes even if we get a smoke
pattern match in the Panebaker videos.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I wasn’t actually sure in my own mind if the smoke we see in the video-still
>> (captured from way up there over Peeples Valley with, obviously something
>> of a telephoto lens and all the compression that implies) actually represents
>> what, in fact, were the smoke conditions, at that 4:20-ish time for GM as they
>> stood there on that saddle (if that was even the time that they did–we’ve had
>> some inconclusive conversations regarding that).
>>
>> When you “flew” down over the ridge and the descent point I kept wanting to
>> somehow magically see (ala the magic of Google Earth) the actual smoke at
>> the descent point, and had to keep reminding myself that THAT wasn’t possible,
>> given the technology we have.
Actually… it is ( possible ). Even with the FREE version of Google Earth.
You have to leave the GUI ( Graphical User Interface ) behind, though, and start actually
writing your own KML ( Keyhole Markup Language ) files… which is the ‘native’ API language
that Google Earth uses ‘under the covers’.
But that is not nearly as scary as it sound. KML is pretty straightforward.
It ‘scans’ just like XML and ‘speaks English’.
Best example of what I am talking about is a paper published by NASA.
They are showing how you can take ‘vertical cloud slice’ data from any of the orbiting weather satellites and convert it to the right KML files to be displayed in Google Earth.
The exact same concept works for SMOKE CLOUDS.
The limitation is that you are still ending up working with SLICE data, and not full 3D data,
but it works fine.
You have SEEN this technique at work on your local TV station when there is bad weather and they are taking real-time ‘slice’ data from the weather satellites and then super-imposing that data onto the map of your area and showing you ‘inside the storm’ imagery.
Here is that NASA document I am talking about…
http://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/googleearth/documents/CAGEO_GE_ATrain_Aijun.pdf
From the document…
————————————————————————————–
ABSTRACT
Online tools, such as those pioneered by Google Earth (GE), are changing the way in which scientists and the general public interact with three-dimensional geospatial data in a virtual environment. However, while Google Earth (GE) provides a number of features to facilitate geospatial data visualization, there is currently no readily available method for rendering vertical geospatial data derived from Earth-viewing remote sensing satellites as an orbit curtain seen from above.
Here, a solution ( one of many possible ) is demonstrated to render vertical profiles of atmospheric data from the A-Train satellite formation in Google Earth (GE), using as a proof of-concept data from one of the instruments — the NASA CloudSat satellite.
CloudSat carries an adir-viewing Cloud Profiling Radar that produces data revealing the VERTICAL distribution of cloud characteristics along the satellite track.
These data are first rendered into a long VERTICAL image for a user-selected spatial range through the NASA Goddard Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure ( GIOVANNI ) system. The VERTICAL image is then chopped into small slices representing 15s of satellite time (103km long ground distance ).
Each small piece as a texture is fed into a generalized COLLAborative Design Activity ( COLLADA ) three-dimensional (3-D) model. Using the satellite orbit coordinates, the repeated 15s ‘‘3-D model slices’’ are spliced together to form a VERTICAL ‘‘curtain’’ image in Keyhole Markup Language ( KML ) format. Each model slice is geolocated along the CloudSat orbit path based on its size, scale and angle with the longitude line that are precisely calculated on the fly.
The resulting VERTICAL CLOUD DATA can be viewed in Google Earth (GE , either transparently or opaquely, superimposed above the Earth’s surface with an exaggerated VERTICAL scale.
————————————————————————————–
Yea… I know… ya gotta love those NASA guys… but the “reader’s digest” version of
what this paper is showing is how easy it is, once you have any set of VERTICAL DATA,
to turn it into a COLLDA 3D image ‘slice’ that can then be loaded into even the
FREE version of Google Earth.
Doing this for SMOKE CLOUDS isn’t even nearly as complicated as the in-orbit satellite data, because your COLLADA 3D model doesn’t even have to account for the curvature of the earth. The longitude ‘changes’ aren’t even near as far or as fast as satellite data.
I have actually downloaded some of the SAMPLE Google Earth KML files that were published with this study and I’m just adapting them to deal with SMOKE instead of CLOUD data.
All you need is a ‘set of points’ ( latitude, longitude ) and some estimated HEIGHTS along the ‘slice line’ you are trying to map into Google Earth… and VOILA!… you can get a fully opaque or semi-transparent reproduction of that SMOKE CLOUD that can then appear in a ‘Google Earth’ tour.
It’s not going to be perfect… but it can sure as heck just give you a fairly accurate ‘smoke curtain’ to look at from all different angles and perspectives in Google… such as exactly what that smoke ‘curtain’ as seen in the ABC15 aerial footage might have actually LOOKED LIKE if you were standing at any number of places ‘out there’ in that area… Descent Point included.
More about this later. I’m still working on it.
Forgot to mention… the reason it is actually SIMPLER to come up with some actual ‘smoke curtain’ overlays for Google Earth is because a lot of the STEPS the NASA boys are detailing above in that paper cover what THEY have to do… which is FIRST turn a shitload of satellite data into an IMAGE… and THEN write the COLLADA / KML to get that IMAGE displayed at the right place on the ground in Google Earth.
We are actually way ahead of that.
We already HAVE the ‘images’ that we want to convert.
They are in the actual ABC15 aerial footage.
No ‘satellite data’ required.
LOL go for it!!
And somewhere between today and tomorrow I’ll write about what I spent the weekend doing!! It had to do with Granite Mountain IHC, Prescott, the Wildland Program, and “was it worth it?” ala the Prescott Courier–including the Comments Section. Found some very interesting little tidbits.
Regarding “3D.” My “early 2009” imac doesn’t have the right video card to “do 3D” in Photoshop and, I learned, the video card of an imac is, essentially “welded” into the computer, so it is not possible to replace it. So I’ve never “messed around” with anything 3D-ish. Otherwise I definitely would.
PS Just remembered a GE question I had when watching your video.
How do you “paint” a curved line? Like the retardant line you show and the fire-lines. I couldn’t figure out how to do that when I wanted to “paint” the retardant lines I saw in the Daily Mail aerial photos (of which I still have absolutely no clue who/what/how was the source).
I also haven’t worked with KML files. I knew that could get addictive for someone like me, even tho I’ve complained and complained that I’m more comfortable using topo maps than virtual 3D when trying to figure out something like that topography of the Yarnell area, which has stumped me quite a few times.
And as long as I’m on this trail (while waking up so I’m not really ready to get into anything difficult), I haven’t used Google Maps at all on this particular “journey,” although I have on other ones.
When do you decide which one to use?
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 30, 2015 at 8:05 am
>> Marti asked…
>>
>> PS Just remembered a GE question I had when watching your video.
>>
>> How do you “paint” a curved line? Like the retardant line you
>> show and the fire-lines. I couldn’t figure out how to do that
>> when I wanted to “paint” the retardant lines I saw in the
>> Daily Mail aerial photos (of which I still have absolutely
>> no clue who/what/how was the source).
Those are just simple Google Earth ‘Path’ elements.
You can ‘wander’ all over the place setting points ( on the ground or in the air ) and then you just set the COLOR and the LINE WIDTH ( via the Properties Tab ) to make that ‘path’ on the ground as wide as you want it. You can also just set the ‘transparency’ of the line so it is ‘see through’ and really does look just like retardant would sitting on the ground.
That being said.. sometimes it’s better to use a ‘Polygon’ item to accomplish the same thing. If you set the ‘Properties’ to just “Filled only’… then you don’t get a ‘border line’ for the Polygon on the ground and you can control the color, width and transparency to you heart’s content and it achieves the same effect as ‘paniting with a Path ( Line ) element’.
>> Marti also asked…
>>
>> And as long as I’m on this trail (while waking up so I’m not
>> really ready to get into anything difficult), I haven’t used
>> Google Maps at all on this particular “journey,” although
>> I have on other ones.
>>
>> When do you decide which one to use?
I use ‘Google Maps’ side-by-side with ‘Google Earth’ pretty much all the time. ‘Google Maps’ is actually BETTER and FASTER at doing a lot of the DOG work like measuring distances between two points on the ground, Also… the ‘Street View’ is the fastest way to ‘locate’ something if you are working from a photograph taken from any PAVED street ( Google ‘Street View’ is ONLY for paved roads. The paid ‘mappers’ are not allowed to go down ‘dirt’ roads yet ).
Example: It was MUCH faster to locate that house up in Peeples Valley with the flagpole where that 12:25 PM video was taken using ‘Google Maps’ and ‘Street View’ than to go ‘flying around’ in Google Earth.
They really are the same product, though.
One of these days Google is going to reveal that ‘Google Maps’ is nothing but a stripped down, feature-limited version of the ‘Google Earth’ engine adapted to work completely in-browser with just Javascript API calls.
Gotcha, thanks!
And another quick PS.
Regarding the “was it worth it?” question (which also has to do with the convo regarding when Darrell Willis et al thought whatever about whether or not to reconstitute the crew, which I DON’T think is totally “off the table” but you’re not going to see anybody say that publicly at this time for good reason) ….
There is/has been all along some jaw-droppingly SERIOUS hardball “dirty-dancing” going on, on the part of the Mayor and the City Manager et al, around that so-called “Independent” study.
Whatever my mixed feelings about Willis , he and Dan Fraijo have VERY good reasons for being seriously po’d, which they VERY muchly are. They have been intensely screwed over by the “current administration.” Every single inch of the way.
Willis is absolutely correct in calling for an investigation of that so-called “independent” report. It was anything but “independent.”
And it was literally shoved down everybody’s throats, despite the repeated assurances from the administration that there would be “community” input and discussion etc about it. There was absolutely NO public input into either the recommendations, the process, or the resulting decisions. NADA.
And Fraijo is doing an IMPRESSIVE job of “sticking to the high road” in his campaign in the midst of it all.
Politically speaking… it is always better to say you are just ‘reacting’ to someone else’s ‘recommendations’ to make painful budget cuts than to have to come out an represent yourself as the AUTHOR of those decisions.
That’s why ( even when you are crying poor already ) you go out and burn another $90,000 in the parking lot for one of these ‘independent studies’.
What Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall and Prescott City Manager Craig McConnell got for the $90,000 bucks was the ‘excuse’ to make the ‘hard decisions’ and not have the focus all on THEM.
This is happening ALL OVER THE COUNTRY right now.
The people who DO these ‘independent reports’ are the ones really making out like bandits these days. Most municipalities are in the same tough boat right now and these ‘experts’ get to just fly all around and ‘rinse and repeat’ the same ‘independent reports’ ( and just change the name of the town ) and still make their FULL FEES without even having to ‘repeat the research’.
The ‘recommendations’ are usually ‘boiler-plate’ and the same for just about any municipality they are PAID to ‘evaluate’.
Cut jobs, cut programs, reduce pensions, fight the unions, raise taxes,
charge more for City services, yada, yada, yada.
What the POLITICIANS get is what THEY want.
The ability to say “We’re just doing what these experts tell us we have to do to balance the budget”.
And if anyone thinks, as these guys ‘fly around’ the country ( getting highly PAID to give the same ‘independent advice’ to every municipality that hires them ), that they aren’t open to ‘inserting’ a few things into the ‘report’ that are, in fact, the DIRECT WISHES of the Mayor and/or the City Manager and/or members of that particular City Council…
…I have some land I’d like to sell you down in the Everglades.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 23, 2015 at 5:47 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> WTKTT. Willis doesn’t believe the Prescott Fire Department Wildland Fire
>> Division will be reconstituted, or another hotshot crew will hit the fire line
>> sponsored by the Prescott Fire Department ever again.
>>
>> For men who have egos as big as Willis does, it’s all about their LEGACY
>> and how they will be remembered. That is what he is fighting for now.
>> That is what is important to him now…it’s not even about the money any more.
I actually was researching something else and I stumbled across a PUBLIC statement from Willis that would indicate that if he NOW doesn’t believe the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” will ever be reconstituted… that certainly wasn’t his ‘belief’ back in September of 2013.
I actually didn’t think Willis had ever made any real PUBLIC statement ( one way or the other ) where he stood on continuing/recreating the GM Hotshots… but it turns out he did.
It was in one of the earliest articles to appear that was now ‘focusing’ on whether or not the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” would continue as a valid organization.
That September 1, 2013 article is here…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Hotshots vital in many ways, experts say; crew helped Prescott
become the leader in national Firewise efforts
Published 9/1/2013 6:00:00 AM by Joanna Dodder Nellans
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=122777&SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1086&S=1
From the article…
———————————————————————–
The Prescott City Council is struggling with the decision about whether to rebuild its hotshot crew after losing 19 of its 20 members in the Yarnell Hill wildfire on June 30.
The idea for a municipal hotshot crew came out of the city’s 2001 community fuel management plan, said Prescott Fire Department Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis, also the city’s retired fire chief who helped develop the plan. Prescott did it before the idea surfaced at the national level, Haynes said.
City fire leaders knew it was one of the most dangerous urban places for wildfire in the country. It has more than 25,400 residents living in more than 18,300 homes valued at $3.1 billion in what experts call the wildland-urban interface.
The city crew first formed as a Type II initial attack crew in 2004, then became a fully certified Type I Interagency Hotshot Crew in 2008.
“I wanted to provide the best we could,” Willis explained. “If we’re going to have a crew, we might as well have the best.”
Willis has been a leader in the wildland fire world by helping to bridge efforts between his community and the Forest Service, Harbour said. In recognition of his work, Willis was given the Forest Service’s Fireline Leadership Award in 2002, gained entry into the Arizona Fire Service Hall of Fame in 2006, and was awarded the Fire Management Leadership Award from Gov. Janet Napolitano in 2004.
“As the first person to receive this award that is not a Forest Service employee, you have earned the respect of national and local leaders in the fire community,” Napolitano wrote. “Your unique approach to collaborations has resulted in one of the first citizen based wildland/urban interface organizations in the country.”
PAWUIC ( Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Commission ) leaders repeatedly voiced their gratitude for the Granite Mountain Hotshots during last month’s forum.
“We have lost a valued part of our organization,” PAWUIC Chair P.J. Cathey said. “There was and is a valuable need for PAWUIC and our citizens to continue mitigation work…We don’t ask for a lot of attention, but we ask for what we need.”
Willis, of course, agreed.
“One of my objectives is to fill those boots,” he said.
“We can’t walk away from it just because we have a tragedy.”
———————————————————————–
So Willis did flat-out say ( back in Sepetember of 2013 ) that one of
HIS ‘objectives’ was to “FILL THOSE BOOTS”.
He still hasn’t said how he CURRENTLY feels… not even in his resignation letter… but there is still that ‘mysterious’ part of his resignation letter where he seems to be making some kind of ‘promise’ ( with no details given ) that he feels he has this “moral obligation” to “make sure those men did not die in vain”.
I’m not trying to be argumentative in any way here.
I just happened to stumble across this Willis QUOTE and thought it was relevant.
Chief Light said a FINAL audit of the whole thing proved that even with the grants and the ‘Type 1 IHC’ job-out work… the program was in the hole every year to the tune of about $200,000 to $300,000 dollars.”
These figures actually confirm what I have been saying. The City of Prescott was getting good solid work out a bunch of guys, even with them being gone part of the time as a national resource for pennies on the dollars.
This probably sounds like a lot of money to anyone reading this thread who works for a living and balances a family checkbook, but…the truth is this amount of money is a rounding error and chump change for public budgets. That is probably about the cost of hiring 2-3 police officers for the city for one year counting base pay, overtime, benefits, equipment and training.
Does an entire hotshot crew provide as much benefit to the good citizens of Prescott as 2-3 police officers? Well…I guess the city fathers would have had to make that call with input from their constituents except it’s now a moot point for a lot of reasons.
And I know you are wondering, how would Gary Olson have handled this budget issue if he were the Chief of the Prescott Fire Department? Thank you for asking.
I would have never have hired Darrell Willis to double dip as the Wildland Division Chief and have simply put the fuels reduction program under the Emergency Services Manager. And I would have told Darrell Willis if he still wants to be in charge of something and order free stuff for the crew out of a big book the USFS sent him, he should have stayed on the job in the first place and not retired.
And if this would have put too much work on the Emergency Services Coordinator and cut in to his coffee time with his old buddies to the point where he couldn’t have handled the job, I would have found a replacement for him.
Well…back in MY day, in addition to being the Santa Fe Hotshot Crew Boss, I was the Tesuque Ranger District Assistant Fire Management Officer who was responsible for the fuel reduction program on the district, I supervised the engine supervisors, the Fire Prevention Technicians and the fire lookout tower personnel in addition to helping with the budget and keeping the district fire plan up to date. Like Eric Marsh, I had an assistant hotshot crew boss, and he could carry enough of the daily supervision work load with the crew to allow me to do these other duties.
So the bottom line is this, if Darrell Willis would have been serious about making the Wildland Fire Division revenue neutral, he would have eliminated his position. That is always the dirty little secret with layoffs in the private or public sector, the people who really should be laid off, are the ones generating the pink slips.
This whole thing about whether Granite Mountain was ever “cost-neutral” or not is probably something that will never be fully resolved.
Even that quote from Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light ( above ) which was part of his presentation during a ‘Budget Workshop’ just 48 hours ago and based on (supposedly) the latest-greatest AUDIT of the whole thing… is being ‘challenged’ and others are already saying it’s WRONG.
Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) jumped right onto that Daily Courier article and ( once again ) is insisting that the City’s own auditing is ‘flawed’ and that the GM organization WAS ‘cost neutral’.
Once again… here is that article published just YESTERDAY…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Replacement of Hotshots is ‘highly doubtful,’ says Prescott Fire Chief
Published 3/27/2015 6:01:00 AM, by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=143439&TM=71299.63
And here is Deborah Pfingston’s PUBLIC comment right at the bottom of it where she says even Chief Dennis Light’s latest AUDIT information is WRONG and that the GM Hotshots were ‘making money’ for the City of Prescott…
———————————————————————————–
PUBLIC comment by: Deborah Pfingston – Yesterday at 1:58pm
How low and deceptive can this city go!?!
Not only did they treat the GMIHS terribly when they worked for them but now after they gave their lives they spit on them.
I am overwhelmed with anger. The truth will come out!!
The Courier had better be prepared to publish the truth. The state and national news will also be contacted. The people of Prescott need to/deserve the truth. This decision has placed firefighters and citizens in extreme danger.
This fire chief is just a puppet for the appalling city council. Charlie stand strong!! The boys made this city money every year – how about showing the numbers after the federal government reimbursed them for their services?
———————————————————————————–
I don’t think this question “Were the GM Hotshots making money and/or cost-neutral” is ever going to be resolved. There are ‘camps’ involved who will never believe the other side’s ‘numbers’… and it really all comes down to which set of ‘books’ are being looked at.
The bottom line now is all about the LIABILITY.
As has been so tragically proven… the City of Prescott really can’t afford it, and should have probably never gone along with Willis’ ( and Marsh’s ) plans to build either that first ‘Type 2 IA’ Crew OR the eventual ‘Type 1 IHC’ Crew there in that small podunk town called Prescott.
Followup…
This got posted down below in a reply to “Robert the Second” (RTS), but it’s just as relevant in this thread.
Once the ‘City Managers’ started to take a REAL look at what they had gotten themselves into by letting Williis ( and Marsh ) build that ‘Type 1 IHC’ Crew and park it right there in the City’s garage… the fact that there were GONE ( and required to be GONE ) most of the time really did start factoring into their “What have we gotten ourselves into?” thinking.
But it wasn’t JUST the fact that they were footing the basic bill for this ‘National Level Resource’. It was the LIABILITY issues that were also ‘unnerving’ them, even BEFORE the tragedy in Yarnell.
There they were sending a ‘Type 1 Hotshot’ Crew off to fight fires God-knows-where… but City of Prescott still had all the fundamental SUPPORT expenses AND the ‘Liability Issues’ for that crew whether they were fighting fires in Prescott, or not.
Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall admitted flat-out that WAS a HUGE concern on HIS part.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Fire protection vs. liability: Prescott grapples
with Granite Mountain Hotshot crew issues
Published 8/16/2013 6:00:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=122302
From the article…
—————————————————————–
Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall said he has concerns about the fact that the city was sending its Hotshot crew to fires in other areas, but still retained all of the liability.
“It’s our team, it’s our liability, but we dispatched our team to places all over the Southwest, under somebody else’s control,” he said. “When do we lose, or do we ever lose, our liability?”
Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini added…
“It’s a truism to say the federal government is better able to absorb the risks and costs than the City of Prescott – that goes without saying”.
—————————————————————–
If those figures intimidated the Prescott City Fathers, then they certainly never should have gotten into the wildland firefighting business in the first place.
It would not surprise me very much at all if.Deborah Pfingston is correct. You know what they say, “figures don’t lie, but liars figure.” Like I said, that amount of money is a rounding error and if Chief Light is looking for reasons to support the decision his bosses made, well then yes….he is going to ROUND UP. If he was looking for reason to keep a hotshot crew, he would have ROUNDED DOWN.
But yes, the final, final bottom is this for me…the City of Prescott NEVER SHOULD HAVE FIELDED A HOTSHOT CREW IN THE FIRST PLACE. The Granite Mountain Hotshots deserved better leadership and support than the City of Prescott was capable of giving them.
With leadership like they had and with the fiscal pressure Eric Marsh was operating under, the entire program was an accident looking for a place to happen. And they found it on the Yarnell HIll Fire.
And by “leadership”, I am not talking about Eric Marsh or Jesse Steed, I haven’t’ changed my opinion that they ran a good hotshot crew, I just think they made a bad decision on the Yarnell Hill Fire. But to me, it was an understandable decision under the circumstances…but a bad one nevertheless.
Most people should be grateful they have never been called on, or ever will be called on, to make those kinds of decisions. I think that those who have been there are more forgiving and understanding than those who have not been there. But that does not change the fact that our hearts are still broken, and will never be healed.
In Wild Land Fire Fighting it only takes one really bad decision.
The best to be said we have made more right than wrong one’s.
It’s called a hazardous occupation for a reason.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 28, 2015 at 3:16 pm
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> If those figures intimidated the Prescott City Fathers, then they
>> certainly never should have gotten into the wildland firefighting
>> business in the first place.
But that is what the new ‘issue’ is… according to recent PUBLIC comments coming from ‘Prescott City Officials’.
Part of the ‘trash talk’ over Willis’ resignation ( and SECOND retirement from the Prescott payroll ) is the Prescott City Officials saying they were NOT being ‘fully informed’ of the ongoing financial burdens and/or the ‘realities’ of running this ‘National Level Type 1 Hotshot’ resource out of the City’s own garages.
It’s hard to know who to believe… but it’s also not a stretch to believe that as Willis and Marsh were “building their dream” there in Prescott… they were NOT fully informing the ‘City Officials’ of what the ‘reality’ really was going to look like in the end. They could have easily been practicing the “Forgiveness is easier than permission” approach to Budget management in their dealings with the City of Prescott as they “built their dream”.
To this day… there is a lot of ‘copy’ about the LINEAR journey of how a simple Municipal “Fuels Abatement” crew grew into a ‘Type 2 Initial Attack” crew and then on to be ‘certified’ ( we still actually don’t know WHO really did that ‘certification’ ) as a full-blown National Level Type 1 Hotshot crew.
However… that LINEAR ‘journey’ doesn’t explain HOW it really happened.
In other words… WHO was really doing the ‘sell jobs’ to the Prescott City Managers as this all ‘escalated’ and WHAT were they REALLY telling them ( or NOT telling them ) about the ‘realities’ of the situation?
That part of the “story” has still yet to be told.
Interestingly enough… even with this ‘trash talk’ coming from Prescott City officials directed at Willis for (supposedly) NOT telling them everything they needed to know… there is something in WRITING from Eric Marsh himself that suggests that HE was trying to ‘fully explain’ to his superiors ( and City Officials ) the actual REALITIES of running a ‘Type 1 Hotshot Crew’…
…but nobody wanted to LISTEN.
From Eric Marsh’s own personal ‘response’ to his final ’employee evaluation’ just 56 days before he was burned to death in Yarnell…
————————————————————————-
Q: What were your greatest workpace challenges over the last year?
A: It is challenging to run a nationally recognized program with minimum
standards and requirements that I am UNABLE TO MEET. It is frustrating
when I know that I have the ANSWERS to anyone’s QUESTIONS about
the program, but can’t communicate with the decision makers to engage
in an educational dialogue. I believe things are starting to change, however
I still have some big questions that need answering about staffing.
———————————————————————–
He’s no longer here to tell us… but it certainly sounds like that comment was being directed right at “Wildland Division Chief” Darrell Willis as much as it was to others in the ‘Fire Department’ and/or ‘City Management’.
It really sounds like Eric Marsh himself was CONTINUALLY trying to ‘educate’ the ‘decision makers’ above him ( Willis included ) about what it takes to ACTUALLY operate a team like this efficiently and SAFELY…
…but those ‘decision makers’ ( Willis included ) rarely ( if ever ) wanted to sit down and even HAVE ‘that dialogue’.
So I’m sure the ‘trash talk’ ( and the finger pointing ) will continue among those that remain alive.. but it really does sound like Darrell Willis himself was as much to blame for ignoring the ‘realities’ of actually operating a Type 1 Hotshot Crew as anyone in ‘Prescott City Management’ was.
WTKTT
IF I am Correct the Tribunal is to meet Monday the 30th again? I haven’t see that date was canceled.
It dose not sound as if they are close to any resolution at this time.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 28, 2015 at 8:59 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> IF I am Correct the Tribunal is to meet Monday the 30th again?
>> I haven’t see that date was canceled.
>> It dose not sound as if they are close to any resolution at this time.
No, it doesn’t ( according to the latest document that appeared in the ALJ Hearing File ), but I don’t believe we are sure that a ‘new meeting’ was ever actually ‘scheduled’.
Here is that article that appeared in the Prescott Daily Courier…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Hotshots’ wrongful death lawsuit moves closer
to resolution through mediation, says attorney for families
Published 3/12/2015 6:05:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142832
From the article…
————————————————————————-
PRESCOTT – Settlement of the Granite Mountain Hotshot wrongful death lawsuit reportedly has moved forward enough to warrant allowing more time for discussion.
In a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court Monday, March 9, attorneys for the families of 12 of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who died fighting the 2013 Yarnell Hill fire asked the court for 30 more days to try to reach a settlement agreement.
The March 2-3 mediation meetings on the wrongful death lawsuit “made substantial progress toward a settlement of this case,” the status report stated.
Attorney Patrick McGroder, who is representing 12 of the Hotshot families, said he hopes the additional time would help to resolve the case.
While McGroder declined to comment on the content of the mediation discussions, he said he believed the two sides were moving closer on issues important to the families.
“It is the families’ goal to effectuate change to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” McGroder said. “To that effect, we made a lot of progress.”
————————————————————————-
This report about WHY the extra time was requested actually matches what Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) said in a long COMMENT at the bottom of this same article.
She said the ‘extension’ has nothing to do with MONEY, and everything to do with the OTHER ( real ) reasons the ‘wrongful death’ suits were filed in the first place.
Here is just part of Pfingston’s PUBLIC comment…
————————————————————————–
The families I stand with are seeking truth, transparency, change and accountability. That is why we have requested time for mediation. It is through mediation that you seek change not money.
————————————————————————–
So the ‘joint status report’ requested by the Judge was filed on March 9, 2015, and that is where ‘another 30 days’ was requested for the mediation.
Apparently this ‘extra 30 days’ was granted… but I’m still not sure if that means the ‘new’ deadline was March 30, 2015… *OR* whether a full 30 days from the day of the filing ( which would be April 9, 2015, if you don’t count the day of the March 9 filing itself ).
The article just said they have another 30 days to ‘reach a settlement agreement’.
It doesn’t say anything about another ‘officially’ scheduled meeting.
So it is also NOT known if there is supposed to be another full-blown face-to-face meeting between the ‘wrongful death’ defendants ( Arizona Forestry, Central Yavapai County, Todd Abel, etc. ) and the plaintiffs… or whether it’s all supposed to have been ‘worked out’ with correspendence by then.
I imagine there WOULD be… but I’m just pointing out that we’ve seen no actual PROOF of any kind of officially scheduled ‘meeting’ following this 30 day extension.
Obviously the Prescott Courier has its own PACER account, which is why they were able to ‘see’ this ‘joint status report’ document that was filed on March 9 in the ‘wrongful death’ case file(s). That case is prodeeding in Federal (Distrcit) court so even though the filings are considered ‘public record’ the nuts-and-bolts of accessing them online still requires you to have a PACER account.
PACER stands for “Public Access to Court Electronic Records”.
It doesn’t cost anything to set up a PACER account… but I haven’t done that.
So I, personally, do NOT have a ‘PACER’ account and I haven’t seen what is actually IN that ‘joint status report’. Maybe there’s more in there than has been reported by the Courier and the MSM.
** HOWEVER!
The CONFUSING part here is that despite all the “good progress is being made” stuff that the Prescott Courier is reporting about the March 2,3 mediation efforts, the latest document filed in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” ALJ Hearing file paints a TOTALLY DIFFERENT picture.
That latest document in the ALJ file is telling ALJ Judge Michael A. Mosesso that the March 2,3 mediation attempts were UNSUCCESSFUL… and ADOSH is moving forward with the ‘discovery phase’, and motions and filings in that case as if nothing had happened and the case WILL go to a full HEARING.
Here again is EXACTLY what the ADOSH lawyers told Judge Mosesso.
They are telling him, in no uncertain terms, that the March 2 and 3 ‘global mediation’ talks with ‘Arizona Forestry’ were UNSUCCESSFUL. Period.
From ADOSH’s ‘Point Seven’ in this ‘response’ to the sanctions request…
————————————————————————–
Seventh, regarding the January 15, 2015 order denying recognition of the deliberative process privilege – this contested Citation matter was essentially on hold since January pending the mediation on March 2 and 3, 2015. A SUCCESSFUL mediation would have obviated the need for further consideration of the privilege. In light of the scheduled mediation, no reason existed prior to the mediation for the judge and parties to expend further time and resources on the deliberative process privilege issues. However, since the mediation was UNSUCCESSFUL, ADOSH is now finalizing a motion for reconsideration regarding the deliberative process privilege issue, which it will file next week.
————————————————————————–
I don’t know if this means that there was a TOTAL FAILURE in the March 2,3 mediation talks ONLY with regards to the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case… but AZF is still willing to talk to the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs… *OR*… whether ADOSH is actually telling Judge Mosesso those mediation talks were a TOTAL FAILURE on ‘all fronts’.
All we are ever seeing in the ALJ Hearing File are the ‘conversations’ between the lawyers and ALJ Judge Michael A. Mosesso. The ‘wrongful death’ case documents being filed are all over in that other Federal District Court PACER system.
The MSM is covering this closely… so I’m sure we will hear in short order what has been going on during this ’30 day extension’… and whether there really is any chance that “Arizona Forestry” is going to ‘settle’ with ANYONE.
The order granting the 30-day extension was filed on March 17th, with a requirement to report back to the court by April 17th.
Able (w/spouse) was dismissed from the lawsuit w/prejudice on March 24th.
TTWARE… do you have a PACER account?
Are you seeing the documents related to the March 24 dismissal ‘with prejudice’ of Todd Abel in the court filings themselves?
“Dismissal WITH prejudice” means that Todd Abel can’t be sued AGAIN for the same thing. It represents a ‘permanent’ dismissal and not just a ‘removal from THAT particular case’.
It does NOT mean ( as some might think ) “We are dismissing you from this case but ‘with prejudice’ because we still think you might be liable”.
That might actually indicate that despite the ADOSH lawyers telling Judge Mosesso that the ‘mediations’ have been totally UNSUCCESSFUL… there really is some ‘wheeling and dealing’ still going on.
I would imagine that Arizona Forestry itself would be the ones requesting that Todd Abel ( and spouse ) be ‘dismissed with prejudice’… to be sure no one turns around and tries to sue him AGAIN over what might have happened in Yarnell and the part he played in it.
So maybe they really are ‘working this out’ behind the scenes.
Thanks 30 was in my head but 30 days would be longer. so some time after April 3 rd
or 9th??????
…or not until April 17th, according to TTWARE.
TTWARE is probably right. They ASKED for the 30 day extension in a request filed on March 9… but it might have taken the Judge those extra 8 days before getting around to GRANTING the request… and he started the clock ticking when HE finally got around to responding.
So when the dust clears… Arizona Forestry will have ACTUALLY had an additional 45 days to ‘settle things’ ( 47 days minus March 3 ).
It is doubtful the court would grant them even MORE time than that and still keep the court calendar ‘frozen’… so we will know soon if Arizona Forestry is going to settle… or go to court and taken their chances.
Keep in mind… the ‘plaintiffs’ themselves in the ‘wrongful death’ suits have requested a ‘trial by jury’. That jury will also be deciding ( among other things ) the dollar amounts to be awarded.
Depending on how that goes… that jury could ‘award’ just about ANY dollar amount to any/all of the plaintiffs. The end result could be even FAR MORE money than the plaintiff’s had even attached to the filings themselves.
It’s been known to happen in cases like this.
The ‘jury’ decides the plaintiffs are entitled to FAR MORE ( money-wise ) than they were even asking for.
As for the other ‘action items’ that are part of the case such as “telling the truth” and “meaningful changes in the WFF industry”… same story.
The ‘jury’ could force ALL of those ‘action items’ to take place as well.
So good luck to Arizona Forestry.
They are going to NEED it if they don’t find a way to ‘settle’ this.
On the “just a kid” point. Kids are 16 and under. 20 somethings might be immature, but the charm wears off of that quickly. I can certainly see how a 20-something who’s naturally more of a follower might try to meet the expectations and encouragement of the people closest to him professionally to “not say more than you have to.” I can see the same person not being suspicious of the cush job offer, and not seeing how people would be thrilled to get him off the payroll into a lonely job for which he was ill-suited. But, at some point hopefully that person does realize that those “friendly” people haven’t been doing him any favors. Growing up sometimes hurts. I’d think McDonough might even himself have a book deal possible if he comes correct when he is deposed.
Reply to SR post on March 27, 2015 at 8:33 pm
>> SR said…
>> …at some point hopefully that person does realize that those
>> “friendly” people haven’t been doing him any favors.
In the days immediately following the incident… there wasn’t much information coming out about what happened. All we were hearing was that there was an ‘entrapment’… and the only survivor ( from the same crew ) had actually been their “lookout”.
Until some more details emerged… there were a LOT of people looking ‘sideways’ at that limited information and starting to wonder.
Indeed… the fact that the men died BECAUSE they didn’t have an active “lookout” and the only survivor was the one who ( supposedly ) had been assigned that task created a situation where people started waiting with baited breath for a GOOD EXPLANATION of why that was so.
Some even weren’t buying this preliminary ‘explanation’ from Prescott PIO Wade Ward that Brendan had been ‘forced to evacuate’ and was then ‘re-assigned’ to Blue Ridge.
Many wondered WHY… even if Brendan had to abandon ONE ‘lookout position’ he didn’t then CONTINUE his assigned responsibility and find ANOTHER ‘lookout’ position.
Well… we know NOW that the reason is because no one ASKED him to do that.
Not Steed, not Marsh, not Frisby, not Cordes, not even any OPS people ( who weren’t even really aware Brendan had evacuated until much later ).
But the real NON-FAVOR that was done to Brendan came when the SAIR report was published.
It said ( in no uncertain terms ) that Brendan McDonough HAD heard Marsh and Steed (quote from the SAIR) “talking about their options”.
Here is the EXACT ( published ) sentence in the SAIR document…
———————————————————————————
On the Granite Mountain intra-crew frequency, GM Lookout hears DIVS A and GM Capt talking about their options, whether to stay in the black or to come up with a plan to move.
———————————————————————————-
But then NOTHING was said about WHAT he heard. Only that he did, in fact, HEAR it.
From THAT moment on… Brendan was now ‘branded’ as “the guy who knows more than he is saying”.
The ‘branding’ just compounded itself when, as Brendan was ‘allowed’ to start talking to the media, he did not DENY that statement in the SAIR, or even say he was being ‘mis-represented’ by it.
Indeed… he compounded his own situation in those media interviews by actually stating beforehand there would be things he would REFUSE to talk about from that day.
So ever since that SAIR document was published… Brendan has had really only TWO options to get ‘clear’ of all this mystery and people looking at him ‘sideways’.
1) Say that the original statement in the SAIR about him hearing Marsh and Steed “talking about their options” was FALSE… and that he knows no more than he has already told investigators.
*OR*
2) Admit that the original statement in the SAIR is TRUE… and tell everything he knows.
It sounds more and more like if he really wants everyone to stop looking at him sideways… his only real option is #2.
He probably already DOES realize he got ‘caught up’ in a lot of OTHER people’s ‘agendas’ over this… but at this point that is actually neither here nor there.
If HE, himself, wants to ‘put all this behind him’… he has to now “do the right thing”.
Breaking!
Don’t have the link but just read on Twitter via WildFireOps @WildFire_Ops via KTARNews ktar.com I’m seeing this at the bar on my iPad: http://ift.tt195Kdbq
Mayor Kuykendall announced today he won’t be running for re-election.
They headlined it “Mayor who led Prescott through Hotshots deaths won’t seek re-election.”
I reposted it with “”Led” is an overstatement”
WildFireOps replied: true true
“And then there were TWO”.
That leaves only two ( current ) candidates ‘in the race’ for Prescott Mayor…
Harry Oberg and Former Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo ( who was forced by the City to resign following the Yarnell Hill incident ).
Here’s the article that also appeared today about this…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Kuykendall will not seek 4th term as Prescott Mayor
Published 3/27/2015 3:56:00 PM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=143463
From the article…
——————————————————————————
PRESCOTT – Marlin Kuykendall, Prescott’s mayor since 2009, has announced that he will not seek another term.
The field for mayor now includes Harry Oberg and former Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo, who announced his intention to run for mayor several months ago.
Prescott’s primary is scheduled for Aug. 25, and the general election is set for Nov. 3.
——————————————————————————
As just a reader here, I have watched the cross fade video several times now, and it is not possible for me to be like most good investigators and analysts who can maintain the clinical approach that is needed in these matters. I will say it flat out: What this video clip shows me hurts like hell. Seeing it makes it impossible for me to ever believe that there weren’t at least one or more persons on that crew who were seeing what was happening while up on that ridge and who did NOT wish to go down below and into the path of what was obviously a massively out of control inferno. And, for me, that likely reality is just too awful for words. Most of the rank and file on this crew were first and second season crew members who had not much recourse other than to simply do what they were told. Confronting this particular truth is something I can hardly talk about, or write about, without choking on the words. It is just too horrible.
There may be any number of folks who go along with the Prescott FD talking points that these guys were all just being noble first responders that — hunker and be safe be damned — they were going to go help protect others. But I am not one of those folks, and this cross fade video settles that matter for me once and for all. I’ve begun to dread the prospect of eventually learning what was actually said in order to coerce this crew to step off the mountain ridge and down into a horrific danger zone of monumental proportions (and inevitable disaster for all). I truly am in dread of it, because it is just too gut wrenching and just too painful . . . and I can’t act like it’s not.
This is just FYI.
As of March 9, 2015… Brendan McDonough now has his own (PUBLIC) TWITTER feed…
https://twitter.com/bmcdonough20
thx! obviously i’ll be following him!!
OK. Now that I just “followed” Brendan.
I want to say I find myself somewhere in the middle of a gradient between Elizabeth’s “GM/Eric/Jesse/Brendan Could Do No Wrong (OMG Think About the CHILDREN!!!)” position and WTKTT/Gary Olson’s (Hi Gary, glad to see you back, still trying to plan a trip to Flagstaff!!) positions that come down harder than I would/do on Brendan.
Maybe that’s cuz I have a 27-year-old daughter (who is VASTLY more “responsible” “organized” and “alpha” than I am but still makes me crazy when she’s driving, and who almost had a fatal accident that I don’t know how I would have “dealt with”) and had a 15-year-old brother who almost got a few other people killed when he only got himself killed (and for all that we could probably have sued the Scoutmaster up the wazoo but we didn’t because…..he was a good friend of my dad).
And I remember/know/still suffer from the insanely chaotic way my family dealt with all of that, including myself (I did it by completely forgetting my entire childhood).
I keep thinking, what if Terra had found herself caught in this kind of situation????? Even now, much less when she was Brendan’s age. She may be alpha enough that when she’s uncomfortable in social situations her response is to become the “Organizer in Chief” (whereas I deal with it by putting the viewfinder of a camera up between me and it) but DEATH really tears her apart, and she’s STILL in kind of an emotional vortex over her grandmother’s death.
Part of that’s because, after my dad died, leaving me in total shock and also completely responsible for dealing with EVERYTHING he left behind (including a friggin COMPANY), I still haven’t quite recovered from the shock and trauma of his death, and now, almost two months after my mom died, I still flee into the protective embrace of photography and editing instead of “Dealing With” a whole bunch of other stuff that I SHOULD be “Dealing With.”
This all prompted me to write A YEAR AGO something along the lines of “Please, Brendan, you need to TALK, for the sake of YOURSELF, not to mention everyone else who needs your narrative in order to understand the TRUTH of what happened.”
And, REMEMBER, even as we are now at a moment after Brendan, for whatever reason (and here I confess that reading the comments about this, I have in a little brain-spot a teensy-tinsy “conspiracy theory” whispering to me, “Is there any possibility Darrell Willis might be connected to this current situation???”) ALL the Federal participants on this fire are STILL under a friggin GAG ORDER.
What I see in all this hide and seek via Brendan is someone who STILL may be in serious SHOCK, who is STILL being BADLY counseled and MAJORLY manipulated by various Powers That Be that have been positioning themselves as close as possible to him since about…………twenty minutes after the Deployment.
I. Can’t. Even. Imagine.
As Gary has written, something like, “The Gods of Fire are not Your Friends.”
The Gods of Fire are not Your Friends, Brendan.
They’re also not ours.
The Gods of Fire DO NOT WANT the truth of what happened on June 30, 2013 to surface.
We all may have more in common with Brendan than ANY of us have in common with The Gods of Fire.
Look Up.
Namaste
Thank you Marti.
You are so very welcome, Gary!!
Marti said that Elizabeth was saying ““GM/Eric/Jesse/Brendan Could Do No Wrong (OMG Think About the CHILDREN!!!)” but elizabeth never said that.
she does not defend Eric or Jesse as much as say that we should all not speculate against dead people without all the FACTS.
**
** THE CITY OF PRESCOTT WILL DISBAND ITS “FUELS CREW” ALTOGETHER
Even before Darrell Willis submitted his ‘resignation letter’ and directly accused his employers ( City of Prescott Managers ) of ‘tampering’ with the report that led to the elimination of Prescott’s “Wildland Division”… there had been a pre-scheduled City of Prescott ‘Budget Workshop’ ( to take place on March 26, 2015 ) that was going to feature a discussion of the future of the entire “Fuels Abatement” thing.
That ‘Budget Workshop’ took place yesterday… and the NEW ‘announcement’ from NEW Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light is that the City of Prescott will officially get OUT of the whole business of having any City employees doing “Fuel Reduction” work.
The City will still encourage the whole “Firewise” thing… and will continue to encourage homeowners to take responsibility for their own properties… and the City will STILL be applying for grants to do that sort of thing… but the City of Prescott will only ever hire ‘contractors’ to do any “Fuels Reduction” from here on out.
And so a LEGACY ends.
I imagine Darrell Willis is even more pissed now than he was in his resignation letter over the elimination of the “Wildland Division”. This now puts the “nails in the coffin” on the entire thing.
It was also revealed in this meeting ( again, by Fire Chief Dennis Light ) that the entire ‘business model’ that Willis and Marsh had going to try and make the “Granite Mountain Hotshots” at least an “expense neutral” operation for Prescott was never actually ‘working’.
Chief Light said a FINAL audit of the whole thing proved that even with the grants and the ‘Type 1 IHC’ job-out work… the program was in the hole every year to the tune of about $200,000 to $300,000 dollars.
So no wonder the City Officials were looking ‘sideways’ at the whole (expensive) ‘Type 1 IHC’ Hotshot thing… even before the tragedy in Yarnell. The City was paying big bucks every year to support a National Level Hotshot crew that then ended up GONE from Prescott ( and even Arizona ) for a lot of the critical fire season.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Replacement of Hotshots is ‘highly doubtful,’ says Prescott Fire Chief
Published 3/27/2015 6:01:00 AM, by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=143439&TM=71299.63
From the article…
——————————————————————————–
PRESCOTT – The remnants of the City of Prescott’s wildland division would be “dissolved,” under a new model that Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light unveiled this week.
During a presentation at a Prescott City Council budget workshop Thursday morning, March 26, Light noted that the changes were being proposed in the wake of the Yarnell Hill tragedy.
Under the changes, the city would continue to apply for fuels-reduction grants, but the work for future projects would be contracted out to private companies. The city also would not fill the position that former Division Chief Darrell Willis recently vacated. In addition, the city would consider selling some of the equipment used for fuels reduction.
Light told the council that although the Hotshots had regularly generated grant money, the program had annually cost the city’s general fund about $200,000 to $300,000.
An internal audit indicated that the division “was not self-supporting from grant and off-district firefighting reimbursement revenues,” Light’s presentation stated. “Providing suppression personnel (firefighters) for off-district operations is not a ‘moneymaker’ for the city.”
——————————————————————————–
Followup…
Somewhat related to this announcement about the planned total disbanding of the “Prescott Fuels Crew” is another announcement also published TODAY that current Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall will NOT be on the ballot again this November.
That ‘narrows the field’ for Prescott’s NEW mayor to just TWO people ( as of today )…
Harry Oberg and Former Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo ( who was forced by the City to resign following the Yarnell Hill incident ).
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Kuykendall will not seek 4th term as Prescott Mayor
Published 3/27/2015 3:56:00 PM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=143463
From the article…
——————————————————————————
PRESCOTT – Marlin Kuykendall, Prescott’s mayor since 2009, has announced that he will not seek another term.
The field for mayor now includes Harry Oberg and former Prescott Fire Chief Dan Fraijo, who announced his intention to run for mayor several months ago.
Prescott’s primary is scheduled for Aug. 25, and the general election is set for Nov. 3.
——————————————————————————
I wonder where Darrell Willis might ‘fit into’ all of this?
If Former Chief Fraijo actually becomes MAYOR… I wonder if he will axe current Fire Chief Dennis Light and try to reinstall Darrell Willis as Prescott Fire Chief… who then, in turn, tries to put everything back the way it was and bring Prescott’s “Wildland Division” back?
Stranger things have happened, I suppose.
WTKTT,
Having the IHC one hosts gone most of the fire season is a common complaint by the hosting entity.
If a Government entity, such as a National Forest/Park, Ranger District, and/or municipality HOSTS an IHC, then it is understood that their particular IHC will be gone most of the fire season because they are a NATIONAL RESOURCE, just like airtankers, Type I helicopters, and the like. They are highly sought after and highly utilized by the IMT’s and others throughout the entire fire season. They are often on the UTF (Unable To Fill) list throughout the fire season as well.
So, given the above, IF your particular IHC is assigned somewhere to a fire assignment, the hosting entity merely has to place a Resource Order for a replacement Type I IHC. The temporary replacement IHC will remain in place for two weeks or until they are reassigned to a fire assignment or the original Crew returns home, whichever comes first.
Oft times, the GACC (Geographic Area Coordination Center) will place a Resource Order that requests a Type I IHC OR a Type 2 IA (Initial Attack) Crew and then the order is filled with a Type 2 IA Crew if there is no IHC available.
Reply to Robert the Second (RTS) post March 27, 2015 at 5:49 pm
>> RTS said…
>>
>> Having the IHC one hosts gone most of the fire season is
>> a common complaint by the hosting entity.
Yes… but you have to remember this whole thing was still pretty ‘new’ to the City of Prescott… and it’s pretty much a fact ( and City Officials now even admit ) they didn’t quite “think it through” when they gave Willis and Marsh permission to start building even that fist ‘Type 2 IA’ Crew… and then the eventual ‘Type 1 IHC’ Crew.
Until then… all City Officials saw were expenditures for ‘Local Fuels Abatement” that, while hard to actually put a ‘dollar amount’ on ( other than the expenses ), at least there was a VISIBLE RESULT of that money being spent right there in Prescott.
As the whole operation got more complex ( and expensive )… it either wasn’t really fully explained to City Officials what having a ‘National Response’ team really meant… or it was explained… but they didn’t quite comprehend the reality.
It did, in fact, mean that this CREW might not actually BE there in Prescott for most of the critical fire season… but Prescott would still be ‘footing the bill’ for those operation ( if charge-backs didn’t meet expenses ) AND the City would still be retaining LIABLILITY… wherever they went.
The ‘consternation’ on the part of City Officials really did come down to the MONEY. No bean-counter in a small-town City Hall likes to see $200,000 and $300,000 deficits cropping up on the books for any reason… but as they started really LOOKING at this whole ‘Hosting a Type 1 IHC Crew’ thing… the fact that they really were GONE from Prescott a lot of the time really did start factoring into their ‘assesments’ of the whole thing.
And it wasn’t just the FACT that they were ‘gone’ and might not even be there to help put a fire out in Prescott, when needed.
It was ( sure enough ) about the LIABILITY involved.
There they were sending a ‘Type 1 Hotshot’ Crew off to fight fires God-knows-where… but City of Prescott still had all the fundamental SUPPORT expenses AND the ‘Liability Issues’ for that crew whether they were fighting fires in Prescott, or not.
Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall admitted flat-out that WAS a HUGE concern on HIS part.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Fire protection vs. liability: Prescott grapples
with Granite Mountain Hotshot crew issues
Published 8/16/2013 6:00:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubsectionID=1&ArticleID=122302
From the article…
—————————————————————–
Prescott Mayor Marlin Kuykendall said he has concerns about the fact that the city was sending its Hotshot crew to fires in other areas, but still retained all of the liability.
“It’s our team, it’s our liability, but we dispatched our team to places all over the Southwest, under somebody else’s control,” he said. “When do we lose, or do we ever lose, our liability?”
Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini added…
“It’s a truism to say the federal government is better able to absorb the risks and costs than the City of Prescott – that goes without saying”.
—————————————————————–
A belated thanx for this, I hadn’t seen it until now.
I’m currently having a bit of cognitive dissonance regarding the $200k – $300k per year. I hadn’t seen anything even remotely like that before this. That’s why I was talking about the $100k per year Wildland Insurance Policy, and that being a pretty good investment.
I’m guessing now that that much higher per year set of numbers includes the realized liability cost when things went BOOM and maybe the cost of the vehicles which Prescott was paying for out of “general funds” and maybe Willis’s salary/salaries which might not have been factored in before and….whatever………
Someone needs to FOIA this audit. Which I’m SURE is happening somewhere.
And so, if I’m understanding correctly, the current situation is now that the FD Fuels Reduction crew is now axed, the fuels reduction will be done by contractor/s (which might not be a bad thing, but I’m not seeing how that’s gonna actually cost less unless less work actually gets done, whatever) AND given that the recommendation from the oral report of the ICMA last August was that PREVENTION PREVENTION PREVENTION PREVENTION was now the absolute TOP PRIORITY………..
Does this all mean that whatever training and implementation of the FD’s wildland fire-fighting will now be also axed??????
I just don’t see what this looks like to be sustainable over much time, all things considered.
It now even MORE looks to me like a version of “they just might as well axe the whole Prescott Fire Department and rely on building codes.”
WTKTT
on the Fade videos that the news took what exact time was the fire picture.
I could not fined the time or just missed it.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 26, 2015 at 5:42 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>> on the Fade videos that the news took what exact time was the fire picture.
Funny you should ask. I’ve been working on a separate post about that.
** The short answer…
I don’t know.
** The long answer…
The ABC15 Aerial Raw Footage video that is sitting on YouTube ( and was uploaded to YouTube the very night of the tragedy on June 30, 2013 ) does NOT contain any ‘normal’ EXIF metadata information in order to be able to tell EXACTLY when all 35 separate ‘clips’ were taken.
Nor are there any absolutely verifiable ‘events’ taking place that can be used to timestamp the clips… except for ones like…
1) The VLAT drops.( Times well known )
2) The ‘Five Kilo Alpha’ Helicopter dips and drops ( verifable in Panebaker audio ).
3) The Double-Bar-A-Ranch totally in flames ( also verifiable with other testimony )
HOWEVER… here is what seems to help put a ‘time’ on some of the other clips.
We KNOW that the ABC15 chopper came from Phoenix, approached Yarnell from the SOUTH, and when they got close to the restricted airspace they called Thomas French ( pilot of Bravo 33 ) on the Air-To-Air channel and requested ‘clearance’ to fly the fire.
That was at exactly 3:59 PM.
French gave them ( ABC15 callsign was “Five Hotel Delta” ) clearance at 9,500 and told them they could go wherever they wanted at that alititude.
The ABC15 chopper then did the following…
As soon as it got near Yarnell and achieved its clearance altitude… they started filming. That’s why the very first video clip shows the situation ( at 4:00 PM ) from the SOUTH looking to the NORTH across that valley… and the box canyon itself is in the lower right corner of that first video clip.
The ABC 15 chopper then went up the WEST side of the fire and the next few video clips are taken from that perspective and looking back towards Yarnell.
They then settled into sort of ‘holding pattern’ to the NORTH and hovering over various locations over Peeples Valley, and shot a lot of clips from there.
When ABC15 went to leave the area… they went back the way they came in. Down the WEST side of the fire and exiting to the SOUTH at the same time the actual MAYDAY calls were hitting the radio.
ABC15 actually called Thomas French in the MIDDLE of the 4:39 to 4:43 PM MAYDAY radio traffic to tell them they were ‘done’ and ‘leaving the area’.
It’s actually still pretty astounding that there’s no doubt the ABC15 chopper was monitoring the standard A2G and A2A channels over the fire… and they must have HEARD Jesse Steed’s MAYDAY transmission ( and the subsequent radio traffic )…. but they still called French on A2A WHILE that was happening to say they were ‘leaving’.
It appears they were told they had to get back to Phoenix before the 5:00 PM ABC15 news broadcast and didn’t want to piss their bosses off back at the news station.
Some of the raw footage they shot actually appeared during that day’s 5:00 PM news broadcast.
So ABC15 chopper “Five Hotel Delta” got clearance to film at 3:59 PM… and they called French on the A2A channel to say they were ‘done’ and ‘leaving’ at exactly 4:42 PM.
That means they were only over the fire for a total of 43 minutes.
Anyway… my real point is this.
Regardless of the fact that some of the clips have no timestamp… they still all appear to be in the same SEQUENTIAL order they were shot in while the ABC15 chopper was over Yarnell for those 43 minutes.
That HELPS to put ‘timestamps’ on the clips… but nothing EXACT.
The ‘fade’ clip I just did was the 18th sequential clip in the full raw footage.
That’s about in the exact middle of the 35 segment / 43 minute picture taking session so based on that ( and some other good guesses ) I have been assuming this clip was shot in the 4:20 PM timeframe… give or take a minute or two.
That is still just a GUESS… but an educated one.
4:20 PM was the time the SAIR said the men were still standing there up at the ‘Descent Point’ and were only then deciding to drop down into the box canyon.
It’s pretty scary to think that if the time of 4:20 PM for the video clip is correct… AND the SAIR is also correct that that is when the men were just even ‘deciding’ to descend into the canyon… that they would actuall DO so given what we can see ourselves in the video and the fact that the fire that was going to kill them was only 905 yards away from the mouth of the very box canyon they were deciding to ‘drop into’.
The 4:20 time for the video clip might be ‘off’… and so might the SAIR estimated ‘decision moment’ of 4:20… but neither one is off by much.
Bottom line is that this video DOES represent what things pretty much LOOKED like ‘out there’ in that middle bowl AT or NEAR the time those men actually decided to drop into that box canyon.
More about this later.
There is actually another way to try and nail down the EXACT time.
Believe it or not… the actual SMOKE configurations seen in these ABC15 video clips can be traced back to the Panebaker videos which have absolutely accurate timestamps.
It’s possible to MATCH some of the smoke features seen in BOTH of the video sources.
I’m actually attempting that here now and I’ll let you know if I get a better time match for this video than the 4:20 PM ‘guesstimate’.
Or… if anyone else can come up with a better way to timestamp these ABC15 videos… then go for it. ( As in… anybody know anybody at the ABC15 station? I’m sure the ORIGINALS still all have the exact timestamps ).
SIDENOTE: It is still UNBELIEVABLE to me that NEITHER the SAIT nor the ADOSH investigators ever bothered to obtain these original ABC15 video clips for their own investigations… especially given the fact that they were uploaded to YouTube on the night of June 30, 2013 and have ALWAYS been known to exist.
It really would have been nice if this tragedy had been FULLY ( and professionally ) investigated by SOMEONE…. ANYONE.
CORRECTION for the post above.
I said ‘lower right corner’ in a place I should have said ‘lower LEFT corner’.
Paragraph above should have read like this…
As soon as it got near Yarnell and achieved its clearance altitude… they started filming. That’s why the very first video clip shows the situation ( at 4:00 PM ) from the SOUTH looking to the NORTH across that valley… and the box canyon itself is in the lower LEFT corner of that first video clip.
And I still sit here saying what the hell were they thinking.
They had to have seen the fire moving into those locations before they dropped into that canyon. They should have seen the fire progression and what it was doing before they ever left the Black.
Thanks WTKTT you are doing one hell of a job with this information and pictures.
I have an IMPORTANT ‘quick’ question for you.
I am sitting here super-analyzing the SMOKE patterns seen in this recent cross-fade video… and I saw something I hadn’t seen before.
This MAY actually help put a better TIMESTAMP on this particular video clip… but first I need to know something from someone with your experience.
If a crew goes to ‘burn out around themselves’ using their CHAINSAW GAS… wouldn’t the SMOKE from that kind of petroleum product ignition ( especially because of the chainsaw gas / OIL mixture ) end up showing as BLACK SMOKE… versus the more predominately white/gray grass/tree smoke?
It Might in certain Fuels the problem here is that Chemise brush burns
with Black smoke due to all the Oils in that type of fuel.
I doubt that there burn out would stand out in the surrounding area.
The burn out would more than likely blend in with the rest of the fire.
Thank you. I was ‘comparing’ smoke patterns from this ABC15 video to what is seen around the 4:20 PM mark in the Panebaker videos and I simply noticed this strange ‘anomaly’ I hadn’t seen before.
It is a FAST RISING column of totally BLACK SMOKE in the ABC15 crossfade video… and I have verified that it is, in fact, happening directly over the deployment site area over in the box canyon.
If you watch this recent crossfade video again at this link…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSYpnPMfPmc
Focus your eyes ( at the start, when the actual video clip will play TWICE in a row ) at the following point in the video…
On the TITLE page there is a line of WHITE text that says the following ( before the video starts playing )…
The 18th sequential clip @ +1:57 to +2:03
Focus your eys right between ( and just above) the ‘0’ and the ‘3’ on the end of the line where it says “+2:03”.
That text is going to ‘disappear’ as the video clip plays… but right at that location look for the following….
A FAST RISING column of BLACK SMOKE.
It is RISING straight up… and much, much faster than anything else around it… and it’s location is, in fact, right about directly OVER the deployment area.
The SUN is starting to be LOW in the sky at this point in the day and it could just be some kind of ‘shadowing’ effect making that FAST RISING plume so much DARKER than the smoke around it…
…but even in that case… it still seems to be pretty much directly over the deployment site area.
I still do NOT think this particular ABC15 video clip was taken after 4:30 PM or so ( my estimate is still circa 4:20 PM )… but that isn’t written in stone.
If the ABC15 chopper pilot actually called French on the A2A channel to say they were leaving BEFORE he started heading SOUTH along the west side of the fire… then that actually *could* put him still ‘hovering’ up there to the north of the fire over the Peeples Valley area in the 4:39 to 4:43 timeframe.
Take a look at what I’m talking about here and see what you think. That ‘rate of rise’ on the BLACK column of smoke is so much faster than anything else around it… it really does look like it was the result of some kind of ‘explosion’, or something.
You Know I think that smoke column is off of the 2 flaming
burns we are looking at just different smoke columns from fuel burning faster in denser fuel the smoke is all mixing together and rising at different speeds biased on the heat being generated. the fires were some what spread out and producing a lot of smoke.
If your timing is right it would be earlier than the Burn out as well if there was any smoke there.
I think we are just looking at different colors of smoke from the Flames we can see. Laid out over a large area
is a depth perception thing.
Super. THANK YOU. I really don’t know what to make of it because I really AM pretty sure this crossfade video was taken in the 4:20 PM timeframe ( give or take a minute or two ).
Granite Mountain would NOT have been in a position to start any kind of chainsaw GAS / OIL based burnout at that time. No way.
Heck… the SAIR says that at 4:20… they were still standing there at the top of the saddle.
I’m going to just keep doing what I was already doing and see if I can match these smoke patterns to something with an absolute KNOWN timestamp… like the Panebaker videos.
That’s still the most important thing, at the moment.
I knew from your experience as an “Air Attack” that if anyone was familiar with what smoke looks like from the Air when ‘flying a fire’… it would be you.
So thanks again.
Your doing good just remember that a smoke can be very deceptive when laying down over the terrain. Also black smoke shows with homes burning because of all the shingles siding tarpaper.
Generically white smoke is associated with grass fuels or dead light fuels.
As I said the density and consumption of fuel will create more heat thus the Colum changes from rapid high heat will cause the smoke column to raise faster and thicker.
As you can see in your fade Video the Flaming areas as the smoke gets heaver you might not see the spot fires in front of the larger fires.
It depends on the wind if the column lays down or rises straight up. Also slope will have some effect on the column as well..
Thanks WTKKT! Just dashing in and out, since my life is still pretty much in chaos……
I just had a chance to look at the video, after reading all the comments about it. Four quick thoughts/notes.
1. Concerning the timing. My first thought, even as as I just started watching it, was to look at the flaming front “approaching” the ridge over Shrine Road and the Youth Camp. We have quite a few photos in the Blue Ridge collection of that flaming front coming over that ridge as they’re still staged at the Youth Camp. Don’t have time to fire up Lightroom and go “get” them, but you know what I mean.
I’m thinking the video image may be just a tad before those photos. And if it had been AFTER those photos the “flaming front” would have looked quite a bit different.
Off the top of my head, in the Panebaker Air2Air, I THINK you can see Shrine Road really light up after the fire comes over the Ridge and then engulfs the Shrine Road area. And that’s just before you can see, I THINK, the further west flame front hit the bottom of the Deployment Bowl and engulf the bowl as the smoke collapses over it and you can’t see what happens next. I haven’t had time to go rewatch Panebaker after reading this and looking at your video.
Which leads me to my second thought.
2. Is it possible, I kept thinking as I watched this, that if, indeed, this frame was captured more around 4:20 (given the flamefront over the Shrine Road Ridge) and GM was standing on the saddle over the Deployment Bowl, all that smoke was so thick that, even from their overlooking position, they could not SEE that flaming front? If that were the case, how might that have influenced their thinking? Remember (COUGH COUGH) what the scene was like on Shrine Road as the smoke was engulfing everything as Brian and Trew came out on their UTV.
Which leads to my third thought.
3: This video definitely flies in the face of any thinking that GM could have been thinking they were “paralleling the fire” as they headed into the bowl. They were IN FACT CROSSING the front, perpendicularly.
By the time they got to the saddle, if that was indeed about 4:20, the only SAFE “paralleling the fire” option they had, even if/since they didn’t know where the two-track went, was to either stay on the two-track or even better (at that point) bail off the ridge altogether and head west off of it.
And that leads me to again wonder how much all that SMOKE could have impacted both their situational awareness and their thinking.
Which leads me to my fourth thought.
4. I know and WTKTT knows what photos “counselor” is, in her typical way, coyly referring to. I don’t have time to go do HER WORK right now to identify and post them. They do show the view from 89 at the Ranch House Restaurant at somewhere around 4:30. You can see right up the bowl, which was the point WTKTT was making when he made the video referring to them. That, at 4:30ish, from the bowl, you could see out of the bowl, because it wasn’t smoke-filled, and conversely, if SOMEONE (COUGH COUGH) had been “Looking Out” (COUGH COUGH) for them from the Ranch House Restaurant, they could have BOTH seen the flaming front/s AND the position of the crew.
OK, gotta run now. But I did want to add my thoughts before running.
Marti, sent you an email a while back, respond when you can
Even if they had used their chainsaw fuel, it not would burn real black. Most saw fuel is 40:1 or 50:1, not enough oil component to cause huge black
Copy that. Thank you.
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 27, 2015 at 12:30 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> 1. Concerning the timing. My first thought, even as as I just
>> started watching it, was to look at the flaming front
>> “approaching” the ridge over Shrine Road and the Youth Camp.
>> We have quite a few photos in the Blue Ridge collection of
>> that flaming front coming over that ridge as they’re still
>> staged at the Youth Camp. Don’t have time to fire up
>> Lightroom and go “get” them, but you know what I mean.
I certainly do… and that’s what I meant by ‘other evidence’ coming into play for my own ‘circa 4:20 PM’ guesstimate for this ABC15 sequential clip number 18 ( out of 35 clips taken between 3:59 PM and 4:42 PM ).
It is hard to see EXACTLY where the fireline is in this particular ABC15 video in exact relation to the ‘Youth Camp’, but looking carefully at that ‘orange glow’ which is obviously there beneath all the smoke at that location I would still have to say ( me, personally ) that it looks like the fire was just ABOUT to ‘crest that ridge’ where it would have been suddenly visible to those in the Youth Camp area… but it had not crested it YET ( in the ABC15 video ).
So that’s why I ‘dialed back’ just a bit to 4:20, which also happens to match where ABC15 clip number 18 ‘fits’ into that 40 minute ‘session’.
We definitely ‘see what they saw’ from that grassy clearing in the Youth Camp at exactly 4:27 PM because of the YARNELL-GAMBLE video ( supposedly taken by BR Hotshot Ronald (Ronnie) Gamble while sitting in the drivers seat of one of the BR Crew Carriers ).
I think the ABC15 video clip was taken just BEFORE what we see happening in the YARNELL-GAMBLE video ( at 4:27 PM ).
A lot of ‘guesswork’ still involved here ( what else is new )… but we are only still only talking about ‘minutes’, one way or the other though.
The GENERAL timeframe for this ABC15 clip will, I believe, remain in the 4:19 to 4:26 PM time window.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> I’m thinking the video image may be just a tad before those photos.
>> And if it had been AFTER those photos the “flaming front” would
>> have looked quite a bit different.
Yes. See above. I’ve compared what SEEMS to be ‘under the smoke’ in this ABC15 video with the YARNELL-GAMBLE video ( taken at exactly 4:27 PM ) and I think this ABC15 video was taken shortly before the YARNELL-GAMBLE video… but definitely not AFTER it…
…but timestamping this ABC15 clip is still obviously a ‘work in progress’.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Off the top of my head, in the Panebaker Air2Air, I THINK
>> you can see Shrine Road really light up after the fire comes
>> over the Ridge and then engulfs the Shrine Road area.
>> And that’s just before you can see, I THINK, the further
>> west flame front hit the bottom of the Deployment Bowl
>> and engulf the bowl as the smoke collapses over it and you
>> can’t see what happens next. I haven’t had time to go
>> rewatch Panebaker after reading this and looking at your video.
The problem with the Panebaker ‘tripod’ setup ( the one that was also capturing the constant Air-To-Air channel radio traffic ) is that they didn’t actually ‘switch’ the camera to fully facing SOUTH until about seconds
after the start of the 20130630_1643_EP. video ( following a 2 minute and 38 second battery/SD card swap out after the end of the previous video ).
Here’s the actual ‘summary’ of at least just those ‘tripod based’ Panebaker videos, including the time between them that was NOT recorded while they swapped batteries and/or SD card(s)…
Filename, Start, Duration, End, ( Unrecorded time before start of next video )
20130630_1510_EP, Start: 14:48:31, Duration: 0:22:10, End: 1510.41, (5:33)
20130630_1544_EP, Start: 15:16:14, Duration: 0:28:12, End: 1544.26, (3:32)
20130630_1628_EP, Start: 15:47:58, Duration: 0:40:14, End: 1628.12, (2:38)
20130630_1643_EP, Start: 16:30:50, Duration: 0:12:22, End: 1643.12, (2:07)
20130630_1716_EP, Start: 16:45:19, Duration: 0:31:25, End: 1716.44
NOTE: 4:20 PM would fall at + 32:02 into video 20130630_1628_EP
NOTE: The camera was NOT turned to film due SOUTH until
+16 seconds into video 20130630_1643_EP. In other words, only
at about the exact moment of the burnover itself did the Panebaker
film crew turn the camera due SOUTH to capture what was happening.
This would have also been right around ( or just after ) the ABC15 Helicopter
( Five Hotel Delta ) had called French on the Air-To-Air channel to announce
that they were leaving the area.
BOTTOM LINE: The ‘tripod based’ Panebaker videos don’t give a full ‘picture’ of the full SOUTHERN view until 4:31 PM ( plus six seconds ). That’s 4 minutes AFTER the YARNELL-GAMBLE video taken at 4:27 PM.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Which leads me to my second thought.
>>
>> 2. Is it possible, I kept thinking as I watched this, that if,
>> indeed, this frame was captured more around 4:20 (given
>> the flamefront over the Shrine Road Ridge) and GM was
>> standing on the saddle over the Deployment Bowl, all
>> that smoke was so thick that, even from their overlooking
>> position, they could not SEE that flaming front?
Yes… and as I said with the ‘copy’ that was posted along with the video… I think this particular ABC15 clip also proves that the “Big Roundtop” and “Little Roundtop” mounds out there in that ‘middle bowl’ might have been more of a factor than anyone previously thought… in terms of ‘blocking’ what was actually happening ‘out there’.
The fireline that was actually going to kill them appears to have been sort of ‘swinging around’ both of those ‘mounds’,. on the EASTERN side of them and near the BASE, and this introduces even another ‘visibility’ issue into the equation.
I believe even the ABC15 video proves that the fireline was in the PROCESS of ‘cresting’ those mounds ‘out there’ at the time this video was taken… but it was just ‘shy’ of doing that.
Watch the video as it swings from the ‘MacKenzie video’ perspective over to the ‘Deployment area’ perspective. Even with some ‘altitude’ it becomes hard to see the fireline on the other side of “Big Roundtop” because it hadn’t QUITE ‘crested’ the top yet.
All of my musings above could be considered ‘moot’, however, if you go back and just look at the video itself and realize how BIG those flames already were ‘out there’.
The ABC15 chopper was 4.9 MILES away ( to the NORTH )… and the flames still look HUGE ‘down there’… so even if the ground location for the fireline was not quite at the ‘crest’ of “Big Roundtop’… if WE can see those GIGANTIC flames from 5 miles away to the NORTH… they really MUST have been visible from somewhere up on that two-track road.
Also… there is this…
Once they reached the ACTUAL ‘Descent Point’… they really couldn’t see much at all back in that NORTH / NORTHEAST direction. The north ridge of the box canyon itself would have already been blocking most of their view in that direction.
The only REAL chance they had for a last-minute gut-check ( since they had no lookout but themselves ) was a few hundred yards short of that actual ‘Descent Point’.
That would have been their LAST ‘clear’ view of both “Big Roundtop” and “Little Roundtop” and what was happening down there by THOSE features.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> If that were the case, how might that have influenced their thinking?
Well… if ‘that were the case’ ( that the SMOKE alone was now so bad they couldn’t see jack shit even if they tried )… it is doubly INCONCEIVABLE that the would NOT have gotten on the radio with ‘Air Attack’ requesting the proper ‘situational awareness’ update before making any further travel decisions up on that two-track.
They didn’t.
They MUST have seen that MASSIVE smoke column buildup wherever they were at that time ( just by looking UP ).
They either didn’t realize what it could mean… or they just didn’t care.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Which leads to my third thought.
>>
>> 3: This video definitely flies in the face of any thinking that
>> GM could have been thinking they were “paralleling the fire”
>> as they headed into the bowl. They were IN FACT CROSSING
>> the front, perpendicularly.
I agree… but the keyword ( you just used yourself ) is “thinking”.
They could have been “thinking” just about anything.
To NOT make the proper radio callouts and ‘situational awareness’ checks to make SURE their ‘thinking’ matched ‘reality’ was just pure, unadulterated negligence.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> By the time they got to the saddle, if that was indeed about 4:20,
>> the only SAFE “paralleling the fire” option they had, even if/since
>> they didn’t know where the two-track went, was to either stay
>> on the two-track or even better (at that point) bail off the ridge
>> altogether and head west off of it.
Given the newly considered scenario that the fire might have reached the saddle and the ‘Descent Point’ area far sooner than anyone might have previously thought… that almost negates the option of even STAYING on that two-track and attempting the ‘alternate escape route’.
Even if they had said “no frickin’ way” to the box-canyon shortcut and just STAYED heading south on the two-track… there might have come a point before they even reached the ‘eastward turn’ when they might have turned around and seen the fire hauling ass right towards them up on the ridgeline itself.
Their only option at that point would have been to do EXACTLY what Tex (Sonny) Gilligan and Joy Collura did that day ( which is what saved THEM ).
They would have had to haul-ass forward to that point where the two-track turns to the EAST… but THEN dropped off the ridge to the SOUTH, and worked their way EAST on the drop-down SOUTH side of that southernmost ridge and over to the Candy-Cane Lane area.
There really were NO GOOD options once they started hiking south.
The only GOOD OPTION was to not have attempted that move at all.
Even if they hadn’t dropped into the box-canyon… they might have lived but they would all have had a heck of a ‘survival story’ to tell no matter which other option they chose.
How I wish they were all sitting around drinking beer and TELLING that story now on a regular basis.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> And that leads me to again wonder how much all that SMOKE
>> could have impacted both their situational awareness and
>> their thinking.
See above. If the SMOKE alone was so BAD ( Even at 4:20 PM ) that they had absolutely NO ability to achieve the situational awareness they needed before dropping into that canyon… then it was absolutely pure, unadulterated negligence for them to have not STOPPED what they were doing and ACHIEVED the correct ‘situational awareness’.
There were 11 functioning radios in that group… and absolutely NO issues with any of them making contact with ‘Air Attack’ to be ADVISED about what they were attempting to do. They simply didn’t DO it.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Which leads me to my fourth thought.
>>
>> 4. I know and WTKTT knows what photos “counselor” is, in
>> her typical way, coyly referring to. I don’t have time to go do
>> HER WORK right now to identify and post them.
I honestly do NOT know *EXACTLY* which photos ‘counselor’ was trying to refer to. Timestamps alone aren’t sufficient for the plethura of photos in the range she was quoting. Only FILENAMES can ‘narrow that down’.
Was she talking about one ( or more? ) of the ASF photos like IMG_1334?
( Also known as the ‘Brian Lauber’ photos and are duplicated in a folder under THAT name in the SAIT release ).
If so… there are TWO of them taken looking WEST around the RHR. Which one was she referring to?
The Blue Ridge Hotshots were also pulling into the Ranch House Restaurant around that time(s) and they took a number of photos looking ‘west’ in that same timeframe.
In THAT photo grouping… there is a ‘Blue Ridge Hotshot Waredemups’ photo with a timestamp in the 4:35 PM range’ ( the one that someone on the SAIT also annotated with a yellow circle to indicate the approximate location of the deployment site off in the distance ).
I did a ‘crossfade’ from that Wardemups photo into one of Joy Collura’s photos taken from the EXACT same spot ( but about about 20 minutes later ), but that doesn’t account for the OTHER photo ‘counselor’ seemed to be trying to reference. Which one would the OTHER one be?
That “Blue Ridge Hotshot Wardemups” photo crossfading into one of Joy Collura’s photos is here…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XRDeeq832M
>> Marti also wrote…
>>
>> They do show the view from 89 at the Ranch House Restaurant
>> at somewhere around 4:30. You can see right up the bowl,
>> which was the point WTKTT was making when he made
>> the video referring to them. That, at 4:30ish, from the bowl,
>> you could see out of the bowl, because it wasn’t smoke-filled,
>> and conversely, if SOMEONE (COUGH COUGH) had been
>> “Looking Out” (COUGH COUGH) for them from the Ranch
>> House Restaurant, they could have BOTH seen the flaming
>> front/s AND the position of the crew.
Yes. ALL of those photos around that time ( Wardemups, other Blue Ridge Hotshots, Brian Lauber, mirrored ASFD copies, etc. ) show pretty much the same thing. As of 4:35 PM… you could STILL see clearly from the Ranch House Restaurant out into the box canyon… and vice-versa.
Anyone who had been stationed at the Ranch House Restaurant as a designated ‘lookout’ ( COUGH, COUGH ) for ‘Granite Mountain’ could have easily been advising them about EXACTLY where the fire was for their entire ‘mission’.
CORRECTION for the post above.
The ‘NOTE:’ above about Panebaker video 20130630_1643_EP was NOT correct. The tripod camera was NOT only turned ‘south’ near the time of the burnover. That video actually STARTS at 16:30:55. The tripod camera IS turned to the south at +16 seconds into that video. What they did at roughly the same moment as the ‘burnover’ out at the deployment site ( circa 1643 ) is turn the camera OFF for 2 minutes and 7 seconds while they swapped batteries and/or SD card(s).
Copy. Thanks.
Regarding the “two photos.” Yes, I’m thinking of the two Brian Lauber photos, regardless of what “counselor” may be thinking of.
What I’ve been pondering is this.
When I wrote about the smoke/situational awareness etc thing at the time of the video/still, i.e 4:20-ish (which is why I brought up the flaming front approaching the ridge over the Shrine Road area, which we seem to agree on–thus, I think, fairly accurately placing this around 4:20 rather than maybe relatively later)…..
I wasn’t actually sure in my own mind if the smoke we see in the video-still (captured from way up there over Peeples Valley with, obviously something of a telephoto lens and all the compression that implies) actually represents what, in fact, were the smoke conditions, at that 4:20-ish time for GM as they stood there on that saddle (if that was even the time that they did–we’ve had some inconclusive conversations regarding that).
When you “flew” down over the ridge and the descent point I kept wanting to somehow magically see (ala the magic of Google Earth) the actual smoke at the descent point, and had to keep reminding myself that THAT wasn’t possible, given the technology we have.
So, what I’m thinking/saying in this is that, given what APPEARS to be a whole lot of smoke in this video-still, kinda sorta showing the descent point at around 4:20ish, that MIGHT have obscured GM’s Situational Awareness (and possibly even degrading some of their (COUGH COUGH) thinking, the two 4:30ish Brian Lauber photos show a more clear non-smoke-filled view of the Deployment Bowl and the whole area.
So I’m having a bit of a cognitive dissonance.
It’s too bad Brian Lauber didn’t get to where he got and photographed that scene 10 minutes earlier so we could see what that view looked more like from the Ranch House Restaurant at the time we are still thinking (even though it might not be correct) GM was gathered there at the Descent Point trying to figure out what to do.
So now I’m thinking that I may go back and look more carefully at the Panebaker video tomorrow (which starts at essentially 4:31 and focuses on the Deployment Bowl area 16 seconds later) and see if I can make any sense of this whole smoke versus non-smoke dynamic.
Namaste
Correction- Joy C has informed me that I was too harsh in my public condemnation of Mayor Marlin Kuykendall and she gave some examples of why he’s not such a bad guy. I was basing my comments on things he said regarding the firefighters benefits early on and it appears my information is one sided. So I apologize for being so critical of Mayor Kuykendall…and I guess it’s time I let the memory of the POS Toyota Corona with the bad tranny go. It was a long time ago..
Gary
To be fair.
I also mentioned the comment on Willis and 15 minutes of fame.that someone made wasn’t. pleasant because no matter what details are left or not…nineteen men died who he knew and he has always been there and again any questions the hikers had he promptly answered. My only.concern looking back at the yhf was the agendas and angles.
never was.bothered by perceptions as much as I just wish all ffolks who were on fire or there could of. spoken public vs private so this fire can be properly assessed
that’s all
WAtch the video, see if you can pick out the common denominators in what potetnially could have been another Yarnell event…
Lack of situational awareness appears to be a global issue, not just Granite Mountain..
http://wildfiretoday.com/2015/03/23/video-of-near-burnover-in-chile/
The actual VIDEO has been “Removed by the User” ( from YouTube itself ) but some of the ‘still frames’ from the video are still there on the Wildfire Today article.
One of the comments about it on the Wildfire today page…
Crew with fire below them, steep slope, light flashy fuels…..
“Hot and windy, fire spreading faster than they anticipated…”, sounds like common denominators in fatality fires..
Those were my comments 🙂
…and based on the remaining still photographs from the video… looks like your comments were ‘spot on’.
I searched… but can’t find a ‘mirror’ copy of that video.
This looks like a case similar to the 4490red buy who was filming his brains out in Yarnell and ended up dumping 4 or 5 of his Yarnell videos up to YouTube shortly after the Yarnell Hill Fire.
One of those was the one that captured Eric Marsh speaking on the radion in the morning after he had already hiked out to the ridge.
The others captured ‘fire whirls’ on the north end of the fire and a VLAT drop near the U-Store-It facility just after the deployment.
4490red thought he had achieved ‘cool factor’ and was proud to share those videos… but the moment he realized the WORLD had discovered them and were analyzing them for ‘evidence’… he PULLED them off YouTube.
He has never re-posted them.
Sorry… bad typo above. I typed ‘buy’ instead of ‘guy’.
Sentence above should have read like this…
“This looks like a case similar to the 4490red guy who was filming his brains out in Yarnell.”
Elizabeth said,
Gary, there were radios in each of the four Granite Mountain vehicles that day that presumably were set to the crew channel. If Brendan heard something, I imagine that three Blue Ridge Hotshots who were driving GM’s vehicles also heard it,… yet NOBODY has indicated they heard anything other than what has been reported to date. So maybe nothing more was said by GM.
I firmly believe that Brendan has told what he knows that is relevant and material, and it seems to me to serve no purpose for you or anyone else to lash out at a poor kid who is already traumatized enough.
The rumors that Brendan knows more than he is saying and that he knows something important are just RUMORS. According to my sources – and it seems that I am closer to the relevant sources than anyone else on here – there is nothing more that Brendan can tell that would change things. Meaning, he is NOT deliberately withholding something important, game-changing, or material (according to my sources on this topic, one of whom is professional and one of whom is personal).
Gary, I urge you to take a deep breath and reconsider the harsh things you have said to or about Brendan, who seems to me to just be a kid who is really traumatized and needs some slack. The more folks like you rage at him or take shots at him, the LESS likely he is to speak up, in my view. No offense to you.
And I say, no offence taken. I got angry with you once, but as you know, I profusely apologized for that little slip up. And if it helps…you can just think of me as you would your crazy bombastic uncle who you would just as soon not come to Thanksgiving dinner at your house, but who drops in anyway uninvited and unannounced.
As I said way back when…I spent the first 35 years of adulthood caring what everybody thought about everything, and now in my golden or at least my goldenish years, I have the luxury of not caring what anybody thinks about anything. So…I like to think that characteristic is what I have to offer to this thread since I don’t have WTKTT’s supernatural analytical mind or stamina or Bob’s thoughtful and measured responses. And not only am I in a position to advance unpopular or judgmental ideas, I can back them up with my real name and resume.
And as I also said at the very beginning, Uncle Sam never paid me to be a nice guy and maybe that fit into my already existing personality, since I haven’t gotten any nicer in retirement, even though that isn’t part of my job description any more. The U.S. Forest Service (or any other agency I know of, except maybe for the Prescott Fire Department at one time) doesn’t pay hotshot crew bosses to be nice people, they are paid to build hard working professional firefighting crews…and keep them alive, functioning under challenging circumstances and reasonably healthy. So no…I am not a nice guy.
And yes, I would like to break Brendan down and flip him, by any legal means (no telephone books to the back of his head) necessary. And right now, the only means at my disposal…is whatever pressure can be brought to bear on him by whatever community is following this thread. I have also offered to buy his cooperation and I’m sure many others would pitch in to help him get his life back on track, once he gets done with being a professional sad sack and object of pity.
In fact, I will be the first one to line up to give him a group hug, after he comes clean and tells us what we need to know, and I think he should stop screwing around with the process and playing games. You know what they say, “To those whom much is given, much is expected.” By which I mean…I think any of the other 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots would gladly trade places with Brendan right now, even though he might be going through some pretty tough times. Brendan might also be having the time of his life, because for the first time in his unremarkable life to date, someone other than his mama or his probation officer care about how or what he is doing.
And gee…I mean, maybe it seems like a lot of fun, or cool, or dramatic, to add some high-powered local criminal defense attorney to your payroll just because all of these people who appear on television and who have something to say regarding whatever the topic of the day is, have an attorney regardless of whether or not they really do need to have an attorney sitting beside them on the set. Especially if those attorneys are working pro bono because they are media whores (non-gender specific, and yes Mr. Shapiro, if you are following this thread, I do consider you an unnecessary distraction and a whore in general, not just a media whore, after all you will do whatever your trick says for money…right?) and they want to generate publicity for themselves to serve their own selfish purposes.
And yes Elizabeth…I know there are attorneys out there who are really good people who want to do the right thing, I’m confident you are one of them. I also know that if they find my wife cut up in pieces in a freezer in my garage, I am entitled to an attorney even if I can’t afford one, which I can’t. In addition to a fair trial and not a trial in the court of public opinion. But I also know the police will not move on and look for the real killer until they are completely satisfied that I am not the killer, in spite of how it looks.
So…under those circumstances I would have two choices, cooperate with the investigation or lawyer up and refuse to disclose what I know about my wife’s death and how the hell she got into my freezer in pieces. And if I chose the latter, I shouldn’t cry just because the court of public opinion has condemned me, even though reliable sources who are close to you have exonerated me. It’s kind of like some kid killing his parents and then asking for sympathy because he’s an orphan.
And although it is very hard to add anything to what Bob and WTKTT said in response to you below, I do have a couple of points. First, just because no evidence of a cell phone conversation with someone in a position of power and great influence over Eric Marsh and who ordered him to move to Yarnell ASAP has been uncovered to date, that certainly does not prove one did not happen.
Secondly, on fires or other operations that have a lot of people using a lot of hand held radios are ongoing and when someone (say…Willis) wants to have a side conversation with someone else (say…Marsh), they break into the steady stream of radio traffic and simply say, “go to 29” (or whatever pre-programmed channel in their common radios is not being used or monitored) and then they can carry on their side conversations for as long as they wish, without anyone else listening to them.
The only exception would be for someone (say McDonough) who also has a radio that is pre-programmed with hundreds of digital channels in the same order and who is not really busy doing anything else really important at that particular moment and therefore does not have to monitor the primary radio traffic that closely and who is also curious about what the bosses need to talk about in a side conversation, also goes to that same specific channel at the same time.
Which reminds me (don’t ask me why) if we accept that God really did have a different plan (other than for them to grow old with those who love them) for those 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots and that is why they died and therefore we don’t need to look for any causal or contributing factors, did God have a different plan for that particular combination of souls at the same exact time, or where some of them just collateral damage in God’s Master Plan? Inquiring minds want to know.
And yes…I happen to be a Christian who believes in God. I just don’t happen to believe that just because God might spare my family from a tornado, but the same tornado kills my neighbor’s family… that somehow means God loves my family more than he/she loved my neighbor’s family or had a special plan for them in heaven or a special plan for my family here on this earth. I just happen to believe that sometimes really bad things happen to really good people, especially when they engage in really risky behavior like hiking in front of a fire storm for some…even to this date…completely inexplicable reason.
Gary, you said: “So…under those circumstances I would have two choices, cooperate with the investigation or lawyer up and refuse to disclose what I know about my wife’s death and how the hell she got into my freezer in pieces. And if I chose the latter, I shouldn’t cry just because the court of public opinion has condemned me….
just because no evidence of a cell phone conversation with someone in a position of power and great influence over Eric Marsh and who ordered him to move to Yarnell ASAP has been uncovered to date, that certainly does not prove one did not happen.”
You made two points, and I will make two in response:
1. Brendan was interviewed by the SAIT, he was TWICE interviewed by the ADOSH (OSHA) team, he was ALSO interviewed by the media, *AND* our own John Dougherty was the “Executive Producer” or some such on the WeatherChannel documentary for which Brendan was interviewed. This is far different than you killing your wife, and then refusing to answer ANY questions from anyone. Brendan has been questioned repeatedly, and he has answered. Have you ever heard John Dougherty even ONCE say that Brendan refused to answer any questions for the Weather Channel documentary? Of course not. Brendan’s problem is that presumably a lawyer told him to be careful not to speculate or offer answers if he is not 100% sure, and the result of that was that Brendan might sometimes sound – to some ears – cagey or evasive or flip as he is discussing the YHF. But don’t you try to intimate that this is in any way similar to you killing your wife and then refusing to answer anyone’s questions (other than your lawyers). Brendan has REPEATEDLY answered questions. Don’t get your facts wrong when a traumatized kid is at stake, Gary.
2. If there is no evidence of a phone conversation, it is just as likely (if not more likely) that there WAS NO phone conversation than that there WAS one. Instead of choosing to speculate in favor of thinking there WAS a phone conversation, how ’bout speculating that there was NOT a phone conversation, until it is proven otherwise? 😉 (This last point is part of what concerns me about various posters on this website and their speculation – they seem to deliberately choose to speculate in the most drama-causing manner rather than speculate about a possibly benign explanation.)
Lets take a reality check here.————–
McDonough Knows or realized others know after the investigation —–
He is not the only one who herd the discussions on Crew Net.
McDonough has said in a TV interview something he did not say during the SIAR
I monitored all of the crews Radio Conversations—-Then added no more—
We have the Training session in UTAH that the ADOSH and STATE wanted a Copy of WHY—-The Statement that there was an Argument between Steed and Marsh
Where? On GM Crew Net— Never mentioned in the Report But dropped Right there on the Floor– So there was that and probably more herd from the Crew Net.
Who Herd It and said they did First McDonough second Blue Ridge one or more People all of there statements redacted blacked out not available to ADOSH or the State but there in the investigation statements.
We also have statements By ADOSH that they want a to get a Deposition from McDonough to the Point they wanted him requested by the court to be questioned
concerning what he herd. Evidently there is a lot more here than was first stated by McDonough.
So McDonough knows others herd the GM crew discussions.
He may have herd more before others were copping the transmissions.
Others on the Fire besides McDonough had the crew freq. they are talking with each other and others in the loop of close net Fire Fighters.
While some say they are just rumors I say the have merit based on where they are coming from and who is attached to them. The Government may have told people not to talk that dose not mean some are not following that order. Never has in the past why now people are sharing and information is being dropped.
Sorry Elisabeth you are not in that tight circle. Your informants seem to be lacking if you really have any.
Bob said: “We also have statements By ADOSH that they want a to get a Deposition from McDonough to the Point they wanted him requested by the court to be questioned concerning what he herd.”
Bob, get your facts straight. It was the state of Arizona that was so overly eager to get Brendan deposed, and, as I understand it, it was because of the RUMORS that guys like Fred Schoeffler and you are spreading. Why do you think Mrs. Pfingston was so pissed at you a few weeks ago? Your rumor-mongering (and Fred Schoeffler’s rumor-mongering) just makes a bad situation already worse.
As to Dudley’s statement, Dudley said they could not find anyone to verify the rumors! That proves the OPPOSITE of what you are trying to allege. Geepers.
Your sources have already let you down – they claimed Brendan was deposed back in August or October or some such, which was totally wrong. They claimed that ADOSH was sniffing around – totally wrong. They claimed that there was video of an argument – totally wrong. Your sources – which apparently seem to largely focus on Fred Schoeffler – are unreliable, so I am baffled that you keep trying to suggest that your sources are reliable. Surely you took Mrs. Pfingston’s admonishment to you to heart? She made clear that your rumor-mongering is HURTFUL. At least try to rein in your rumors until you get better intel, Bob.
Reply to Elizabeth (cousnelor) post on March 26, 2015 at 9:03 am
>> counselor said…
>>
>> Get your facts straight.
>>
>> It was the state of Arizona that was so overly eager to
>> get Brendan deposed, and, as I understand it, it was
>> because of the RUMORS that guys like Fred Schoeffler
>> and you are spreading.
Once again, counselor… you are deluding YOURSELF ( and continually trying to delude others ).
Please stop it.
The Arizona Forestry lawyers made it perfectly clear to Judge Mosesso when they were asking him to SUBPOENA Brendan for the Feb. 26 under-oath deposition that whatever Brendan now wants to ‘get off his chest’ isn’t about what Granite Mountain had for lunch that day… and they received that information DIRECTLY from BOTH Prescott officials ( including the Prescott City Attorney John Paladini ) and from BRENDAN MCDONOUGH HIMSELF.
Do I have to repeat that for you?
FROM BRENDAN MCDONOUGH HIMSELF.
From ALJ Hearing document “2014_11 Updated 12.01.14.pdf”
Arizona Forestry attorney David A. Selden talking DIRECTLY to
Judge Michael A. Mosesso…
———————————————————————-
Mr. McDonough has communicated, and confided would be an apt term for those communications, the he now wants to get off his chest the burden of additional information that was NOT elicited during his previous interviews about the Yarnell Hill Fire.
———————————————————————-
Keyphrase: “NOT elicited during his previous interviews”.
Brendan KNOWS he was never even ‘asked’ all the right questions and he now wants to report about what ELSE he knows.
What part of that don’t YOU get?
And since you are obviously not ‘up to speed’ on your own ‘facts’ with regards to what else is now in ‘black and white’ in the ALJ Hearing File documents… here again is what you need to read…
Once again.. Arizona Forestry lawyer David A. Selden speaking directly to ALJ Hearing Judge Michael A. Mosesso…
———————————————————————-
Section III. MR. MCDONOUGH POSSESS RELEVANT INFORMATION THAT SHOULD BE PART OF THE RECORD OF THIS CASE
As the designated lookout for the GMIHC crew, Mr. McDonough was in radio communication with the crew. The interviews in this case conducted by ADOSH already confirm that he discussed with his superior that the fire had reached the designated “trigger point” for him to evacuate his lookout location, that his superior’s observed the fire’s advance to his trigger point, and that his superiors were aware of his departure, as planned.
What is ADDITIONAL information, however, is that after his departure, Mr. McDonough heard on his radio, which was tuned to the GMIHC crew frequency, radio communications DURING the time period leading UP TO THE DEATHS of his 19 fellow GMIHC members.
That information could be very important because a CRITICAL issue in this case is WHY the GMIHC left the safety zone of thousands of acres of thoroughly burned area adjacent to where they had been working, referred to as “the black”, and walked through unburned, dry chaparra, in a boulder-strewn rough terrain, down a box canyon, towards a tiny island of a safety zone known as the Helms Ranch, on the outskirts of Yarnell and in the direction to which the fire was RAPIDLY advancing.
Information about the radio communications among the GMIHC crew DURING the time leading UP TO the tragic loss of the 19 crew members is NOT included in ADOSH’s transcripts of its recorded interview of Mr. McDonough.
Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) has received CREDIBLE information from RELIABLE sources, including a Prescott official in the presence of the Prescott City Attorney ( John Paladini ), that Mr. McDonough heard radio transmissions BETWEEN crew members about their tragic actions in leaving the safety of “the black” and heading TOWARDS the location at which they perished.
Mr. McDonough is believed to have information relating to the decisions made by GMIHC to move FROM the “black”… TO the box canyon that ultimately became their deployment site.
It is EXPECTED that Mr. McDonough will testify as to events that place involving GMIHC on the afternoon of June 30, 2013, SPECIFICALLY during the timeframe that GMIHC moved FROM the “black” towards Helms Ranch, and MOMENTS PRIOR to GMIHC’s deployment of shelters.
It is ALSO EXPECTED that Mr. McDonough will testify as to the WHEREABOUTS of Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed, and the other crewmembers of GMIHC on the afternoon of June 30, 2013, as well as RADIO communications BETWEEN the later Eric Marsh and the late Jesse Steed, DURING the move FROM the “black” and MOMENTS BEFORE deployment.
———————————————————————–
Elizabeth you are full of shit.
First there was no rumors listed in the piece that Debora was upset with.
Saying Marsh Ordered the crew to the Ranch was based on the information we have and WHO WAS INCHARGE of the Crew MARSH.
Steed did what he was told— MY CONCLUSION. Biased on information I have been Given, Understand and know from experiance…
I will admit to my miss statement on ADOSH should have been State.
If the Lawyers of the State are listening to Rumors then they are a purity piss pore lot. I would suggest they know exactly what they are doing.
The Deposition did not occur but it was scheduled no one but the Lawyers knew that for some time. So no I was not wrong I said McDonough was scheduled for a deposition I had no idea when
nor that it was canceled until we found out later.
I will stand by the Video and the statement of a person on the fire that herd the argument and provided written statement.
I have my proof and reasons to believe my source.
I have been more correct than you and yours.
As to Dudley and SAIT did not want to add any thing that put a Lawsuit in the forefront on any one on the fire that was there assignment.
NO ONE DID ANY THING WRONG……….
Any thing herd over the radio by certain people cold not be verified and
when it showed some blame or bad decisions on some person the common answer was— it was rumor which could not be verified.
Dudley should never have dropped that info if it was what he said then he must have had a reason to bring it up.
Again I have never said the information I have is solid facts until the persons who know and have it speak up its still Hearsay but has validity.
The Facts are laid out you need to read them instead of attacking every one who disagrees with you………..
I will also say as a survivor of a fire fighter killed in action I have a little more leeway to say what I feel and see in this Fatality or any other.
You lack the authority or right to tell me any thing else Those that want the truth no matter how bad need to be open to the reality even if it hurts.
And do not think that the loss of 19 WILD LAND FIRE FIGHTERS doesn’t hurt me. I have shed a few tears and know it did not need to happen.
Well…maybe having my wife cut up in little pieces in my freezer may not have been the best analogy, but the point that I was trying to make is this…I thought the primary reason people were justifying Brendan hiding behind an attorney is because he may possibly have some criminal liability or exposure in how he has answered questions up until now? And my analogy, however poor, attempts to address that concern…criminal liability and exposure.
And on a side note, I think it is reasonable to conclude due to WTKTT’s analysis of the various investigations and their respective powers below, there is no logical reason for Brendan to have any fear of criminal prosecution and Mr. Shapiro is simply a distraction and an unnecessary impediment to discovering why the Granite Mountain Hotshots made the inexplicable decisions that led directly to their deaths. And therefore, I must conclude that Mr. McDonough must be gaming the system and Mr. Shapiro is trying to enhance his own reputation while defending a witness who does not need to be defended in a local but high profile case.
If on the other hand, Brendan has retained a criminal defense attorney pro bono or not, to simply help him word smith his statements to comply with some very narrow and over lawyered statement instead of simply wanting to help find out why his crew is dead, well then…I have an even lower opinion of our hapless hero than I did before, if that were to be the case, Brendan McDonough would be a disgrace to the memory of his dead crew.
On another side note pertaining to your earlier example that a side conversation between Willis and Marsh could not have happened because the Blue Ridge Hotshots who were in the Granite Mountain Hotshot vehicles did not hear it (assuming your information is correct and that is a big assumption) the vehicles would have to be running or the ignition would at least have to be in the “accessory” mode or the radios would not be functioning.
And then the Blue Ridge Hotshots would have to have enough idle curiosity to want to know what Willis and Marsh had to talk about on an unused frequency to toggle to that frequency when neither Willis or Marsh meant squat to the Blue Ridge Hotshots and they had their own radios, problems and command structure to listen to and worry about, so none of your Blue Ridge Hotshot didn’t hear it so that means it didn’t happen noise is…relevant. I’m sorry, but that dog don’t hunt.
Gee…maybe you should be representing McDonough or at least be retained as his nurse maid. I’m sorry…was that last comment sexist?
How about you offer another logical explanation as to why the Granite Mountain Hotshots deliberately hiked directly in front of a fierce wind driven fire storm that was doing exactly what it was predicted to do, exactly when it was predicted to do it, several hours earlier and anybody with eyes or a lick of common sense could see that thunder cell coming directly at the Yarnell Hill Fire from the northeast for hours before it caused the winds to reverse direction and the shit to hit fan? They didn’t have to be FBAN qualified to see what was about to happen and stay the hell out of the way!
And as long as I am at it, I will add one more thing. I don’t accept that Mr. McDonough needs to get something off his chest because the investigators didn’t ask him the right questions in the right way.. How about the investigators saying something like;
1. Tell me everything you know about what happened pertaining to the GMHS on the Yarnell Hill Fire.
2. Don’t tell me what you want me to know, or what you think I need to know, or what you think is important for me to know, you just tell me everything you know, and as the investigator, I will sort through it and decide what is relevant to my investigation and what is not. I don’t want or need you to filter it for me.
3. And now based on what you have said up to this point, I have some follow up and more specific questions for you.
4. And that we are done with all of that, I want you to take a minute and think about anything else you know, or even think you know, or can speculate about what happened and let’s talk about that for awhile.
And even if the investigators didn’t ask the right questions is the right way, how bout Mr. McDonough just be a good citizen and offer all of the information he has in the interest of finding out why the hell his crew is dead without playing any games with his legal counsel?
I hear ya, Gary… but it remains one of the most ASTOUNDING aspects of this whole melodrama that NONE of the “Investigations 101” guidelines you aptly outline above were followed… by ANYONE.
We still have NO IDEA how the SAIT interview went.
There is no transcript or audio from THAT ( first ) interview of McDonough.
The ‘interview notes’ that surfaced probably bear no resemblance to what actually transpired in THAT ( first ) interview.
Example: The final SAIR report said exactly this about what McDonough actually HEARD that afternoon…
From page 24 of the SAIR document…
————————————————————-
BR Supt drops GM Lookout off at the Granite Mountain IHC Supt truck at about 1555 and then heads around the corner to get some of his crew to help move the Granite Mountain crew carriers. On the Granite Mountain intra-crew frequency, GM Lookout hears DIVS A and GM Capt talking about their options, whether to stay in the black or to come up with a plan to move.
————————————————————–
There is NOTHING ( Zero. Zip. Nada ) in the actual SAIT ‘interview notes’ that indicates where in the hell this is coming from. We can only ASSUME it is coming from their ‘interview’ with Brendan McDonough.
There has also NEVER been an explanation why that statement appears in the SAIR… but then not ONE WORD is then added about what the RESULT of that ‘discussing their options’ conversation was ( which Brendan HEARD ).
Brendan has also ( even given many, many opportunities to do so ) that this statement in the SAIR document was in any way FALSE or MISLEADING.
Astoundingly… when ADOSH got Brendan into the room ( TWICE )… they never once even ASKED him about even this published statement in the SAIR… and whether it was TRUE, or not.
They really didn’t.
During Brendan’s SECOND ADOSH interview… they actually had BOTH of Christopher MacKenzie’s little 9 second video clips loaded onto an iPhone and they PLAYED both of those clips for him right in the interview.
ADOSH just wanted Brendan to verify WHO was actually speaking in those 9 second video clips taken at the ‘rest spot’.
Brendan CONFIRMED it was Eric Marsh ( on the radio, with modulation ) speaking to Jesse Steed ( in the foreground, no modulation ).
But then that was IT.
Incredibly… the ADOSH investigators just ‘moved on’ and didn’t even ask Brendan…
“Did you hear the REST of that particular conversation at that time?”
Unbelievable.
In the “Arizona vs.ADSOH” ALJ Hearing file documents that are now PUBLIC… we can also see the Arizona Forestry lawyers themselves telling Judge Moseso that one of the reasons it is so important to get McDonough ‘into a room’ and ‘under oath’ now is BECAUSE all of the previous interviews were a complete botch-job and no one ‘asked the right questions’.
It is perfectly OBVIOUS now that Brendan McDonough walked into all those interviews with his OWN Agenda. The last thing he was going to do ( and the worst thing he could have done ) was tell an outright LIE… be he was determined to ONLY answer DIRECT questions and not VOLUNTEER any information.
Whether he was ADVISED to conduct himself in that manner or not is irrelevant. He was a grown man DECIDING to just “appear to be cooperative but don’t volunteer anything”.
Unbelievable as it seems… it’s a fact… and tt’s all just ‘part of the story’ now.
The ‘investigations’ themselves were basically a joke… but nobody’s laughing.
There are STILL questions to be asked/answered that have never even been asked… and I’m not just talking about McDonough, either.
Well OK then…that pretty well sums it up then and I guess Elizabeth and I are just going to have to agree to disagree on how forthcoming Mr. McDonough has been.
I would also like to reemphasize one point you make above. Mr. McDonough is not a child who needs protecting as Elizabeth has repeatedly suggested.
1. He has fathered a child.
2. He has a felony criminal history, not as a juevenile…as an adult.
3. In my opinion, he is not a “private person,” he started crossing into the realm of a “public figure” when he took on the role as a spokesperson for the Granite Mountain Hotshots and the Yarnell Hill Fire Tragedy.
4. He was old enough to hire a criminal defense attorney to stand between him and the public’s right to know. So he is old enough to defend that decision and take the criticism for making it.
5. And nobody should forget, the taxpayers are picking up the tab for everything, the cost of the fire, the cost of the firefighters benefits, the investigation, the fines they pay and the arguments why they shouldn’t pay the fines on both sides, all of the reports, the studies, Darrell Willis double dipping (See note below), now that retiring a second time, maybe they can rehire him again and he can triple dip, the salaries of the lawyers on both sides of the argument, the courtrooms and support staff, the judges, the rooms where the depositions are held, the court reporter that keeps the record of what is said, the salaries of ADOSH, Arizona State Forestry, the SAIT, and all of the other PUBLIC SERVANTS involved at any level in this mess from day one, the claims by the citizens of Yarnell – to either pay them or defend against them, it just goes on, and on and on and will go on for many more decades to come…so I don’t really like to hear that I, we, you, all of us…don’t have standing in this case.
Note Below: If double dipping was a good idea for the taxpayers…the federal government would be all over it and it would be SOP. But it’s not a good idea for the taxpayer and the federal government is prohibited by federal law from engaging in the practice.This practice is done by state and local municipalities exclusively and it only benefits the bosses. The practice encourages people to retire…start collecting generous retirement benefits and then get rehired by their buddies at their old salaries to do their old jobs, or they shuffle each other around in a musical chair scenario like we have seen done with Willis. This practice does not extend to the grunt firemen, it only works for those who are in power and have influence, they wash each others backsides while screwing the taxpayer. Why do you think the State of California is perpetually on the verge going down the toilet.
HEY EVERYBODY – I HAVE A NOVEL IDEA! How about having some adult say…like the Governor of Arizona or some Special Assistant to the Governor step in a slap the shit out all of the attorneys for both STATE OF ARIZONA agencies, ADOSH and the Arizona State Forestry Division for playing stinky finger with each other for so long…order them give up on their pissing contest to see which side can waste the most taxpayer money on their bullshit arguing and CALL IT A DRAW and settle.
“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US.”
ADOSH did its job in the time that was alloted for them to do it. Before they were even done interviewing people… they pretty much had all the evidence they needed to actually ‘peg the meter’ on the MAXIMUM amount of FINES they were even legally allowed to impose on Arizona Forestry.
It was also not their job to fully ‘investigate the fatalities’. It was only their job to evaluate the ‘workplace’ and whether or not it met the criteria for ‘unnecessarily unsafe’ and/or posing an ‘undue risk of death or injury’ to the employees.
They did that.
They found clear evidence of at least FOUR ‘entrapment’ situations that day in the same frickin’ workplace ( three potential and one actual ).
1. Willis’ forces at the Double-Bar-A Ranch.
2. Gary Cordes’ forces out in Harper Canyon.
3. Brendan McDonough’s situation and near deployment.
4. The Granite Mountain entrapment and deaths.
ADOSH was going to ‘cite’ for all FOUR… but they decided to just go for the one general ‘totally unsafe workplace’ citation since they were still limited as the maximum fines they could impose.
ADOSH actually never really even FINISHED their investigation or all their interviews. Once they ‘pegged the meter’ on the citations and the fines… they pretty much called it a day. They didn’t even call some people back for ‘clarification’ interviews like they wanted to.
It was Arizona Forestry that then decided to challenge ALL of the findings. They want them ALL to be ‘reversed’.
So away we go with burning the taxpayer dollars in the parking lot.
Also… make no mistake… the ‘hardball’ and the legal nit-picking we have seen already is just these guys getting WARMED UP. Wait until the mediations totally collapse and both the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” and the “wrongful death” lawsuits are headed for ( respectively ) a “full hearing” and a “full trial”.
You ain’t seen nuthin’ yet when it comes to what the laywers have been trained to do. They can choke a whole stable full of horses with the motions and the paperwork that is going to get generated.
It will take them 6 motions and rebuttals and 3 weeks to even decide if there should be ice-water and glasses in the courtroom.
Do you remember the 30Mile Fire and Ellreese Daniels?
And do you HONESTLY fail to understand why Brendan – who is just a kid – is apparently a bit unnerved?
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post
on March 26, 2015 at 6:29 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> Brendan – who is just a kid
He is NOT ‘just a kid”.. and it’s really incredibly patronizing ( and INSULTING ) for you to keep referring to him as such.
**
** ARIZONA FORESTRY LAWYERS ARE THE ONES WHO FIRST HEARD THAT
** BRENDAN MCDONOUGH WAS NOT GOING TO APPEAR FOR HIS SECOND
** PRE-SCHEDULED UNDER-OATH DEPOSITION
There is still no full explanation (yet) WHY Brendan McDonough didn’t appear for his SECOND pre-scheduled deposition… but we know NOW who first heard that it wasn’t gonna happen.
I actually MISSED this when first reading that latest ALJ Hearing document.
Direct link to the latest ALJ Hearing file document named “2015_03 Updated 03.23.15.pdf”…
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6N47Z5CNR-CWS1nbDFLRmRaQkk/edit?pli=1
Once again… here is ADOSH telling Judge Mosesso that one of the reasons they were so busy in February and fell behind on this divisive ‘Privilege Log’ exchange thing with Arizona Forestry is because they had to do a lot of work to get ‘ready’ for the pre-scheduled February 26th deposition of Brendan McDonough, and their ‘cross-examination’ of him…
…but this time… notice the FOOTNOTE (1) reference that appears in the document right after McDonough’s name…
——————————————————————————
Fourth, ADOSH’s counsel anticipated that it would be able to provide a privelege log to Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) by February 17, 2015, following its then-lead counsel’s return from a three week overseas trip. However, ADOSH’s counsel was not able to do so due to the superseding need to draft a comprehensive mediation brief by the mediator’s February 23, 2015 deadline, and to prepare for the February 26, 2015 deposition of Brendan McDonough (1).
——————————————————————————
At the bottom of the page is the following FOOTNOTE (1) regarding McDonough…
(1) Respondent’s ( Arizona Forestry’s ) counsel did NOT inform ADOSH’s counsel until a few days before the scheduled deposition that it was NOT going forward.
So we STILL don’t know WHY Brendan’s under-oath deposition was called off ( for the SECOND time )… but we now DO know that it was Arizona Forestry’s lawyers that first knew it wasn’t going to happen ( at least a few days beforehand )… and it was Arizona Forestry that then just ‘informed’ ADOSH the McDonough Feb. 26 deposition was now a ‘no go’.
It is still HIGHLY unlikely that the Arizona Forestry lawyers themselves would have been the ones to decide ( just a few days beforehand ) that it wasn’t going to happen, since they are the ones who were telling Judge Mosesso they were so desperate to make SURE it happened they wanted the Judge to subpoena Brendan. The Judge REFUSED their request to do that.
That really just leaves the scenario where Brendan’s own criminal defense attorney ( David Shapiro ) picked up the phone and called Arizona Forestry directly just days before the deposition and TOLD them…
“…sorry… it ain’t gonna happen”.
The reason we are NOT seeing any EXPLANATION in these documents to Judge Mosesso about WHY it didn’t happen ( and the Judge has every right to KNOW ) could very well be that Shapiro himself didn’t even GIVE them a reason.
He may have just said “Myself and my client won’t be there on February 26” and left it at that.
More to come on this, I’m sure.
**
** ANOTHER ‘THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS’ CROSSFADE VIDEO
**
** ABC15 HELICOPTER 5HD ( FIVE HOTEL DELTA )
**
** CLIP 18 FROM ABC15 RAW AERIAL FOOTAGE
Here is another important ‘through the looking glass’ style video based on one of the ABC15 Helicopter raw footage clips from the Yarnell Hill Fire, taken Sunday afternoon, June 30, 2013.
It is one of the only video clips in that ABC15 raw footage where the Helicopter was on the NORTH side of the fire and filming to the SOUTH with a wide enough view to include the fire activity out in that ‘middle bowl’ and near the box canyon.
I will post a link to that actual PUBLIC ABC15 ‘raw footage’ on YouTube where this clip came from as a ‘Reply’ to this message.
This particular ‘clip’ would the the 18th sequential video clip in that ‘raw footage’ ( out of 35 individual video clips ) and it sits at exactly +1:57 to +2:03 in the full ABC15 ‘raw footage’ video.
I believe this video clip actually shows the specific fireline that would end up killing the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
As with the other ‘through the looking glass’ renderings, this video clip will play a few times, then PAUSE, and then begin a series of ‘crossfades’ into the exact equivalent ‘Google Earth’ three dimensional view(s).
This video is a bit longer than some of the others ( about 9 minutes ) because it actually does TWO different ‘crossfades’ from the ABC15 aerial footage down into ‘Google Earth’ imagery.
The FIRST crossfade is for the overall ‘wide’ view that matches the actual ABC15 video footage. The ABC15 Helicopter was at its assigned altitude of about 9,500 feet and was hovering at a point almost directly above the EAST side of the town of Peeples Valley when this clip was shot. The camera was facing SOUTH.
The SECOND crossfade specifically focuses on the part of the video clip in the upper-right corner that captured the area where the box canyon is located.
In both cases… as the video cross-fades from the actual ABC15 footage into the equivalent ‘Google Earth’ view… the actual ( visible ) FIRE seen in the video clip has been reproduced on the ‘ground’ in ‘Google Earth’, appearing as ‘orange firelines’.
I spent a lot of time on this one and I can assure you that while probably not perfect, the ‘accuracy’ is at a ‘high level’. The position(s) of the actual FLAMES as mapped onto ‘Google Earth’ are no more than ( at worst ) a few hundred feet off what was actually happening when this video was taken.
** HUGE CAVEAT
By looking ( in the ABC15 video footage ) at the actual ‘visible’ flames, the ‘partially visible’ flames, the ‘glow’ beneath some of the smoke, and the massive smoke activity out ahead of even the ‘visible’ flames in the video… probably a LOT could be ‘inferred’ about what is going on there UNDER the smoke…
…but I am NOT going to do that.
This ‘crossfade’ analysis focuses ONLY on the OBVIOUSLY VISIBLE FLAME(S) in this particular ABC15 Helicopter video footage.
So when the ‘Google Earth’ imagery appears… just remember that there was even MORE FIRE out there near Yarnell and in the ‘middle bowl’, but the ‘orange lines’ you will see in this ‘Google Earth’ analysis ONLY represent FIRE that can actually be CLEARLY SEEN in the ABC15 video footage itself.
** FLY-AROUND
After the SECOND cross-fade with the focus on the box canyon area completes, the video will ‘pull back’ in the ‘Google Earth’ version to another wide-view and then start a FLY-AROUND towards the box canyon.
The FLY-AROUND will stop near the ‘Lookout Mound’ location, then proceed up the ridge to where the ‘MacKenzie Photos and Videos’ were taken, then it will FLY-DOWN the route the men took south and into the box canyon.
Once there… some DISTANCE markers will appear showing how close the fire was to the mouth of the box canyon when the ABC15 video was taken. It was only 905 yards from the mouth of the box canyon at that point and still heading SOUTH and right AT that mouth of the box canyon.
The actual deployment site was then only another 468 yards WEST of the mouth of the box canyon.
The video will then FLY-DOWN to the deployment site itself to illustrate how ‘blind’ the Granite Mountain Hotshots really were to even what is shown happening in the ABC15 aerial footage.
After that… the video simply ‘reverses’ and revisits the MacKenzie location and the Lookout mound area with the ‘projected fire path’ still visible on the ground.
It will then return to the original ABC15 raw footage perspective and ‘crossfade’ back into the actual video footage again before ENDING.
At all times during these ‘FLY-AROUNDS’ and ‘FLY-DOWNS’… the ‘orange firelines’ on the Google Earth imagery will be matching the FIRE that can be CLEARLY SEEN in the ABC15 aerial footage.
NOTE: The ‘Google Earth’ satellite imagery used for this video is dated April, 2013, just 2 months before the actual Yarnell Hill fire. It shows the ‘fuel’ that was there for the fire to consume on June 30, 2013.
** THE NEW VIDEO
Here is a DIRECT link to the new YouTube ‘crossfade’ video…
YouTube Video Title: ABC15-clip-18-crossfade
http://youtu.be/NSYpnPMfPmc
** OTHER INFORMATION
**
** DISTANCES / TIME / FIRE SPEED
As shown in the video… the approximates ‘distances’ from the actual flames seen in the ABC15 footage to certain critical ‘points’ on the ground are as follows…
Distance from visible fireline to mouth of the box canyon: 2,714 ft. / 905 yds.
Distance from the mouth of the box canyon to deployment site: 1,403 ft. / 468 yds.
Based on varying (possible) SPEEDS of the fireline itself, here are the accompanying TIME estimates for it to cover those known ‘distances’…
* From Fireline location seen in video to the mouth of the box canyon…
2,714 feet / 905 yards.
01 mph = 30 minutes and 51.13 seconds.
02 mph = 15 minutes and 25.56 seconds.
03 mph = 10 minutes and 17.04 seconds.
04 mph = 07 minutes and 42.78 seconds.
05 mph = 06 minutes and 10.22 seconds.
06 mph = 05 minutes and 08.52 seconds.
07 mph = 04 minutes and 24.44 seconds.
08 mph = 03 minutes and 51.39 seconds.
09 mph = 03 minutes and 25.68 seconds.
10 mph = 03 minutes and 05.11 seconds.
11 mph = 02 minutes and 48.28 seconds.
12 mph = 02 minutes and 34.26 seconds.
13 mph = 02 minutes and 22.39 seconds.
14 mph = 02 minutes and 12.22 seconds.
15 mph = 02 minutes and 03.40 seconds.
16 mph = 01 minute and 55.69 seconds.
* From the mouth of the box canyon to the deployment site…
1,403 feet / 468 yards.
01 mph = 15 minutes and 57.27 seconds.
02 mph = 07 minutes and 58.63 seconds.
03 mph = 05 minutes and 19.09 seconds.
04 mph = 03 minutes and 59.31 seconds.
05 mph = 03 minutes and 11.45 seconds.
06 mph = 02 minutes and 39.54 seconds.
07 mph = 02 minutes and 16.75 seconds.
08 mph = 01 minute and 59.65 seconds.
09 mph = 01 minute and 46.36 seconds.
10 mph = 01 minute and 35.72 seconds.
11 mph = 01 minute and 27.02 seconds.
12 mph = 01 minute and 19.77 seconds.
13 mph = 01 minute and 13.63 seconds.
14 mph = 01 minute and 08.37 seconds.
15 mph = 01 minute and 03.81 seconds.
16 mph = 59.82 seconds.
** TOTAL DISTANCE
The total distance from where the fireline is seen in the ABC15 video all the way to the deployment site ( including the right-hand turn it would have made once appearing at the mouth of the box canyon and subjected to the ‘drafting’ that most certainly took place ) would be…
905 yards + 468 yards = 1,373 yards.
Assuming a constant speed for the entire distance ( not actually likely but just for the sake of making a timetable ) here are the times for the fire covering that full distance at various MPH values…
1,373 yards.
01 mph = 46 minutes and 48.40 seconds.
02 mph = 23 minutes and 24.20 seconds.
03 mph = 15 minutes and 36.13 seconds.
04 mph = 11 minutes and 42.10 seconds.
05 mph = 09 minutes and 21.68 seconds.
06 mph = 07 minutes and 48.06 seconds.
07 mph = 06 minutes and 41.20 seconds.
08 mph = 05 minutes and 51.05 seconds.
09 mph = 05 minutes and 12.04 seconds.
10 mph = 04 minutes and 40.84 seconds.
11 mph = 04 minutes and 15.30 seconds.
12 mph = 03 minutes and 54.03 seconds.
13 mph = 03 minutes and 36.03 seconds.
14 mph = 03 minutes and 20.60 seconds.
15 mph = 03 minutes and 07.22 seconds.
16 mph = 02 minutes and 55.52 seconds.
Followup… here is a link to that PUBLIC copy of the original ABC15 aerial footage from which the clip analyzed above was taken…
** ORIGINAL ABC15 RAW AERIAL FOOTAGE
YouTube Video Title: ‘VIDEO: Yarnell Hill wildfire”
Posted to YouTube User Account: “ABC15 Arizona”
YouTube Video Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jx_ZUKfjcc
About:
Published on Jun 30, 2013
By Sunday evening half the structures in Yarnell had been destroyed.
There are 35 separate pieces of aerial footage shown in this video.
Video duration: 4 minutes and 12 seconds.
The 18th sequential clip in this video is the 6 seconds at +1:57 to +2:03
At a 12 MPH wind Not many could out run that.
The Fire feed video was very interesting to see the fire past the old grader.
my bet is it moved up the hill and pulled the fire below with it which ended up in front of GM and I have no doubt that it was above them as well. This was a no survival situation in that canyon. How did they not see that smoke laying over them??????
Bob, it wasn’t laying over them until it was too late, at least according to the 4:29 p.m. picture and then the 4:35 p.m. one.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on March 25, 2015 at 6:13 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> Bob, it wasn’t laying over them until it was too late,
>> at least according to the 4:29 p.m. picture and then
>> the 4:35 p.m. one.
Once again, counselor… you seem to only be able to speak in ‘riddles’.
WHICH PHOTOGRAPHS are you referring to?
At 1630 that gave them 20 min. to do something besides walk into the mouth of the dragon. If your facts are right.
Which Photographs??????????????
WTKTT, you actually DISCUSSED those exact photos a number of months ago. Pull out your timeline, and pull out the photos from 4:29 until 4:35 (you should have under a dozen of them). There is one at 4:29 and one at 4:35 – you actually discussed them here. If I had the link or the identifier, I would provide them, but I am pretty sure there is only one (or two) taken at exactly 4:29 p.m. Sheesh.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post
at March 26, 2015 at 6:48 am
>> counselor said…
>>
>> WTKTT, you actually DISCUSSED those exact
>> photos a number of months ago. Pull out your
>> timeline, and pull out the photos from 4:29 until
>> 4:35 (you should have under a dozen of them).
>> There is one at 4:29 and one at 4:35 – you
>> actually discussed them here. If I had the
>> link or the identifier, I would provide them, but
>> I am pretty sure there is only one (or two)
>> taken at exactly 4:29 p.m. Sheesh.
Oh… so now I’m supposed to do YOUR homework for you?
You absolutely slay me, counselor.
Of COURSE there are MULTIPLE photographs in the timeframes you mention… but in your usual ‘riddle speak’ you refuse to be specific.
I was asking YOU to tell me WHICH of the photos YOU are referencing. Give me FILENAMES.
It sounds like even YOU aren’t even SURE what photographs you are referring to when making your points.
So… you think I should have ‘under a dozen’ of them?
That’s as close as you can get?
What are you suggesting now… that I go look through everything and come back saying…
Is it this one?
Is it that one?
or is it this one?
You must drive the people you work with absolutely crazy as they continually ‘hold your hand’ and try to deal with your incomplete thoughts and ‘riddle speak’.
Once again… simple task for YOU…
Tell me ( us ) EXACTLY which TWO photographs you were referencing above.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 25, 2015 at 5:48 pm
>> Bob Powers said.
>>
>> At a 12 MPH wind Not many could out run that.
Nope.
As of 2014, the fastest foot speed on record is 27.44 miles per hour set by sprinter Usain Bolt… and that was only for 100 meters ( 328.084 feet ).
The AVERAGE human can run at the speed of 15 miles per hour… but again… only for a VERY short period of time. ( Like SECONDS, not MINUTES ).
The SAIR document is the one that first put out that ’12 miles per hour’ travel rate for the fire itself… but it was ONLY ever mentioned in just TWO sentences in that document and was it was NEVER really made clear where that ‘calculation’ was actually coming from.
But people seemed to ‘glom’ onto that ’12 mph’ number, anyway, and treated it like it was some absolutely-must-be-true-scientific-determination.
In reality… it was just a frickin’ GUESS.
This ’12 mph’ thing was only mentioned in the SAIR in two single sentences on PDF pages 37 and 84.
Page 84 ( in the ‘Fire Behavior’ section )…
——————————————————————
Fire behavior estimates for the deployment site is a rate-of-spread of 10 to 12 miles per hour with flame lengths of 60 to 80 feet.
——————————————————————
Page 37 ( in the actual SUMMARY for the entire report )…
——————————————————————
The fire’s extreme speed of 10 to 12 miles per hour eliminated any opportunity for the crew to reach the safety zone or return up to the canyon rim.
——————————————————————
At NO TIME is any real ‘explanation’ offered as to how that rate of speed was actually determined… except for just some vague suggestion that if they only had 2 minutes from the MAYDAY call to deployment… then the fire MUST have been at the mouth of the canyon when they made the MAYDAY call so it MUST have then covered the 468 yards in about 2 minutes ( Hence, 10 – 12 mph ).
WAAAY too many ‘assumptions’ in even just that vague indication where the SAIT was getting that number from.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> The Fire feed video was very interesting to see the fire past
>> the old grader. my bet is it moved up the hill and pulled
>> the fire below with it
Yes. Can’t forget about ‘in-drafting’ and what that can do.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> which ended up in front of GM and I have no doubt that
>> it was above them as well. This was a no survival situation
>> in that canyon.
>>
>> How did they not see that smoke laying over them??????
There really ARE times when it seems like this was NOT some ‘elite’ Hotshot crew out there that day… but more like a bunch of bird-watching tourists out for a hike who had never been near a fire before… or something like that.
Even though they were stupid enough to NOT set a ‘lookout’ to keep an eye on what THEY, themselves, could NOT see… you would think these would be people who could look UP and ‘infer’ ( from their supposed ‘experience’ ) what was actually happening out there ahead of them just from the SIZE of that smoke plume ( as seen clearly in all the videos… ABC15 footage included ).
It’s still a mystery WHY they just…. kept… going.
Right to their deaths.
Like they’d never been near a dangerous fire before and had no idea what COULD happen. Of ALL people… they should have ( known ).
Nice work, WTKTT.
I noticed something in looking at this that could be potentially significant. There has previously been some speculation about this, but this video appears to increase that likelihood.
Specifically, the location of the fire line, along with the wind, terrain and slope alignment at this moment in time, appears to show, that it would be likely that as the fire was pushing hard towards the bottom corner of the deployment bowl, it would ALSO have been coming around and pushing hard towards the top of the ridge behind the crew.
IMHO, this video provides more evidence that when the crew first saw the wall of flame in front of them, if they had turned around and looked up the slope towards the two-track, they would have seen either, the fire already there, or most certainly, evidence that it was almost there.
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive ( TTWARE ) post
on March 25, 2015 at 9:42 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> IMHO, this video provides more evidence that when the crew first
>> saw the wall of flame in front of them, if they had turned around
>> and looked up the slope towards the two-track, they would have
>> seen either, the fire already there, or most certainly, evidence
>> that it was almost there.
Yes. I agree that this new ‘look-through’ provides more evidence that that *could* have been the case.
However… I think it’s worth pointing out something here.
This ABC15 video also shows that those two ‘mounds/features’ that have always been sitting out there in that ‘middle bowl’ might have come more into ‘play’ that afternoon than also previously thought.
There doesn’t appear to be any actual ( local ) NAME for those two ‘mounds’ so we have always just been calling them ( for lack of any better names ) “Big Roundtop” and “Little Roundtop”. These TWO mounds sit side-by-side out there, and one of them IS larger than the other.
“Little Roundtop” was closer to the mouth of the box canyon than “Big Roundtop”.
The two-track that comes up from the old-grader to that ‘T’ intersection on the high-ridge two-track runs right along the western BASE of “Big Roundtop”.
The ABC15 aerial footage shows that the fire line had already sort of ‘come around’ the “Little Roundtop” mound and was now down ‘in the flats’ and headed straight for the mouth of the box canyon… but it was still sort of ‘climbing up” the “Big Roundtop” feature at the same moment.
It looks as if the fire was just close to ‘cresting’ the “Big Roundtop” mound… but DID already extend down the western side of it and down to the ‘old-grader’ area.
So what is worth pointing out here is that the fireline that would have then been headed up towards the ridge ( and the ‘Descent Point’ / Saddle area ) was actually FARTHER away from that point than the other fireline was from the mouth of the box canyon.
There seem to be TWO possibilities here…
1) The fireline that was about to CREST the “Big Roundtop” feature would have then roared down the western side of that mound, and straight up that drainage to the ‘Descent Point’ area.
From the point where the fireline is seen at the TOP of the “Big Rountdtop”
mound to the first point up near the ‘Descent Point’ where the men down
in the box canyon would have been able to see actual FLAMES would be…
3,021 feet / 1,007 yards
2) The fireline that is seen at the BASE of the “Big Roundtop” mound and down near the old-grader just continued straight UP that drainage on a direct line towards the “Descent Point” area.
From the point where the fireline is seen at the BASE of the “Big Roundtop”
mound and straight up that ‘drainage’ ( which is actually mostly the path
that two-track takes coming UP from the old-grader ), to the first point
up near the ‘Descent Point’ where they would have been able to see
actual FLAMES would be…
3,448 feet / 1,149 yards.
So in BOTH cases.. the fire had MORE ground to cover to reach the “Descent Point” area than that other fireline that was already ‘passing by’ the “Little Roundtop” mound did to reach the mouth of the box canyon.
Not a HUGE ‘greater distance’ to travel… but certainly not CLOSER than the fireline that was headed SOUTH towards the mouth of the box canyon.
Could the fireline over there on “Big Roundtop” have ‘caught a draft’ in that drainage and significantly picked up speed versus the fireline that was passing by “Little Roundtop” and headed towards the mouth of the box canyon?
Of course.
I am the one who has ALWAYS been saying that what was reported in the SAIR about the Matt Oss videos taken from the ‘Congress’ side of the fire that day should NOT be completely trusted. The photo of the fire ‘cresting’ the high-ridge that was reprinted in the SAIR was suggesting that was the fire seen ‘cresting’ at the ‘Descent Point’ saddle itself.
That has NEVER been the case.
The photo in the SAIR was the fire ‘cresting’ the high-ridge at a point farther NORTH than the actual ‘Descent Point’.
The BOTTOM LINE here is that we KNOW the fire pretty much ‘crested’ at ALL points along that high ridge that afternoon… INCLUDING the exact area where that ‘Descent Point’ saddle was… but the question has always been WHEN did that actually happen.
The SAIT seemed SURE that the reason the men did not even attempt to ‘retreat’ is because they WERE seeing actual FIRE up there at the point where they started their descent at the SAME time they saw the fire at the mouth of the box canyon.
I would be the first one to say now that regardless of anything the Matt Oss videos may ( or may not ) show… this ABC15 aerial footage is more ‘evidence’ that that might be what actually happened that day.
Followup…
This is actually one of the reasons I decided to NOT speculate at all about even all that ‘orange glow’ ( under the smoke ) that can be seen in the ABC15 video footage.
I decided ( for the purposes of trying to be as accurate as possible with this ) to ONLY ‘map’ onto Google Earth the points/places where there is absolutely no question there were VISIBLE FLAMES.
Something else to keep in mind when watching this video, however, is that those ‘orange lines’ in the equivalent ‘Google Earth’ views do NOT even fully represent the HEIGHT of those CLEARLY visible flames. They were just an attempt to try and get the actual GROUND location(s) correct.
In truth… those FLAMES that are CLEARLY visible in the ABC15 footage must have been HUGE.
You have to remember, when looking at this ABC15 video clip, how FAR AWAY the chopper actually was from those “Big Roundtop” and “Little Roundtop” mounds.
From that visible bit of FIRE that is seen ‘passing by’ the “Little Roundtop” feature and headed straight for the mouth of the box canyon back NORTH to the point on the ground directly beneath where the ABC15 chopper was hovering was just short of FIVE MILES ( 4.983 miles ).
And the ABC15 Chopper was ALSO at its assigned altitude of 9.500 feet.
So if you consider that distance… and look again at those CLEARLY visible FLAMES down there near “Little Roundtop” and “Big Roundtop”… the actual FLAME LENGTHS/HEIGHTS at that point ‘down there’ must have been MASSIVE.
The fire wasn’t just ‘moving along’ to the SOUTH down there in that ‘middle bowl’… it was EXPLODING ( in that direction ).
One other thing to consider Topography the slope up the mountain verses across the flat would cause the fire at the little round top to move faster as the fuel is closer to the flame though further it would cover ground faster.
the upper fire could have been to the saddle before the fire reached the mouth of the canyon. Based on fire spread. and again my contention that the canyon truly exploded with area ignition. It happened so fast some of the crew never got into their shelters.
Why you never ever go into unburned canyons.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 25, 2015 at 5:59 pm
>> Bob Powers wrote…
>>
>> the upper fire could have been to the saddle before
>> the fire reached the mouth of the canyon.
It’s possible. See another post below where I responded to TTWARE about the same thing.
Everyone has always been just ASSUMING that first they saw the fire ahead of them ( coming into the canyon ), and then when they turned around, they saw fire back up at the saddle as well.
What it that’s now how it went down?
What if the fire appeared back up at the ‘Descent Point’ maybe full MINUTES before it ever appeared in FRONT of them?
What if THAT was the ‘freak-out’ moment which caused Eric Marsh to start ‘running back to them’ to try and help them hurry forward… not realizing that the fire was about to appear at the mouth of the canyon as well, and ‘cut off their escape route’ ( as he eventually reported on the radio ).
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Why you never ever go into unburned canyons.
What is astounding to me is that the ABC15 aerial footage is really just showing what was clearly ‘inevitable’ as early as 1550 in the ‘rest spot’ photos and videos.
There was that WESTERN HEAD to the fireline and it was moving SOUTH ( not EAST ) the whole time they were sitting there playing tourist and ‘watching’ it.
When they ‘gaggled up’ for their ‘walk in the fuel’… what in the hell did they think that WEST end of the fireline was going to do… just peter out and go away?
It didn’t.
As the ABC15 footage clearly shows… it just kept charging SOUTH right towards ( and around ) the “Big Roundtop” and “LIttle Roundtop” mounds, and eventually became the fire that would kill them dead in that canyon.
They STOOD THERE and were WATCHING that same fireline at 1550… ( and what it was already doing ) but they still decided to leave their location, anyway.
Unbelievable.
In addition to what Bob has stated above, as the fire crested the “round tops”, the elevation factor combined with the high winds, probably would have caused some significant spotting in the direction of the saddle,
That was one of the two things that led to my original comment.
The other thing was, that as the video started to pan, a nearly straight and unobstructed alignment came into view, proceeding from the farthest right edge of the visible fire (at the base of the “round-top”), and following a good bit of the two-track up from the look-out spot, and proceeding directly towards the saddle.
Perhaps others will bear me out on this, as well, but the winds on that alignment likely increased significantly, due to the funnel effect of being compressed between ’round top” and the ridge.
One or more of these factors likely caused an increased rate of spread as that portion of the fire moved towards the saddle.
Also very possible Spotting was a definite factor with the winds and the fuel conditions. The last 10 minuets of the run was flat moving
as the cloud of black smoke shows in some of the photos from the highway. The canyon and BSR got hit really hard with the flaming front
and then it ran out of fuel on the back side of the ridge.
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive ( TTWARE)
post on March 25, 2015 at 8:07 pm
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> In addition to what Bob has stated above, as the fire
>> crested the “round tops”, the elevation factor combined
>> with the high winds, probably would have caused some
>> significant spotting in the direction of the saddle,
Which is EXACTLY what was finally determined happened in the 1990 Dude Fire ( in Arizona ) when all those Perryville DOC crewmembers died.
The outflows hit so hard it caused the approaching fire to JUMP ACROSS a drainage and not even bother to take the time to go DOWN one slope and up the other.
>> TTWARE also said…
>>
>> As the video started to pan, a nearly straight and
>> unobstructed alignment came into view, proceeding
>> from the farthest right edge of the visible fire (at the
>> base of the “round-top”), and following a good bit
>> of the two-track up from the look-out spot, and
>> proceeding directly towards the saddle.
Yes. It’s unmistakable when looking at the situation via
Google Earth. If FIRE likes ‘drainages’ and the abundant fuel
supply that is usually in them… then that WEST side of the advancing fireline over there by “Big Round Top” must have been one happy camper as soon as it got past that old-grader.
NOTE: That’s also why I went back and re-did the crossfades using pre-fire imagery. The ‘alignment’ was noticeable and I wanted to see what it looked like BEFORE the fire, not AFTER.
>> TTWARE also said…
>>
>> Perhaps others will bear me out on this, as well, but
>> the winds on that alignment likely increased
>> significantly, due to the funnel effect of being
>> compressed between ’round top” and the ridge.
>>
>> One or more of these factors likely caused an
>> increased rate of spread as that portion of the
>> fire moved towards the saddle.
Once it started ‘taking off’ in that drainage… there is also an ‘in-flow’ factor that probably could have come into play as well… but I am certainly not qualified to expound on that.
The bottom line here is that there MIGHT actually be a ‘scenario’ here that hasn’t even been considered before.
What if the fire appeared back up at the TOP of the saddle even long BEFORE it appeared at the mouth of the canyon?
Everyone has been assuming that the men first saw the fire at the mouth of the box canyon… and then may have ‘considered’ retreating… but just as they were considering that the fire ALSO appeared back up at the saddle.
What if that is NOT how it happened?
What if they saw the fire back up at that saddle FIRST… and absolutely freaked out. That might have been the moment Eric Marsh heard them freaking out on the intra-crew and decided to run towards them with still no idea ( himself ) that the damn fire was about to ‘appear’ at the mouth of the box canyon as well.
I’m skipping over a lot of “Why wasn’t Eric Marsh aware of the entire situation if he was out ahead of them” questions right there, I know, but I don’t think that ‘scenario’ of the fire appearing BEHIND them ( up at the saddle ) well BEFORE they even saw it AHEAD of them has been discussed yet.
Jesse Steed yelling “We are in front of the flaming front” and then Marsh’s “Our escape route has been cut off” report both indicate awareness of the fireline that had rounded the corner at the mouth of the box canyon…
…but we know now that even in that first MAYDAY call the reason Jesse Steed was YELLING into the microphone was because there were ALREADY at least 2 chainsaws running full blast right there near him.
We still don’t know WHEN they realized the deep tapioca they had gotten themselves into.
It might have been MINUTES earlier… when they saw the fire flooding into the saddle BEHIND them… or even starting to come OVER the north side of the box canyon itself.
Either of these scenarios is very plausible, and with the photographic and video evidence that we can see here, I think that, at the very least. the fire reached the saddle at nearly the same time as it rounded the corner at the bottom
Whether the fire reached the top just before, the same moment, or just after, the lower fire entered the box canyon, really made no difference, because in any case, there would be a strong visual evidence to those below that the route above would no longer be tenable.
should have read: “there would have been strong visual evidence…”
Reply to The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive
(TTWARE) post on March 26, 2015 at 9:08 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> Either of these scenarios is very plausible,
>> and with the photographic and video evidence
>> that we can see here, I think that, at the very
>> least. the fire reached the saddle at nearly
>> the same time as it rounded the corner at
>> the bottom
I would now agree with that summation.
I think you can take that entire ‘Matt Oss’ video shot from the Congress side and throw it into the trash-can… and there is still now THIS photographic evidence to support the theory.
Something else to keep in mind…
That little red balloon with the ‘M’ on it in the Google Earth views in the recently posted video represents the actual location of that ‘rest spot’ where Christopher MacKenzie shot his photos and videos.
The entire area in FRONT of that red ‘M’ balloon marker was ALREADY BLACK.
So as the fire ‘caught’ in that drainage… the existing BLACK would have been CHANNELING it even more towards the SOUTH and towards the other unburned fuel over towards the ‘saddle area’.
That’s what ‘indirect firefighting’ itself means… and what ‘burnouts’ are for. They help to DIRECT the fire and make it ‘flow around’ things.
So that would be even just one more reason why that WEST end of the fireline swinging around “Bit Roundtop” might have ‘taken off’ in that drainage and ‘accelerated’ towards the ‘Descent Point’ saddle area.
>> TTWARE also said…
>>
>> Whether the fire reached the top just before,
>> the same moment, or just after, the lower fire
>> entered the box canyon, really made no
>> difference, because in any case, there would
>> be a strong visual evidence to those below
>> that the route above would no longer be tenable.
I would also agree with that.
I would now be firmly in the camp that says if they had any ‘drop packs and run’ option(s) at all… they did NOT include heading back up to the ‘Descent Point’.
Even if they had STARTED to do that… it would have probably been only SECONDS before the fire WOULD have become ‘visible’ back up there at the ‘Descent Point’.
WTKTT
On the fade video with the fire locations what exact time was that? I looked but could not find a time.
See a longer post about this up above.
** The short answer…
I don’t know. NONE of the ABC15 video clips on YouTube have an EXIF timestamp data in them.
** The long answer…
It’s possible to get CLOSE to the time for a variety of other reasons and my best guess on this 18th sequential clip out of the 35 ABC15 clips would be circa 4:20 PM.
That’s pretty much the exact same moment the SAIR said the men were just deciding to leave the two-track and drop into the box canyon.
Thank you WWTKTT. that video I need to see not on my cell so tiny yet very interested in minute marker three. what day and.time? I know exact location. For folks visiting Arizona this Spring…word on the street is who is lucky number seven for Sonny…met her onVegas strip…hoax….thr reception is April 4, 2015 Saturday at 6pm across from Yarnell memorial park/post office at the place saloon..a cash only bar…hope to see you there. Happy Spring.
In fact Brendan, tell you Mr. Shapiro you don’t need his help anymore, walk into the offices of the Prescott Daily Courier and tell them EVERYTHING what you know about what happened on the Yarnell Hill Fire and anything related to the fire that has happened since, and I will personally donate the first $1000.00 to a fund at a bank (overseen by an administrator) in your name to pay for you to go to Yavapai College and study Fire Science or a trade. Your community will stand behind you Brendan, you deserve a break. No one can deny you have really been through an awful lot and I know you need help, but not from people like Mr. Shapiro!
Reprinted From Below for Mr. Brendan McDonough
Well…it certainly sounds like it’s a good thing Mr. McDonough will have Mr. Shapiro by his side since that little you-know-what has been lying his ass off from day one and heaping shame upon his dead crew and himself. I for one, hope I don’t ever have to see that little you-know-what standing in front of an audience again and getting applause for;
1. Just being lucky enough to be saved by Brian Frisby since apparently he could not save himself.
2. Bringing nothing but shame and dishonor upon himself for withholding and or lying about what he knows regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of his crew.
3. And I don’t know what happened to the plan to have travel around the country repeating his bullshit story as a professional victim on behalf of the WFF to solicit donations, but I hope that is over to. Surely the WFF can find someone the wildland firefighting community shouldn’t be ashamed of to represent them.
4. Shame on you Brendan…come clean, tell the GMHS families what really happened that day…tell Mr. Shapiro you don’t need his services any longer. Your community will forgive you, after all, you were just one dumb rookie kid who was scared. No prosecutor is going to go through the legal hoops to go after you for anything you done up to this point and no judge will let them even if they wanted to. Just because something might be theoretical possible, some of the time, for some of the people, depending on this, that, and everything else, it doesn’t really happens. It’s tough enough to get prosecutors to file good cases against bad guys half the time unless it’s a cake walk and a sure thing. And if there would be a fine…which no judge is going to asses against somebody like you, I will start a web site for you to collect donations to pay it and then you can use all of the left over money we collect, which will probably be about 99% of it, to go to trade school and turn your life around. COME CLEAN YOUNG MAN…YOU OWE YOUR CREW, THEIR FAMILIES AND YOUR COMMUNITY! We will stand behind you!
And of course the big difference between the Yarnell Hill Fire and the Thirtymile Fire, is that the latter was being investigated by USDA – OIG Special Agents (1811’s) who had police powers, the power to arrest and lying to them was a violation of 18-USC 1001.
The investigators who conducted the Yarnell Hill Fire were administrative investigators without police powers, the power to arrest. Federal Agents also have the power to administer oaths to people who are giving statements to them, I doubt if ADOSH has the same power.
Of course if Brendan has already lied or is planning on lying under oath in a deposition or in a courtroom, well that could certainly grow into a problem for a young man who is looking to turn his life around.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 25, 2015 at 3:55 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> Federal Agents also have the power to administer oaths to
>> people who are giving statements to them,
>>> I doubt if ADOSH has the same power.
No. They did NOT.
They have the power to request that someone be charged with a ‘Class 2’ misdemeanor if they discover they have, in fact, seriously screwed with one of their investigations… but it is a HARD road to go.
It is NOT likely that anyone who may have either lied to ADOSH *OR* withheld critical information would be charged with anything.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> Of course if Brendan has already lied or is planning on lying under
>> oath in a deposition or in a courtroom, well that could certainly
>> grow into a problem for a young man who is looking to turn his
>> life around.
Yes. Official COURT proceedings ( even just civil proceedings ) are a totally different story. You are facing the full powers of the court system at that point, including ‘Contempt of Court’ charges for non-appearance and whatnot, if you have been ordered to ‘appear’ and ‘testify’.
Gary, there were radios in each of the four Granite Mountain vehicles that day that presumably were set to the crew channel. If Brendan heard something, I imagine that three Blue Ridge Hotshots who were driving GM’s vehicles also heard it,… yet NOBODY has indicated they heard anything other than what has been reported to date. So maybe nothing more was said by GM.
I firmly believe that Brendan has told what he knows that is relevant and material, and it seems to me to serve no purpose for you or anyone else to lash out at a poor kid who is already traumatized enough.
The rumors that Brendan knows more than he is saying and that he knows something important are just RUMORS. According to my sources – and it seems that I am closer to the relevant sources than anyone else on here – there is nothing more that Brendan can tell that would change things. Meaning, he is NOT deliberately withholding something important, game-changing, or material (according to my sources on this topic, one of whom is professional and one of whom is personal).
Gary, I urge you to take a deep breath and reconsider the harsh things you have said to or about Brendan, who seems to me to just be a kid who is really traumatized and needs some slack. The more folks like you rage at him or take shots at him, the LESS likely he is to speak up, in my view. No offense to you.
We go back to discuss the same things over and over again.
Evidence indicates McDonough has additional information.
1. His own statements.
2. Blue ridge was heavily redacted and severial of us have herd from reliable sources
that the BR people herd a lot more than we have seen.
3. Some of my sources closer than evidently Elizabeth’s say they have herd much more than has been released.
4. Evidently ADOSH and the State are Interested enough in McDonough to won’t a
A full statement from him for the court proceedings.
5. McDonough has hired a really big Lawyer to assist him. He must feel he needs
that kind of help rather than what he had retained earlier.
6. The Statement by the asst. investigator from SAIT of an argument over the radio
evidently herd by others but not released in the investigation. Certainly Crew Net as that is what the GM Crew was talking on most of the time and others including McDonough were monitoring.
You can go back and review all of this if you wont but then you have not been doing that for some time now. The facts are all there in previous chapters.
Even without rumors there is some very strong evidence that McDonough has more information than he has released to this point. Evidenced by the Lawyers from both sides seriously wanting a Deposition from him with cross.
We shall wait and see.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on March 25, 2015 at 5:21 am
>> counselor said…
>>
>> NOBODY has indicated they heard anything other than
>> what has been reported to date.
What makes you so sure?
Are you trying to say that YOU have seen the UNREDACTED versions of all the Blue Ridge Hotshot’s Unit Logs?
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> If Brendan heard something, I imagine that three Blue Ridge
>> Hotshots who were driving GM’s vehicles also heard it,
Exactly.
What if one of those HEAVY REDACTIONS in any number of the Blue Ridge Unit logs is *actually* reporting EXACTLY what you, yourself, are now admitting it was possible ( and likely ) for them to have heard?
Are you saying that YOU know WHY every single reference to anything these Blue Ridge guys were hearing on the radio in relation to either Eric Marsh or Granite Mountain were ALL completely BLACKED OUT in their officially submitted Unit Logs?
I am telling you that none of the Blue Ridge guys heard on the crew net anything that would suggest Brendan knows more than he is saying.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on March 25, 2015 at 4:37 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> I am telling you that none of the Blue Ridge guys heard
>> on the crew net anything that would suggest Brendan
>> knows more than he is saying.
Just more ‘noise’ from you, counselor.
Unless you change your habits and start backing up your carte blanche ‘declarations’ with some facts or some evidence… you have no credibility here.
Answer my question.
Are you saying YOU have seen the UNREDACTED copies of ALL of the Blue Ridge Hotshot’s Unit Logs?
WTKTT, I cannot tell you how I know certain things, in part because I just cannot name names or share who told me what. But I have made clear that I try hard not to say things as fact when they are only my impressions or understandings. So, again, the Blue Ridge guys who had access to the crew-net heard nothing that would suggest Brendan knows more than he is telling. Of this, I am certain.
Please stop calling me counselor. I have asked you before not to do it.
Counselor, long ago I stopped waiting for your apology for calling me WTKTT, and I find it extremely humorous that you ask him to stop calling you counselor. 😉
Ah… but you forget. I am (now) also you… and we are all ‘Fred’.
Some new LYRICS for “The Walrus”…
—————————————————
I am he as you are he as you are me
And we are all together
….
I am the Fred-man, THEY are (all) the Fred-men
I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob
Goo goo goo joob goo goo goo joob
Goo gooooooooooo jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba jooba
Jooba jooba
Jooba jooba
Jooba jooba
————————————————–
LMAO.
I’ve always said your memory is much better than mine,
Fred, WTKTT, hell, I can’t keep track of who I am anymore.
Reply to Elizabeth (counselor) post on
March 25, 2015 at 5:00 pm
>> counselor said…
>>
>> WTKTT, I cannot tell you how I know certain
>> things, in part because I just cannot name
>> names or share who told me what.
Your eyes must be brown.
I am in NO WAY asking you to name names.
My QUESTION ( that you refuse to answer ) was as follows…
Have you, or have you NOT actually seen the UNREDACTED versions of ALL of the Blue Ridge Unit Logs?
Your carte blanche statement(s) seem to indicate you HAVE, which is the only way you could be SURE that none of those REDACTED entries mention hearing any radio conversations that haven’t already been reported.
It’s a simple question, counselor.
A YES or a NO will do ( no NAMES required ).
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> But I have made clear that I try hard not to say
>> things as fact when they are only my impressions
>> or understandings.
Oh… you mean like your recent post where you actually used BOTH of those VERY words trying to get us to believe some more (possible) crap you were slinging was FACT?
That is was your ‘impression’ and your ‘understanding’ from some mysterious ‘source’ that Brendan had NOTHING to do with EITHER of his own deposition cancellations?
I will save you the scrolling, counselor.
VERBATIM…
>> counselor said…
>>
>> My UNDERSTANDING from my sources and
>> otherwise is that that is not an accurate
>> representation. My IMPRESSSION is that the
>> most recent cancelation was not Brendan’s
>> personal and deliberate doing for concerning
>> reasons, nor was the prior one.
Many people here have tried to make it clear to YOU, counselor, that UNLESS you back up your claims… they are simply ‘not credible’.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> So, again, the Blue Ridge guys who had access
>> to the crew-net heard nothing that would
>> suggest Brendan knows more than he is telling.
>> Of this, I am certain.
Of this, WE are not.
>> counselor also said…
>>
>> Please stop calling me counselor.
>> I have asked you before not to do it.
Please stop coming on here with your bullshit and then hiding behind some cowards who may or may not even exist.
I have asked you before not to do it.
Gary, my vague recollection is that you had indicated way back at the beginning that someone like Darrell Willis told GM to go to the Boulder Springs Ranch. Do you still believe that or no?
Yes, I still believe that. Although over time, I conceded that even if the direct “order” (and then there was a lot of discussion of exactly what constitutes an order in wildland firefighting) was not given by Willis to Marsh by cell phone or on an unmonitored tactical frequency (of which there are hundreds) that was used solely by the GMHS on this fire than the pressure by both the spoken and unspoken expectations that were placed specifically on Eric Marsh in his most recent evaluation where the future of the entire Wildland Fire Division was placed in his hands and therefore an unreasonable pressure was introduced into the decision making process that pushed Eric Marsh (and then there was a lot of discussion regarding even if Marsh was ordered to do so, is was still his responsibility to say no) to try so hard under dangerous conditions and disregarding (as Bob always reminds us) the 10 and the 18 because Yarnell needed heroes that day to stride into town and save the population and their property even though they had done so little to try and save themselves or their property and therefore the Prescott City Fathers would here of how heroic and valuable the GMHS were in saving the day during the Yarnell Hill Fire and therefore vote not eliminated the crew or the entire Wildland Fire Division because they couldn’t quite make the math come out where they were “revenue neutral” even after falsifying documents to make it appear as though they were meeting the national standard for Interagency Hotshot Crews (although only USFS HAD to meet those standards, for the GMHS I think those standards were merely guidelines) , even though they really weren’t. meeting those standards. Yes….I got lost there too.
Short answer…yes, I think Willis told Marsh to get his ass with his crew in tow to the backside of Yarnell ASAP by any means necessary or else. I think there has been a lot of things uncovered here about the missing cell phones, brief video shots of the crew looking disgusted by Marsh and Steed say something like, “Ya, I have expecting this.”
WTKTT is going to have to jump in here, he is the one with the running spreadsheet mind, but I think you probably get the gist of what I am trying to say.
Here’s the 411 again on the whole “Did Darrell Willis call Marsh on his cellphone”? thing.
** In the morning…
Darrell Willis’ phone records match what Willis said about having spoken to Eric Marsh via cellphone early Sunday morning ( circa 6:00 AM ), as Marsh was leaving Prescott and heading for Yarnell.
That’s the call where Willis has already admitted he said something to the effect of “We’ve got to get an anchor on this thing” to Eric Marsh.
Sure enough… when Marsh reached the Yarnell Hill Fire Station parking lot and he and OPS1 Todd Abel were looking out at the fire and figuring out “what to do”… the two of them decided “We’ve got to get an anchor on this thing”.
It is still NOT clear whether the idea to send Granite Mountain out there to do that very thing was primarily coming from Eric Marsh ( as per Willis’ instructions )… or whether it was coming from OPS1 Todd Abel… or whether it was a mutual ‘cognitive’ realization by both of them at the same time while they were ‘conferring’ there in the YFD parking lot.
Eric Marsh and Todd Abel then walked over to where Roy Hall, Paul Musser and Russ Shumate were standing in the YFD parking lot and they ‘presented’ this idea to all of them ( since it was still technically Russ Shumate’s fire ). All of the men basically just ‘agreed’ that ‘sounded like a plan’… and off Marsh went to scout out the route to the ridge.
It *may* have just been obvious that is what needed to happen… or it *may* still have been Eric Marsh just acting on what his boss ( Darrell Willis ) had already told him on his cellphone HE ( Willis ) wanted them ( Marsh and GM ) to do once they got there.
Willis WAS quoted after the tragedy as saying he felt somewhat ‘guilty’ about having been the one partially responsible for them ( GM ) even being up there on that ridge in the first place… so that has always sounded like Willis admitting to making more than just ‘friendly suggestions’ to Marsh over the cellphone when he told Marsh “We’ve got to get an anchor on this thing”.
Marsh *might* have arrived in Yarnell with that ‘directive’ ringing in his ears and that’s why he pushed the idea with Todd Abel in the YFD parking lot.
** In the afternoon…
Willis’ cellphone records DO show a direct call to one of Eric Marsh’s known cellphone numbers around the time of the deployment… but it was around 4:50 PM… and Eric Marsh was already dead.
Willis never told any investigators he did this… but when everyone was trying to contact “Granite Mountain” over the radio from the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot… Willis decided to try and call Marsh’s cellphone.
Not only has Willis never admitted to doing this ( he DID, it’s a fact )… he has also never said whether the results of that call attempt were multiple rings… and then a handoff to voice mail… or whether it went straight to voicemail because of an ‘out of service’ packet error on the network.
The first result would indicate the phone was still ‘powered on’ and ‘detectable’ on the network. The second result would indicate the phone was either already powered off… or burned up.
All of that being said… it has ALSO been reported by people who knew him well that Eric Marsh always carried TWO cellphones with him. One was being ‘paid for’ with a stipend from the City of Prescott… and one was (apparently) totally personal and even (possibly) registered with a different carrier.
Amanda Marsh has already admitted in a public interview that she eventually DID receive at least ONE of Eric’s cellphones back… but she never said from WHO, or WHEN, or what the exact condition of that returned phone was.
If Eric Marsh really did have TWO cellphones with him ( and Darrell Willis would have most likely had BOTH numbers ) it is still NOT KNOWN which of the two Amanda Marsh received back ( from some mystery person ).
There are STILL some ‘unidentified’ cell phone numbers in Darrell Willis’ cellphone records in the hour or so before the deployment. Since no one still knows if Marsh really did have TWO cellphones with him… it is also still NOT KNOWN if one of those other ‘unidentified’ calls on Willis’ cellphone records *might* have been Marsh’s ‘other phone’.
So that’s really the 411 ( to this day ) on the whole ‘cellphone’ thing.
As for the RADIO… that’s still a mystery as well.
There are NO known radio transmission recordings of Darrell Willis speaking to Eric Marsh on any radio channel that day… but that still doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
It is still ‘not credible’ to think that Prescott Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis did NOT have his own Hotshot Crew’s intra-crew frequency punched into his own personal BK radio AND into the radios in his vehicles.
There is STILL a possibility that one of the radio calls over the GM intra-crew that Brendan McDonough might have heard ( but has never talked about ) was Darrell Willis ‘checking in’ with Eric Marsh and Granite Mountain, at some point leading up to the tragedy.
CAVEAT: Darrell Willis was specifically asked by any number of investigators if anything like this took place either by cellphone OR on any radio channel… and Willis’ has always basically just said “I don’t BELIEVE so”.
By the time he got to his SECOND ADOSH interview… Willis was now saying he was ‘more sure’ that he hadn’t had any direct conversation(s) with Marsh ( or Steed ) that day after that 6:00 AM phone call with Marsh… but his final comments about this ( to ADOSH ) were still confusing.
In the ‘same breath’ he says (twice) that he “doesn’t BELIEVE” he had any further contact with Marsh after the 6:00 AM call… then 2 seconds later he uses the ‘100 percent sure’ phrase instead of the ‘BELIEVE’ descriptor.
Here is exactly how that was ‘left’ during his SECOND ( and final ) ADOSH interview on October 10, 2013…
Q2 = Marshall Krotenberg, ADOSH Lead Investigator
A = SPGS1 Darrell Willis
————————————————————————-
A: And I, you know, I’ve been – I’ve been second guessing myself about this. But I don’t BELIEVE I had any other conversation. I – I don’t BELIEVE there was any other contact by phone that day with him. Um…
Q2: Any – any other crew members?
A: No, no. I know there wasn’t any radio conversation. But, um, I am 100 percent sure that there was never any other conversation with them, other than in the morning.
————————————————————————-
The BOTTOM LINE here is that it really is NOT LIKELY that Darrell Willis had any direct radio or phone contact with Eric Marsh in the hour or so leading up to the deployment… but there are still some ‘uninvestigated opportunities’ for that to have happened… such as whether Darrell Willis ever had TWO cellphone numbers for Marsh, or not… and whether his voice was ever heard by anyone over the GM intra-crew channel that day.
But as Gary has pointed out above… direct contact or not… there was NO DOUBT that Eric Marsh was feeling enormous ‘pressure to perform’ and to ‘maintain excellence’ as defined by his boss… Darrell Willis.
Darrell Willis ( in writing ) to Eric Marsh… just 56 days before Yarnell…
“I would like to be involved UP FRONT on ALL planned events that the crew is involved in to add MY expertise to ENSURE that the event goes off in an EXCELLENT manner”.
“The department is looking at our Division EVERY DAY and the City as a whole is evaluating our PERFORMANCE, goals and service. We need to LEAD UP FRONT and realize the Division’s future is in OUR hands.”
Thank you WTKTT, I knew you could explain it a lot better than me.
Elizabeth- What WTKTT said is still what I believe and that more or less matches what I have maintained since day one.
WTKTT – Thank you, I knew you could explain it better than I can.
Elizabeth – Yes, that is what I believe and more or less matches with what I have said from the beginning.
Just a quick ‘followup’ on that 411 above.
It was Deborah Pfingston herself ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) who posted on this forum back in Chapter IV ( FOUR ) that Eric Marsh (quote) “ALWAYS carried TWO phones”.
Here is exactly what Deborah Pfingston said in response to the question I asked her back in Chapter IV.. This was BEFORE Amanda Marsh stated publicly that she had, in fact, received at least ONE of Eric Marsh’s cellphones back from some ‘mystery’ person…
———————————————————————
April 17, 2014 at 11:03 pm
** WTKTT asked Deborah Pfingston…
Deborah…
Do you know if ALL of the families received the cellphones/smartphones back? Particularly Amanda Marsh? Eric Marsh’s cellphone seems to have ‘disappeared’ from the deployment site and doesn’t seem to have ever been entered into evidence as were ALL the other cellphones/smartphones found at the deployment site. I am just wondering if, even despite that lack of any official documentation regarding Eric’s cellphone… if it ever actually made it back to HIS family… or if it is still simply ‘missing’. Do YOU ( or anyone in this ’12 families’ group you mention ) know anything about it?
** Deborah Pfingston replied…
I will let Amanda Marsh answer this question.
Eric always carried two phones.
I do think this is an important vein of investigation that needs
to be insisted upon.
———————————————————————
Key response: ERIC ALWAYS CARRIED TWO PHONES.
ALSO… I forgot to mention that the cellphone call that Willis had with Marsh at 6:00 AM on the MORNING of June 30, 2013 was on the same cellphone number that Willis himself would then later attempt to contact Marsh on at 4:50 PM… right after Marsh died.
It is still possible that one of those unidentified numbers in Willis’ cellphone records *might* have been a ‘second number’ for Marsh’s (possible) ‘other phone’… but that really would be quire weird.
It would mean that Willis would have had to have been DECIDING to call Marsh on that ‘other’ number… when that isn’t even the one he would then decide to call later to find out if Marsh was till alive, or not.
ADOSH had Willis right in the room with them TWICE… and even had Willis verifying cellphone numbers with them in real time during the interview… but not ONCE did anyone think to ask Willis if he actually had MORE than just one cellphone number for Eric Marsh programmed into his phone.
Also one more thing…
Captain Jesse Steed apparently did NOT have a cellphone with him at all that day. Willis said he ‘found it in the Crew Carrier’ after the incident.
So if that is true… it’s also not possible Willis made any kind of cellphone call direct to Jesse Steed that afternoon.
AND of course I have said several times a long time ago that I strongly suspect that is something Brendan McDonough knows (that Willis ordered Marsh to Yarnell ASAP) and now here we are and McDonough has something he “wants to get off his chest” and we are all waiting to see if we will ever find out everything McDonough knows about the day his “brothers” died, because he hasn’t been forthright even though he owes it to his now deceased crew and the families of his now deceased crew.
Call me old fashioned, but I am really trying hard to wrap my head around why on earth Mr. McDonough needs to retain the services of a criminal defense attorney who handles MURDER cases in Prescott, Arizona! And who is paying for that attorney?
I have a pretty decent retirement, but I can assure you I couldn’t afford McDonough’s attorney bills. And the last I heard, McDonough bounces back and forth somewhere between unemployed and unemployable (no offense intended) I’m just sayin.” What did he do, liquidate his stock portfolio or leverage his property in the Bahamas?
There sure as hell are still a lot of things that still do not add up or make any sense here and Mystery Man McDonough remains at the top of my list.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 23, 2015 at 8:18 pm
>> Gary Olsen said…
>>
>> AND of course I have said several times a long time ago that
>> I strongly suspect that is something Brendan McDonough
>> knows (that Willis ordered Marsh to Yarnell ASAP) and now
>> here we are and McDonough has something he “wants to get
>> off his chest”
Whatever it is… it is potentially a ‘game changer’.
The Arizona Forestry lawyers made it perfectly clear to Judge Mosesso when they were asking him to SUBPOENA Brendan for the Feb. 26 under-oath deposition that whatever Brendan now wants to ‘get off his chest’ isn’t about what Granite Mountain had for lunch that day.
Here is exactly what the Arizona Forestry lawyers told Judge Mosesso…
——————————————————————————
Section III. MR. MCDONOUGH POSSESS RELEVANT INFORMATION THAT SHOULD BE PART OF THE RECORD OF THIS CASE
As the designated lookout for the GMIHC crew, Mr. McDonough was in radio communication with the crew. The interviews in this case conducted by ADOSH already confirm that he discussed with his superior that the fire had reached the designated “trigger point” for him to evacuate his lookout location, that his superior’s observed the fire’s advance to his trigger point, and that his superiors were aware of his departure, as planned.
What is ADDITIONAL information, however, is that after his departure, Mr. McDonough heard on his radio, which was tuned to the GMIHC crew frequency, radio communications DURING the time period leading UP TO THE DEATHS of his 19 fellow GMIHC members.
That information could be very important because a CRITICAL issue in this case is WHY the GMIHC left the safety zone of thousands of acres of thoroughly burned area adjacent to where they had been working, referred to as “the black”, and walked through unburned, dry chaparra, in a boulder-strewn rough terrain, down a box canyon, towards a tiny island of a safety zone known as the Helms Ranch, on the outskirts of Yarnell and in the direction to which the fire was RAPIDLY advancing.
Information about the radio communications among the GMIHC crew DURING the time leading UP TO the tragic loss of the 19 crew members is NOT included in ADOSH’s transcripts of its recorded interview of Mr. McDonough.
Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) has received CREDIBLE information from RELIABLE sources, including a Prescott official in the presence of the Prescott City Attorney ( John Paladini ), that Mr. McDonough heard radio transmissions BETWEEN crew members about their tragic actions in leaving the safety of “the black” and heading TOWARDS the location at which they perished.
Mr. McDonough is believed to have information relating to the decisions made by GMIHC to move FROM the “black”… TO the box canyon that ultimately became their deployment site.
It is EXPECTED that Mr. McDonough will testify as to events that place involving GMIHC on the afternoon of June 30, 2013, SPECIFICALLY during the timeframe that GMIHC moved FROM the “black” towards Helms Ranch, and MOMENTS PRIOR to GMIHC’s deployment of shelters.
It is ALSO EXPECTED that Mr. McDonough will testify as to the WHEREABOUTS of Eric Marsh, Jesse Steed, and the other crewmembers of GMIHC on the afternoon of June 30, 2013, as well as RADIO communications BETWEEN the later Eric Marsh and the late Jesse Steed, DURING the move FROM the “black” and MOMENTS BEFORE deployment.
——————————————————————————
>> Gary Olsen also said…
>>
>> Call me old fashioned, but I am really trying hard to wrap my
>> head around why on earth Mr. McDonough needs to retain the
>> services of a criminal defense attorney who handles MURDER
>> cases in Prescott, Arizona!
There are only ever TWO reasons why you would bypass the ambulance chaser lawyers and go for an attorney with ‘criminal’ ( sic: courtroom ) experience.
1) You have already been accused of a CRIME and you don’t want to go to JAIL.
2) You are afraid you MIGHT be accused of a CRIME.
If Brendan really did knowingly ‘withhold important information’ from valid, legal, official ‘investigations’… that’s a CRIME.
Whoever obviously ‘advised’ him that all he had to do was answer questions about radio communications in which he was a PARTICIPANT… but did NOT have to ever mention anything he might have just HEARD on the radio… was not doing him any favors.
That is EXACTLY how Brendan was carefully conducting himself during his official’ interviews’… but I think he now fully realizes that could all come back and bite him in the ass.
It seemed to fulfill his ( and others? ) ‘agenda’ at the time. Appear to cooperate but don’t let the real truth get out. Easy peasy, right?
Not so much.
I really, really think it is unlikely that a guy who has now been appointed by the Arizona Speaker of the House to sit on an official Arizona State Public Board tasked with building a memorial is going to be accused of any kind of CRIME…
…but that doesn’t meant it’s impossible.
If I were him… I would have ‘engaged’ a criminal attorney, too, just on the off chance someone might want to try and accuse me of ‘obstruction’. It’s serious and carries penalties right up there with ‘tampering with evidence’.
>> Gary Olsen said…
>>
>> And who is paying for that attorney?
Good question. One would ASSUME it’s Brendan himself… but that might actually NOT be the case.
>> Gary Olsen also said…
>>
>> There sure as hell are still a lot of things that still do not add up
>> or make any sense here and Mystery Man McDonough remains
>> at the top of my list.
And whoever ( or whatever ) is causing him to continually NOT make it into the room for these scheduled under-oath depositions is not doing him ( Brendan ) any additional favors.
It only DEEPENS the mystery ( and the tapioca ) for Brendan.
Everyone’s greatest nightmare ( the attorneys, that is ) is that Brendan will get tired of all the ‘agendas’ and the ‘politics’ and the ‘bullshit’ and he will just walk into the local news station and spill his guts on camera.
He DOES have ( and has ALWAYS had ) that option.
He MAY end up ‘exercising’ that option. We shall see.
Well…that certainly fills in some of the potential blanks for me, but I would have to know more about the investigative power those conducting the investigation have. I do know it is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent conducting a criminal investigation (just ask Martha Stewart) but I didn’t think ADOSH or the SAIT or Arizona State Forestry had that kind of push.
I am also generally aware it is a state crime to provide fictitious information to a police officer during a traffic stop etc., but I didn’t think any of the investigative work that has done so far rose to the level of a criminal investigation that carried those kinds of warnings (18 USC 1001) and potential penalties. But I guess I would have to see their forms and review their statutory authority, I thought everything up until now was the equivalent of an administrative investigation and a civil matter.
I am also aware that some fire supervisors and managers were a little spooked by the outcome from the Thirtymile Fire because that at least introduced the possibility that someone could be criminally prosecuted for making enough really bad decisions and in that case a crew boss and Type III Incident Commander was charged federally for involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four crewmembers and seven counts of making false statements, back to 18 USC 1001.
But I didn’t realize the various Yarnell Hill Fire investigations and reviews were at that level pertaining to some rookie kid who was just wandering around out there by himself casually contemplating where to deploy his fire shelter in the face of a towering pyroclastic cloud and a fire storm of biblical proportions because somebody taught him the 10 Standard Firefighting Orders were “hillbilly” and “they” were a lot smarter than that nowadays and therefore didn’t need to pay attention to trivial things like that.
Although I guess if anybody keeps making bad decisions one after the other, they will eventually be able to dig themselves a deep enough hole they might need a good criminal defense attorney, even in a civil matter.
As far as I am concerned…..I think McDonough should have simply done the right thing from day one unless he stopped to kill somebody and dismember their body that we don’t know about before he got a ride with the Blue Ridge Hotshot Crew Boss down off the fire line. And then McDonough could have spent the money for his attorneys fees on going to a good trade school instead. But like I said, call me old fashioned.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 24, 2015 at 3:39 am
First and foremost… my APOLOGIES for typing ‘Olsen’ instead of ‘Olson’
in the messages above. Just a dumb mistake.
>> Gary Olson said
>>
>> Well…that certainly fills in some of the potential blanks
>> for me, but I would have to know more about the
>> investigative power those conducting the investigation have.
>> I do know it is a federal crime to lie to a federal agent
>> conducting a criminal investigation (just ask Martha
>> Stewart) but I didn’t think ADOSH or the SAIT or Arizona
>> State Forestry had that kind of push.
Some complicated ‘legal’ ground here… but the bottom line is that ANY official Federal OR State authorized/sponsored ‘investigation’ is not something to be taken lightly.
The ‘implied powers of authority’ rule kicks into effect.
From the actual Arizona State Statues ( sic: LAWS ) regarding
the “Industrial Commission of Arizona” ( ICA ) and Arizona ADOSH…
http://www.azleg.gov/ArizonaRevisedStatutes.asp?Title=23
Over and above the usual ‘implied powers of authority’… this is just ONE place in the actual ‘statues’ for ADOSH where they, themselves, are allowed to define what is or isn’t an actual CRIME related to their own responsibilities for performing inspections and conducting investigations.
————————————————————–
23-418. Penalties; violation; classification
F. Any person who knowingly gives advance notice of any inspection to be conducted under this article without authority from the director is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor.
G. Whoever knowingly makes any false statement, representation or certification in any application, record, report, plan or other document filed or required to be maintained pursuant to this article is guilty of a class 2 misdemeanor.
————————————————————
So ‘F’ says you can pay some heavy fines ( or go to jail ) if you even just give someone unauthorized advance notice of an ADOSH inspection.
‘G’ obviously covers what can happen if you screw around with an ADOSH ‘investigation/report’. Obviously the worst thing you could do is flat-out LIE to an ADOSH investigator… but if you read this statute carefully it also ( legally speaking ) includes things like ‘withholding information’ or otherwise ‘falsely representing’ that you have told ‘the whole truth’. If it is discovered later that you did NOT… and that you were purposely CHOOSING that behavior… well… some shit could hit the fan and you could ( theoretically ) be charged with committing a CRIME ( as per this statue alone ).
There are lots of OTHER places in the Arizona ADOSH satutes where it is made perfectly clear that while ADOSH is not, itself, a ‘law enforcement’ body… failing to cooperate fully, or interfere with and/or obstruct an investigation, or to ignore ADOSH citations or directives can result in some actual HEAVY fines and./or actual ‘jail time’.
In Arizona… a ‘Class 2 Misdemeanor’ is a step above the low level ‘Class 3’ stuff like trespassing, assault and criminal speeding. It carries a maximum punishment of 4 months in jail, a $750 ( or more ) fine plus surcharges and 2 years of mandatory probation.
If you have REALLY pissed someone off or you REALLY get on the wrong side of a prosecutor and/or a Judge and he/she decides to bump you up to a ‘Class 1 Misdemeanor’ you are now in the 6 months of jail time and THOUSANDS of dollars in fines category ( plus 5 years of probation instead of just 2 ).
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> I didn’t think any of the investigative work that has done so
>> far rose to the level of a criminal investigation that carried
>> those kinds of warnings (18 USC 1001) and potential penalties.
>> But I guess I would have to see their forms and review their
>> statutory authority, I thought everything up until now was
>> the equivalent of an administrative investigation and
>> a civil matter.
You are right. There has ( so far ) been no ‘criminal investigation’ with regards to the Yarnell Hill Fire… but that doesn’t mean the agencies tasked with investigating it don’t have the ‘legal authority’ to find out what REALY happened there. They DO.
I’m going to repost something that appeared back in Chapter 10 when it was being discussed that if anyone actually ‘tampered’ with the deployment site before the YCSO Police arrived ( and removed items from it )… was that a ‘crime’ ( even though YCSO eventually decided there was no foul play involved ).
It’s pretty obvious the answer to that is YES… because UNTIL there is officially a finding of ‘no foul play’… that deployment site was the same as any other ‘crime scene’ and tampering with it is BAD NEWS.
As far as ‘withholding information’ goes… there are also some pretty strict laws that relate to “obstructing an investigation”.
Let’s turn to Wikipedia again for just one ‘accepted’ definition…
——————————————————-
The crime of obstruction of justice, in United States jurisdictions, refers to the crime of obstructing the work of police, investigators, regulatory agencies, prosecutors, or other (usually government) officials. Common law jurisdictions other than the United States tend to use the wider offense of perverting the course of justice.
Generally, obstruction charges are laid when it is discovered that a person questioned in an investigation, other than a suspect, has lied to the investigating officers. However, in most common law jurisdictions, the right to remain silent used to allow any person questioned by police merely to refuse to answer questions posed by an investigator without giving any reason for doing so. (In such a case, the investigators may subpoena the witness to give testimony under oath in court, though the witness may then exercise their rights, for example in the Fifth Amendment, if they believe their answer may serve to incriminate themselves.) If the person tried to protect a suspect (such as by providing a false alibi, even if the suspect is in fact innocent) or to hide from investigation of their own activities (such as to hide their involvement in another crime), this may leave them liable to prosecution. Obstruction charges can also be laid if a person alters, destroys, or conceals physical evidence, even if he was under no compulsion at any time to produce such evidence. Often, no actual investigation or substantiated suspicion of a specific incident need exist to support a charge of obstruction of justice.
———————————————————–
Notice the first sentence above.
It doesn’t just say “police investigators”.
There is a COMMA there between “police” and “investigators”.
Police detectives aren’t the only “investigators” that can be “obstructed” during the performance of their legally bound duties.
Also notice the SPECIFIC mention of ‘regulatory agencies’.
That certainly includes Arizona ADOSH.
It can still be a CRIME to “obstruct” any official, legal investigation by people or agencies who are legally authorized to be conducting that investigation.
Both the SAIT and ADOSH would fall into that category, if push really
came to shove.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> I am also aware that some fire supervisors and managers
>> were a little spooked by the outcome from the Thirtymile
>> Fire because that at least introduced the possibility that
>> someone could be criminally prosecuted for making
>> enough really bad decisions and in that case a crew boss
>> and Type III Incident Commander was charged federally for
>> involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of four crewmembers
>> and seven counts of making false statements, back to
>> 18 USC 1001.
When 19 men die in a workplace and it appears to have been perfectly preventable, just about everyone involved ( and still alive ) has every right to be a little ‘spooked’.
Simple ‘negligence’ can ALWAYS rise to the level of ‘involuntary manslaughter’ when a DEATH is the ‘result’ of that negligence.
That’s just the way it is.
Some states have separate definitions for when you can be charged with “Negligent Homicide’ versus “Involuntary Manslaughter”… but in many places those are basically one-and-the-same.
NONE of us have any kind of “get out of jail free” card just because of our occupation or the circumstances of a work place.
ANY of us can always screw up badly enough ( on a personal level ) to find ourselves gulity of ‘involuntary manslaughter’.
The only cure is prevention ( and some damn good insurance policies ).
Do NOT screw up THAT badly. Not ever.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> But I didn’t realize the various Yarnell Hill Fire investigations
>> and reviews were at that level pertaining to some rookie kid
>> who was just wandering around out there by himself casually
>> contemplating where to deploy his fire shelter in the face of
>> a towering pyroclastic cloud and a fire storm of biblical
>> proportions because somebody taught him the 10 Standard
>> Firefighting Orders were “hillbilly” and “they” were a lot smarter
>> than that nowadays and therefore didn’t need to pay attention
>> to trivial things like that.
>>
>> Although I guess if anybody keeps making bad decisions one
>> after the other, they will eventually be able to dig themselves
>> a deep enough hole they might need a good criminal defense
>> attorney, even in a civil matter.
Yes. We are ALL subject to the “Ignorance of the Law is no excuse” rule.
If you have been given BAD legal advice and you are following that advice… it’s still gonna come back on YOU.
>> Gary Olson also wrote…
>>
>> As far as I am concerned…..I think McDonough should have
>> simply done the right thing from day one.
Totally agree.
I think he was VERY badly ‘advised’ by people who had their OWN ‘agendas’… and he (mistakenly) let THEIR ‘agendas’ become his own.
This is becoming just one HUGE lesson that is hopefully being LEARNED by others in the WFF business.
You can have all the best intentions in the world for NOT telling “all you know” to people who are legally tasked with investigating a terrible tragedy.. but that can REALLY come back and bite you in the ass.
Always remember…
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave., when first we practice to deceive”.
It is as true as it has ever been.
Well…it certainly sounds like it’s a good thing Mr. McDonough will have Mr. Shapiro by his side since that little you-know-what has been lying his ass off from day one and heaping shame upon his dead crew and himself. I for one, hope I don’t ever have to see that little you-know-what standing in front of an audience again and getting applause for;
1. Just being lucky enough to be saved by Brian Frisby since apparently he could not save himself.
2. Bringing nothing but shame and dishonor upon himself for withholding and or lying about what he knows regarding the circumstances surrounding the death of his crew.
3. And I don’t know what happened to the plan to have travel around the country repeating his bullshit story as a professional victim on behalf of the WFF to solicit donations, but I hope that is over to. Surely the WFF can find someone the wildland firefighting community shouldn’t be ashamed of to represent them.
4. Shame on Brendan…come clean, tell the GMHS families what really happened that day…tell Mr. Shapiro you don’t need his services any longer. Your community will forgive you, after all, you were just one dumb rookie kid who was scared. No prosecutor is going to go through the legal hoops to go after you for anything you done up to this point and no judge will let them even if they wanted to. Just because something might be theoretical some of the time depending on this that or everything else, it doesn’t really happen. It’s tough enough to get prosecutors to file good cases against bad guys half the time unless it’s a cake walk and a sure thing. And if there would be a fine…which no judge is going to asses against somebody like you, I will start a web site for you to collect donations to pay it and then you can use all of the left over money we collect, probably about 99% of it, to go to trade school and turn your life around. COME CLEAN YOUNG MAN…YOU OWE YOUR CREW, THEIR FAMILIES AND YOUR COMMUNITY! We will stand behind you!
With out a doubt. Life goes on The truth will set you free.
And the good memories will always be there.
WTKTT
Looks like a response from ADOSH on March 20 to the State Attorneys in the legal files.
from the sound of it they are not getting any closer to resolving their negotiations.
Just posted an hour or so ago.
Thank you. Yea. I saw that. Just got posted a few hours ago.
Direct link to new ALJ Hearing file document named “2015_03 Updated 03.23.15.pdf”…
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6N47Z5CNR-CWS1nbDFLRmRaQkk/edit?pli=1
** THE SHORT STORY
This ‘new’ documents proves that despite anything the Mainstream Media is reporting about those March 2 and 3 ‘global mediation’ talks… the ADOSH lawyers are considering them to be a TOTAL FAILURE ( and telling that to Judge Mosesso ) and it’s now just ‘back to business’.
The ADOSH lawyers appear to have NO CONFIDENCE that even with the ‘additional time’ requested by the Arizona Forestry lawyers that anything is going to come of the ‘mediation efforts’ for either “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” *OR* the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
So it’s now back to ‘gloves off’ and ‘more hardball’ as the case(s) proceed to trial.
** THE LONG STORY
First page: ADOSH’S RESPONSE TO STATE FORESTRY’ MOTION FOR SANCTIONS.
ADOSH is now ‘officially’ responding to that February 25, 2015 request from Arizona Forestry to Judge Mosesso that he issue ‘sanctions’ against ADOSH for what Arizona Forestry says is ADOSH’s ‘foot dragging’ over this whole ‘Privelege Log’ part of the mutual ‘discovery’ process that is still taking place.
ADOSH has now ‘officially’ said ( again ) that this ‘request for sanctions’ was ‘baseless’ but they now add it is also ‘pointless’ since ADOSH has, in fact, sent this requested ‘Privilege Log’ to Arizona Forestry ‘this week’.
End of (this) phase of the ‘drama’? It would appear so.
ADOSH is also now saying, in no uncertain terms, that the March 2 and 3 ‘global mediation’ talks were UNSUCCESSFUL.
From ADOSH’s ‘Point Seven’ in this ‘response’ to the sanctions request…
————————————————————————–
Seventh, regarding the January 15, 2015 order denying recognition of the deliberative process privilege – this contested Citation matter was essentially on hold since January pending the mediation on March 2 and 3, 2015. A SUCCESSFUL mediation would have obviated the need for further consideration of the privilege. In light of the scheduled mediation, no reason existed prior to the mediation for the judge and parties to expend further time and resources on the deliberative process privilege issues. However, since the mediation was UNSUCCESSFUL, ADOSH is now finalizing a motion for reconsideration regarding the deliberative process privilege issue, which it will file next week.
————————————————————————–
In other words…
Just like there was no need to even spend time and energy on a response to Arizona Forestry’s bullshit ‘request for sanctions’ before seeing if Arizona Forestry could ‘make this all go away’ on March 2 and 3, there was, likewise, no need to even try and ‘spin the taxpayer dollars’ even more and try to resolve this pending ‘deliberative process’ issue if the whole “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” thing was going to just “go away”.
But now that the March 2 and 3 ‘global mediation’ is being legally considered a TOTAL FAILURE… it’s time to put the gloves back on and proceed with ‘more hardball’.
** BRENDAN MCDONOUGH’S DEPOSITION MENTIONED
There is still no ‘explanation’ appearing for exactly WHY Brendan McDonough’s SECOND pre-scheduled under-oath deposition did NOT take place… but the deposition itself is ‘mentioned’ by ADOSH as part of one of their response items.
What is interesting here is that ADOSH is now telling Judge Mosesso that one of the reasons for the ‘delay’ in producing this Privilege Log’ thing ( which is what was pissing the Arizona Forestry lawyers off ) is because even as late as February 23, 2015, ADOSH still had every reason to believe that Brendan’s under-oath deposition was still going to take place 3 days later on the 26th, and they had to do a LOT of work to ‘prepare’ for their cross examination part of the deposition.
ADOSH had mentioned they originally thought they *might* send over this ‘Privilege Log’ thing on or about February 17th… but then two OTHER ‘imporatnt deadlines’ entered the picture/calendar.
1) ADOSH was supposed to draft a ‘comprehensive mediation brief’ by the mediator’s February 23 deadline. This HAD to get done because of the looming pre-scheduled March 2, 3 ‘global mediation’ meetings. Apparently… it DID get done since no one is complaining about THAT item.
2) ADOSH had to also spend a good chunk of time getting FULLY prepared to cross examine Brendan McDonough 3 days after that, on February 26th. ADOSH was doing that so even they ( apparently ) were not going to find out until the last minute ( just like the FIRST cancelled deposition ) that even this SECOND scheduled McDonough deposition wasn’t going to take place.
So it looks like whatever happened to cause Brendan McDonough to NOT appear ( for the SECOND time ) for a pre-scheduled under-oath deposition took even ADOSH by surprise.
They are now TELLING Judge Mosesso they were putting off OTHER work they had to do in February on order to fully ‘prepare’ to cross-examine McDonough on the 26th… but then it didn’t happen ( for the SECOND time ).
So I guess we can now pretty safely say there are at least THREE known scenarios that are most likely NOT part of the reason McDonough’s Feb 26th deposition didn’t happen.
1) It was NOT cancelled by ‘Arizona Forestry’. They had the MOST reasons for it to go ahead on February 26th due to their looming March 2 and 3 dates for ‘global mediation’ with the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiff.s
2) It was also NOT cancelled by ADOSH. They now say they were ‘busing their butts’ in February PREPARING for this McDonough deposition on the 26th.
3) It was probably NOT cancelled due a ‘calendar conflict’ with Brendan’s criminal defence attorney, David Shapiro. That ‘murder trial’ that Shapiro was involved with which caused the SECOND scheduled depsition to have to be shoved all the way to the end of February, 2015 in the first place actually ENDED on February 13, 2015… 13 days BEFORE the scheduled deposition.
So if Arizona Forestry didn’t ‘cancel’ Brendan’s deposition, and ADOSH didn’t either, and it doesn’t appear lawyer David Shapiro was still ‘tied up’ with a ‘trial’… then WHY didn’t it take place?
Did Brendan simply not ‘show up’ that day?
Did everybody show up… but the tape recorder BROKE and everybody went home?
What?
FYI – I haven’t seen anything yet that shows me I didn’t call it right from the very beginning sitting in my dining room with John. And I don’t believe I ever will. I was right about Willis, right about McDonough, and most importantly…right about why the Granite Mountain Hotshots tried to reach town and right about why they died.
The GMHS died because they were an elite wildland firefighting crew, the best of the best, trying to serve two separate and distinct sets of gods, the gods of wildfire and the gods of structural fire. Expressing those views has cost me dearly, but I was right.
I would request to have those words carved on my tombstone, except I want to be cremated by fire so there won’t be a marker to put them on.
I applaud rest of you, you have really stayed with it. Thank you.
Gary
oh…and one more thing WTKTT. Willis doesn’t believe the Prescott Fire Department Wildland Fire Division will be reconstituted, or another hotshot crew will hit the fire line sponsored by the Prescott Fire Department ever again.
For men who have egos as big as Willis does, it’s all about their LEGACY and how they will be remembered. That is what he is fighting for now. That is what is important to him now…it’s not even about the money any more.
Which reminds me of one more thing. Willis didn’t just get his salary as the Wildland Division Chief whenever he went to a wildfire owned by another agency, the City of Prescott billed that agency for his time, which was probably close to $100.00 per hour. And unlike wildland firefighters, structural firefighters bill from Portal to Portal to the fire.
In other words, they bill from the minute they walk out the door of their home until they walk back through that same door. Wildland firefighting is a real racket for structural firemen. Willis didn’t take a pay cut from $120,000 to $90,000, he either broke even or made more as Wildland Division Chief since he could run off and play wildland firefighter instead of staying home to mind the store for the good citizens of Prescott.
They were all laying golden eggs for the bastards running the City of Prescott, but even that wasn’t good enough for those cheap assholes, they still wanted to cut the heads off their Golden Geese, getting good solid work from the GMHS for pennies on the dollars wasn’t good enough for those sorry penny pinchers.
And you are right about one thing, when Willis first got the job as Wildand Division Chief, he didn’t know as much about wildland firefighting as I know about structural firefighting…and I don’t know a damn thing about what structural FIREMEN do, but I am thankful they do what they do.
I’m sorry John, but that is as positive as I can possibly be when writing about the City Fathers of Prescott, Arizona.
Glad to see you are still around Gary.
We have dug a few new things out but nothing that has changed the story or responsibility. Hope you have been working on your book.
Thanks Bob, still pecking away!
I don’t know what book you’re working on, but certainly it would seem that there’s room for an investigative book-length piece here that is allowed to use deep-background material from people without compromising their confidences/confidentiality. What suggestions we have heard certainly don’t change the overall narrative from what you suggest for this fire, but things like the possibility of “3 calls and an order” are pretty stark. Likewise the contrast with, say, the Marines is pretty stark. It is hard to imagine senior officer in the Marines essentially skating unscathed on an incident like this one, but then there is more of a serious safety culture there.
Yes, I agree with you about essentially everything you said. I am still fighting my own demons from a long time ago, that is what I am writing about.
I am not qualified to write about the Yarnell Hill Fire Disaster. I think John Maclean is going to write the book on this one. I’m sure he will do a good job, he didn’t pull any punches regarding the South Canyon or Thirtymile Fire Disasters.
Correction to my earlier comment. I am working at checking out. Going Cold Turkey is pretty tough.
Reply to Gary Olson post on March 23, 2015 at 5:47 am
>> Gary Olson said…
>>
>> FYI – I haven’t seen anything yet that shows me I didn’t call it right
>> from the very beginning sitting in my dining room with John.
And if no one has said ‘thank you’ for your participation in this discussion, let it not remain unsaid. Thank you for your participation.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> The GMHS died because they were an elite wildland firefighting crew, the
>> best of the best, trying to serve two separate and distinct sets of gods,
>> the gods of wildfire and the gods of structural fire.
There is certainly that ‘element’ to ‘the story’… but I think it’s been found to be even more sublime than that. Yes… the person who was really RUNNING that show ( Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis ) was chosen to succeed Duane Steinbrink for his political savvy and budget-wrangling knowledge and he was, fundamentally, a STRUCTURAL firefighter.
But I really do think Eric Marsh ONLY wanted to do “Wildland’.
If anyone was serving ‘two gods’… it was Eric Marsh himself.
He himself said in what would be his LAST performance evaluation…
“”It is challenging to run a nationally recognized program with minimum standards and requirements that I am unable to meet,”
I also (still) don’t think that whatever happened on June 30, 2013 can be ‘put on’ the 17 who were being ‘led’ by the other 2. Whatever motivations led to the deaths… it can be narrowed down to 2 men ( Eric Marsh and Jesse Steed ) and whatever transpired between THEM.
Those 17 might have been looking at each other or even shaking their heads as they were ‘informed’ of the travel decisions at each point… but bottom line is that those 17 men TRUSTED those other 2 to be making the ‘right’ decisions and not get them killed.
>> Gary Olson also wrote…
>>
>>
>> oh…and one more thing WTKTT. Willis doesn’t believe the Prescott Fire
>> Department Wildland Fire Division will be reconstituted, or another hotshot
>> crew will hit the fire line sponsored by the Prescott Fire Department ever again.
I still wonder what he means, then, when he states publicly ( using the Gettysburg Address as his mouthpiece ) that he has this ‘mission from God’ to make sure “the dead shall not have died in vain”. It will be curious to hear him finish that ‘announcement’ with some ‘specifics’. WHAT does he intend to really do in this regard? He hasn’t said (yet).
Run for Mayor himself?
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> For men who have egos as big as Willis does, it’s all about their LEGACY
>> and how they will be remembered. That is what he is fighting for now.
>> That is what is important to him now…it’s not even about the money any more.
I would tend to agree… but someone needs to tell him that his LEGACY was already ‘written’ on June 30, 2013. In his own obituary it will probably ( among other things ) just say “Darrell Willis was the Wildland Division Chief for Prescott, Arizona, when its elite Wildland Team all died (save one) in Yarnell on June 30, 2013”.
>> Gary Olson also said…
>>
>> Which reminds me of one more thing. Willis didn’t just get his salary
>> as the Wildland Division Chief whenever he went to a wildfire owned by
>> another agency, the City of Prescott billed that agency for his time, which
>> was probably close to $100.00 per hour. And unlike wildland firefighters,
>> structural firefighters bill from Portal to Portal to the fire.
Copy that. I don’t believe, though, that Willis was ALWAYS going ‘out with GM’.
In his ADOSH interview… he seemed fairly ‘clueless’ about what GM had or hadn’t even been DOING on any number of fires they were sent to.
But yes… he was always ‘triple dipping’ out of retirement whenever he took a contract assignment that he was ‘red-carded’ to take ( like SPGS in Yarnell itself ).
Even NOW… in one of the MSM articles about his recent ‘second resignation’ from the Prescott Fire Department… one reporter claimed that Willis is already sure he will be serving as a member of one of the ‘National Response Teams’. I’m assuming that means he already has an offer from either Bea Day to serve as a ‘on-call’ member of her Type 2 team… or has found a ‘ticket’ to be on someone’s Type 1 Team on an ongoing basis.
So Willis is about to become just another one of these continually ‘double-dipping’ retired guys in Arizona ( Just like Hall, Musser, Abel, etc. ).
Portal to portal… the cash register is ringing.
>> Gary Olsen also said…
>>
>> In other words, they bill from the minute they walk out the door of their
>> home until they walk back through that same door. Wildland firefighting
>> is a real racket for structural firemen.
You can even see that ‘story’ in the Yarnell Dispatch logs.
Some people fulfilling ‘assignments’ and coming from far away wouldn’t even
head to the airport until they had assurances their ‘rental cars’ were already
on someone else’s credit card.
There is still that element to why Safety Officer Marty Cole didn’t even arrive in Yarnell until just minutes before the deployment. By his own admission… he was just waiting for his HARD COPY resource order to show up in the system before he would even LEAVE Prescott… so he could be SURE he would be ‘portal to portal’ on that assignment.
>> Gary Olsen also said…
>>
>> Willis didn’t take a pay cut from $120,000 to $90,000, he either broke even
>> or made more as Wildland Division Chief since he could run off and play
>> wildland firefighter instead of staying home to mind the store for the good
>> citizens of Prescott.
Yes. Probably so… but there’s no good ‘picture’ of that in the evidence record.
I still think it is odd that neither set of investigators ever requested Willis’ own personnel records, or ‘contract work’ records.
>> Gary Olsen also wrote…
>>
>> They were all laying golden eggs for the bastards running the City of Prescott,
>> but even that wasn’t good enough for those cheap assholes, they still wanted
>> to cut the heads off their Golden Geese, getting good solid work from the
>> GMHS for pennies on the dollars wasn’t good enough for those sorry
>> penny pinchers.
This Craig McConnell guy ( City Manager of Prescott ) is, apparently, some ‘piece a work’.
If there really is an ‘investigation’ into that $90,000 report being ‘tampered with’… his name is probably going to be continually surfacing like a wine cork in a bowl of water.
>> Gary Olsen also said…
>>
>> And you are right about one thing, when Willis first got the job as Wildand
>> Division Chief, he didn’t know as much about wildland firefighting as I know
>> about structural firefighting…and I don’t know a damn thing about what
>> structural FIREMEN do, but I am thankful they do what they do.
Yes. That’s why it’s still inexplicable why they let a guy who didn’t even know what the upper temperature limit for a modern fire shelter was stand in front of the world and be the ‘front man’ for the first press conference at the deployment site.
Willis wasn’t even QUALIFIED to be conducting that first press conference regarding one of the worst Wildfire personnel disasters in history. He really wasn’t.
This story isn’t done.
As Marti Reed has said… “This fire hasn’t even remotely finished burning”.
And you can bet that Darrell Willis will be ‘front and center’ ( as well as ‘back and center’ ) for the entire rest of it.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
WTKTT – I generally agree with everything you said, and you did a remarkable job of summarizing the story for Mort Ishyan and everyone else. Of course there are a lot of nuances to this story that I glossed over. There has bee a lot uncovered and there is probably still a lot to be uncovered AND I do know I am grossly oversimplifying the facts with my summary.
But…I wanted to reassert my firm belief in the twilight of Willis’ career that the Granite Mountain Hotshots died because they were forced to work as a wildland firefighting crew while trying to survive in a structural fire culture managed by the clueless and the penny pinchers.
Maybe former Chief Fraijo has promised to make Willis the new Chief of the Prescott Fire Department?
WTKTT – and yes, I am aware that Willis did not go out except for that one time when they stopped at the memorial on Storm King Mountain with the Granite Mountain Hotshots. I was referring to Willis gong out as a single resource or as part of a fire team, which I am sure you are right, he will continue to do.
Without getting to far down into the budgeting and reimbursement weeds, Willis still made plenty of overtime and hazard-pay etc.., for himself in addition to his base salary while still laying golden eggs to offset his base pay for the City of Prescott.
You were absolutely right about how they (Willis and Marsh) almost made the math work for the benefit of the City of Prescott. Which is why I am completely at a loss to explain why the short sighted, penny pinching nincompoops who are running the city of Prescott would try so hard to kill off their flock of geese who were laying golden eggs for the city…literally only paying a fraction of a penny for every dollar worth of work they got out of those guys, even with them being gone on out-of-area fires some of the time since SWCC made sure their area was covered by the hotshot crews that were out of rotation. Unbelievable!
There is truly a gaggle of very short sighted, must I say it again…nincompoops running the City of Prescott. I hope Fraijo wins, but there is probably a slim chance of that, Marlin Kuykendall is a Class A ****bag that goes back a long ways in “Everybody’s Hometown.”
FYI – I guess it’s neither here nor there now, but I remember Marlin Kuykendall as being the guy who used to screw people by selling them junk used cars while I was growing up in Prescott instead of being the guy who has done his best to screw the families of the Granite Mountain Hotshots out of benefits..
And I speak from personal experience in the form of one POS Toyota Corona that had sawdust put in the transmission by Kuydendal personally!
Well…I am OBVIOULSY still to angry about what happened to the Granite Mountain Hotshots to contribute in an unbiased constructive manner to this body of work beyond what I have already done. So…I am going to double my meds today and check out again.
Later, G
Gary,
Portal to Portal pay for structural firefighters is essentially a California thing. While it may exist in other places, one would be hard-pressed to find it in any other state. It’s one reason California structural firefighters are never, or certainly, about the last one’s to be called for an ‘out of state’ assignment.
So your comment about the ‘real racket for structural firemen’ would apply more-so there (where they are also guaranteed to sleep in a hotel every night, as opposed to on the ground in a tent), than most other places.
The wildland assignment pay outside of California varies from place to place. Some of it is very good, some of it is decent, and some of it is pretty crappy.
Municipalities in Arizona that provide resources for ‘out of their area’ wildfires, do so under a state contract, which is a public record and lists the pay amounts for the various positions for THAT municipal entity.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, each municipal contract within the state is negotiated separately and they do vary a great deal from city to city.
So…do Prescott city firemen get Portal to Portal pay or not? In any case it’s a racket and wildland firefighters don’t need them, WFF need all the jobs back they lost because of structural firefighters and the implementation of the ICS.
My understanding and I believe this is 100% correct, is that NO municipal firefighters in Arizona get Portal to Portal pay.
Aside from your heartburn about municipal firefighters picking up the slack in wildland fire, the truth is, that municipal firefighters do wildland on an as-needed basis. If it’s a slow year, they rarely, or never get called out.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY the feds could pay to have that number of firefighters hanging around waiting to be called out. They can barely afford keeping the force numbers they currently have. In fact, they have been cutting firefighting budgets and employee numbers quite a bit in just the past few years.
Also, there is no way the feds are set-up to provide massive amounts of structure protection, which, like it or not, is a necessary component with modern urban-interface fires.
JMHO
I should add to my remarks above, that along with municipal firefighters supplementing the ranks when needed during the fire season, private contract employees and equipment do so as well. The bottom line is that the feds couldn’t do it without them.
ALL OF THAT is simply due to federal government funding and staffing decisions, period.
In addition, the feds are not able to adequately staff the various National Incident Management Teams without significant municipal involvement.
So rag on the municipalities all you want, but they are only doing work that the feds can’t get accomplished.
It simply, it what it is.
Thanks for the correction but I still think wildland firefighting is a racket for some structural firemen and their employers. And yes, I do like to bitch about the bad while ignoring the good structural firemen do while helping out in bad situations, especially with the explosion in wildland/urban interface issues in recent decades, but I do that for effect, not to be fair.
We don’t agree on everything, but I like the fact that you are not afraid to say what you are thinking.
For the record, I agree that Portal to Portal pay and sleeping in motels every day is a racket.
Just to be clear, at least one poster on this website is making it seem like Brendan McDonough himself is trying to evade a deposition or himself canceling scheduled depositions for evasive or nefarious reasons. My understanding from my sources and otherwise is that that is not an accurate representation. My impression is that the most recent cancelation was not Brendan’s personal and deliberate doing for concerning reasons, nor was the prior one.
Your “guess” is noted.
When your ‘impressions’ and your ‘understandings’ that are dependent on your mysterious ‘sources’ reach some kind of level of actual knowledge… please share.
Until then… it is “anybody’s guess” what might have happened.
The tape recorder might have broken.
**
** BRENDAN MCDONOUGH’S CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY ( DAVID SHAPIRO )
** FINISHED THE TRIAL HE WAS INVOLVED WITH ON FEBRUARY 13, 2015.
It is still a mystery why the (second) scheduled under-oath deposition of Brendan McDonough did NOT take place on February 26, 2015… but it looks like it had nothing to do with his attorney’s calendar or a scheduling conflict.
When Brendan McDonough cancelled his FIRST scheduled under-oath deposition on November 25, 2014 ( only the day before it was scheduled to take place ) the reason given was that he had just retained his own ‘criminal defense’ attorney ( Mr. David Shapiro of Prescott ), and it was Mr. Shapiro that had a scheduling conflict for November 26, 2014.
In subsequent exchanges between the Arizona Forestry attorneys and ALJ Judge Michael Mosesso, it also became clear that Mr. Shapiro was telling them he would be ‘tied up’ with a jury trial until the middle of February, 2015, and so any re-scheduling of Brendan’s under-oath deposition would have to be after that.
So that is where the date for the NEXT scheduled attempt to depose Brendan McDonough came from. The date was set for the end of February, 2015 ( Feb 26 ) in order to accommodate his
attorney, Mr. Shapiro.
The TRIAL that attorney David Shapiro was referring to was actually the “Craig Stelmasek” murder trial. That’s the one where Craig Stelmasek’s body was found abandoned in a van at the Albuquerque airport. Marzet Farris III and Laura Stelmasek were both arrested for the murder of Laura’s husband Craig Stelmasek.
They were going to be tried separately, with the Marzet Farris trial coming first.
David Shapiro was going to be (only) Marzet Farris’ defense attorney.
The trial got started a little later than expected ( on January 15, 2015 )… but it stayed on schedule and ended with a GUILTY verdict against Marzet Farris on February 13, 2015.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Guilty verdict in airport body murder
Published: 2/13/2015 6:00:00 AM by Scott Orr
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1&articleID=141804
From the article…
——————————————————————-
PRESCOTT- Marzet Farris III on Thursday, Feb. 12, was found guilty on four counts, including first degree murder, in connection with the death of a Prescott man with whose wife he had been having an affair.
Defense attorney David Shapiro said the verdict did not surprise him.
“I would never say that the jury had ignored its duty or used evidence it wouldn’t be expected to use, but what I would say is, the surrounding circumstances of the crime, and Mr. Farris’ participation through the email campaign, and certain conduct, most likely was something the jury could not ignore,” Shapiro said.
Farris will be sentenced March 16th.
——————————————————————-
And the following is from the “2015_01 Updated 01.26.15.pdf” file in the PUBLIC ‘Google Docs’ “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” ALJ Hearing folder.
This is where Mr. David Shapiro is NAMED as Brendan’s ‘new criminal attorney’ and it became clear that Mr. Shapiro’s scheduling conflicts were the reason Brendan ‘blew off’ the first scheduled deposition. It’s also where the Arizona Attorneys first pointed out that because of the ‘trial’ that Mr. Shapiro was involved with they wouldn’t be able to schedule another deposition for Brendan until the end of February, 2015.
It is also the document that contains the request from Arizona Forestry that Judge Mosesso issue a subpoena to Brendan McDonough to FORCE him to appear at the upcoming February 26, 2015 under-oath deposition… since Arizona Forestry hasn’t received proper notification from Brendan’s new criminal attorney David Shapiro that he and Brendan WILL be there at the deposition on February 26…
That request for a ‘subpoena’ for Brendan McDonough was DENIED by Judge Mosesso.
———————————————————————————–
Respondent ( Arizona Forestry ) requests that the Tribunal ( Judge Mosesso ) issue the subpoena and send it to the undersigned counsel for service upon Mr. McDonough.
A subpoena is necessary because, on information and belief, Mr. McDonoudh has engaged private counsel, David Shapiro (“Mr. Shapiro”), although Mr. Shapiro has not filed a Notice of Appearance on behalf of Mr. McDonough. The undersigned counsel has communicated several times with Mr. Shapiro and have notified him of the February 26, 2015 deposition date. He has not responded to our requests for confirmation of dates to depose Mr. McDonough, but has also not stated that February 26, 2015 is invalid.
It should be NOTED that Mr. Shapiro is currently in a TRIAL that is to last until mid-February and he previously requested that the deposition not be scheduled until after his trial.
———————————————————————————-
The ‘Marzet Farris’ murder trial ended with a guilty verdict against Farris on February 13, 2015. He is not scheduled for ‘sentencing’ until March 16, 2015, so Shapiro still has things to do in that regard… but the ‘heavy lifting’ on his part ended on February 13 when the trial came to and end.
David Shapiro was CORRECT in his estimation to Arizona Forestry that he would be ‘tied up’ with this trial (quote) “until mid-February”.
So there were no real surprises there and Mr. Shapiro SHOULD have been ‘available’ for the February 26, 2015 under-oath deposition with his client Brendan McDonough.
We still do not know WHY that under-oath deposition was “called off”… but I suppose it’s safe to say it was NOT for either of the following reasons…
1) Arizona Forestry themselves cancelled it.
Not likely. The AZF attorneys fought HARD to make this deposition of McDonough happen as soon as possible… and they even took the unprecedented step in January of 2015 of requesting Judge Mosesso to issue a subpoena to FORCE Brendan to testify on February 26, 2015. It is HIGHLY unlikely, then, that the AZF attorneys themselves would have “called it off”.
2) Brendan’s Attorney ( David Shapiro ) was ‘unavailable’ ( for the SECOND time ).
Also not likely. See above. The ‘trial’ that he was involved with ENDED on February 13, 2015.
I suppose it is still possible that once Brendan’s attorney saw that same refusal on Judge Mosesso’s part to issue a ‘subpoena’ against Brendan… Mr. Shapiro *may* have actually said something to Brendan along the lines of…
“I understand you want to ‘get all this heretofore unreported information off your chest’… but I’m advising you that not only do you NOT have to do this, and it’s highly unlikely Judge Mosesso would force you to, you should NOT go through with this. It is simply NOT in YOUR best interests to do so.”
** OR **
Brendan could have arrived at that same ‘conclusion’ all on his own ( or with someone else’s advice other than Mr. Shapiro ).
**
** BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOT RONALD GAMBLE
** NOW WORKS FOR PRESCOTT FUELS CREW?
I was reading some online articles about the CURRENT state of the Prescott “Fuels Abatement” program ( and crew )… and I stumbled across something.
The article I found was about a ‘media event’ that the City of Prescott organized a little over two months ago to ‘demonstrate’ some ‘new’ efforts being made by the newly-reorganized “Fuels Abatement” program. The “Wildland Division” had been eliminated back in 2014 and the “Fuels Abatement” program had been moved over to the “Support Services Division” of the Prescott Fire Department.
Former Wildland Division Chief Darrell Willis was ( as we now know ) simply ‘moved’ over to be the Chief of that “Support Services” Division where the “Fuels Abatement” program landed after the Fire Department reorganization.
As we also now know… Darrell Willis has always thought the ‘independent report’ that led to this reorganization was ‘tampered with’ and the ‘original’ did NOT actually recommend the total elimination of Prescott’s entire “Wildland Division”.
The article I am talking about now is HERE as a “News” posting on the City of Prescott’s own website…
The City of Prescott – News
Fuels Mitigation Crew Demonstrate Efforts For A “Fire Free Prescott”
Published Monday, January 05, 2015
http://www.prescott-az.gov/news/index.php?id=2805
Both current Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light AND ‘Support Services Chief’ Darrell Willis are quoted in this article.
Darrell Willis himself has now indicated that he really decided to resign following the whole ‘reorg’ and when the City of Prescott decided to follow the ‘independent report’ recommendation that the entire “Wildland Division” be dismantled… but you would never know that from reading this 2 month old article.
Darrell Willis’ quotes in the article seem to just indicate that Willis was “all in” and “onboard” with this ‘new future’ and the ‘new perspective’ for the Prescott “Fuels Abatement” program.
The “new perspective” being detailed for the Prescott “Fuels Abatement” program was a shift towards making the homeowners more responsible for being “Fire Wise” and doing their OWN ‘fuels mitigation’ work… and BOTH Chief Dennis Light and Darrell Willis were ‘pushing’ that new perspective in their quotes.
PFD Support Services Chief Darrell Willis said…
————————————————————–
“When fire agencies are in response-mode to a wildfire event, they simply don’t have the resources to defend every structure,” said Prescott Fire Department Support Services Division Chief Darrell Willis. “This is where the relationship between the property owner and the agency is vital. The mitigation work the owner completes before fire season directly relates to successful outcomes during the fire season.”
————————————————————–
PFD Fire Chief Dennis Light said…
————————————————————–
“The only way we are going to be successful at mitigating the wildland fire risk is for each household to take responsibility for their property,” added Chief Light.
————————————————————–
** ENTER RONALD GAMBLE
As I was reading the article, however, I noticed the photograph that accompanied it at the top.
It shows a member of Prescott’s “Fuels Abatement Crew” standing in front of a ‘Masticator’ machine ( a small dozer converted to be a brush clearing machine )… and it says his name is “Ronald Gamble”.
The actual CAPTION for the photo at the top of the article is…
————————————————————–
Ronald Gamble, Fuels Technician with the Prescott Fire Department with a large brush cutter, also known as a masticator, used to to create a 100-foot swath up the property line to provide a fire buffer.
————————————————————–
This does, in fact, appear to be former Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble.
Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble is (apparently) the one who shot that video in the public SAIT evidence release with the filename title of “YARNELL-GAMBLE.MOV”.
That’s the video that CLEARLY captured Eric Marsh ‘reporting’ ( to someone ) on a TAC channel, at exactly 4:27 PM, that Granite Mountain was “coming from the heel of the fire”. Marsh’s ‘report’ also seems to be a direct response to someone telling him at the start of the video it would be good if they ( Marsh and GM ) could “hurry up” and get to town faster.
There were no ‘call signs’ captured in that video except for at the very end of it ( after Marsh has spoken ) and we clearly hear Blue Ridge Superintendent Brian Frisby initiating a callout to SPGS1 Gary Cordes.
If that really is Marsh responding directly to the person who was (apparently) telling Marsh it would be good if he and GM would ‘Hurry up’ ( at exactly 4:27 PM ), then it must have been someone in ‘fire command’ and someone Marsh would have felt obligated to ‘report’ to.
That is still a ‘short list’ of people.
I believe it was a consensus that the voice did NOT sound like Roy Hall, OPS2 Paul Musser, SPGS2 Darrell Willis, or SPGS1 Gary Cordes. The voice DOES sound a lot like OPS1 Todd Abel… but that has (still) never been confirmed.
As far as we know… Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble was never interviewed by the SAIT or by any ADOSH investigator and ( even though BOTH sets of investigations had possession of his YARNELL-GAMBLE video ) Ronald Gamble has never been asked if HE remembers anything more about that 4:27 PM conversation that HE recorded while sitting in the BR Crew Carrier… or whether HE actually heard the ‘call sign’ of the person that was (apparently) asking Eric Marsh to “Hurry up”.
There were also no NAMES released with all of the Blue Ridge Unit Logs that were eventually released, but HEAVILY redacted by the US Forestry Service. Even if one of those Unit Logs belongs to Ronald Gamble, either there is no mention of him hearing this 4:27 exchange with someone (apparently) urging Marsh and GM to “Hurry up” or DIVSA Eric Marsh’s (apparent) response “They’re comin’ from the heel of the fire”… or it is on one of the ‘blacked out’ parts of that Unit Log.
The US Forestry Service also (apparently) DID allow Arizona Forestry’s SAIT investigation to actually ‘interview’ some of the Blue Ridge Hotshots ( Frisby, Brown, Fueller and Ball )… but US Forestry did NOT allow ADOSH to interview ANY Blue Ridge Hotshot despite ADOSH filing all the proper FOIA/FOIL and eventually fully formed ‘Touhy’ requests for those interviews.
** LOS ANGELES TIMES TALKED TO GAMBLE JUST 48 HOURS AFTER DEPLOYMENT
On July 2, 2013, just 2 days after the tragedy, The Los Angeles Times media outlet tried to interview Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble. It is not known how the LA Times, just 48 hours after the incident, knew that Ronald Gamble was a Blue Ridge Hotshot and someone they wanted to talk to about what happened on June 30, 2013… but (apparently) they DID.
This attempt to interview Ronald Gamble ended up detailed in a published article that is now part of the LA Times ‘archives’.
The Los Angeles Times
Arizona wildfire evacuees hold breath as firefight hits ‘pivotal day’
July 02, 2013 – By Cindy Carcamo, Matt Pearce and Weston Phippen
( NOTE: There is already one link in this posting so a link to this LA Times )
( article will be posted as a ‘Reply’ down below. ).
The LA Times reporter(s) apparently TRIED to fully interview Ronald Gamble himself, but Gamble appears to have already been TOLD ( by US Forestry? ) to NOT talk about Yarnell so the LA Times reporter(s) ended up talking to Gamble’s Father-in-law instead.
NOTE: The way the exchange is described in the article it almost seems like they DID reach Ronald Gamble directly on the phone, talked to him a little bit, but then Ronald Gamble told them he couldn’t say anything more about it and he handed the phone to his Father-in-Law, who then related to the LA Time reporter(s) things that his son-in-law Ronald Gamble had already told HIM.
Remember… according to the DATE on the LA Times article this conversation took place just 48 hours after the incident… and on the first day ( July 2 ) that the SAIT was even officially ‘formed’ but hadn’t even fully assembled OR started ‘gathering evidence’ yet.
There is NO MENTION on either Ronald Gamble OR his Father-in-law’s part about the YARNELL GAMBLE VIDEO that Ronald had apparently shot that day… or whether it had ALREADY been give to Arizona Forestry, but it is still interesting to note the DETAIL that the LA Times is reporting in this article from an interview with Gamble ( and his Father-in-law ) just 48 hours after the tragedy…
From the LA Times article… July 2, 2013…
———————————————————————————
About 500 firefighters are now battling the Yarnell Hill fire, and a bulldozer line has been built around the eastern flank of the blaze, officials said. In addition to all the dry chaparral and brush providing fuel, even green trees have been burning, said fire response spokesman Morrison.
The promise of possible thunderstorms Tuesday also offered little comfort, as downdrafts from major storm cells produce powerful gusts of wind that can send a fire in unpredictable directions — the same scenario that officials think might have claimed the firefighters’ lives on Sunday.
Ronnie Gamble, a 26-year-old Blue Ridge Hotshot Crew member, said his team was fighting the fire alongside the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew that lost 19 of its 20 members to the flames. The Yarnell Hill Fire was the third blaze the teams had fought together. But Gamble isn’t able to talk about what happened that night — his crew having witnessed the incident.
Pete Walter, Gamble’s father-in-law, gave an account of what happened to the Granite Mountain crew on Sunday:
The two crews were close to each other fighting the blaze. When they saw that the fire was getting out of control, whipped up by the wind, one Granite Mountain crew member drove at least one vehicle down to where the Blue Ridge Hot Shot Crew was stationed.
That crew member turned out to be the only Granite Mountain survivor.
Walter said the Granite Mountain crew was asked if they were OK and if they were “in the black” — an area of safety. They said they were. Before the flames overtook them, Walter said, the crew said they were looking for a place of safety.
Gamble, who recently joined his hotshot crew this year, said he knew some of the Granite Mountain crew personally, especially Scott Norris, who became the person he went to for advice on what to expect as a hotshot crew member.
“Run a lot. Hike a lot,” Norris would tell him.
Walter, choir director at a local church attended by Norris, described the firefighter as tough but softspoken — a gentle soul who was genuinely kind There was always friendly competition between the crews about who could cut line faster and better, Gamble said.
“They were just a wonderful group of men to work with because they worked just as hard as we did,” he said. “They were able to hold their own.”
———————————————————————————
** THE PRESCOTT VALLEY MUD BOGS VIDEO
** THAT SHOWS ALL THE BLUE RIDGE HOTSHOTS
As it turns out… there is a way to VERIFY that the person seen in the photograph accompanying the “Prescott Fuels Crew” article is, in fact, former Blue Ridge Hotshot ‘Ronald Gamble’.
On July 12, 2013, just 12 days after the tragedy in Yarnell, the entire Blue Ridge Hotshots Crew made a ‘guest’ appearance at the ‘Prescott Valley Mud Bogs’ event. They had volunteered to be the ones who would help push vehicles OUT of the ‘mud bog’ when they got stuck.
At the start of the event… ALL of the Blue Ridge Hotshots assembled for a ‘group photo’ and it ended up in a PUBLIC video posted to YouTube just 2 days later, on July 14, 2014.
( NOTE: That PUBLIC Youtube video is still there and a LINK to it will be )
( provided as a ‘Reply’ since there is already one hyperlink in this posting. )
In this PUBLIC YouTube video… Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble appears to be standing in the back row, fifth one in from the left ( to the right of the guy doing the ‘hook ’em horns’ sign with his hand and the the left of the guy with the sunglasses and his arms folded ).
The face in the video is also a ‘match’ for the person named as “Ronald Gamble” in that photograph accompanying the Prescott “Fuels Abatement” crew article.
** SUMMARY
So if that really is the former Blue Ridge Hotshot ‘Ronald Gamble’ who shot the 4:27 PM YARNELL-GAMBLE video… and he really is now ’employed’ by the City of Prescott… I wonder if that means he is still under a ‘gag order’ from the U.S. Forestry Service to NOT say anything about what HE ( or any of the Blue Ridge Hotshots ) saw or HEARD on June 30, 2013 in Yarnell?
It is STILL important to know if he remembers anything else about that 4:27 PM YARNELL-GAMBLE video he ( apparently ) shot while sitting in that Blue Ridge Crew Carrier.
Did he actually hear the CALL SIGN of this person who was (supposedly) urging DIVSA Eric Marsh and the Granite Mountain Hotshots to “Hurry up” and get to town faster?
His YARNELL-GAMBLE video started capturing that radio exchange in the ‘middle’ of it.
Does he remember the FIRST part of that radio exchange… and what was being said?
What ELSE did he ‘overhear’ that day that he still hasn’t been able to ‘talk about’?
If he is no longer under any obligations to NOT discuss June 30, 2013 ( because he really is no longer an employee of the US Forestry Service )… is he NOW under some NEW obligation to not talk about anything because he is now a City of Prescott Fire Department employee?
If so… WHO would that NEW ‘directive’ and/or new ‘gag order’ be coming from?
His direct boss… Support Services Division Chief Darrell Wills?…
or Willis’ boss… PFD Fire Chief Dennis Light?
Due to the ‘one hyperlink per post’ rule… here is a direct link to that LA Times article mentioned above in which the LA Times reporters were able to talk with both BR Hotshot AND his Father-in-Law just 48 hours after the deployment.
The DETAIL that is revealed by Ronald Gamble’s Father-in-law ( which was obviously just information he, himself, had already heard from his son-in-law ) just 48 hours after the deployment and BEFORE the SAIT had even been fully assembled actually ends up MATCHING testimony given later by other Blue Ridge Hotshots when the investigation(s) finally got underway.
The Los Angeles Times
Arizona wildfire evacuees hold breath as firefight hits ‘pivotal day’
July 02, 2013 – By Cindy Carcamo, Matt Pearce and Weston Phippen
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jul/02/nation/la-na-nn-arizona-firefight-20130702
And here is a direct link to that PUBLIC ‘Prescott Valley Mud Bogs’ VIDEO mentioned in the post above. That event was attended by ALL of the Blue Ridge Hotshots, just 12 days after the tragedy and they ‘posed for pictures’ at the start of the event.
YouTube Video Title: “Prescott Valley Mud Bogs 7 12 13”
Posted July 14, 2o13 by Mopro Sports
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVLl-oq-hoo
(Former?) Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald Gamble appears to be standing in the back row, fifth one in from the left ( to the right of the guy doing the ‘hook ’em horns’ sign with his hand and the the left of the guy with the sunglasses and his arms folded ).
The face in the video is also a ‘match’ for the person named as “Ronald Gamble” in that photograph accompanying the Prescott “Fuels Abatement” crew article linked to above.
Followup…
Just another piece of evidence that (former?) Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronald (Ronnie) Gamble, and the one who supposedly shot the YARNELL-GAMBLE video at exactly 4:27 PM on June 30, 2013 is now working for the NEW City of Prescott “Fuels Abatement” crew.
This piece of evidence shows he was already doing that as early as June of 2014.
It’s an article published by “Fire Chiefs” magazine on June 27, 2014, just before the first anniversary of the Yarnell incident.
The old “Granite Mountain 7” Station is still the home of the NEW “Fuels Abatement” crew, and when someone from Fire Chief’s magazine went there to do some interviews they ended up getting statements from a “Fuels Crew” member named “Ronnie Gamble”.
Fire Chief Magazine
Article Title: Year after Hotshots’ deaths, town moves forward
Published June 27, 2014
http://www.firechief.com/2014/06/27/year-hotshots-deaths-town-moves-forward/
From the article…
————————————————————————————-
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Reminders of the Granite Mountain Hotshots are spread throughout Station 7.
The tragedy has seen the community go from an outpouring of support in the days after the deaths to animosity over survivors’ benefits to blaming fire officials for mismanaging the blaze. Through it all, the community has balanced how to mourn and honor the men with how to move forward.
“We’ll never move on,” said Darrell Willis, chief of the Prescott Fire Department’s Wildland Division. “They will always be in our mind.”
Nowhere is that more apparent in the northern Arizona town than at Station 7.
Station 7 is now home to a NEW crew of firefighters who do the work the Granite Mountain Hotshots were built upon — clearing brush from around homes in Prescott and teaching people what it means to be fire wise.
“This was their second home, you respect it,” said 27-year-old Ronnie Gamble.
—————————————————————————————-
NOTE: The ‘age’ matches the Los Angeles Times interview with Blue Ridge Hotshot Ronnie Gamble on Jule 2, 2013. That article had him at 26 years old and THIS interview, a year later and just before the anniversary, has him at 27 years old.
If this really is the same “Ronald Gamble” who was with the Blue Ridge Hotshots in Yarnell on Jue 30, 2013 and who shot the YARNELL-GAMBLE video… I wonder when he actually left them ( and the employment of the US Forestry Service ) and went to work for the City of Prescott, instead?
Reply to WantsToKnowTheTruth (WTKTT) post on March 21, 2015 at 3:24 pm
>> WTKTT said…
>>
>> If this really is the same “Ronald Gamble” who was with the Blue
>> Ridge Hotshots in Yarnell on Jue 30, 2013 and who shot the
>> YARNELL-GAMBLE video… I wonder when he actually left them
>> ( and the employment of the US Forestry Service ) and went to
>> work for the City of Prescott, instead?
Sort of answering my own question here.
Just found some evidence that it could have been as early as APRIL of 2014.
The ‘Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Commission ( PAWUIC )’ has copies of its montlhy ‘Meeting Minutes’ stored in PUBLIC folders off their webpage.
People who REGULARLY attend these PAWUIC meetings in Prescott are…
Darrell Willis, Russ Shumate, Jason Clawson, Gary Cordes, and other people associated with the Prescott area “Fuels Abatement” crews and projects.
The first sign that “Ronnie Gamble” was suddenly also attending these PAWUIC meetings comes in the PUBLIC minutes for April of 2014.
** Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Commission ( PAWUIC )
** Meeting Minutes archived online.
**
** PAWUIC Meeting Minutes – April 3, 2014
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53233282e4b094a873b75785/t/53627c75e4b09e1f27eb41f3/1398963317534/PAWUICminutesApril2014.pdf
Participants…
Darrell Willis, Russ Shumate, Jason Clawson, Ronnie Gamble, others..
ALL of the copies of previous PAWUIC meetings can be found at the following page off their own (public) website…
http://www.pawuicaz.org/policies-and-procedures/
The first sign that anyone named “Ronald (Ronnie) Gamble” started showing up to these meetings along with regular attendees Darrell Willis, Russ Shumate, Jason Clawson, Gary Cordes, etc… is still the APRIL 2014 meeting.
Just viewed a training film over on Wildfire Today
Battles lost–A really good eye opener to all fire fighters.
Basically we forget to remember the past lessons learned
and the 10 and 18. A walk thru the south canyon and the fires from 1910 to present
Lessons of the past soon forgotten.
**
** MORT ISHYAN’S LIST OF QUESTIONS ABOUT WILLIS
It’s pretty amazing that MOST of the ‘Mainstream Media’ MSM articles that have appeared in the last few days are all ‘getting it wrong’ about the actual nuts-and-bolts circumstances of Darrell Willis’ latest ‘retirement’ from the Prescott Fire Department.
MOST of the MSM articles are just saying that Darrell Willis has now suddenly ‘announced’ his retirement after 30 years of ‘continuous’ service with the Prescott Fire Department.
That is NOT the case.
This is now the SECOND TIME Darrell Willis is ‘retiring’ from the Prescott Fire Department.
He retired FIRST ( with full PFD pension and benefits ) from the “Fire Chief’ position in 2007, then immediately started ‘double-dipping’ with a ‘new’ $120,000-a-year job as Prescott’s Emergency Services Director. He was ‘double-dipping’ with that for 3 years until 2010… when he was then offered the job ( back under the Prescott Fire Department again ) of ‘Wildland Division Chief’ to replace the ( now retiring ) original ‘Wildland Divison Chief’ Duane Steinbrink. Eric Marsh actually thought HE might become Steinbrink’s replacement when he retired… but Marsh was ‘passed over’ for that job and it went to Darrell Willis instead.
Willis took a ‘pay-cut’ by leaving his “Emergency Services Director’ position but, when the dust cleared, he was now still ‘double-dipping’ on the City payroll at $90,000 per year PLUS all of his original City of Prescott ‘Fire Chief’ retirement income and benefits.
The MSM has also been reporting that Willis is now ‘resigning’ from the “Wildland Division Chief’ position. That is ALSO not the case. The ‘Wildland Division’ under the Prescott Fire Department was dissolved last year and Willis was re-assigned with a title of “Support Services Division Chief’, which is where the whole “Fuel Abatement’ program landed as well once the ‘Wildland Division’ was dissolved.
No word on what ( if any ) kind of ‘pay cut’ Willis suffered in THAT ‘re-assignment’.
** MORT ISHYAN’S QUESTIONS
At the bottom of the following (recent) article about Darrell Willis where he attempts to ‘explain’ why he felt the need to ‘retire’ ( for the SECOND time ) from the Prescott Fire Department…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Darrell Willis – Founder of Prescott’s Hot
Shots: ‘My vision doesn’t match with their vision’
Published 3/13/2015 6:01:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1086&ArticleID=142889
…someone posted a comment with the name ‘Mort Ishyan’ and asked a pretty long list of specific questions about Darrell Willis.
That was days ago… and no one seems to be supplying any answers… so I thought I would.
Here are the questions / answers…
>> Mort Ishyan asked…
>>
>> I am curious. The City of Prescott is not the only town in the United States
>> that sits in the middle of a National Forest. But, it was the ONLY town to
>> have a city taxpayer funded wildfire crew.
>>
>> Why?
The SHORT story….
Because that is what Darrell Wills ( and Eric Marsh ) WANTED.
The LONG story…
In the spring of 1990, Prescott City Officials, the Supervisor of the Prescott National Forest and Prescott Fire Officials all met to discuss how potentially devastating a large wildfire *could* be to Prescott… for the very reason that it IS almost completely ‘surrounded’ by National Forest land(s).
Out of this meeting came a coalition named the “Prescott Area Wildland Urban Interface Commission” (PAWUIC). Its stated goal was to develop programs to mitigate the acknowledged (immense) wildfire threat(s) to Prescott.
For the next decade… the iniative consisted mostly of community education efforts, but little money was available to actually do a lot of the WORK needed to mitigate wildfire threats.
In the year 2000, the “National Fire Plan” was implemented at the Federal Level. Suddenly there WERE ‘grants’ available for “Hazardous Fuels Reduction” efforts and Prescott’s PAWUIC program made it an ideal candidate to receive some of those ‘grants’.
In 2001, the Prescott Fire Department finally created its own ‘Wildland Division’. Darrell Willis was actually the Prescott Fire Chief at that time and Duane Steinbrink became Prescott’s first “Wildland Division Chief” to head that new fire department division. In that same year… a National Level ‘risk assessment’ designated the City of Prescott as one of NINE communities in the southwest at risk of CATASTROPHIC wildfire damage… so even MORE Federal grant money became available to Prescott.
That saw the creation of the first ‘grant funded’ “Fuels Management Crew” under the wing of the newly created “Prescott Wildland Division”. It employed five to ten personnel.
In May of 2002, the Indian Fire burned next to ( and within ) the City of Prescott. 1,300 acres burned, seven structures burned, and 2,500 Prescott residents had to be ‘evacuated’ before it was over.
This put the ‘fear of wildfire’ into the public in Prescott and public opinion about the value of “Hazardous Fuels Reduction” grew exponentially. This newfound ‘support’ for the program allowed the “Fuels Abatement” program to expand its duties and its capabilities in and around the Prescott area.
At the same time, however, the ‘competition’ for the ‘grant monies’ for “Fuels Reduction” all over the southwest intensified and Willis and Steinbrink, rather than be faced with the possibility of having to either disband or scale-back the existing program, came up with a ‘plan’ to try and ‘make the crew make money’ to cover some of the rising expenses and keep the ‘bean-counters’ in Prescott City management from giving the program the ‘evil eye’.
In the spring of 2004, the original Prescott “Fuels Management Crew” evolved into something called “Crew 7”, but it was only a Type 2 Initial Attack Crew. “Crew 7” carried on the original planned work of “Fuels Reduction” in and around Prescott… but they were now also able to respond to wildfire indicents both regionally ( and nationally ), and get PAID for that work to cover their ‘off season’ expenses.
This ‘business model’ worked at first… but there will still ‘cost overruns’ that were being picked up by the City of Prescott. More ‘external revenue’ was needed.
The REAL ‘contract work’ money ( and the REAL dream of Eric Marsh, Willis and others ) was to somehow qualify as a bona-fide ‘Type 1 IHC Hotshot Crew’. So the plan was put into place to try and achieve THAT ‘better than Type 2’ status. The plan succeeded in September of 2008. Prescott Fuels Crew 7 became a fully certified Type 1 IHC Hotshot crew called “The Granite Mountain Hotshots” and the City could now ‘charge back’ up to $39.50 for every single man-hour they spent working fires during the critical fire season, even though the men were only making anywhere from $10-12 (grunts) to $17 (supervisors) an hour.
So for a while… it looked like this whole ‘make money during fire season’ plan was going to work.
The ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’ organization was ( according to which set of books you were looking at ) almost truly an ‘expense neutral’ operation and was on the verge of having its fire season ‘contract’ work actually PAY for their “Fuel abatement” work in the off-season.
What no one on the ‘City Management’ side had fully realized, however, was that once they achieved the full ‘Type 1 IHC’ status… that now meant they were considered to be a ‘National Level Resource’ and could be *mandated* to work fires anywhere in the country.
So during the actual ‘fire season’… “Granite Mountain” was often totally GONE from Prescott ( and even Arizona )… and some people on the City of Prescott management side of things started to ask the important question… “What is all this Type 1 IHC stuff actually doing for US if these guys aren’t even HERE to even protect Prescott itself for most of the critical fire season?”.
That is not an ‘out of line’ question for City Officials to be asking since they are the ones actually ‘footing the bill’ for the operation ( and having to make up for 5 or 6 figures ‘losses’ posted in some years ).
As the “Granite Mountain” budget crossed the ONE MILLION PER YEAR dollar mark… the whole ‘connection’ between the ‘Type 1 IHC’ thing and the actual (beneficial to Prescott) “Fuel abatement” work in the off-season just started to get “lost” in the minds of many Prescott City management officials. When the bottom dropped out of the economy just before the election of President Obama… Prescott was now on as short a leash as many American cities and they really started to question the whole “Granite Mountain Type 1 IHC” thing. That’s when they ( Prescott ) decided they didn’t even want to fully fund the 7 required full-time employees to maintain ‘Type 1 IHC’ status… and that is also when Darrell Willis ( Wildland Division Chief ) and Eric Marsh started ‘butting heads’ over that situation and the ‘full time benefits’ issues.
The rumors that the City of Prescott wasn’t ‘seeing the point’ in supporting a full Type 1 IHC Hotshot Crew anymore are what also prompted Wildland Fire Chief Darrell Willis, in his May 5, 2013 personnel evaluation of Eric Marsh, to put enormous pressure on GM Superintendent Eric Marsh and express his concerns about ‘maintaining excellence at all times’ and also tell Eric Marsh flat-out “The FUTURE of the whole Wildland Division is currently in OUR hands”.
Darrell Willis was expressing those ‘concerns’ and putting that ‘performance pressure’ on Eric Marsh just a month and half ( 56 days ) before the tragedy in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> Darrell Willis came out of retirement to take charge of this crew. Why?
Actually… what Willis did was simply transfer from his first ‘double-dipping’ job following his 2007 retirement as Prescott Fire Chief ( he then became Prescott’s Emergency Services Director ) and, in 2010, he just continued ‘double-dipping’ out of retirement and moved back under the Prescott Fire Department as “Wildland Division Chief” to replace the departing ( and the first ) “Wildland Division Chief” Duane Steinbrink, who was then retiring.
If you read Eric Marsh’s ‘evaluations’ in the personel files… it’s pretty obvious that Marsh had WANTED ( and EXPECTED? ) to be ‘promoted’ to “Wildland Division Chief” when Steinbrink retired… but it didn’t happen.
Someone ( Prescott City Manager ? Steinbrink himself ? ) decided to ask Darrell Willis to succeed Steinbrink INSTEAD of Eric Marsh, even though Darrell Willis himself really didn’t have that much ‘Wildland Firefighting experience himself. Willis came from the STRUCTURAL side of ‘firefighting’… but he HAD been Prescott’s Fire Chief for 14 years and he certainly knew how the whole ‘budgeting’ process worked.
There is no real evidence that that caused any MAJOR friction between Eric Marsh and Darrell Willis, or that Eric Marsh ever had some kind of ‘chip on his shoulder’ about being ‘passed over’ like that in 2010. Darrell Willis himself made no bones about the fact that he WAS mentoring Marsh to finally rise to that position when HE ( Willis ) would eventually decide to retire from the Prescott Fire Department ( for the second time ).
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> How much was he paid?
From Phoenix NewTimes…
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2013/08/the_granite_mountain_hotshots.php
Darrell Willis has worked for the Prescott Fire Department since 1985 and retired as its fire chief in 2007.
He was rehired ( by the City of Prescott ) the SAME YEAR to a $123,000-a-year position as Prescott’s Emergency Services Director.
Willis took over as Wildland Division chief in 2010, at $90,000 a year.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> This crew spent most of its time clearing brush for “free” around private homes.
>> This is the homeowner’s responsibility, not the taxpayer’s.
>> Why was this service offered at taxpayer expense?
It was all part of Darrell Willis’ ‘vision’ of what needed to be done to protect Prescott. To him… it was a VALID use of taxpayer dollars and he also knew that unless the service was FREE… the “Fuel Abatement” program would probably ‘die on the vine’ since MOST people would NOT pay for the same kind of work on their own ( as is the situation in most western cities ).
It was a CVB issue to Willis ( Cost Versus Benefit ), and he had to constantly fight that battle on the management side of things with the bean-counters in the Prescott City Management and keep re-convincing them it WAS a ‘good thing’ for Prescott to be doing with those tax dollars.
Some of them understood. Many did NOT.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> The “Hot Shots” were sent out to fight fires in other states. Why?
Because once you become a full-blown Type 1 IHC Hotshot crew, you are a ‘National Resource and can be ‘sent out’ to fight fires just about anywhere in the country.
As a Type 1 IHC organization… you do NOT have the ‘option’ of ONLY trying to stay ‘at home’.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> How much did the city receive in compensation for this
Records indicate that the City of Prescott was able to bill $39.50 per hour for every man-hour the Type 1 IHC GM Hotshots worked on whatever fire they were assigned to.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> and how often were they sent out?
A LOT.
This became a huge point of consternation for people on the Prescott City management side. The whole ‘sell job’ that Willis did on them to convince them it would be a GREAT thing to have a ‘Type 1 IHC Hotshot’ crew based in Prescott started to ‘lose its shine’ when Prescott officials realized that they were now footing the bill for a MILLION DOLLAR ( plus ) operation that wasn’t even THERE in Prescott ( or even in Arizona ) for most of the (critical) fire season.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> Did the crew members receive any special compensation for this?
Not just for ‘leaving the State’ to fight a fire, no. The pay ( for them ) was the same no matter where they were sent… but being assigned to the LARGER ( Type 1 ) fires usually meant some ‘overtime’, which ( for them ) meant upwards of $20 per hour instead of the usual $10 or $12 per hour.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> How about the Chief?
Nope. He was on a ‘fixed salary’ as Prescott Wildland Division Chief. He started at $90,000 per year in 2010 when he replaced the original Prescott Willand Chief Duane Steinbrink… but he *may* have been gotten some ‘raises’ by 2013, the year of the tragedy in Yarnell.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> If Chief Willis was so concerned about the dangers that his crew faced why didn’t
>> he recommend that they purchase their own life insurance policies?
He MAY have.. but there is no written record of that that I know of.
Either way… he could not FORCE them to do that and ( more importantly ) it was NOT a REQUIREMENT for the position(s).
It probably SHOULD be. We ( as a society ) actually REQUIRE more proof of insurance coverage for high school athletes these days than we do for civil-service employees in high-risk, high-danger work situations.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> I assume that from the beginning, the city determined it was too expensive to
>> offer full benefits to all twenty crew members, Why was it even started?
Correct. There was NO WAY the City of Prescott was going to ‘hire TWENTY new ’employees’ with FULL health insurance coverage and pension benefits promised just to have a ‘Type 1 IHC Hotshot’ crew parked in one of the City’s Fire Department garages.
Not a chance. Prescott was WAAY too small to even consider doing that.
But that is not a REQUIREMENT for ANY ‘Type 1 Hotshot’ crew anywhere in the country. Type 1 IHC Hotshots crews are REQUIRED to hit the ground running with TWENTY men… but only SEVEN of them are ‘required’ to qualify as ‘full time employees’ of whoever is sponsoring that particular Hotshot crew.
Willis ‘sold’ the idea to Prescott City Management based on THAT reality, and showed them ( on paper ) how they could ‘make that work’ and have the whole thing be ( hopefully ) an ‘expense neutral’ operation for the City.
>> Mort Ishyan also asked…
>>
>> There were a number of single crew members who were not full-time and who
>> will not receive the higher benefits that the three widows will receive. Is city
>> employment compensation determined by how many beneficiaries one has
>> or, how well one performs on the job?
Neither, really.
The legal issues surrounding ‘benefits’ were simply all about ‘eligibility’.
On April 4, 2013… Darrell Willis put his signature on the ‘official’ re-certification form that had to be submitted to the FEDS in order for ‘Granite Mountain’ to keep their ‘Type 1 IHC’ Hotshot status for 2013.
This is the ‘re-certification’ document that Eric Marsh had been refusing to sign… and Willis had acting Superintendent Jesse Steed sign it instead when Marsh was ‘off the job’ temporarily ( in April, 2013 ) because of his biking accident.
That document ( signed by Willis and Steed ) listed the following as the REQUIRED SEVEN ‘Full-time’ employees for Granite Mountain…
From the signed document itself…
——————————————————————————
REQUIRED IHC STAFFING
This table designates employees in leadership positions on the IHC being certified for mobilization. A minimum of seven (7) career positions or fully qualified personnel are required for certification as defined in Chapter 2.
Fully Qualified Career Employee Name, Position
1) Jesse Steed, Superintendent
2) Tom Cooley, Assistand Superintendent / Captain
3) Robert Caldwell, Squad Boss
4) Travis Carter, Squad Boss
5) Clayton Whitted, Squad Boss
6) Travis Turbyfill, Senior Firefighter
7) Chris MacKenzie, Senior Firefighter
——————————————————————————-
Andrew Ashcraft, William ‘Billy’ Warneke and Sean Misner were NOT included on that list in that April, 2013 document.
But that is just a document related to IHC certification.
It had nothing to do with what the actual ‘working contract’ might have been between any of these men and their employer… the City of Prescott.
In all THREE of these cases… the LEGAL threshold(s) regarding ‘full-time’ versus ‘part-time’ employment and ‘hazardous duty’ were met.
That’s what the ‘hearings’ were all about.
The ‘hearings’ were ALSO all about whether these men met the eligibility requirements for the State-level PSPRS retirement system.
The attorneys did their jobs and proved their case(s).
The PSPRS Board itself ruled that ALL of them WERE ‘eligible’.
The City of Prescott simply decided to stop pursuing any APPEALS of the PSPRS Board decision(s). End of story.
Theoretically… ANY of the OTHER Hotshots widows and/or survivors could file suit and attempt to achieve the same ‘status’ already acknowledged for Ashcraft, Warneke and Misner… but each and every case would have to be looked at ( and re-considered ) individually.
There is (currently) no indication that any other attempts will be made.
>> Mort Ishyan also said…
>>
>> Maybe I am overly suspicious, but something just does not smell right.
It was a complicated ‘game’ that was going on.
A City on a TIGHT budget, with men working under the Fire Department trying to keep a MILLION DOLLAR (plus) operation going on the level THEY wanted it to function at.
A Type 1 IHC Hotshot Crew can always ‘drop back’ to Type 2 status ( and many of them often do ) for various reasons… but Darrell Willis ( and Eric Marsh ) did NOT want to do that. Perhaps they were afraid that, given the political climate in Prescott, if they ever ‘fell back’ to what they used to be ( just a Type 2 Crew ) they would never get approval to return to the more complicated ( and expensive ) ‘Type 1 IHC Hotshot’ Crew status.
So they were ‘fudging it’ ( in 2013 ) to keep the ‘Type 1 IHC’ status and just hoping to resolve the budget and employee benefit issues with the City when ‘times got better’ and there was more money available.
It is a KNOWN FACT that Eric Marsh himself was not HAPPY with this kind of ‘fudging’… and he said so in writing in his own employee evaluation just 56 days before the tragedy.
it was his ‘boss’ ( Darrell Willis ) who was urging him to just ‘lay low’ and ‘hang in there’ and things would get ‘better in time’. as they struggled for political survival in that Municipal environment.
Excellent. And thank you!
I had just finished reading the related articles and those questions. And Noel’s (who I just discovered last weekend via Facebook lives in Albuquerque so maybe a coffee rendezvous is in order……) comments thru the various articles, so I assume he is reading all of this……
My life has just had to be re-directed to critical stuff here in Burque and re-learning Photoshop (bcuz working on the awesome Jemez photos I took about a month ago–along with some awesome Sandias panos–and may be good enuff for a much-needed gallery show………….) (if I were 30 and at my current level as a photographer I’d definitely go into wildfire photography but I can’t cuz I’m way beyond 30) ……..so that’s where I’ve been…………
Anyway, back to the topic. I find this whole thing really interesting, for a variety of reasons, not just our narrative here.
A question. What were the other eight cities?? And what is your source for that? I’m sitting here, for obvious reasons, conjuring, just want to see how well I can guesstimate it.
When I fled Flagstaff in 1990, I had been living in the forest for six years. Growing increasingly nervous by the year. I’m guessing Flag was on that list. (Actually I guess that question more directly relates to your post below, but it’s all related.)
I don’t know when it started, but Flagstaff (or most likely the Forest Service around Flagstaff) started going into relatively hyper-fix-the-forest mode and then, yes, the relatively massively increased funding after 2000 supported that. The current Four Forest Plan is highly focused on that area and is a model on a national level, at this point. It was a major factor in how the Slide Fire was controlled and kept from burning up to the forest-surrounded communities south of Flag.
But Flagstaff didn’t attempt to build this kind of a project — a Type 2 crew, much less a Type 1 crew. Interesting. I don’t know if anybody in Flag was watching what was happening in Prescott and thinking, hmmmm……. But I wouldn’t be surprised of some folks were.
On the other hand, there are several Type 1 crews NEAR Flagstaff, Flagstaff IHC, Payson IHC, Blue Ridge IHC. So maybe they felt more comfortable with their situation than Prescott did. So it was easier for them to let the Feds fund “their” IHCs.
Because the flip side of what you are describing here is that, in my humble opinion, there really AREN’T enough Type 1 crews to fill the need. And there’s so much turnover (becuz of shitty pay and benefits and massive workmans compensation hassles etc) among the ones that exist that the collective senior experience-based knowledge base is eroding.
A comparable experience to look at would be the Ironwood IHC, out of Tucson (a DISTRICT crew) was disbanded last year also, accompanied by considerable hew and cry and a national petition, no less.
Given all the above, I actually think what they did in Prescott was BRILLIANT. Even courageous, all things considered. And, yes, they were making it up as they went along, becuz, there was no precedent. What’s the fault in that?
(I guess it might be possible to say the fault was that, like the management of the Yarnell Hill Fire, no-one took the threat of potentially fatal danger seriously enough?????? Remember, the Prescott Fire Dept hadn’t had a fatality in something like a hundred years, so they were way behind the curve on the night of June 30, 2013, also.)
I have to admit, having gone to Prescott College and having followed Prescott politics on and off again over the years, I mostly come at this with a bias. Pretty much everything I have read related to this whole thing has had me saying, under my breath, a big “F-YOU City of Prescott!!” each and every time.
I think this particular thing exists in a larger context. There are a lot of people who are increasingly po’d at their mayor and their city officials for a number of reasons. For all the usual reasons. Which are pretty much the reasons people are increasingly po’d at Albuquerque’s mayor and city officials.
And don’t forget, in this whole context, ex-Fire-Chief Dan Frajio (who resigned during a whole big related political blow-up after the Yarnell Hill Fire) is running for mayor.
I think that may be a VERY big part of this story, and of Willis’ thinking at this time. If I were him, it sure would be a VERY big part of MY thinking.
I have SERIOUSLY conflicted opinions regarding Darrell Willis, as you all know.
I think he’s a combination of religious-fanatic-applied-to-firefighters, our-wildland-firefighters-could-do-no-wrong fanatic (except in his “private” messages to Eric when Eric made him uncomfortable), increasingly caught between a rock and a hard place regarding the program/crew and the a$$hole politicos controlling the uberly corporate-friendly city purse-strings, SCRAMBLING to learn wildfire-fighting (which he WAS doing), definitely OPPORTUNISTIC (heck, who in the US of A isn’t??) (that’s my response to Rocksteady–yes you’re right and……),
And, I believe, given all I’ve written above, trying, in the whole context of Global Warming and its Effects on Southwest Forests and the Mostly Myopic Communities who are Increasingly Moving Into Them and Unwilling to Pay the Price and Do the Work (especially Collectively–see Payson, Arizona) …..
…. to Do the Right Thing.
I think that’s what Darrell Willis wants. He did say, in one of those articles (I forget which one and it’s getting late) IIRC that he didn’t know if another Hotshot Crew was what was called for. I do think that’s probably what he wants.
And, quite frankly, if that’s what he wants. all things considered, I have to admit, I’m not all that opposed to that. I think it’s still a worthwhile experiment.
National politics are making it harder and harder to fund the kinds of wildland firefighting and fuels reduction this country DESPERATELY needs.
More and more local-ish regional-ish entities HAVE to take vastly MORE responsibility for doing this job, both as it relates to fuels reduction and firefighting.
So that’s my thinking (including my bit of ranting) about this Prescott/Willis current situation.
And, I might add, I’m not so sure that “independent” study was all that “independent.” So there’s that!
And, speaking of Saint Patrick’s day, weren’t all those green aurora borealis events absolutely SPECTACULAR???
And PS. I LOVE fiddles!!!
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 19, 2015 at 10:31 pm
>> Marti said…
>>
>> And PS. I LOVE fiddles!!!
Then you will probably enjoy the following.
Two of the best living ITM ( Irish Traditional Music ) musicians who I have had the pleasure of playing with on a number of occasions.
I still have a dent in one of my fiddles from John doing one of those famous ‘dips’ he does with his guitar as shown in the video below.
Liz Carroll and John Doyle performing for President Obama and Ireland’s Taioseach ( Prime Minister ) Brian Cowen – St. Patrick’s Day
NOTE: Ignore the ‘Scottish bagpipers’ on the steps of the Capitol Building as Obama and Cowen made their way to the White House that day. It actually gets ‘Irish’ right after that… inside the White House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoIosUBr9Y
The ‘chunes’ being played are four Irish REELS…
1) Paddy Glackin’s Trip To Dingle ( by Paddy Glackin )
2) On the Lam ( by John Doyle )
3) The Waves at Dingle ( by Tom Fleming, County Kerry )
4) The Top of the Stairs ( by Liz Carroll )
Liz’s comment after the performance…
“Nice to be there… but the deadest room we’ve ever played”.
Reply to Marti Reed post on March 19, 2015 at 8:35 pm
>> Marti Reed said…
>>
>> A question. What were the other eight cities??
>> And what is your source for that?
Two primary sources for the ‘story’ above…
The ‘Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Commission’ has its own detailed HISTORY page on their own website… which is here…
http://static1.squarespace.com/static/53233282e4b094a873b75785/t/533d9e26e4b0cf4885e49cc8/1396547110876/3History.pdf
This HISTORY page actually clocks it from the beginning and goes into detail about all the GRANT money showing up, which is what really got the ball rolling and led to the CREATION of that original “Fuels Abatement Crew” and the actual Prescott “Wildland Division” itself.
It also shows how DEPENDENT both the PAWUIC efforts AND the whole ‘Wildland Division’ were on these 50/50 or 80/20 GRANT monies showing up each year.
The PAWUIC itself does not specifically mention this ‘list of communities’ that were at the top of the list for ‘Wildfire Danger’… but it DOES detail how Prescott WAS selected by the National Level “Firewise” program to be one of SEVEN ‘High Risk’ communities that were to be part of their new BETA roll-out of the National Level ‘Firewise’ program using those newly available “National Fire Plan” dollars.
The other ‘source’ for a lot of the information above is the U.S. Forestry’s own document named “Hotshot Crew History in America”.
( NOTE: There’s already one link above so I will post a )
( link to THIS document as a ‘Reply’ ).
That’s the document that mentions Prescott was one of NINE cities designated to be under risk of ‘Catastrophic Wildfire Danger’… but it, itself, does not name the other 8 cities/communities.
From the “Granite Mountain” part of that document…
Page 162 ( of 270 pages )…
———————————————————————————
History of the Granite Mountain Hotshots
…
The year 2000 saw the implementation of the National Fire Plan. Prescott was well on its way with PAWUIC to take advantage of the resources in this plan. The problem was that the public education was happening, but we could not get the work done on the ground to protect the community.
…
In 2001 with the support of PAWUIC and the City of Prescott, the Prescott Fire Department created a Wildland Division. The first order of business for the Widland Division was to conduct a risk assessment and to develop a Communitywide Vegetation Management Plan for the City of Prescott. The risk assessment found that Prescott was “living on the edge” and was designated as one of nine communities in the southwestern United Stated at risk of a catastrophic wildfire.
———————————————————————————
>> Marti said…
>>
>> A comparable experience to look at would be the Ironwood IHC,
>> out of Tucson (a DISTRICT crew) was disbanded last year also,
>> accompanied by considerable hew and cry and a national
>> petition, no less.
At this year’s “Arizona Wildfire Academy” awards banquet ( just a few weeks ago ), the Superintendent of the ( now disbanded ) Ironwood Hotshots was the one who got this year’s “Firefighter of the Year” award.
Last year… the AWA “Firefighter of the Year” was Gary Cordes.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> Given all the above, I actually think what they did in Prescott was
>> BRILLIANT. Even courageous, all things considered. And, yes, they
>> were making it up as they went along, becuz, there was no
>> precedent. What’s the fault in that?
None whatsoever… unless the ‘penny pinching’ and ‘fudging’ ends up actually compromising the SAFETY of the people you are employing to fulfill you own ‘agenda’.
There is certainly a “Bridge too far” element to this whole story.
Just reading Darrell Willis’ and Eric Marsh’s exchanges in the personnel file ( and Marsh’s letters that he was writing ) indicates that. They were starting to ‘fudge it’ pretty badly in order to NOT have to step back to being a ‘Type 2’ crew.
If you read the PAWUIC “History” document above… it certainly took a hell of a lot of time, patience and effort to even get the City of Prescott to budget a “Wildland Division” into the Fire Department.
The document above also makes it pretty clear what the ‘achilles heel’ was. EVERYTHING was based on these 50/50 or 80/20 GRANTS being available, and when the competition for all that money just got tighter and tighter, that’s when all the moves were made to try and make the “Wildland Division” an ‘expense neutral’ operation. So the document really shows how the writing was ‘on the wall’.
The City bean counters were ‘all onboard’ as long as shitloads of GRANT money was available… but when the expenses all started showing up on THEIR “Budget” schedules… not so much.
That’s when all the “fudging” started in order to not have to “go backwards”.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> There are a lot of people who are increasingly po’d at their mayor
>> and their city officials for a number of reasons. For all the usual
>> reasons. Which are pretty much the reasons people are increasingly
>> po’d at Albuquerque’s mayor and city officials.
One of the real ‘untold stories’ of how the recent “Great Recession” really has almost wrecked this country appears at the Municipal level.
Not enough has been written about how, as things got worse, the STATES themselves ( in order to survive themselves ) started putting more and more financial burdens BACK onto the ‘counties’ and the ‘cities’ themselves… just to make the STATE budge look better and so the STATE level politicians could get ‘the public’ off THEIR backs.
That CONTINUES to this day… and the DAMAGE done there hasn’t even really begun to get ‘fixed’ regardless of how the CURRENT politicos want to brag about how much ‘better’ things are now.
>> Marti also said…
>>
>> And don’t forget, in this whole context, ex-Fire-Chief Dan Frajio
>> (who resigned during a whole big related political blow-up after
>> the Yarnell Hill Fire) is running for mayor.
>>
>> I think that may be a VERY big part of this story, and of Willis’
>> thinking at this time. If I were him, it sure would be a VERY big
>> part of MY thinking.
You may be right. If Chief Dan Fraijo actually gets elected Mayor of Prescott… maybe Willis is hoping things will all get back to where they were before the tragedy.
Willis is ( in addition to everything else ) a ‘political animal’.
He knows how to ‘play that game’.
The other ‘source’ for a lot of the information above is the U.S. Forestry’s
own document named “Hotshot Crew History in America”.
Here is a direct link to a copy of it…
http://gacc.nifc.gov/swcc/dc/nmsdc/documents/Crews/NMSDC_Hotshot_Crew_History_2013.pdf
The “Granite Mountain” history begins on page 162.
And here is ANOTHER source that tells a COMPLETE history of the ‘Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface’ ( PAWUIC ) organization complete with details about which grants were obtained when… and for exactly how much.
It’s similar to the HISTORY that the PAWUIC has on their own website, but this one is sitting on the United States Department of Agriculture ( USDA ) “Forest and Rangelands” website.
The NAME of this report is a LONG one and is as follows…
“Cohesive Widlaland Fire Management Strategy”
“National Goals; Collective Solutions”
“Success Stories from the Western Region”
“Living on the Edge”
“The Prescott Wildland Urban Interface Commission”
http://www.forestsandrangelands.gov/strategy/documents/rsc/west/stories/WRSC-Nov-2012-Success-story-PAWUIC.pdf
This report verifies that Prescott WAS selected as one of only SEVEN communities to receive those initial “Firewise’ grants as part of the new ‘National Fire Plan’ circa 2000.
This report also verifies that the initial 50/50 grant from the FEDS that led to the creation of that first “Fuels Crew” in Prescott was only $168,000.
From this USDA “Success Story” report…
———————————————————————
Since it’s creation ( in 1990 ), PAWUIC has posted a remarkable tally of accomplishments, particularly notable since it remains an all-volunteer organization. Among its achievements:
– Firewise Communities/USA selected Prescott as one of seven communities in the United States to participate in their program for reducing the threat of wildfire. Subsequently the TimberRidge subdivision became the first designated Firewise /USA site in the country. Since then over 80% of TimberRidge properties have met and maintained Firewise standards.
– PAWUIC received a 2002 Western Wildland Urban Interface Grant for $168,000 (to be matched 50/50 locally), and used it to establish a Prescott Fire Department fuels management crew assigned to work on the creation of defensible space in the community. For this and several subsequent fuels reduction grants, the homeowner’s 50% share has been built into the Prescott Fire Department’s and Yavapai Fire District’s annual budgets, making the program free to landowners willing to create defensible space around their homes.
———————————————————————
**
** WHAT DOES DARRELL WILLIS REALLY WANT?
Since Darrell Willis has chosen to make his own resignation a ‘media event’ and included his own ‘conspiracy theories’ ( implicating his own current employer ) in his actual ( written ) resignation letter…
…it is hard to actually figure out what Wills really WANTS out of all this.
In addition to the accusations that someone in Prescott City Management ( his current employer ) ‘tampered’ with a $90,000 dollar taxpayer-funded (supposedly) independent report about how to reorg the fire department… Willis also gets firmly up on his usual preacher-wannabee horse and starts talking about “moral obligations” and whatnot.
He actually doesn’t just ‘quote’ from the Gettysburg address in his resignation letter.
He reproduces THREE ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS from it right up to the final “…that these dead shall not have died in vain.” part.
Then he CLOSES his letter with “I have a moral responsibility” and then reproduces the Granite Mountain Hotshot motto ( borrowed from Eric Marsh’s old college ) “Esse Quam Videri” ( To be rather than to seem ) right next to his own signature.
Here is EXACTLY how Willis ‘closes’ his resignation letter…
—————————————————————————
“It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here, have, this far, so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us – that from these honored dead we take increased deviotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…”
I feel a moral responsibility to see that the Courageous 19 won’t have died in vain!
My final day of work would be on March 20, 2015 but my final day on the payroll would be April 30, 2015. I believe my calculations are correct with my 29 days of paid leave.
“Esse Quam Videri”.
“To be, rather than to seem”.
Signed: Darrell Willis
—————————————————————————
Couple of ‘points’ here…
1) Classic Willis “God, Guts and Glory” stuff… trying to equate the deaths of civil service employees with some great military battle and the circumstances of some seasonal City employees who were only making $10 bucks an hour ( with no benefits ) to the circumstances of soldiers who can be shot or hanged for desertion if they do NOT ‘follow orders’ and do what they are told.
2) Willis concludes his letter with… “I feel a moral responsibility to see that the Courageous 19 won’t have died in vain!”.
Notice the EXCLAMATION POINT he ( himself ) put on the end of that ( vague ) statement.
This would be the primary source for the lingering “What is that supposed to mean?” or “What does Darrell Willis really WANT here?” questions surrounding this resignation letter.
It almost reads like… “I am retiring… but I am NOT going away… and I’m going to make sure the work these men started CONTINUES… but I am giving you no specifics at this time”.
Not exactly a ‘threat’… but some kind of ‘promise’ being made on Willis’ part?
Very strange, to say the least.
Does Darrell Willis actually think that by calling for an ‘investigation’ into the ‘independent’ report that that will lead to making sure the GM Hotshots “haven’t died in vain”… or something?
Let’s say that an independent report simply shows that the ‘original’ copy of the report that Willis says he possesses was simply a ‘draft’ copy… and the independent review board really did ‘change its mind’ about the value of trying to maintain an entire Wildland Division ( and an ultra-expensive Type 1 Hotshot Crew ) on the City’s meager budget.
In other words… what if it is TRUE that one ‘draft’ of the report didn’t say much about the ‘Wildland Division’ one way or the other… but the FINAL draft of the report really was making an honest recommendation to the City of Prescott that this whole ‘Wildland Division’ thing just wasn’t adding up to the right CBA ( Cost/Benefit Analysis ) for a City with severe Budget problems?
Does Willis think that is going to somehow lead to the City ‘changing its mind’ and reconstituting the entire Wildland Division AND the ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’?
Conversely… let’s say that some typical small-town politics WAS at play here and the City Manager of Prescott himself WANTED this ( paid for ) report to recommend disbanding the Wildland Division… and he DID make that known to those writing up the ‘final draft’ of the report and they simply obliged him by actually making that recommendation.
So what?
Monkey business… fer sure… but does Darrell Willis ALSO think that kind of ‘result’ to the investigation is going to magically lead to automatic ‘reconstitution’ of the entire ‘Wildland Division’ and the ‘Granite Mountain Hotshots’ organization?
Again… Willis stated… “I feel a moral responsibility to see that the Courageous 19 won’t have died in vain!”.
What does that REALLY mean?
Does Darrell Willis *actually* think that nothing will do but the complete restoration of the Prescott Wildland Division AND the recreation of the original “Granite Mountain Hotshots”?
That anything less than that is somehow ‘dishonoring the dead’ and means they all ‘died in vain’… or some such equivalent high-horse nonsense?
I suppose we WILL be hearing more from Willis about all this…. including ‘specifics’ about what he, himself, would consider an appropriate course of action to ensure the men did NOT ( in his opinion ) ‘die in vain’.
In the meantime… I DO worry about this Willis guy.
In all the time that has passed and his obsessions with “God had a different plan for these men that day” and “helping the widows and the families” and “honoring the men that died” and all the other “mission from God” stuff he is alluding to…
…I wonder if anyone was making sure THIS guy was getting the help HE needed to successfully deal with what happened in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
Willis himself is always the first one to attach MILITARY quotes and references to municipal fire fighting… so I’m wondering if he, himself, might admit he is ( and HAS been ) suffering from his own bit of PTSD here.
It can go on for YEARS if not properly ‘treated’.
PS: One final note about how Willis ‘closes’ his resignation letter.
After all the high-horse quotes about “moral obligations” and “making sure the dead shall not have died in vain” and “That’s why I have to resign” stuff… Willis’ ACTUAL last line in his resignation letter is all about the MONEY.
He’s going to stop showing up for work on March 20… but in no uncertain terms says he still EXPECTS to be on full salary for another 29 days ( until April 30 ) because of some (supposed) 29 days of ‘paid leave’ he thinks he has ‘on the books’.
I mean… let’s take a ‘moral stand” and RESIGN over “differences in vision”… but God forbid we leave 29 accrued days of paid leave sitting on the table, right?
It is NOT March 20 yet.
Darrell Willis is, even at THIS moment, fully ‘on salary’ and required to show up for work.
After what he just pulled… it would not surprise me at all if someone from Prescott Human Services is showing up at his office this very afternoon ( with a cardboard box ) to ‘walk him out of the building’.
Some people don’t even get the cardboard box ( or the time to clean out their desk ) for pulling the same kind of shit he just did.
**
** DARRELL WILLIS HAS HIS
** OWN ‘CONSPIRACY THEORIES’
New article(s) appearing today. A full copy of Darrell Willis’ resignation letter is now publicly available and it appears the initial reporting on this letter was pretty piss poor.
As it turns out… Willis’ letter of resignation is outright accusing someone in Prescott City management of altering the original report to the City which led to them dissolving the Woodland Division… and Willis now wants his OWN investigation into this.
http://m.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25136-former-chief-darrell-willis-says-icma-report-on-the-wildland-division-tampered-with
Typo above. Smartphone spelling checker demon strikes again. It turned original typed word “Wildland” up above into “Woodland”.
WOW, the plot is really starting to thicken.
If the plots ( and sub-plots ) get any thicker ( as in… any more private agendas showing up ) it’s going to take a Class ‘C’ Saw rating and a STIHL with a 59 inch sawguide/blade to slice through it all.
Reply to rocksteady post on March 18, 2015 at 9:33 am
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> WOW, the plot is really starting to thicken.
Once again… I spoke too soon. Looks like the Class ‘C’ sawyer and 59 inch STIHL is going to be needed after all as this ‘plot thickens’.
Also… so much for ‘backburning’.
Add a little oxygen and… sure enough… the room explodes.
One member of the Prescott City Council is ALREADY (publicly) calling for the ‘investigation’ that Darrell Willis said he wanted.
This article appeared late last night at PDC…
Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Prescott Councilman asks for investigation into
charges by Fire Division Chief Willis
Published 3/17/2015 3:10:00 PM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&ArticleID=143048
From the article…
———————————————————–
PRESCOTT – Allegations that Prescott Fire Division Chief Darrell Willis made when he announced his retirement this past week could become the topic of a third-party investigation.
Prescott City Councilman Charlie Arnold delivered a letter to City Attorney Jon Paladini Tuesday afternoon, March 17, asking for an investigation into Willis’ charges that the results of a 2014 fire department analysis were “tampered” with before reaching the full council.
———————————————————–
The letter that Charlie Arnold actually sent to Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini is already available online over at the Chino Valley News site and I’ll post a link to that in a ‘Reply’.
SIDENOTE: This is probably neither here not there… but it’s worth mentioning that just last week the Prescott ‘E’ News also ran a story saying this Prescott City Council ‘Charlie Arnold’ guy had announced he will NOT be seeking reelection to the Council.
Charlie Arnold will, however, remain on the Prescott City Council for the remained of the year 2015.
That article is here…
Prescott ‘E’ News
Article Title: Councilman Charlie Arnold Announces He Will Not Seek Re-Election to Council
Published: 10.March,.2015 by Lynne LaMaster
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25107-councilman-charlie-arnold-announces-he-will-not-seek-re-election-to-council
From that article…
———————————————————
Prescott City Councilman Charlie Arnold has decided not to run for re-election.
Arnold explained, “After a lot of thought and consideration I have decided not to run for re-election on Prescott(?) City Council… I am proud of what we have accomplished over the last several years. This year however, we faced significant challenges in our budget and in some actions being taken by the state. Now I want to focus my time and attention by addressing those issues and not have to spend my time out campaigning. I want to make sure we fix our budget problems and make that a top priority.”
What’s next after 2015 when Arnold is no longer on council? What plans does Arnold have?
“I am going to continue to play an active role in this community. I love Prescott,” Arnold states. “This is my home. I think there is a place for me to continue to have a voice and continue to provide ideas on a way we can move our community forward. But I am going to focus this year on making sure we leave this city in good shape for those that are coming behind us and that the next generation has a stable budget and a community that has a vision.”
———————————————————
Followup…
The ‘Chino Valley News’ is all over this developing story about Willis’ “conspiracy theory” and the calls for an investigation.
They published an article just a few hours ago that is a better ’roundup’ of the situation than some other articles. Their article has the VIDEO of Prescott City Concilman Charlie Arnold’s press conference AND it has a full reproduction of the ACTUAL letter that Arnold sent to City attorney John Paladini requesting an ‘investigation’.
This ICMA ( International City/County Management Association ) report that is at issue here cost the City of Prescott at least $90,000 dollars.
That’s the exact same amount as Darrell Willis’ salary for one full year serving as “Wildland Division Chief” for Prescott.
That’s a ‘chunk-a-change for a City that is already crying poor, anyway, and if that expensive ( supposedly independent ) report was ‘tampered’ with and someone got their own ‘private agenda’ inserted into the final recommendations being made to the City of Prescott… the shit is gonna hit the fan.
Chino Valley News
Article Title: Prescott Councilman Charlie Arnold Asks
for Investigation into $90K ICMA Report
Published: Wednesday, 18 March 2015 07:25 by Lynn LaMaster
http://chinovalleyenews.com/news/current-news/item/6032-prescott-councilman-charlie-arnold-asks-for-investigation-into-90k-icma-report
At the bottom of the article… the ‘Chino Valley News’ makes it clear they are going to remain ‘all over this’ and they have already published their OWN ‘list of questions’ they intended to have answered…
From the bottom of the article…
—————————————————————
Questions That Need to be Answered
Here are some of the questions we will be pursuing:
1) In the November 12, 2013 Council meeting, it is reported that, “Councilman Arnold said he reviewed the proposal and would like everyone to be aware that there are multiple opportunities for draft reports to be distributed and comments will be allowed…” Were any draft reports distributed?
2) Chief Willis said he has had a copy of the “true report since March of 2014.” How did he get a copy of that report? Is it just a draft?
3) Was the report changed? If so, who changed it? Why?
4) An ICMA representative presented the analysis to Council. If the City had changed it, why would ICMA agree to present it?
5) Why did it take nearly twice as long to complete as expected?
6) Will the City Attorney agree to conduct an investigation, or to have a 3rd party conduct an investigation?
Download LINK for the Presentation made to the Prescott City Council on August 26, 2014. is HERE. (PDF, 37 pages long, 8 MB)
In the end, Arnold acknowledged that he might have angered some people by requesting the investigation. “But it was the right thing to do,” Arnold said firmly, undeterred. “The citizens and the Council have a right to know.”
—————————————————————
Followup…
In the last 24 hours… the Prescott Daily Courier has actually published TWO different articles about City Councilman Charlie Arnold’s letter to City attorney Paladini requesting the ‘investigation’ that Darrell Willis called for in his resignation letter.
One appeared late last night and ANOTHER ( followup ) article appeared this morning. It has even more ‘detail’ in it.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Allegations about elimination of wildland
division prompt review
Published: 3/18/2015 6:00:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&subsectionID=1086&articleID=143058
From this SECOND PDC article in the last 24 hours…
—————————————————————-
PRESCOTT – The 2014 dissolution of the Prescott Fire Department’s wildland division is under question – first by the chief of the former division, and now by a member of the Prescott City Council.
On Tuesday afternoon, March 17, City Councilman Charlie Arnold delivered a letter to Prescott City Attorney Jon Paladini, and then conducted a press conference outside Prescott City Hall.
Responding to allegations that Prescott Fire Division Chief Darrell Willis made this past week about the elimination of the wildland division, Arnold asked for a third-party review of the process used in the draft of the recent International City/County Management Association (ICMA) analysis of the Prescott Fire Department.
An ICMA official presented the final draft to the City Council on Aug. 26, 2014. Among the recommendations: Elimination and reassignment of the city’s long-standing wildland division.
Within months, the city had followed through on that advice. Prescott Fire Chief Dennis Light reported to the council in November 2014 that the wildland division had been eliminated in a “rebranding” of the department.
Willis, who announced on March 11 that he would be retiring after 30 years with the department, said he was surprised by the final draft’s recommendations – especially since he had a copy of the preliminary wildland-division draft, which he said was significantly different than the report that went to the City Council.
“There were a lot of recommendations that were changed about the staffing of the division,” Willis said Tuesday, March 17.
Ultimately, Willis said the City Council’s vision for protecting the community from catastrophic wildfire differed so dramatically from his own that he chose to retire. In a March 13 article in The Daily Courier, Willis was quoted saying the city’s wildfire prevention efforts were “down to barebones.”
In the wake of Willis’ resignation this past week, City Manager Craig McConnell has declined to comment publicly, but wrote in an email to other city officials: “Generally speaking, staff will not be commenting on the content of the resignation letter, some of which is not factual, and misleading.”
Asked for a further comment on Monday and Tuesday, McConnell declined to elaborate on the specifics of that statement.
—————————————————————-
SIDENOTE: It’s still interesting to note that Darrell Willis himself had decided to ‘leave’ way back in 2014 after this ‘reorg’ took place… but he then kept that a ‘secret’ and agreed to be reassigned as “Support Services Division Chief’ for the Prescott Fire Department. He continued to stay ‘on salary’ with just one objective in mind… to see the ‘hearings’ over the additional benefits to the GM widows through to a conclusion ( and to testify in those hearings ).
Willis has basically stated ( in his own resignation letter ) that he feels he has a ‘moral responsibility’ to ‘honor those that died’ ( and he quotes the Gettysburg address to justify his motivations ) and that he basically thinks he’s on some kind of ‘Mission from God’ here.
So EVERYONE seems to have their own PRIVATE AGENDAS trying to work themselves out here ( at taxpayer expense ).
Darrell Willis included.
I personally think Willis is trying to get his 15 minutes of fame. He is a glory hound…. “god had his plan…”, Gettysburg address….sticking up for the widows…
He wants to be front and centre and I DO NOT trust him…
This plot has been thickening, exponentially, since about 10 minutes after Eric Marsh announced over the radio that they were going into their sh………..shelters.
And it hasn’t quit thickening since. That’s essentially why we’ve all been relentlessly gathered around this campfire.
That’s why I say to people, some of whom roll their eyes into the backs of their heads, this fire hasn’t even remotely finished burning.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 17, 2015 at 3:06 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> I cant get into those ADOSH and State legal filings
>>
>> is there any thing new there???
>>
>> WTKTT responded…
>>
>> No.
>>
>> The last ‘update’ is still March 2 which was that letter from the ADOSH attorneys
>> telling Judge Michale A. Mosesso they are NOT going to respond to Arizona
>> Forestry’s February 27 request ( the day after Brendan blew off his second scheduled
>> deposition ) for ‘judicial sanctions’ against them over ‘discovery’ issues until ADOSH
>> sees what the results of the ‘global mediation’ are.
>>
>> Since there has been ANOTHER 30 day freeze in the court calendars for all these
>> cases ( requested by Arizona Forestry )… it’s actually not likely we WILL see any
>> more ‘documents’ appearing in the ALJ Hearing Case File ( for a while ).
Well shut my mouth. I spoke too soon.
Just a few HOURS ago… a NEW document appeared on that PUBLIC online ALJ Hearing File page.
Looks like Arizona Forestry is still “full speed ahead” on playing nasty hardball with ADOSH in the “Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH” case, even though they are ALSO ( supposedly ) actively in the middle of ‘good-faith mediation efforts’ to try and SETTLE the case.
This NEW document contains THREE things.
1) ADOSH’s notice to ALJ Judge Moseso that Attorney Valli Goss is replacing Attorney Christopher Andersen as the ‘lead counsel’ for ADOSH. This letter was sent to Judge Moseso on March 5, 2015 ( 12 days ago ) but is only now showing up online. That violates the stated promise that the online file would be updated on the first business day of each week if there was any ‘new business’.
It means that they are only going to update the online file when they FEEL like it… and NOT according to the schedule they have posted on the very same web page where the information is SUPPOSED to be posted on a ‘timely/weekly’ basis.
2) Arizona Forestry’s request to Judge Mosesso to issue a nasty SUBPOENA to the ‘Rimkus Consulting Group’, who is now ADOSH investigator Marshall Krotenberg’s current employer. They want ALL ‘personel records’ for Krotenberg going back YEARS.
3) ADOSH’s response to Judge Mosesso to Arizona Forestry’s request that he send this nasty SUBPOENA ( which Arizona Forestry even worded and submitted for signature themselves ). ADOSH says this is completely ‘off the reservation’ given that Marshal Krotenberg is not even being claimed to be an ‘expert witness’ in the case. ADOSH also states flat-out that this is nothing but a “fishing expedition” ( their words ) and qualifies as nothing short of simple ‘harassment’ against former ADOSH investigator Marshall Krotenberg.
What is interesting here is that in the SUBPOENA itself ( completely composed by Arizona Forestry lawyers ) they are requesting that they receive ALL the personnel files for Marshall Krotenberg on March 31, 2015.
That’s one day AFTER the new DEADLINE for the ‘global mediation’ talks that are currently taking place in this case.
So at the same time “Arizona Forestry” is (supposedly) negotiating in ‘good faith’ to try and SETTLE both the “AZF vs. ADOSH” case AND all the ‘wrongful death’ suits…
…their lawyers seem to be indicating they will still be “ready to go” with all guns blazing on March 31… the day after the current deadline for settling the cases.
That is actually MORE than just indicating you are “still ready to fight”.
That can be construed as an actual defacto demonstration that you are NOT partaking in ‘mediation’ efforts with full “good faith” intent that the matter CAN be “settled” amicably.
The new document that just appeared a few hours ago is called…
“2015_03 Updated 03.17.15.pdf”
…and a direct link to this new document is…
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6N47Z5CNR-CUjVHVUV2T2tIblE/edit?pli=1
PS: There is NO mention of anything to do with Brendan McDonough, or WHY he backed out of his scheduled under-oath deposition for the SECOND time… or whether “Arizona Forestry” is even trying to re-schedule that deposition before March 30, the deadline for the “global mediation” talks.
More to come on this, I’m sure.
Followup…
The DATE on the actual request to Judge Mosesso from “Arizona Forestry” that the Judge issue their pre-written/composed nasty SUBPPOENA to “Rimkus Constulting” and “Marshall Krotenberg” appears to have been March 11, 2015.
That’s 6 days AGO… and 8 days AFTER the last “global mediation” meeting with the “wrongful death” plaintiffs.
That’s not a good sign for the “mediation efforts”.
It means the “Arizona Forestry” lawyers got to work on some NEW hardball even FOLLOWING those initial “global mediation” efforts.
It would tend to indicate what the ‘Arizona Forestry’ lawyers actually think the chances are of successfully ‘settling’ this case according to the plaintiff’s demands.
If the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs really were ‘sticking to their guns’ in those initial mediation efforts and expecting their stated goals of “truth, transparency, accountability, and CHANGE”… maybe that is what is still a “non-starter” for Arizona Forestry and they figured they better go “full speed ahead” with the hardball since the chances of settlement on the plaintiff’s terms is NOT likely.
But Arizona Forestry lawyers themselves are ALSO the ones who asked for the continued 30 day ‘freeze’ in the court calendar for there to be ‘more negotiations’ with the ‘wrongful death’ plaintiffs… so we really are just watching ‘lawyer games’ in action here without having the “full story” yet.
Wow, no one has posted for almost 3 days… wondering if I got the wrong link ? 🙂
Bust into our prescribed burning for fuels management season. Did a habitat burn last Friday. Rained Saturday and Sunday, then snowed 2 ” on Monday morning… Perfect… Cheapest mop up you can ask for.. About 30 acres in size.
I don’t know about others… but the days leading up to ( and including ) Saint Patrick’s Day get pretty swamped for me. Lifelong musician and fiddler. The world can’t get enough of the Irish fiddle ‘chunes’ these days of the year and I’m happy to oblige anywhere I can.
So “Happy Saint Patrick’s Day” to everyone. Please drink and drive responsibly.
I think the discussion is currently ( as it has been before at times ) simply ‘backburning’.
A LOT happened in the last 2 weeks.
– Brendan backed out of his under-oath deposition ( for the SECOND time ) No word ( yet ) whether he still feels the need to ( as was reported by Arizona Forestry attorney’s ) ‘get something off his chest’ and finally tell investigators/officials what he REALLY knows about things that happened on June 30, 2013 in Yarnell.
– Arizona Forestry proceeds with global mediation over both the ‘AZF vs. ADOSH’ suit and the ‘wrongful death’ suits on March 2 and 3, even ( apparently ) without finding out what Brendan McDonough really knows.
– Judge grants another 30 day ‘calendar freeze’ in all the suits so there can be more ‘negotiations’. Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) comments publicly that the extension does NOT have anything to do with money and is more about achieving the plaintiffs stated goal(s) of ‘transparency, accountability, and SAFETY CHANGE in the WFF industry’. Extension could ALSO have a lot to do with Brendan backing out of his deposition and might be so another can be arranged and finally take place in the next 30 days.
– Prescott decides to NOT file appeals over the Hotshot benefit issues.
– Darrell Willis resigns as “Prescott Fire Department Support Services” Division Chief and ‘retires’ from the Prescott Fire Department ( for the SECOND time )… then makes a statement that quotes the “Gettysburg Address” and makes it obvious he was only staying ‘on the job’ to see the Hotshot widows benefits through to a conclusion. A LOT of comments have been made on that Prescott Daily Courier article with Willis’ statements in it which is still HERE at PDC…
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1086&ArticleID=142889
A LOT of Prescott locals are still asking a LOT of ‘questions’ and commenting on this ‘trash talk’ between Willis and the City of Prescott. Willis criticizes the City for not having the right ‘vision’… and City of Prescott officials still ragging on Willis about him NOT keeping them fully informed on the Hotshots employment/benefit eligibility situation.
– Yarnell Hill Memorial Site Board is breaking Arizona Law AGAIN and have still not published the ‘minutes’ of their last PUBLIC Board meeting.
So there is now a lot that is ‘hanging fire’ ( so to speak ).
I did want to take a moment and thank you ( rocksteady ) for the way you ‘hung in there’ during the recent FBAN discussions, despite the not-unexpected ‘noise’ that appeared on that particular ‘channel’ in the midst of the discussion.
Your “Day in the life of (one) FBAN” story that was first lost in the electronic void and then you diligently reproduced was important… and appreciated.
I meant to comment on it… but life intruded.
My comments would have been along the lines of…
Your story of how YOU ( as an FBAN ) approach your work and a fire assignment is actually VERY close to what FBAN Byron Kimball did ( and WAS doing ) there in Yarnell on June 30, 2013… but with one very important exception.
Whereas YOU say that you make it a ‘habit’ of keeping management ( and resources ) fully INFORMED of both weather AND fire behavior changes… Byron Kimball did NOT.
Byron Kimball was just being treated as the ‘weatherman’ that day and he was (apparently) just accepting that role.
He basically did ALL the other things you say you would do during the course of the day ( except run any modeling ). He was out ‘observing fire behavior’ and he was, in fact, taking lots of pictures and studying the fire and whatnot… but he was NOT directly communicating back to management about the ‘fire behavior changes’ even he was witnessing and was ( by his own testimony to ADOSH ) VERY concerned about.
Kimball seemed to just be taking some kind of “Well… if I can see it then Operations and Resources must be able to see it, too” approach to his ‘communications’ that day.
He did NOT ( nor was he asked to ) consult with SPGS Gary Cordes on the setting of those 3 critical ‘trigger points’ for Yarnell… nor did he interface with Cordes in any way as the fire behavior intensified and was about to start ‘blowing through’ those inadequate trigger points.
He ( Kimball ) didn’t even know there WERE any ‘trigger points’ set up by someone who would later tell ADOSH he didn’t even consider himself a ‘Structure Protection Specialist’.
It was all about INFORMATION and TIMING that day.
Even Mike Dudley, the SAIT Co-lead, told a roomful of firefighters in Idaho on June 20, 2014 that 15 minutes ( either way ) would have made all the difference that day for Granite Mountain.
15 minutes SOONER on the start of ‘the mission’… and they probably would have made it.
15 minutes LATER and it would have become obvious it shouldn’t be attempted from their position and they most probably would have stayed in the ‘safe black’. and just waited for the ‘firestorm’ to be over before walking back to town the way they came up.
Somewhere in the Yarnell incident, I believe, is a ‘story’ about how FBANs SHOULD be directly interacting with fire management AND resources themselves… whether there are any “Safety Officers” in place or not.
It is still not even known if the only FBAN in Yarnell even KNEW that there were NO “Safety Officers” there that day until shortly before the deployment itself.
If you take ‘the story’ all the way back to Friday night… there is still this ‘common thread’ of decisions being made by people who ( apparently ) did NOT have a full grasp or concept on the POTENTIAL of the fire… or what COULD happen there if the initial attack on the fire was to FAIL ( as it did ).
This is the ‘firefighting business”.
Keyword: FIRE
I can think of nothing more important to have the people who have STUDIED and who KNOW the potential of FIRE ( in ALL different fuel types ) to be “up front and center” right from the onset of an incident and for them to be LISTENED TO and RESPECTED with regards to how that fire should be attacked ( or even backed away from ).
That didn’t happen in Yarnell.
From Friday night through Sunday afternoon… MANY decision were being made by people who didn’t seem to fully grasp what COULD happen there in that valley, with those extreme conditions, and in that explosive fuel type… nor were they fully grasping when to STOP what they were doing because it simply wasn’t going to accomplish anything…
…and even the FBAN who WAS there and DID fully grasp ALL these things ended up with his own ‘communication issues’.
There are “Lessons to be Learned” in here somewhere.
There really are.
So thanks again for ‘hanging in there’ for that discussion.
I think it was ( and still is ) an important discussion to be having.
More later…
Haven’t had much to comment on.
But I see WTKTT is finally admitting to being a FIDDLER I like that_______
I cant get into those ADOSH and State legal filings is there any thing new there????
Also a few new rumors cropping up from Off the record statements from McDonough
and the Info he still has not yielded.
Some of which may be why Willis is Resigning—–He could be implemented in the withholding of information thru his advice to McDonough.
Not enough to put a finger on yet.
There is a old saying GET OUT WHILE THE GITTING’S GOOD
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 17, 2015 at 3:06 pm
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> I cant get into those ADOSH and State legal filings
Actually, you SHOULD be able to. It’s just a web page with some links to some PDF files.
That page is HERE…
Yarnell Hill ALJ ( Administrative Law Judge ) Hearing Page…
https://sites.google.com/site/yarnellhillinformation/home/yarnellhillaljhearingfile
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> is there any thing new there???
No. Last ‘update’ is still March 2 which was that letter from the ADOSH attorneys telling Judge Michale A. Mosesso they are NOT going to respond to Arizona Forestry’s February 27 request ( the day after Brendan blew off his second scheduled deposition ) for ‘judicial sanctions’ against them over ‘discovery’ issues until ADOSH sees what the results of the ‘global mediation’ are.
If Arizona Forestry just ‘settles’ everything… there’s no need for ADOSH to even respond to this bullshit ‘request for judicial sanctions’ paperwork because the ‘Arizona Forestry vs. ADOSH’ suit will have ‘evaporated’ as well as the ‘wrongful death’ suits.
That March 2 entry is also the one where the ADOSH lawyers were informing Judge Mosesso that the scheduled February 26 McDonough deposition did NOT take place. No reason give. They were just informing the Judge that it never happened.
Since there has been ANOTHER 30 day freeze in the court calendars for all these cases ( requested by Arizona Forestry )… it’s actually not likely we WILL see any more ‘documents’ appearing in the ALJ Hearing Case File.
Everything is literally ‘on hold’ now to see if Arizona Forestry can settle these cases in the next 30 days ( actually… less than that… deadline is end of March and that’s less than 30 days now ).
I STILL think one of the big reasons Arizona Forestry asked for another 30 days is directly related to Brendan McDonough blowing off his under-oath deposition for the SECOND time on February 26, 2015.
I really think the Attorneys from the Arizona Attorney General’s office ( who are representing Arizona Forestry ) want to KNOW what Brendan KNOWS before they fully ‘settle’ these cases.
Since Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) has stated publicly that the ‘extension’ has nothing to do with money and everything to do with achieving ‘transparency, accountability and CHANGES in the WFF Industry’… it very well could be the plaintiffs in the wrongful death cases themselves that are now INSISTING that SOMEONE get this McDonough guy into a room and finally telling ALL he knows about June 30, 2013.
If I were them… I certainly WOULD be insisting that happen as part of any ‘settlement’.
If these cases actually ‘settle’… this might represent the LAST CHANCE for anyone to get Brendan McDonough into a room to do what he should have done in the first place… and that is tell EVERYTHING he knows and not just ‘selective’ parts of it that fit HIS agenda.
I also ‘hear ya’ about Willis possibly being the one ( all along ) advising Brendan to NOT ‘tell the whole story’ and to ONLY answer questions about radio traffic he was a direct participant in and NEVER comment on anything he might have just ‘overheard’ on the radio.
I think we still have no real idea how much Darrell Willis may have been the one ‘running the show’ behind the scenes here at all times.
His sudden appearance in a courtroom in Joy Collura’s hearing to provide total HEARSAY evidence to the judge about TWO other ‘widows’ ( when that had nothing to do with the papers served on Joy Collura ) is just an illustration of this. Willis had ( and may still have ) his ‘hands’ in EVERYTHING that is/was going on.
Willis is a political animal… and he felt he was on a ‘mission from God’ to protect the families of the widows… and was quoting from the Gettysburg address to justify his involvement.
So there’s no telling what all Darrell Willis may have been up to ‘behind the scenses’ throughout all of this.
I would STILL like someone to ask him how Christopher Mackenzie’s camera, Eric Marsh’s cellphone, and the (supposed) FOUR handheld GPS Units that GM carried just ‘disappeared’ from the deployment site.
If he (Willis) is the one who actually handed Eric Marsh’s cellphone to widow Amanda Marsh… then WHO gave it to HIM… and how did THEY obtain it from the deployment site?
Let me add a little here.
We have the only survivor of the GM Crew– McDonough.
The first person he sits down and talks to is Willis the head supervisor of the crew and a Father figure to many on the Crew including McDonough.
He is distraught the crew are dead he is the only one left and he confides in the only supervisor left. McDonough needs guidance and direction from some one who he respects and is connected with the crew.
You can take it from there Willis advised and consoled his only crewman left.
There is a lot to just this story here in the first 24 to 48 hours.
And it could explain the lack of information that McDonough has released to this point.
We have questioned this before but with little information.
I still find it ‘not credible’ that Willis told ADOSH he only met with McDonough in the Ranch House Restaurant parking lot to (quote) “check on his welfare”… and did NOT ask him ANY questions about how in the hell HE ( McDonough ) was standing there safe in the parking lot with all the GM vehicles… but his 19 ‘brothers’ were out there ‘deploying’ somewhere.
It is perfectly obvious (now) that in every interview Brendan McDonough gave ( always with a lawyer by his side ) that the ‘advice’ he had been given when something like this…
“You need to answer questions about any radio conversation in which you were a direct participant… but you do NOT have to talk about ANY radio traffic that you might have just HEARD”.
That is EXACTLY how McDonough was ‘conducting’ himself in all those interviews. I even pointed out in Chapter 12 how, in one of those (( Crosstalk )) moments in his ADOSH interview transcript… the actual AUDIO tape proves that Brendan almost ‘slipped up’. He was asked if that “See ya later” conversation was the last time he HEARD anything on the GM Intra Crew… and he ALMOST said “Yes”… but then caught himself and said it was simply the last time he TALKED over the GM intra crew.
If Brendan has said “Yes” in response to a question about whether that was the last thing he HEARD on the GM intra-crew… Brendan seemed to realize himself that would have been an untruthful response and so he corrected his answer to match the legal advice he had been given.
The mystery is still whether that ‘advice’ to ONLY talk about radio traffic in which he was a direct participant ONLY came from the lawyers… or whether that ‘advice’ might have been coming from someone with the City of Prescott… perhaps even Willis himself.
I’ve also said this before… but if anyone can ever get this McDonough guy into a room and under-oath… and it DOES turn out he heard things that he’s never admitted to in any prior investigation or interview…
…Some of the additional questions he needs to be asked “under-oath” would be…
1) WHY were you withholding information?
2) Did someone TELL you that you should ONLY talk about radio conversations in which you were a direct participant… but to NOT talk about anything you may have HEARD on the radio?
3) If so… WHO was that?
Followup…
Once again… here is what Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) wrote in a PUBLIC comments at the bottom of the recent Prescott Daily Courier Article about the 30 day ‘extension’ in the ‘wrongful death’ global mediation…
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142832
Pfingston said…
“The families I stand with are seeking truth, transparency, change and accountability. That is why we have requested time for mediation. It is through mediation that you seek change not money.”
Notice that she says WE ( the plaintiffs ) requested ‘more time’.
The actual REQUEST for ‘more time’ to the Judge came officially from Arizona Forestry ( defendant )… but that is as it should be, legally speaking.
It might very well be that the Arizona Forestry put an ‘offer’ on the table on March 2 and 3… but the ‘plaintiffs’ want more of what they originally stated their goals were. Truth, transparency, accountability, and changes.
Arizona Forestry might have entered the ‘mediation’ with their checkbooks wide open… but NOT willing to talk about ‘all the other stuff”… and the plaintiffs ( as they should ) found that ‘unacceptable’.
It also very well could be that the plaintiff’s lawyers themselves were fully aware that the February 26 under-oath deposition of McDonough was SUPPOSED to take place BEFORE the first ‘Mediation’ session… but then Brendan blew it off ( for the SECOND time ).
Part of that March 2,3 ‘mediation session’ really could have been the plaintiff’s lawyers themselves now insisting this under-oath deposition of this elusive McDonough guy MUST take place… and SOON… and MUST be part of the ‘truth and transparency’ element(s) of any ‘settlement’.
Some of the plaintiffs might even actually already KNOW exactly what Brendan KNOWS… but they want it to get ‘on the record’ in an official manner as part of any ‘settlement’.
We shall see, I guess.
These things take time… but they DO have to ‘move forward’.
Sooner or later… we WILL find out everything that’s been going on.
WTKTT
I noted in the legal info that a new subpoena on 3/17 had been filed
which caused quite a feed back between ADOSH and the State.
It is stuffed in 3 up from the bottom.
Cant really tell what it is all about a Company was used for some information gathering etc.
You will have to read it and see if there is some underlying info to be
found there.
Our postings crossed ‘in the mail’ on this one.
Yes… I ‘spoke too soon’.
Just hours ago a NEW document appeared in that ALJ Hearing file and I posted about it as a new parent comment above.
The INTERESTING thing here are the DATES and the TIMING.
Apparently… the “Arizona Forestry” lawyers ( actually lawyers in the Arizona State Attorney General’s office ) got hard to work on some NEW hardball and nasty-grams just 6 days ago ( on March 11, 2015 )… but that is also 8 days AFTER that last ‘global mediation’ effort where they walked out saying they “need more time” to negotiate.
There is a “good faith mediation” issue now involved here, and the new HARDBALL effort might be an indication of how the Arizona Forestry lawyers feel about the ACTUAL chances of settling all this amicably.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you WWTKTT
Glad to hear from you Sonny Happy St. Patrick’s day to you to.
Reply to Sonny post on March 17, 2015 at 6:37 pm
>> Sonny said…
>>
>> Happy St. Patrick’s Day to you WWTKTT
Lá Fhéile Pádraig sona daoibh.
Also…
Scéal a tharraingíonn scéal.
Rough translation from Gaelic/Irish…
“One truth and/or story draws another on”.
OR… ( another translation )…
“The more people feel free to speak then the more people will speak freely”.
You said:
“Whereas YOU say that you make it a ‘habit’ of keeping management ( and resources ) fully INFORMED of both weather AND fire behavior changes… Byron Kimball did NOT.
Byron Kimball was just being treated as the ‘weatherman’ that day and he was (apparently) just accepting that role.”
When lives were on the line, my dad NEVER “just accepted” being “just the weatherman.” NEVER. And, regarding the Balloon Fiesta, he wasn’t even being PAID.
I just REALLY experience a whole lot of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE regarding both this and Bravo 3’s communicating their concern at 12:30 pm that the fire was going to, all things considered, under the influence of the thunderstorms moving in, reverse direction and start burning uphill toward Yarnell, with all that that implicated.
Which they communicated to……oh wait……oh yes…..an ephemeral, as it turned out to be, Division Z “supervisor” by the name of Rance Marquez, who, in turn, communicated that to……………..
………nobody.
What is WITH this so-called “incident command system” when nobody in the chain of command seems to be communicating anything of note to anybody who counts in this “incident command system”?
Which also relates to my list of things related to Phoenix which I haven’t had time to write about……
I just seriously don’t get it. Is this stuff “standard operating procedures”?? If so, it definitely ain’t anything approaching “best practices.”
*Heads off to bed shaking her head in complete befuddlement.*
In his speech to that roomful of Utah firefighters on June 20, 2014… SAIT Co-lead Mike Dudley acknowledged the REAL problem that day.
He said, flat-out….
“A lot of people were TALKING…
Very FEW people were COMMUNICATING.”
From Mike Dudley’s speech…
—————————————
So it’s just them ( Granite Mountain and DIVSA Marsh ) up on that ridge… and as the day progresses… everything that they had started out with that morning becomes a moot point… because the strategy and tactics that they thought were valid that morning is… no longer.
So they’re sitting up there… and wondering what to do.
I will say this. There is this point where… well… you can see the dialogue… and that’s one of the key components.
A lot of people were talking… very few people were communicating.
And you saw that little snippet of when Blue Ridge and Granite are tryin’ to identify… “Where are you guys? Youre’ in the black?”… “Yea… we’re makin’ our way down the escape route”.
At no point do you see someone finally go… “Okay… WHERE exactly are you HEADED?”.
That was never defined.
It was almost as if Granite Mountain was bein’ deliberately vague.
——————————————
International Association of Wildland Fire ( IAWF ) President and special consultant on the SAIT panel Dr. Tom Zimmermann stated ( in a public radio interview on National Public Radio ) that there were NO real technical issues with the radios themselves. The real PROBLEM was that they were NOT (quote) “actively ENGAGED” on the radios and were NOT “communicating effectively”.
**
** CLOSEUP VIDEO OF ROTOR WASH EFFECT ON A SMOLDERING AREA
This relates back to the discussion in the previous chapter about what *might* have happened in Yarnell on Saturday afternoon.
ICT4 Russ Shumate testified that it was DURING the delivery of bladder bags and supplies up to the ‘smoldering’ fire area when the fire actually ‘flared up’ and jumped over the two-track road.
ICT4 Russ Shumate decided to NOT use any Helicopter bucket drops on the fire all day Saturday even though BLM Chopper N14HX had a bambi bucket with it all day.
Instead… Shumate decided to deliver ‘bladder bags’ up to the Lewis DOC crew coordinator ( Jake Guadiana ) and the 1 Moki Helitack ( Nate Peck ) and the other 5 Lewis DOC crewmembers ( who were the only ones up there doing ‘mop up’ on the fire all afternoon before it jumped the road ).
Moki Helitack Nate Peck was NOT at the ‘Helispot’ at this time… but had joined the others helping to do ‘mop up’ in the active fire area… so Helicopter N14HX delivered the ‘bladder bags’ right to where the men were working and, consequently, had to be ‘hovering’ over the active fire area for some amount of time in order to accomplish that.
The following video was taken from INSIDE a helicopter that was hovering over a fire area with a fuel type very similar to what was there on the top of that ridge in Yarnell.
The helicopter rotor wash causes the smoldering area to EXPLODE.
YouTube Video Title: Rotor wash+fire= fast spread
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INeSuKn80R8
**
** DARRELL WILLIS SAYS WHY HE RETIRED
Darrell Willis has finally ‘spoken out’ about why he retired.
Turns out he pretty much made up his mind to do that when the City of Prescott decided
to trash the Wildland Division… but he ‘hung in there’ in his official capacity to see that
the 3 additional widows got the benefits.
Willis now says he feels his “job is done on that front”.
So that’s why the timing of his resignations matches the City Council decision.
That’s all he was waiting for.
The REST of it is what you would expect from Darrell Willis…. full of all kinds of “moral responsibility” references and “duty, honor, courage” military-style stuff..
Some ‘trash talk’ going on as well between Willis and Prescott officials.
Willis says he still has his ‘vision’ that he had when there was a Hotshot crew… and he disagrees with decisions Prescott is making. It *almost* sounds like Willis has some ‘plans’ of his own to continue all that whether the City likes it or not… but he didn’t get specific.
Here is the PDC ( Prescott Daily Courier ) article…
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1086&ArticleID=142889
Followup…
The ‘trash talk’ is coming from the fact that Willis still feels like the City of Prescott threw the whole ‘Wildland Division’ thing under the bus… but City Officials actually ARE ( publicly and privately ) pointing BLAME at Willis for a number of things… including the whole ‘benefits’ things.
Willis was butting heads with both the City and with Eric Marsh himself about the whole ‘fulltime positions’ and ‘benefits’ thing even before the tragedy. Marsh tried to go over Willis’ head and got slapped down by Willis for that… but NOW the City i saying that they were NOT being ‘fully informed’ of Granite Mountain’s status… and THAT was Willis’ job.
So there really is no doubt the whole ‘Granite Mountain’ thing was ( at the organizational level ), the “Darrell Willis show”. He had a ‘vision’. He had a ‘dream’… and he was working both sides of the fence to try to keep it going.
He was NOT pushing the Council ( or fully informing them )… AND he was telling Eric Marsh to ‘cool his jets’ over the same fundamental issues. HE was the one choosing how to ‘play the game’ and just try to keep the program alive in the way HE felt was appropriate.
No surprises. there.
Willis actually quotes the Gettysburg Address in his comments regarding his resignation.
Not kidding.
**
** WRONGFUL DEATH SUITS MOVING AHEAD TOWARDS SETTLEMENT?
The Prescott Daily Courier (PDC) published and article this morning with an
update on the ‘global mediation’ going on in the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits.
This article is based on the public documents that have already appeared in the
case files whereby Arizona Forestry is asking for more ‘time’ to mediate… but
someone at PDC dug a little deeper.
The PDC learned that the scheduled March 2, 3 ‘mediation’ talks were NOT actually
‘put off’ or ‘cancelled’ by Arizona Forestry just because Brendan McDonough blew off
his scheduled February 26 under-oath deposition for the SECOND time.
Arizona Forestry apparently went ahead with the March 2, 3 meetings with the ‘wrongful death’ lawusit plaintiffs even (apparently) WITHOUT knowing what it is that Brendan McDonough has never been telling investigators about Sunday, June 30, 2013, and now wants to ‘get off his chest’.
But still… there is absolutely NO MENTION in this article of this situation… nor ANY mention that it is now a known fact that the KEY witness to the events of June 30, 2013 has now backed out of TWO separate attempts to get him to testify under-oath about what he knows… OR whether Arizona Forestry is STILL trying to get him to testify under-oath.
I still think it is highly possible that the REASON that Arizona Forestry has made this specific request for a 30 day extension is BECAUSE Brendan backed out of his SECOND scheduled deposition.
Whether it was simply because his criminal defense attorney ( David Shapiro ) ended up with a scheduling conflict or not… I still think Arizona Forestry does NOT want to go through this ‘mediation’ WITHOUT knowing what Brendan really knows.
The 30 day extension COULD just be all about needing more time to accomplish that.
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Hotshots’ wrongful death lawsuit moves closer to resolution
through mediation, says attorney for families
Published 3/12/2015 6:05:00 AM by Cindy Barks
From the article…
—————————————————————————
PRESCOTT – Settlement of the Granite Mountain Hotshot wrongful death lawsuit reportedly has moved forward enough to warrant allowing more time for discussion.
In a joint status report filed in U.S. District Court Monday, March 9, attorneys for the families of 12 of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who died fighting the 2013 Yarnell Hill fire asked the court for 30 more days to try to reach a settlement agreement.
The March 2-3 mediation meetings on the wrongful death lawsuit “made substantial progress toward a settlement of this case,” the status report stated.
The families filed the wrongful death complaint against the state in June 2014, maintaining that “gross and extreme negligence” by firefighting command officials led to the 19 Hotshots’ deaths.
—————————————————————————
Here is the direct link to the PDC article mentioned in the comment above…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Article Title: Hotshots’ wrongful death lawsuit moves closer to resolution
through mediation, says attorney for families
Published 3/12/2015 6:05:00 AM by Cindy Barks
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142832
Followup…
Deborah Pfingston ( Andrew Ashcraft’s mother ) has now posted a LONG comment at the bottom of the PDC article at the link above. The comment is in response to the usual “all these people want is as much money as they can get” bullshit that other people post ( like clockwork ) to any article about the ‘wrongful death’ lawsuits…
…but in Pfingston’s response we get a ‘hint’ as to why the 30 day extension was requested in the global mediation efforts.
It has nothing to do with money.
It has to do with the real stated goals of transparency, accountability and systemic change.
So maybe this extension really does have everything to do with the fact that the KEY witness ( Brendan McDonough ) backed out of his scheduled under-oath deposition for the SECOND time… and the extension might be needed to try and finally get this guy under-oath and telling what he REALLY knows.
Here is Pfingston’s recent PUBLIC comment…
————————————————–
Comment by: Deborah Pfingston
I will only comment once to this stream. I am part of the twelve families seeking wrong death litigation. My son, Andrew Ashcraft, died on Yarnell Hill June 30 because of incompetence and bad equipment. The families I stand with are seeking truth, transparency, change and accountability. That is why we have requested time for mediation. It is through mediation that you seek change not money. I am a tired of the constant vilification of myself, my beautiful daughter in law, the other widows and other family members.
The ignorance is understandable. I did not know what dealing with this type of situation was like, or what mediation truly was,or how the system moves,what is expected of you in a wrongful death suit. It is through the constant misrepresentation of what our families received that continues to perpetuate such confusion. You can go to the non-profit organizations that helped the families and see what was issued to the families. Every family member that I know that received anything was truly appreciative and genuinely touched. The benefits that were awarded the three widows has to do with health care for their children. Is it too much to ask for the family of a first responder to be cared for? Not one of these young men said I will not stand before the flaming front because I do not think my children will be taken cared of. They were fighting to protects others.
I pray, hope, fight, and voice my opinion in the court room for accountability, truth, transparency, and change. I pray you never have to lose your son so that others can be safe. Because if you do your fight will be criticized and ridiculed. There will be those in the community that your child loved and died for that will be ugly, criticizing, and assuming you are like them – greedy & selfish.
Not one of the families became a millionaire. Not one of the families became rich. Not one of the families wouldn’t give every part of it back to have their loved one back in their arms. I ask you did you give because of your heart or did you give to look good? I taught my boys that it doesn’t matter who you give your dollar/work too or how they use that dollar, what matters is your heart. Maybe that is why one of my sons is in the military protecting your freedom and my other son was a hotshot protecting this country. Please quit your ignorance. Please quit your cruelty. Please quit the constant evil against these families. Please stand with those that walk up and give us a hug. Please stand with those who hold us when we cry at night. Stand and pray for those that continue to lose their loved ones as first responders or military.
Nancy, Jason and Sharon Burke God watches over us. God brought my son home. Try getting on your knees and just pray that you never have to experience what we have gone through.
———————————————–
**
** DARRELL WILLIS RESIGNS AS PRESCOTT WILDLAND DIVISION CHIEF
His last day ‘on the books’ will be April 30, 2015.
http://www.prescottenews.com/index.php/news/current-news/item/25113-division-chief-darrell-willis-resigns
Prescott Daily Courier’s article about Willis resigning…
The Prescott Daily Courier
Wildland Chief Darrell Willis announces April retirement
Published: 3/11/2015 2:54:00 PM
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142819
From the article…
———————————————————————–
Willis declined to comment on his reasons for the retirement on Wednesday.
Several city officials were either unavailable for comment on Wednesday, or would not comment on Willis’ departure.
———————————————————————–
One of the first 3 PUBLIC comments made on this Prescott Daily Courier article about Willis’ sudden retirement…
———————————————————-
Noel Breen
Between the work of John Dougherty, ongoing litigation, still pending investigations, and the usual dramas in City Hall, it will be interesting to see if there is a backstory to this retirement. http://www.investigativemedia.com/
———————————————————-
Another ‘Prescott Daily Courier’ followup article on the Willis resignation
was published today. The PDC was pressing Willis himself for some kind of of comment.
Willis said he doesn’t have any comments right now… but he will LATER ( whatever
the heck that is supposed to mean ).
This PDC article is questioning the TIMING of this and is wondering if it has anything to do with the ( seemingly ) simultaneous decision on the part of the Prescott City Council to NOT pursue any more ‘appeals’ over the 3 GM FF benefits issue(s).
The article says it’s always been a fact that at least 1 Prescott City Council member has criticized Willis for his part in all that in two different ways.
Willis has been criticized for ‘taking sides’ with the widows in these ‘benefit’ hearings ( he was called as a witness both times and said he DID feel they were eligible for the benefits ).
Then he was also criticized for being the one in the first place who was NOT notifying the City Manage that they had employees in the Wildland Division who WERE qualified for benefits as per PSPRS requirements… but were NOT duly registered in the system. Prescott City Officials are now trying to say this was all a ‘surprise’ to them and they were never ‘notified’ by Willis they were ‘doing anything wrong’ with regards to the paperwork on these other employees.
So maybe all this hoo-rah over the benefits had something to do with the timing of Willis’ resignation.
Here is the latest PDC article…
http://dcourier.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=142843
SIDENOTE: Correction for the post above. Willis has NOT actually ‘retired’ from the position of ‘Wildland Division Chief’. That position was actually ELIMINATED some time back when the City of Prescott dissolved that entire ‘Widlland’ Division of the Prescott Fire Department. They still kept the ‘fuel abatement’ program and Willis’ ‘firewise’ program going… but they both got moved to the generic ‘Support Services’ Division of the Prescott Fire Department and Willis became the Chief of THAT ‘Division’ at that time in order to stay on salary.
So Willis is *actually* retiring from the position of ‘Support Services Division Chief’. and not ‘Wildland Division Chief’.
**
** CITY OF PRESCOTT WILL NOT SEEK APPEAL ON GM FF BENEFITS RULINGS
This seems to be the ‘end of the story’ on whether the City of Prescott will continue
to appeal all the ‘rulings’ about the Granite Mountain Hotshots benefits.
And about damn time.
ABc15 ( Arizona) via Associated Press is reporting…
Yarnell Hill Fire update: Prescott won’t appeal ruling on benefits for 3 firefighters
Published: 6:40 AM, Mar 11, 2015 by the Associated Press
Updated: 1:52 PM, Mar 11, 2015
http://www.abc15.com/news/region-northern-az/prescott/yarnell-hill-fire-update-prescott-wont-appeal-ruling-on-benefits-for-3-firefighters
There were still some DISSENTING votes… but the Prescott City Council’s motion to NOT continue to challenge these firefighter’s eligibility for benefits ruling(s) has now PASSED.
And here is the AZCENTRAL article about this decision…
AZCENTRAL
Hotshot widows win survivor benefits fight in Yarnell Hill Fire case
Publised 8:25 p.m. MST March 10, 2015 by Shaun Mcinnon of AZREPUBLIC
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona/2015/03/10/arizona-hotshot-widows-win-survivor-benefits-fight/24743845/
From the article…
———————————————————————————–
The widows of three Granite Mountain Hotshots will receive public safety survivor benefits after the Prescott City Council voted Tuesday to end its legal opposition to such payments.
The council voted not to appeal the decision of the Prescott Public Safety Retirement Board in the cases of two of the hotshots — Sean Misner and William Warneke — and to halt further appeals in the case of a third firefighter, Andrew Ashcraft.
After a brief closed-door session, the council voted 4-2 to halt appeals in the cases of Misner and Warneke and 5-1 to halt appeals in Ashcraft’s case.
“We’re very grateful to the city of Prescott for ending the litigation in a way that not only honors the service of the hotshots but reflects the dignity of the local board that made the initial recommendations,” said Pat McGroder, the attorney who had represented the widows in all three cases.
“These are extraordinary women, women of integrity,” McGroder said. “All of that was on display during the hearings.”
———————————————————————————–
It is a good day for the Widows and there Children to bad it did not cover all of the Widows. Hazardous occupations deserve more benefits for Temporary Employees.
Other than my Dads benefits for us the 14 families of the Rattle Snake Fire received very little compensation. They were all pickup fire fighters from a Missionary camp training to go to many countries outside the US. The women and children were totally left with out income except for the churches help.
Reply to Bob Powers post on March 12, 2015 at 8:18 am
>> Bob Powers said…
>>
>> It is a good day for the Widows and there Children
Yes, it is… and a testament to the courage and the tenacity of Juliann Ashcraft and the others to see this thing through to the correct decision.
It shouldn’t have taken this long.
>> Bob Powers also said…
>>
>> Too bad it did not cover all of the Widows.
>> Hazardous occupations deserve more benefits for
>> Temporary Employees.
Agree… on both counts.
It seems more attention is paid these days to whether high school kids walking out onto a football field are all ‘properly insured’ and will be ‘properly taken care of’ in the event of death or injury than is being paid to ‘seasonal employees’ in dangerous occupations.
A lot of these kids treat it as just a ‘summer job’… but are not properly (personally) insured for the work they undertake… and no one seems to be making sure they ARE before hiring them. They SHOULD.
LOD death benefits only go so far.
Even with the negligence that ADOSH found in that work place… they were only allowed to award a maximum of $25,000 lump sum payment to each of the direct survivors of each of the men who died.
That’s peanuts. Not even what a good life insurance policy would have paid if someone had bothered to make sure every person they were hiring HAD one in place before sending them out onto the fireline(s) in situations where they are required to take ‘orders’ from others who MIGHT even get them killed if they aren’t paying enough attention to their circumstances.
There is a LOT of room for improvement here just on the ‘insurance coverage’ side of things alone. This could have been one of the most important ‘Lessons Learned’ for the WFF Industry… but it looks like nothing is going to change in that regard, either.
Just “business as usual”.
Make sure the full-timers have benefits… but still hire all the seasonals WITHOUT even requiring certain minimum coverage levels.
Like ‘putting a team on the field’ but only making sure the COACHES have all the right coverage and benefits in place.
Anyone watch the Dateline Special “Escape: the Great California Fire”
Pvr’d it, watching it now
“P rules”
Prepare -you live in a fire prone environment, firewise your home.
Pre’emptive – leave early
When you do leave, more “P”
Papers – wills, deeds, birth certificate
Photos- self explanatory
Pets – no Brainers
precious- heirlooms or items of sentimental value
people again self explanatory. Don’t stay to fight a massive wildfire with a garden hose.
“Protection”- ensure your insurance covers you in the event “of”….
I feel deep sorrow for those who lost their lives and homes and possessions, but it was avoidable, just like Yarnell. …
It pisses me off! !@!
How about enough defensible space and smart roofs/other construction so that stay and defend, or leave early, is practicable, so that a garden hose can work after the front has passed?
Part of what communities all over the west need to recognize overtly is that people know their houses will burn in a bad fire, currently. They just hope it doesn’t happen and expect to be bailed out and made fully whole if it does.
Unfortunately, in a lot of fires the power goes out and sometimes it knocks out power to the water works. No water pressure inhibits you ability to put out embers on your property with a garden hose
That’s a minority of fires, to say the least. Some pockets of support for the stay and defend or leave early approach pop up now in some places like CA. I’d look for it to expand, and it makes sense so long as it is accompanied by stringent code and insurance requirements so that it is feasible for a given community. Not really different from building intelligently in flood plains.
Another P…..
Prescriptions
No issue , after a few guesses I figured it out 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEpW24WIgR8#t=1183
A learning video regarding fire whirls.
I am not saying this occurred at Yarnell, but from the Yarnell videos I did see characteristics of a rotating column.
Reply to rocksteady post on March 11, 2015 at 1:28 pm
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> A learning video regarding fire whirls.
>> I am not saying this occurred at Yarnell, but from the Yarnell videos I did
>> see characteristics of a rotating column.
TWO of local resident ( and photographer ) Rick Tham’s photos have ALWAYS shown an obvious TORNADO within the smoke column even as early as 3:21 PM.
The TORNADO he photographed is hundreds of feet high and reaches the ground.
Rick Tham’s photos are all HERE in the SAIT Online Dropbox…
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/02ue6bnjp6nazkm/AAAa-lsvLUB16n0wjQpatZlPa/Photos%20and%20Video/Rick%20Tham%20Photos?dl=0
Look at his 197 and 198 photos with full filenames of…
“Yarnell Hill Fire june28-30 2013 197.jpg”
“Yarnell Hill Fire june28-30 2013 198.jpg”
Both of these photos were taken within seconds of each other on the NORTH side of the fire on Sunday, June 30, 2013 at around 3:21 PM.
They definitely show a ‘tornado’ within the smoke column, hundreds of feet high and reaching all the way to the ground.
The two photos above are the 30th row down in the full set of photos, the LAST picture on the right… and then the FIRST picture on the left in the 31st row of photos.
Definitely a TORNADO..
I have not seen enough evidence to show it was a massive fire whirl, but it would seem “plausible” leading to the flame front that caused the demise of Granite Mountain…
Just a thought
I would call what Rick Tham photographed more a ‘smokenado’ than a ‘firenado’… but the point here would be that there IS photographic evidence this kind of ‘extreme fire behavior’ and ‘cyclonic’ activity WAS being observed all over the fire as early as 3:21 PM that day… even BEFORE Byron Kimball’s ‘weather advisory’ hit the TAC channel at 3:30 PM.
About 32 minutes after Rick Tham took these two ‘cyclone’ photos… Brendan McDonough would be taking his own ‘smokenado’ photos right there on the SOUTH end of the fire while he was standing on the gunwale of the GM Superintendent truck.
As for any kind of MASSIVE ‘cyclonic column'(s)… I don’t really see that happening in either the Panebaker videos ( taken from the north looking south ) or the Matt Oss time lapse video ( taken from the south of the area looking north )… but IANAFBAN ( I Am Not A Fire Behavior Analyst ).
The fire whirls could be hidden within the smoke
Definately NOT a tornado, probably not a fire whirl
Even though this occurred during a wildfire, this particular event was likely caused by the same heat vs. cold forces that cause ‘dust devils’, which can be, at times, quite immense in Arizona..
Copy that. I’ve seen my share of ‘shoestring’ tornadoes ( granted, short-lived… but still powerful ) and waterspouts… and to me, it’s in the same category.
Looks like HUNDREDS of feet high… and definite ground contact.
So what WOULD be the proper term for what Rick Tham photographed at 3:21 PM?
Leaving ‘tornado’ out of the wording… would it be…
“smokewhirl”, “firewhirl” ( I don’t see ANY fire ),
“smokedevil”?
I guess it doesn’t really matter.
The POINT here is that even as early as 3:21 ( and BEFORE the actual Kimball Weather Alert ) the fireline(s) were obviously ALREADY exhibiting this kind of behavior…
…and it was only about to get MUCH worse.
Reply to
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive (TTWARE)
post March 11, 2015 at 8:30 pm
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> Definately NOT a tornado, probably not a fire whirl
Here is ‘Wildfire Today’s’ video roundup of some of the most famous ‘firenado’ and ‘firewhirl’ footage ever recorded.
These videos will make your jaw drop…
http://wildfiretoday.com/tag/fire-tornado/
At the TOP of the page is that famous footage of a no-shit firenado filmed in Austrailia. I am not suggesting for one moment that Rick Tham photographed ANYTHING like this… but if you watch this entire first video… there ARE some moments when it absolutely resembles Rick Tham’s photos.
This thing in the video doesn’t even appear to be as TALL as what Rick Tham captured.
At the BOTTOM of this page Mr. Gill Gabbert himself adds some copy about “The Yarnell Hill Fire” and SUGGESTS that one of the events seen in the videos on his page MIGHT have been what happened in Yarnell. He reproduces the WIND CHART from the SAIT to support his theory.
Followup…
There’s actually a page online that calls itself
“Flaming Tornado Shots” and it has added this Rick Tham photo from Yarnell to its official catalog of ‘fire tornadoes’.
They attribute their copy of the photo to ArizonaNewsNet, who they are the first ones that published it and put the label ‘Yarnell Fire Tornado’ on the photo itself.
http://imgarcade.com/1/flaming-tornado-shot/
Rick Tham’s photo from Yarnell is actually the ONLY photo in their ‘gallery’ of what they choose to call “firenadoes” that doesn’t show any FLAME either at the base of the column or in the column itself… but they added Rick Tham’s photo to this gallery, anyway, based on the way ArizonaNewsNet originally described it.
Another followup…
I hadn’t realized this until now… but the page that someone is choosing to call a “FIRE TORNADO SCIENCE” page at the Examiner.com web site has always been saying, in no uncertain terms, that that is what killed the Granite Mountain Hotshots.
http://www.examiner.com/article/fire-tornado-science
From that page…
——————————————————
One recent fire tornado complex in Arizona, also in 2013, resulted in significant casualties, as 19 fire fighters were caught with no escape from the Yarnell, Arizona, fire tornado, as inflow winds seemingly changed direction and the normal path of the progressing fire shifted, while the fire vortex jets then back flowed over their previously safe location, with little or no time for the fire fighters to react.
——————————————————
Yea.. I know… it’s the frickin’ EXAMINER… so who would ever believe that rag sheet… but I thought it was interesting that there really are published articles online saying that the Hotshots were killed by a “Fire Tornado”… no ifs, ands or buts.
Just goes to show…
“It ain’t what they don’t know that bothers me.
It’s what they know fer sure… that just ain’t so.”
Mark Twain
Twain was actually TALKING about “the press” when he made that famous quote.
At this point in time, it would be extremely difficult to ascertain the ACTUAL forces at work here, thereby, what the thing in the picture actually is
I’m definitely NOT an expert here, but:.
Tornados are caused by heat vs cold, high/low weather fronts colliding.
Dust devils by heat vs cold atmospheric layer differentials.
Fire whirls, heat/cold variation influenced by the heat of fires.
While it’s certainly possible the example in the pic was caused by a combination of the above, the lack of visible flame makes me think it’s not a fire whirl.
Perhaps Marti has a more definitive explanation.
My old memories training and many fires.
Most whirls of fire are caused by wind driven fires.
Never called them a tornado all the ones I saw never
became themselves a force that moved fire across the unburned land scape but worked in the Flaming front its self. A lot of Fire burning to gather from more than one direction will cause the Smoke whirls or twisting columns as the burning intensifies.
The flaming heads pull each other and increase the heat rising in the Smoke columns. They may look like a Tornado but do not move like one. They are very much stationary.
At the Deployment Bowl there is a Possibility the Fire
in the mouth of the Canyon below GM and the fire above could have pulled to gather in the Canyon causing the two areas to come to gather which would have also increased the heat in the Canyon.
Reply to
The Truth Will Always Remain Elusive (TTWARE)
post on March 12, 2015 at 4:47 am
>> TTWARE said…
>>
>> At this point in time, it would be extremely
>> difficult to ascertain the ACTUAL forces at
>> work here, thereby, what the thing in the
>> picture actually is
That’s true… and lest anyone forget… the photo of that ‘smokedevil’ or ‘smokewhirl’ ( or whatever the appropriate name for it is ) that Rick Tham took was NOT on the SOUTH side of the fire.
Matter of fact… in one of the original 4490red videos taken while he and his crew were doing structure protection up in Peeples Valley proper… the reason for that particular video was to capture a definite ‘smoke whirl’ there on the leading edge of the fireline as it was moving NORTH towards the Peeples Valley area.
Even this was at about 11:30 AM that Sunday.
So this kind of ‘fire behavior’ was already being seen basically THAT MORNING… before the fire had even gotten to the Double-Bar-A ranch.
Everyone stopped to take pictures… but no one seemed all that exercised about it.
No one in 4490red’s crew was bothering to notify ‘fire management’ about seeing these things… so I guess they are just considered ‘no big whoop’.
Whether that SHOULD be the case or not is still up to the WFF industry to ‘figure out’.
The video above that rocksteady posted a link to says these events SHOULD be taken VERY SERIOUSLY… and REPORTED to ‘fire management’… because they could always represent developments in fire conditions that MIGHT require immediate ‘withdrawls’ and ‘disengagements’.
In other words… they should ALWAYS be treated seriously and as indications of ‘extreme fire behavior’ and have resources re-evaluate their SA and work assignments.
Yet another followup in this ‘tornado’ discussion thread.
Just last Friday… the “tornado” word showed up in yet another MSM ( Mainstream Media ) article in association with what happened in Yarnell on June 30, 2013.
This time it was in an article announcing the ‘groundbreaking’ for the upcoming Phoenix, Arizona based “Fallen Firefighters Memorial”.
This ‘memorial’ has nothing to do with the one being planned for the deployment site itself. That’s going to be maintained by the Arizona State Parks Division.
This one ( in Phoenix ) is being built with private contributions and intends to honor ALL ‘First Responders’ in the State of Arizona who have died while on the job.
It is, in fact, going to have at least TEN life-size bronze statutes installed.
http://www.localnews7.com/us/two-years-after-hotshot-tragedy-arizona-to-honor-all-fallen-firefighters-medics-h99108.html
From the article, at the point where Yarnell
is being discussed…
—————————————————-
The men were battling a brush fire near Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, amid a sweltering heat wave and gale-force winds when they found themselves surrounded by flames and unable to to scramble into cocoon-like personal shelters.
“The smoke had turned and was blowing back on us,” former Yarnell Fire Chief Peter Andersen, who was also fighting the fire, recalled. “It looked almost like a smoke TORNADO, and the winds were going every which way.”
—————————————————-
I am wondering how Shumante, Hall and all the others were able to ignore their years of fire experience in that fuel type, under similar weather conditions.
That is what really baffles my brain…
Dekker’s “Drift into failure” is relevant here I think. This, http://scs.org/upload/documents/conferences/autumnsim/2012/presentations/mpms/4_Final_Submission.pdf is also a good read though in a medical context. I think for several people on the YHF, if you’d quizzed them abstractly on whether very dry, dense fuels, high winds, and fire were likely to make for an interesting day, they would have answered yes.
That academic awareness obviously wasn’t being factored in, however, and that is an interesting problem.
Reply tp rocksteady post on March 11, 2015 at 9:41 am
>> rocksteady said…
>>
>> I am wondering how Shumante, Hall and all the others were able to ignore
>> their years of fire experience in that fuel type, under similar weather conditions.
>>
>> That is what really baffles my brain…
Ditto for Sunday, when everyone else ( with even supposedly MORE experience than Shumate ) started showing up.
It has always been worth asking the simple question… What if there had been NO storm cell… and NO outflow winds at all that day?
Would the PLAN that was put in place by these ‘experienced’ guys on Sunday morning, and the continuing work into the afternoon have actually worked?
Well… THREE of them told ADOSH investigators ( themselves ) that NO… nothing they had planned or had been doing would have made any difference.
TWO of them ( Abel and Willis ) agreed, in separate ADOSH interviews, that if those outflow winds hadn’t showed up and drastically changed the fire DIRECTION… the fire would have marched right into Peeples Valley, anyway, and the post-fire pictures would have shown the same kind of ‘disaster’ up that way as they eventually did in the Glen Ilah area.
The THIRD ( SPGS Gary Cordes ) also told ADOSH it became perfectly obvious that the (planned) ‘dozer line’ wasn’t (quote) “stopping anything” that day.
Here are the relevant ‘cuts’ from their ADOSH interviews.
NOTE that in Darrell Willis’ interview… he is actually trying to say that NO ONE ( that he was aware of? ) ever thought the fire would/could go SOUTH that day. At any time.
That actually means at least 2 things…
1) Even if Darrell Willis remained in the 9:00 AM briefing long enough… he did not even LISTEN to FBAN Bryan Kimball’s “Expected Fire Behavior” presentation for that burn cycle.
2) Let’s say Willis is RIGHT… and NO ONE ( in fire command ) was paying any attention to FBAN Kimball, the weather conditions, the fuel loads, or their own ‘experience’… and somehow ‘no one’ had a CLUE that the fire could possibly ever head SOUTH that day. That STILL means that all their planning and all their resources and all their efforts on what THEY thought would ONLY be a NORTH moving fire all day still totally FAILED. Willis himself admits ( and OPS1 Abel agreed ) that if it had NOT been for the ‘wind shift’ ( which he is trying to say no one ever really expected )… they would NOT have ‘corralled’ it and it would have marched right into Peeples Valley, anyway.
From Darrell Willis’ second ( of two ) ADOSH interviews on October 10, 2013
Q1 = Bruce Hanna, ADOSH intestigator
Q2 = Marshall Krotenberg, ADOSH investigator
A = SPGS2 Darrell Willis
—————————————————————
1403 Q2: Base all action on current and expected behavior of the fire.
1404
1405 A: Right.
1406
1407 Q2: You know, we – we had a failure in the expected – what was expected.
1408
1409 A: Well, but expected, I don’t believe, um, unless I’m totally missing this, I don’t
1410 think anybody thought on that fire that it was gonna go south, that it was all
1411 gonna go north. It was running north. And I don’t think people realized or
1412 expected it to go south in any way. It was hard bl- it – you know, they got
1413 black there. Uh, everything’s happening up north. Really nothing’s going on
1414 on the south of it. Chaparral fire, go direct, should be cold – cold black or cool
1415 black and get right down the edge of it and have a good anchor. And then all
1416 of a sudden, it turns. You know, the wind blew. And, uh, that edge became
1417 hot and took off.
1418
1419 Q5: Well, you – you also mentioned in there that when you have all these
1420 conditions that line up, perhaps we shouldn’t a engaged during that – during
1421 that time frame. Uh, you’re – you’re not saying don’t engage at all?
1422
1423 A: No.
1424
1425 Q5: Um…
1426
1427 A: E- I would, uh, worry about your tactics more than whatever. Okay so here’s
1428 my hindsight on this. If we did nothing that day other than prep around some
1429 houses, do that, what would the outcome be differently today? That’s – that’s
1430 the way I look at it. What did we do to change the outcome on that day?
1431 There was – maybe on the north side, you were able to corral it a little bit after
1432 the wind changed. Uh, if the wind hadn’t changed, we wouldn’t a corralled it.
1433 It (woulda) kept moving north, and we’d a lost some houses in there. On the south
1434 side, they could a prepped around there. Um, and that’s about it.
1435
1436 Q5: You might a lost fewer houses in the south end and…
1437
1438 A: Yeah.
1439
1440 Q5: …and not much difference.
1441
1442 A: Right.
——————————————————————————————-
From Todd Abel’s ADOSH interview on August 8, 2013
A = OPS1 Todd Abel
Q = Bruce Hanna, ADOSH investigator
Q1 = Dave Larsen, WFA / ADOSH investigator ( Rest in Peace )
——————————————————————————————-
1701 A: …that weather system came in and it started – you could tell it was
1702 starting to change direction. So our winds are starting to be more favorable…
1703
1704 Q1: Right.
1705
1706 A: For over here.
1707
1708 Q1: Right.
1709
1710 A: And starting to move. That’s why we just – you know I think that’s what
1711 helped us hold this whole thing up here.
1712
1713 Q1: Right. And – and – and really when we interviewed, uh, Willis that’s what he
1714 said. (Unintelligible). Why were you good down there? Well the winds
1715 started to change.
1716
1717 A: Mm-hm.
1718
1719 Q1: Got calm and started to lay down.
1720
1721 A: Yeah.
——————————————————————————————-
From SPGS1 Gary Cordes’ ADOSH interview September 11, 2013
A = SPGS1 Gary Cordes
——————————————————————————————-
1994 A: Obviously the dozer line wasn’t stopping what was happening with this event.
——————————————————————————————-
Near the end of chapter 12 I made the comment about no one, from the top down seemed to think the fire was anything more than a piece of shit brush fire…
I will explain further. the original initial attack did not occur as aggressively as it should, Air Attack looked at it and said it was just smouldering around in the rocks, the Lewis crew did not get on it right away the day after detection, it was still under a type 4 IC (T) when it jumped the line, finally when everyone realized this s not just a piece o’ shit, then they tried to staff up… Type 2 team, dozers, 2 hotshots crews, etc etc The bullwet was already out of the barrel and the resources on hand, or enroute were not gonna stop it.
How could an agency Office, Maybe a FMO who lives in that country, not realize what he had on his hands for day 2? Record temps, wind, droughted out chaparral…. Is that their definition of a piece o’ shit brush fire??
I think, as an FBAN yourself, you probably have a pretty good idea what one of the answers to your question is. A LACK of actual UNDERSTADING of the try POTENTIAL of that “piece ‘o shit” grass fire given its location, the extreme conditions, and the MASSIVE amount of explosive fuels available to it if it was allowed to come down off that ridge.
There was simply NO sense of URGENCY and no real recognition of the POTENTIAL.
That’s why I’ve been looking closely at the documented QUALS for some of these positions such as ICT4.
I’m trying to find out WHERE in the existing system ( other than the FBAN or LTAN track ) it becomes absolutely REQUIRED that people who are being paid to make decisions and spend money based on a FULL understanding of fire behavior are actually supposed to demonstrate that they DO have that FULL understanding of fire behavior under all kinds of conditions and in various fuel types.
I think if a bona-fide FBAN had been consulted either Friday night or Saturday morning… everything might have been different.
He/she would have been the one telling Shumate…”Do you have ANY idea what’s going to happen here if you let this get away from you?”
Apologies. Typo in comment just above. I used the word ‘try’ instead of ‘true’.
First paragraph above should have read like this…
I think, as an FBAN yourself, you probably have a pretty good idea what one of the answers to your question is. A LACK of actual UNDERSTADING of the TRUE POTENTIAL of that “piece ‘o shit” grass fire given its location, the extreme conditions, and the MASSIVE amount of explosive fuels available to it if it was allowed to come down off that ridge.